THE PROBLEM WITH VATICAN II Michael Baker © Copyright Michael Baker 2019 All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (C’th) 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher at P O Box 1282, Goulburn NSW 2580. Published by M J Baker in Goulburn, New South Wales, December 2019. This version revised, and shortened, January 2021. Digital conversion by Mark Smith 2 Ad Majoriam Dei Gloriam Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Ave Regina Caelorum, Ave Domina Angelorum. Salve Radix, Salve Porta, ex qua mundo Lux est orta ; Gaude Virgo Gloriosa, super omnes speciosa : Vale, O valde decora, et pro nobis Christum exora. V. Ora pro nobis sancta Dei Genetrix. R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. 3 THE PROBLEM WITH VATICAN II Michael Baker A study, in a series of essays, of the causes of the Second Vatican Council exposing their defects and the harmful consequences that have flowed in the teachings of popes, cardinals and bishops thereafter. This publication is a work of the website superflumina.org The author, Michael Baker, is a retired lawyer who spent some 35 years, first as a barrister and then as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. His authority to offer the commentary and criticism on the philosophical and theological issues embraced in the text lies in his having studied at the feet of Fr Austin M Woodbury S.M., Ph.D., S.T.D., foremost philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church in Australia in the twentieth century, and his assistant teachers at Sydney’s Aquinas Academy, John Ziegler, Geoffrey Deegan B.A., Ph.D. and Donald Boland Ll.B, Ph.D., between 1964 and 1971. This work is the fruit of cooperation between the author and Dr Mark Smith who has managed the website superflumina.org for the best part of twenty years. It is our hope that the book will serve to assist the return of many among the episcopacy, clergy and faithful of Christ’s Church to the fullness of understanding that she, a divine thing in the midst of the mundane, is the one thing in this world that is different from all other. Cover—The high altar of Nôtre Dame de Paris after the great fire that broke out on 15th April 2019. The devastation portrayed reflects, in the physical order, the devastation that has beset Christ’s Church in the theological and moral orders as a consequence of Vatican II. 4 THE PROBLEM WITH VATICAN II Index 1 What went wrong with Vatican II 2 Religious liberty & the Development of Doctrine 3 The Trouble with Dignitatis Humanae—Error masquerading as Right 4 The Devastation that followed 5 Americanism & America’s Problem with Religious Liberty 6 Americanism, the US Supreme Court & the Catholic Episcopacy 7 Failure of the Executive Power 8 The Pope and the Question of Condoms 9 What’s wrong with the Novus Ordo 10 The Rot began with John XXIII 5 THE PROBLEM WITH VATICAN II INTRODUCTION This book consists of a series of essays published over the years 2005-2019 on the website superflumina.org addressing the incoherence with Catholic principle of various teachings of the Second Vatican Council and the consequences, flowing from such failure, in the teachings and conduct of popes, cardinals and bishops. The book offers a radical view, one that challenges the claim that Vatican II was a General or Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church. It provides an argument—two arguments, one a priori, one a posteriori—in support of this view. The essays are presented in an order which departs from the chronology of their original publication. There is, perforce, some dated-ness in the reference to events but the reader should have little trouble in adjusting to the temporal discrepancies. There is some repetition in expression which I trust the reader will forgive. I have made some amendments to the text of the essays. The views expressed are, of course, subject to the Church’s formal ruling on the legitimacy of the Council—whenever that shall occur. Hasten the day! My thanks are due to Dr Peter Kwasniewski and the principals of The New Liturgical Movement website for permission to reproduce his essay The Ninefold Kyrie: An Example of Useless Repetition? published there on 30th July 2018. Michael Baker December 8, 2019—Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin & Second Sunday of Advent 6 WHAT WENT WRONG WITH VATICAN II In 1998, Dr Ralph McInerny, Professor of Mediaeval Studies and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, wrote a book bearing the above title.1 In the Introduction he summarised the vigorous state of the Church before the Council then documented the decline that followed. “It is estimated that in the wake of the council, ten million Catholics stopped attending Mass regularly, a decline of thirty per cent… “Comparing the pre-Conciliar Church and the aspirations of Vatican II with events of the past thirty years forces us to ask: What went wrong? Can anyone pretend that things have improved? There are some bright spots, but it is undeniable that the faith of Catholics has been shaken… And sometimes it seems as if we are being told that this bad news is good news if only we can understand the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. “As we near the third millennium of the Christian era, it seems an apt time to reflect on Vatican II. It is the central event of Church history in our time. Clearly it was a providential occurrence. Its sixteen documents, although with varying force, are the measure of the Faith of Roman Catholics. Properly understood, it was a great blessing for the Church—properly understood.”2 This he put as his task, properly to understand the Council, adding a sentiment with which most of his readers would have agreed, “and a formidable one it is indeed.” But the approach he took limited the scope for criticism— “I take as a necessary premise the fact that we are bound by the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Yes, I grant that many passages in the sixteen documents of Vatican II require careful study and interpretation, but study that begins with an animus against the council is bound to go astray…”3 He cited the then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in support— “What went wrong with Vatican II? Not its teachings, said Cardinal Ratzinger—not the documents that were promulgated, but the false interpretations of them in the postconciliar period…”4 What went wrong with Vatican II? According to Dr McInerny—nothing. It was impossible; for the truth of what the Council taught was guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. While the title of his book was catchy, then, it was misleading. Given the extent of concern among Catholics over various of the Council’s teachings, there must have been many who were unconvinced the book had fulfilled the claim in its subtitle—The Catholic Crisis Explained. 1 Ralph M McInerny, What Went Wrong With Vatican II, The Catholic Crisis Explained, Manchester [New Hampshire] (Sophia Institute Press), 1998. 2 What Went Wrong With Vatican II, op. cit., pp. 13, 14. 3 What Went Wrong With Vatican II, op. cit., p. 15. 4 What Went Wrong With Vatican II, op. cit., p. 114, reporting what was said in The Ratzinger Report, the results of a long interview between the Cardinal and Vittorio Messori. 7 * * The presupposition Dr McInerny adopts leads to curious results. If there was nothing wrong with Vatican II why were dissentients concerned in 1985, as he reports, that the publication of the results of a long interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger by Vittorio Messori (published as The Ratzinger Report) and the convocation of the Second Synod of Bishops might amount to “efforts to roll back history, to repudiate the council, to effect a restoration”?5 If there was material in the Council documents to which the dissentients could appeal how could it be said that everything in the Council documents was guaranteed? The Holy Spirit would hardly guarantee material which provided scope for dissent from Catholic truth. The first thing to be said about his approach is that one cannot arrive at the truth by working from a presupposition. That is the modus operandi of the subjectivist. The modus of the realist philosopher and theologian, in contrast, is to weigh assertions against reality for it is reality which is the measure of truth. Secondly, if, as Dr McInerny says, the Holy Spirit guaranteed the truth of the Council’s teachings, why should there be anything to fear? Is He not also the Author of reality? The truth of the teachings of the Council Fathers—each and every one of them—should be manifest in any objective study. Let us, then, look at the realities, or sufficient of them for our purposes. What impresses the reader of any of the histories of the Council is the disorder that frequently characterised its activities, a disorder that began at the top with John XXIII’s departure from laws he himself had laid down for the Council’s proceedings. Two years prior to the Council’s inception the Pope had established a Central Preparatory Commission to oversee the preparation of schemas for discussion. There were five of them: four of the five, the four over whose content it had exercised little influence, offended an influential body of bishops with a liberal bent, predominantly German, French and Dutch.