Tag Archives: Spirit of Vatican II

Keeping Your Hands Off

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It has been alleged that in the early years of his revolution, Martin Luther was in the practice of celebrating “Mass” by omitting the words of consecration while still elevating the bread and chalice.  This was done so that those gathered would not realize that Luther was doing something novel.  His act of deceit reveals not only his own lack of faith in Transubstantiation, but the power of the signs that surround the Sacrament.  He knew that if he were to eliminate the sign completely, he would quickly be branded as a heretic and his revolution would be dead on arrival.  But if he could make small, subtle changes, it would be much easier to eliminate faith in the Eucharist.  Applying this law of anti-Sacramental gradualism the Protestant Revolutionaries also introduced the practice of distributing Communion in the hand as a subtle attack not only against the Real Presence but also the ministerial priesthood.  Wise as serpents, they knew that to attack these foundational beliefs head-on was reformational suicide, but if they changed the practice, toppling belief would be easier.

This lesson in ecclesiastical history is instructive because it relates to one of, if not the biggest, crisis facing the Church today—a diminishment in belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Through a certain Protestantization, namely Communion in the hand, a back door into the Tabernacle has cleared a path for the removal of Christ from the Eucharist.  It is only by reintroducing this practice that we can hope to reverse the rising tide of unbelief.

How We Got Here

For at least a millennium and a half, the Eucharist was always and everywhere received on the tongue.  In 650 we find the Synod of Rouen issuing condemning Communion in the hand as an abuse revealing that at the very least it was common practice at the time to receive It on the tongue.  This remained the norm until just after the Second Vatican Council.  After because the Council Fathers never made mention of altering the practice.  Instead the false “Spirit of Vatican II” that grew out of the yeast of ambiguity and loopholes, found permission in Pope Paul VI’s 1969 instruction Memoriale Domini.  Despite the declaration that “This method[Communion on the tongue] of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of-tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist”, the Pope left a loophole for those who had “special circumstances” to introduce or continue the practice.  Granting a loophole enabled the principle of anti-Sacramental gradualism to infect the entire Church.

What We Can Do About It

Unlike the great need to change the orientation of the Priest during Mass through the re-introduction of ad Orientem masses, the laity can do something about this directly by receiving only on the tongue.  By receiving on the tongue, rather than in the hand, the faithful witness directly to the Real Presence of Christ.  How this is so we will discuss presently.

When a family sits down for a meal, platters are set out and each person is served food on their plate.  From their plate they then feed themselves.  A similar thing happens in Mass when the “minister” serves the Host to each person and they then feed themselves.  This is all fine and good if the Host were simple food.  But if the Host is not ordinary food, then how we eat Him ought to reveal this.  By receiving the Host in a manner that is wholly unique to anything else that is eaten, namely on the tongue, the believer is testifying to the truth that it is no ordinary food, but instead Jesus Christ Himself.  In fact we would be killing two birds with one stone by also obscuring the “family meal” interpretation of the Eucharist that has persisted over the last half century.

The use of scare quotes around the word minister above anticipates another important aspect of the practice.  Just as the Protestant Reformers used Communion in the hand to diminish belief in the ministerial priesthood, a similar fascination with the priesthood of all believers has allowed this practice to thrive.  By receiving the Host directly from the hands of a Priest, the same Priest whose hands were consecrated so that he could touch the Eucharist, testimony is given to the sacredness of the Host.  Just as Mary Magdalene was chastised for touching the Body of Christ after His Resurrection, while the Ordained Apostle Thomas was not, the laity should avoid touching the Eucharist.  This, again, would not only have the positive effect of reducing the number of (Extra?)Ordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, but will also help to avoid even the smalles particle of the Eucharist (of which Jesus is truly present) from being dropped or desecrated.  One way to insure that doesn’t happen is to limit the number of touches.

Older is Better?

It is worth dealing with what amounts to the most common objection, namely that it was the ancient practice of the Church to receive Communion in the hand. 

There are a number of theologians which have addressed this question and it is not entirely clear that there was a universality in the reception of Communion.  To dive into this question historically however misses the point.  Because the Church is a historical reality governed by the Holy Spirit, we should have no desire to “go back” because doctrine, being living and active, develops.  As the understanding of the Deposit of Faith deepens, practice, especially liturgical practice, adapts to reflect that.  For example, the understanding of Confession, especially its power to remove sin, was not something that the Early Church had a firm grasp on.  That it forgave sins was never in question, but how and when was not understood.  Could this be done only once or many times?  If only once then you would want to save it, or even better save Baptism until there was an emergency or until you were about to die.  If many times, then how could you prevent its abuse?  From within this setting, Public Confession was widely practiced. 

The point is that as doctrine developed public Confession went away.  To have any desire to go back to public Confession would be to try to erase all of that development.  So unless the “older is better” crowd are willing to go back to that practice, then they should not desire to do something similar with the Eucharist. All that we now know about the Real Presence of the Eucharist can’t be put back in the storehouse of the Deposit of Faith.  The practice reflects this understanding as we have shown above.  Orthopraxy goes hand in hand, or perhaps hand to tongue, with orthodoxy. 

In short, antiquarianism is really innovation and ultimately degradation.  This is a point that St. John Henry Newman made in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.  Using a false analogy, the antiquarians reason that just as a spring is clearest at its font, so too divine Revelation.  But Newman gone to great lengths to show that development admits of growth in clarity as it moves from the source.  As Pope Pius XII cautioned, we should not favor something just because it has “the flavor of antiquity. More recent liturgical rites are also worthy of reverence and respect, because they too have been introduced under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who is with the Church in all ages even to the consummation of the world . . .the desire to restore everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition is neither wise nor praiseworthy.”((Pius XII Mediator Dei).  Communion in the hand ultimately then is a corruption and needs to be stopped immediately.

The Spirit of Vatican II?

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Shortly after announcing his abdication of the papal throne, Pope Benedict XVI met with the clergy of Rome and spoke (unscripted) to them about the Second Vatican Council.  As a man who was both present at the Council and spent a great deal of his pastoral life energies in implementing it, his comments are particularly relevant as the Church continues to make sense of what St. John Paul II called the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church in the third millennium.

Volumes could be written on what the Pope Emeritus said that day, there is one point in particular that is worthy of mentioning and that is the struggle within the Church to authentically interpret the Council and to implement it.  This is because there were actually two Councils that “occurred” which Benedict calls the real council and the virtual council.  The latter he saw as a Council of the media in which, led by the press, the teachings of the Council were presented as wholly new.  Thanks to a decided advantage of being able to capture the limited attention span of the priests and laymen in the pew, the “real Council had difficulty establishing itself and taking shape; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council.”

Of course, any authentic understanding of the Council must begin by examining its purpose.  In an address that he gave to open the second period of the Second Vatican Council, Blessed Paul VI emphasized the pastoral character of the Council and went on to define its four purposes.  They were to come up with a fuller definition of the notion of the Church, to renew the Church, to promote the restoration of unity among all Christians and to initiate a dialogue with the contemporary world.   Perhaps the most overarching theme was the necessity of the Church to be in dialogue with the modern world.  In fact, in the Papal Bull convoking the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, St. John XXIII said that the Council was called “to place the modern world in contact with the life-giving and perennial energies of the Gospel.”   The Pope proposed that this encounter with the world would be carried out through a process of what he called aggiornamento.

As the Church has expanded into different cultures throughout history, she has always done so by a spirit of inculturation.  The Church would look at each new culture and see what elements could be “baptized,” helping to explain the truths of the faith by using something the people were already familiar with.  Think of it as using parables in time.  Parables used some familiar image and make some change to it in order to highlight a truth that had never been seen before (like the farmer who everyone would think “stupid” throwing seed on the walkway to show the “recklessness” of God in giving grace).  So something like local gods were replaced with patron saints—not gods, but powerful intercessors before the One True God but with powers for good similar to their local gods.

Aggiornamento

Although the word Aggiornamento literally means updating, it is more accurately described as being akin to inculturation, except as applied to a specific time rather than a specific culture.  The Church wanted to examine the modern paradigm, especially the prevailing philosophies and see what elements could be “baptized” to better explain the Faith to the modern world.

Why this was even necessary was because the spirit of the world had eclipsed the Christian spirit.  The Church had been true leaven in the world for a number of centuries and that was no longer the case.  Previously Christian societies were becoming non-Christian, or even decidedly anti-Christian.  In other words, the Church and the World had grown such that they were once again at odds with each other.  This led to a prevailing attitude of pessimism about anything “secular” and a rejection of anything that didn’t have its source in the Church.  This pessimism led to the formation of Catholic ghettos and a serious loss of apostolic zeal.

Even if the members of the City of God wanted to be apostolic, they lacked the language to engage those who lived in the City of Man.  Thus a need to examine the world and see which elements could be included in the Church’s explanation of Revelation and herself.

In order to counter this pessimism, the Council Fathers thought it necessary to point out the positive aspects of the elements of the surrounding culture.  And this is where Pope Benedict’s identification of the two councils is particularly apt.  Because many aspects, heretofore only mentioned in a negative way, are now mentioned in a positive way it appears to be a “change” in the Church’s teaching.  Since the council of the media will only report news, i.e. that which is “new,” then most people will only hear about change.  It will appear as if the Church is finally updating the faith and getting with the times.  If those things changed, then why can’t everything change with the world?  And thus we see the invention of the virtual council’s “Spirit of Vatican II.”

In short, there was a widespread tendency to fall into the most fatal of all fallacies, what I call the “either/or” fallacy.  Fatal, because to be Catholic is to see “both/and.”  This should not surprise us since the basis of our faith is that Jesus is not either God or man, but both God and man.  How this applies to the Council is that it was never intended to replace the negative with the positive.  It emphasized the positive so that we could see the wheat amongst the chaff.  It never meant to say that we should swallow the chaff with the wheat or to say that it was all wheat.

The Power of the Footnote

Take for example the Council’s teachings on other religions, a point that Philip Trower makes in his excellent book on the Council called Truth and Turmoil.  There are two ways of looking at other religions.  They can be seen as systems of belief that make a claim on man’s total allegiance and thus as obstacles to the Gospel or they can be viewed as man’s groping for truth without the help of divine revelation and therefore contains seeds of truth even if imbedded in error.  It is in the latter sense that it is a preparation for the Gospel.  The Council’s emphasis on the latter was just that, a point of emphasis, and not a rejection of the first viewpoint.  Both, of course, are (still)true.

This is why Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly insisted that the “spirit of Vatican II is in the letter.”  What he meant is that you had better read the documents of the real council and not the virtual council before rendering judgement on what actually happened.  Many people are surprised at the contents of the documents when they actually read them.  We all have a tendency to skip over footnotes when reading, but with Church documents it is important to pay attention to them.  They are not merely “prooftexts” but show how the teaching fits within Tradition.  Before you quickly rule something as “new” or “changed” you better make sure the footnotes don’t say something different than your interpretation.  There is great power in the footnotes.

Rather than fall victim an “either/or” mentality, it bears mention that even the “real council” is not without its problems.  But rather than emphasize those problems the question is how to move forward.  It was a valid Council and any Catholic that bears the name must believe that the teaching of any Council ratified by the reigning pope will always be capable of a Catholic interpretation.  That interpretation might not be clear and it may be convoluted because of poor wording.

I don’t think John Paul II was exaggerating or wearing rose colored glasses when he viewed the Council as a gift.  What this means though is that we must look at what the Holy Spirit had in mind when He called (or allowed it to be called) the Council.  That is where the true interpretation lies.  In a time when the Church is greatly divided, it may be the Council and its authentic interpretation that unites us.  This starts with a personal commitment from all the Faithful to read, study and pray through the documents.