So this is it... or part of it. This is not the Preamble which the Vatican originally proposed in Sep. 2011, nor is it the latest version which Bp Fellay felt "obliged" to reject on the June 13th 2012.
No, this is Bp Fellay's pride and joy of April 16th 2012 which he knew was already approved by the Pope before he even submitted it, although he told us that he didn't know what the Pope's answer would be...
Now we can see why the Pope approved... why it was kept so secret and why discussions should be so easy to begin again after Bp Fellay has played to the gallery at the inconvenient Chapter...
(Source :http://catholique-refractaire.blogspot.fr/2012/06/analyse-de-la-declaration-doctrinale-i.html)
While he was giving a lecture at the Saint Joseph des Carmes school in France on June 5th 2012, Father Niklaus Pflüger read a passage from the doctrinal statement sent by Bishop Fellay to Rome on April 15th. For the first time this text, hitherto kept under the strictest seal of secrecy, was partially revealed by the first assistant of the SSPX. .Even if this is only an extract, it is significant enough to deserve our attention:
“ The whole Tradition of the Catholic faith should be the criterion and guide for understanding the teachings of Vatican II, which, in turn, sheds light upon certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church, which are implicitly present in Her, but not yet formulated. The statements of Vatican II and the subsequent Papal Magisterium on the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian denominations must be understood in light of the whole of Tradition. ”
In this type of docuмent - it is a doctrinal statement - every word counts. Only a line by line analysis can help us to grasp the true scope of such a text, which consists of three main assertions. The first two contain general principles, adapted to a particular case in the third.
1) The entire tradition of the Catholic faith should be the criterion and guide to the understanding of the teachings of Vatican II.
The first assertion is not unrelated to the often repeated request of Archbishop Lefebvre: that the Council be read in light of Tradition. However, are these two expressions really inter-changeable?
On several occasions, the former archbishop of Dakar had made clear what was meant by reading in the light of Tradition:
- those statements that are in conformity with Tradition should be retained;
- ambiguous formulas should be interpreted in light of that Tradition;
- affirmations which are contrary to Tradition should be quite simply rejected.
Such an explanation thus leaves it clear that Archbishop Lefebvre did not consider that every affirmation of Vatican II was a “teaching” of the Church. For indeed, it is simply forbidden for a Catholic soul to reject any teaching of the Church, even if it is not covered by infallibility.
On the contrary, the Declaration (Doctrinal Preamble) does acknowledge as a “teaching” every utterance of Vatican II; it only remains to grasp the “understanding” of them. These words are not neutral. Because a teaching of the Church cannot be questioned, they imply the overall acceptance of conciliar affirmations, while it remains to discover their meaning in order to understand them correctly. The addition of the key for understanding - the whole Tradition of the Catholic Faith - does not detract from this recognition, fundamental to Rome today and fundamentally new in the mouths of officials of the SSPX: the statements of Vatican II, taken all together, are “teachings” of the Church.
This new positioning of the SSPX has not escaped the attention of the Roman counterparts of Bishop Fellay, who stressed the clear change in tone of the Society towards the Council. Their joy found free expression, while those who in conscience cannot accept such a shift in doctrinal attitude could only weep.
This is the same as saying that, according to the Declaration, the problem is not so much the Council itself, but rather the misinterpretations which are made of it. If Benedict XVI had already accustomed us to these hackneyed arguments and tired mantras, we find them for the first time - alas! - in an official statement of the Society of Saint Pius X.
But the worst is yet to come.
2) The novelty of speech stands out even more boldly in the following statement:
“In turn, [Vatican II] sheds light upon certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church, which are implicitly present in Her, but not yet formulated.
I suppose that the spiritual sons of Archbishop Lefebvre, provided they have a little memory left, could only be appalled at such a formula. For, while he lived, the founder of the Society used a different language when he penned officially his judgment on the Council, addressed to another prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ottaviani, on December 20th, 1966. The whole letter deserves to be re-read but here is a passage:
“Whereas the Council was preparing itself to be a shining light in today's world - if only those pre-conciliar docuмents in which we find a solemn profession of safe doctrine with regard to modern problems, had been accepted - we can and we must unfortunately state that:
“In a more or less general way, when the Council has introduced innovations, it has unsettled the certainty of truths taught by the authentic Magisterium of the Church as unquestionably belonging to the treasure of Tradition.”
Archbishop Lefebvre then goes into detail:
“The transmission of the jurisdiction of the bishops, the two sources of Revelation, the inspiration of Scripture, the necessity of grace for justification, the necessity of Catholic baptism, the life of grace among heretics, schismatics and pagans, the ends of marriage, religious liberty, the last ends, etc. On all these fundamental points the traditional doctrine was clear and unanimously taught in Catholic universities. Now, numerous texts of the Council on these truths will henceforward permit doubt to be cast upon them.”
After such a list, what remains of the great conciliar theories? What are the “aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church” which are supposed to be highlighted by Vatican II?
With all the good will in the world, I confess I cannot find them.
It is true that the sacramentality of the episcopate was declared for the first time. But even this affirmation, already widely accepted, is seriously obscured by the Council which only mentions it in order to advance a new doctrine on the transmission of episcopal jurisdiction, contrary to the explicit teaching of Pius XII. “Highlighted” you say? This language is not that of Truth, nor can it be that of the Society of St Pius X.
To assume that Tradition and Vatican II mutually enlighten each other is but the nonsensical result of blindness, if we listen one last time to Archbishop Lefebvre in his 1966 statement:
“It would be to deny the evidence, to be wilfully blind, not to state courageously that the Council has allowed those who profess the errors and tendencies condemned by the Popes named above, legitimately to believe that their doctrines were approved and sanctioned.”