Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council

Free translation from the Italian Catholic Blog 'Chiesa e Post Concilio'

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council

Pierre Vassallo writes on Riscossa Christian . The text has been out for months. I can see it now and find it interesting.

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The memory of Pius XII's contribution to the preparation of the Second Vatican Council is the topic very well developed by the authors (Nicola Bux, Peter Gumpel, Alexandra von Teffenbach, Emilio Artillery) intervention at the conference "On the way toward the Second Vatican Council: the preparation under Pius XII, "now compiled in a book form " Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council ", published these days by Cantagalli in the troubled and tormented city of Monte dei Paschi.

And 'no doubt that Pius XII has anticipated and motivated what will be the most holy intentions of the Second Vatican Council, a fact that the authors of the volume appropriately documented.

Von Teuffenbach legitimately argues that "it is impossible even to imagine a Vatican Council II without regard to the Magisterium of Pius XII. Vatican II in its documents lists an impressive number of citations from Pius XII's  Magisterium, second only to the citations of Scripture."

Monsignor Nicola Bux, for his part, can not be denied when he concludes his speech by saying that "Pope Pius XII was a reformer who promoted the development of the liturgy gradually, to facilitate the acceptance by the faithful. Doctrine of the Church as united with the body of Christ and that of the cult integral, that is the whole body of Christ, head and members, are inseparable: on the reform initiated by the great Pontiff who prepared the Vatican Council. "

Good intentions are also read between the lines of the conciliar documents. It is true that Monsignor Brunero Gherardini, a theologian of immune emotions, has acknowledged that "the supernatural breath is far from absent from the Vatican Council thanks to its open confession of the Trinity, it's faith in the Incarnation of the Word and universal redemption, the rooted conviction about the universal call to holiness, in speaking of the acknowledged and professed causality of the sacraments, it's high regard for divine worship and the Eucharist in particular, to the sacramental nature of salvation, Marian devotion theologically fed "[1].

Monsignor Gherardini does not hide, however, that the exorbitant admiration nurtured by modernist theologians of the imaginary world built by new ideologies, which has opened the doors of the Church to "A superficial and misguided optimism, in contradiction with prudence and charity, drew unexpected consequences unheard by the fact that all people are one community and have one origin, because God caused the whole human race to dwell on all the face of the earth and also have one final end, God "[2].

Unfortunately, the wanton admiration / confusion for the "modern" has left a trace in the conciliar documents not in accordance with the teaching of Pius XII.

Hence the fragility of some conciliar texts, which are finally criticized by Pope Benedict XVI, who, by the way of Gaudium et Spes , said: " Behind the vague expression today's world there is the question of the relationship with the modern age . This failed in the diagram XIII. Though the Pastoral Constitution expresses many important things to understand the world and give relevant contributions on the issue of Christian ethics, on this point has failed to provide a substantial explanation . "

Benedict XVI also indicated the limits of Nostra Aetate, recalling that in the process of the reception of the Second Vatican Council "there has emerged the extraordinary weakness of the text itself: it speaks of religion only in a positive way and ignores what is sick and distorted elements" which from the point of view of history and theology have a broad scope, for this reason from the very beginning the Christian faith has been very critical, both internally and externally."

The valuable work of scholars documenting the decisive contribution of Pius XII to the elaboration of the draft combine, as well as re-establish historical truth, it is a word of encouragement addressed to theologians and scholars (Bishop Gherardini, Paul Pasqualucci, Roberto De Mattei) who are working for cleaning the modernistic cobwebs deposited on the documents of Vatican II theologians who saw the splendor of novelty in the decomposition of the decrepit ideology.

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[1] See: "What agreement has Christ with Belial?" Faith and Culture, Verona, 2009, p. 78
[2] See: "What agreement has Christ with Belial?" Faith and Culture, Verona, 2009, p. 31