“A Hermeneutic of Continuity and Reform”
In line with Benedict XVI, the Second Vatican Council can solely fulfill its potential for renewing the Church “if we interpret and implement it guided by a proper hermeneutic” (Porta Fidei, No. 5). In an deal with to the Italian bishops’ convention in Could of 2012, Benedict recognized this “proper hermeneutic” as “a hermeneutic of continuity and reform.” This double hermeneutic factors to the primarily twofold nature of Vatican II and is the “key” to unlocking the Council’s internal dynamic.
The basic goal of the Council was to protect and transmit Catholic doctrine “in continuity with the 2,000-year-old Custom of the Church” (Benedict XVI). Pope John XXIII made this clear in his opening deal with to the Council on October 11, 1962, when he acknowledged: “The best concern of the Ecumenical Council is that this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine needs to be guarded and taught extra efficaciously.” In accordance with this directive, the Council Fathers rigorously examined, additional developed, and handed on to succeeding generations – whereas preserving absolutely intact – the unchanging doctrine of the Faith in a collection of authoritative paperwork known as dogmatic constitutions. So the first key to correctly understanding Vatican II is to understand that it was first and foremost a dogmatic (instructing) council of the Magisterium in devoted continuity with the Church’s 2,000-year custom.
The second key time period in the “proper hermeneutic” for accurately understanding and implementing the Council is “reform.” At essential moments all through Church historical past, the Holy Spirit has impressed sure reforms in liturgical rubrics, canon regulation, Church governance, and pastoral self-discipline for the goal of renewing the Church and serving to her higher fulfill her mission in the context of the instances through which she finds herself. The Second Vatican Council was impressed by the Holy Spirit to deal with the wants of the Church in the fashionable world. Whereas rigorously preserving and handing on the deposit of religion, the Sacred Liturgy, the sacraments, and prayer in unbroken continuity with the Church’s historic custom, Vatican II launched many liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms into the Church’s life to allow the Church to extra successfully perform her mission of instructing, governing, and sanctifying believers and of evangelizing non-believers in the context of the fashionable world. Thus the second key to correctly understanding Vatican II is to maintain the Council’s liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms inside the framework of doctrinal and liturgical continuity.
Sadly, the Council’s full potential for renewing the Church has not but been realized as a consequence of a common failure to interpret and implement it guided by a proper hermeneutic. The appliance of a false “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” has led to widespread confusion and error concerning Vatican II, with disastrous penalties for the religion of thousands and thousands of Catholics. Pope Benedict reminded the Italian bishops that solely by making use of the correct “hermeneutic of continuity and reform,” by listening to and following the directions of the Council, can the Church discover methods to reply meaningfully to the challenges of the fashionable world.
Proclaiming the Faith Anew
By means of the declaration and observance of the Year of Faith, Benedict XVI has reminded the Church of at the moment to look to the Second Vatican Council as the “certain compass” by which to chart her course via the stormy and turbulent waters of our time. In his Wednesday viewers at the Vatican on October 10, 2012, the eve of the opening of the Year of Faith, Pope Benedict acknowledged: “The Second Vatican Council paperwork, to which we should return, releasing them from a mass of publications which as a substitute of making them identified have typically hid them, are a compass in our time too that allows the Bark of the Church to place out into the deep in the midst of storms or on calm and peaceable waves, to sail safely and to succeed in her vacation spot.”
By summoning us “to an genuine and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world” throughout this Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI known as us to return to the primary necessities of our Christian religion that the Second Vatican Council proclaimed anew to the fashionable world. Benedict stated that “we should always study the easiest and most elementary lesson of the Council: particularly, that Christianity in its essence consists of religion in God which is Trinitarian Love, and in a private and group encounter with Christ who orients and offers that means to life. Every thing else flows from this.” The pope additional acknowledged: “What’s as vital at the moment because it was for the Council Fathers is that we see – as soon as once more, and clearly – that God is current, considerations us and responds to us. And when, as a substitute, man lacks religion in God, the important collapses as a result of man loses his profound dignity.”
As an “eclipse of God” slowly darkens our fashionable age and “a profound disaster of religion” takes maintain on it, as man turns into much less and much less conscious of God’s existence and of his elementary want for God, the primary truths of our Christian religion proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council – and proclaimed anew to the Church and the world in our time by Popes John Paul, Benedict, and Francis – shine ever extra brilliantly: God exists. He’s actual. He loves us and He hears our prayers. Man is an primarily spiritual being made in the picture and likeness of God, and solely in relationship to God, his Creator, does man uncover his true identification and dignity and grasp the actual that means and goal of life. Solely God can fulfill the deepest yearnings of the human coronary heart, as Saint Augustine wrote: “You’ve gotten made us for your self, O Lord, and our hearts are stressed till they relaxation in You.” Faith in God is crucial to the wellbeing of man and of society. Man can’t save himself by his personal efforts. Christ is “God-with-us,” “the one Savior of the world,” the solely hope for humanity. Salvation comes solely from Christ via His Church. All Christians are known as to sanctity of life (therefore the “common name to holiness”) and to seek out new methods of preaching the Gospel in our fashionable world (therefore the “new evangelization”).
