Another argument is that the Second Vatican Council is perfectly fine. It has some flaws like any other council, but the controversies are overblown and reactionary. The council’s documents are easy to understand and do not introduce any novel thinking or ambiguity. Instead, the real problem was caused by bad men who hijacked the council, and it simply needs to be implemented correctly.
Still others will try convincing one’s audience that it takes 100 years to implement a council. Then there is the argument that the culture was getting so bad that it eventually became the root cause of the entire crisis in the Church. The external forces of the cultural decay slammed the Church so hard, like a castle being besieged, it eventually caused many of her members to fall away or be corrupted.
This post is not going to analyze these arguments in any detail. Rather, we will provide documentation from those who worked at the council itself, or who were associated with it in some way. We will also throw in a few more theological opinions on the nature of the council from other scholarly sources.
These sources will explicitly indicate that the texts of the Second Vatican Council are problematic. The texts are sometimes full of ambiguity, imprecision, silence, or badly worded explanations. All of this produces an excess number of differing interpretations, which is one of the main ingredients for confusion.
The following are samples of commentaries or quotes from men who worked in and around the council. We also included other theologians attesting to the difficulties in Vatican II. Note that this is not exhaustive, but just a sample. There is far more materials that demonstrate Vatican II’s texts being problematic by either men working at the council or by reputable theologians. The reader should be able to determine that at the very least the council is not “perfectly normal.” Rather, it contributes to the crisis in some way.
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Yves Congar, who drafted parts of Lumen Gentium, including sections 1-8, says this about the famous ambiguity:
It is said that the Church of Christ and of the Apostles subsistit in [subsists in], is found in the Catholic Church… Therefore, there is not a strict, that is, exclusive, identification between the Church Body of Christ and the Catholic Church. Deep down, Vatican II admits that non-Catholic Christians are members of the Mystical Body and not merely ordinate ad [“ordered to” it].
(Congar, Le Concile du Vatican II – Con Eglise, people de Dieu et Corps du Christ, Paris: Beaudhesne, 1984, pp. 160f.)
Msgr. Christopher Basil Butler, who participated in writing Lumen Gentium, General Abbot of the Benedictines in England, later auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and a member of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, states this about Lumen Gentium 8:
An exclusive material identification of the Church with Roman Catholic communion is carefully avoided.
(C.B. Butler, The Theology of Vatican II, London, 1967, p. 70, in Y. Congar, op. cit., p. 160)
Several other theologians interpreted Lumen Gentium that produced various meanings including Cardinal Dulles, Francis A. Sullivan, Ratzinger, Boff, Becker, etc. The CDF even attempted another clarification in 2007.
Bishop Gerard Philips of Louvain, the main writer of Lumen Gentium, states:
The first phrase [of LG 37], which begins, "Like all Christians, the laity," is the example of a declaration that be read with very different sentiments and interpreted in contradictory ways.
(Gerard Philips, La Chiesa e il suo mistero nel Concilio Vaticano II - Storia, testo e commento della Constituzione Lumen Gentium (Milan: Jaca Book, 1975), pp. 13f.)
Msgr. Luigi Sartori, who participated as an expert at the council itself, later became the President of the Italian Theological Association states:
Different, not to say opposed interpretations, are given of the Council; everyone pulls towards his own side. Worse, not a small part of responsibility for mix-ups and confusions arising today out of the Council, is attributed to the Council itself. Some go as far as to speak, with irritation, of "Babel" and the "confusion of languages."
It was necessary to resort to compromise, as always happens with texts prepared in collegiality.
…
This synthesis [of the promiscuity of languages at the council], or fundamental structure of Vatican II, was therefore sought in spite of the strong impressions of disequilibrium, discontinuity, excessive variety of languages. Therefore, in the language of Vatican II one should expect a desired, intentional and conscious plurality.”
…
The Council has preferred the imperfection of patched-up, worked over, incoherent, promiscuous tests in spite of initiating this attempt at achieving a super synthesis of diverse perspectives.
Sartori, “Il linguaggio del Vaticano II,” in V.A., Il linguaggio teologico oggi, ed. Associazione Teologica Italiana (Milan: Ancora, 1970), pp. 236, 246f., 252)
Fr. Rene Laurentin, also participated as an expert at the council, chronicler of Vatican II, wrote about many ambiguities at the council, example:
Another ambiguity went through the whole Council itself: the one involving the word "pastoral." This adjective, launched by John XXIII, was a success… Its usage remained vague and pragmatic during the first sessions. But, beginning in the second session, some fell into the trap of understanding ‘pastoral’ as unrelated to "doctrinal…" That which was "pastoral" escaped the requirement for rigor that is posed by doctrine… such a principle had found its way even into the official explanation for the amendment to the Schema XIII.
(Laurentin, L’enjeu et le bilan du Concile – Bilan de la quatrieme session (Paris: Seuil, 1966), pp. 359f.)
Fr. Laurentin also wrote on Lumen Gentium:
In some difficult cases, solutions went only half-way, or even less. Formulas were wisely calculated to leave the road open to opposing opinions. Hence a certain fluctuation [in the texts].
(ibid, p. 357)
Fr. Laurentin comments on Gaudium et Spes and its section describing marriage:
Here and there, ambiguity was cultivated as an escape from inextricable oppositions. One could lengthen the list of such wordings encompassing opposing tendencies, because they could be looked at from both sides just like those photographic tricks whereby you see two different people in the same picture depending on the angle you look at it. For this reason, Vatican II already has given, and will continue to rise to many controversies.
(ibid, p. 357)
Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, peritus at the council, influenced several conciliar documents, and noted dissenter of Catholic doctrine wrote:
We will express it in a diplomatic way, but after the council we will draw out the implicit conclusions.
(Statement by Fr. Schillebeeckx in the Dutch magazine De Bazuin, No. 16, 1965, quoted in French translation in Itinéraires, No. 155, 1971, p.40.)
Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti, participant in the council, notes this about Gaudium et Spes:
All of these fathers spoke in the sense of finishing up the schema on trying it nicely together; to the point that one may now say, as is almost unanimously recognized, that the doctrine expressed in Gaudium et Spes is a doctrine in fieri [in progress/not complete], requiring further development.
(Dossetti, “Vaticano II: Quale recezione,” in Il Regno, 12/1/1991, p.706)
Cardinal Suenens, a council father, writes:
It can happen, in the course of debate with the interplay of numerous amendments… that certain texts lose their point, or at least their forcefulness.
…
Hence texts are sometimes far richer in what they imply than in what they openly affirm. In the conciliar texts there are some formulas whose aim was to counterbalance other assertions or win wider assent; in some cases, like temporary stopping in a long climb.
(Suenens, “Co-responsibility: Dominating Idea of the Council and its Pastoral Consequences,” in V.A., Theology of Renewal – Renewal of Religious Thought (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1968), vol. II, p. 10)
Cardinal Suenens also considers Lumen Gentium’s treatment of collegiality"
“[Collegiality is a] job that remains to be done: that of harmonizing two viewpoints…
…bring to complete, in fraternal dialogue, the marvelous symphony – unfortunately as incomplete as any human creation – of Lumen Gentium.”
(Suenens, “Discorso ufficiale d’apertura,” in V.A., L’avvenire della Chiesa, p. 48)
Fr. Cipriano Vagaggini, another council peritus, a professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm, writes:
Indeed, the Council raised, broached upon, or implicitly outlined these problems [of ecclesiology], but only solved them partially and not always with maximum clarity and consistency; when it did more or less solve them, it was very far from drawing all their consequences either on the theoretical or practical levels.
(Vagaggini, Presentazione, in A. Acerbi, op. cit., p.6)
Fr. Rahner, a peritus at the council, writes:
Naturally, here or there, the unity of all in liberty was diligently sought and obtained in this Council through the tactic of leaving questions unsolved or by other means which, at first sight, may appear as an unfortunate compromise. But even in these cases, true unity was attained in a climate of authentic freedom.
(Rahner, Vaticano II: Um comeco de renovacao (Sao Paulo: Herder, 1996), p. 12)
Other Authoritative Perspectives
Fr. Angel Anton, Pontifical Gregorian University, former head of the department for dogmatic theology wrote:
On essential points this Council attainted a compromise not related to contents but only to formal enunciations. Hence such divergent positions adopted to interpret the texts of the Council, absent a compromise on contents, remained necessarily ambiguous.
…
If the post-conciliar Church does not show considerable progress in this participation of the laity in respective directive organs in the Church, one must also look for the cause of this in the doctrinal ambiguity of the Council’s decrees on important points of theology on the laity.
We find this ambiguity in the purely descriptive motion of lay person that Lumen Gentium left us after having refused to present an ontological definition…
Vatican II showed the same lack of precision when called upon to decide whether to classify, as part of the hierarchy, a lay person who takes part in certain ecclesiastical offices (munera), or who replaces minister in certain sacred functions (official sacra) or, finally, who is called by the Bishop to consecrate himself entirely to the apostolic tasks.”
(Anton, “L’ecclesiologie postconciliaire – Les attentes, les resultats et les perspectives pour l’avenir,” in V.A., Vatican II: Bilan et perspectives, vol I pp. 428, 433f.)
Fr. Alfredo Marranzini, who was a professor of Dogmatic Theology and contributed to various theological journals including Concilium, writes:
A Council that, in living contact with tradition and the thinking of the past, wished to lead the whole Church toward a greater communication with all men today, should necessarily use a polyvalent language.
Fr. Brian Harrison emeritus professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, writes:
It seems to me essential for the leaders of the Church to honestly recognize the ambiguities we have inherited form the Council. It frequently happened, in the Council, that a traditional orthodox proposal would be approved with modified language or placed in the footnotes because of the strong resistance from the liberals. With this, the conciliar Church issued an uncertain call about practical matters, achieving the result predicted by the Apostles Paul: "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"
(Harrison, “Se a trompa emite um som confuse…,” in 30 Giorni (Portuguese edition), July 1989, p. 82)
Fr. Alberto Franzini in his dissertation ad lauream in Theology at the Gregorian University writes:
The concept of Tradition in the Constitution [Dei Verbum] is understood with different meanings not always clearly specified or even intelligible, thus giving rise to confusions that theological reflection, based on good textual hermeneutics, should attempt to eliminate… Regarding the first criticism, Dei Verbum can hardly escape the accusation that a certain "semantic sleight-of-hand" has taken place. Until the various meanings of the term "Tradition" are clarified, it will be difficult even to agree upon the precise meanings that, at times, it may take on… In n. 8 of Dei Verbum are seen fundamentally two concepts of Tradition which are constantly interchanged: a concept which is broader in some contexts and more restricted in others…
(Frazini, Tradizione e Scrittura – Il contributo del Concilio Vaticano II (Brescia: Morcelliana, 197), pp. 241ff.)
It should be obvious that sometimes Vatican II is not an easy read because it was purposely designed with ambiguity, imprecision, or lack of defining certain terms.
Some of the men who worked on the council’s documents have admitted that the texts can be difficult, or they present an interpretation contrary to what the Church has taught previously. Various theologians have debated and given several different interpretations of Vatican II over the last several decades, and the Vatican attempted several clarifications of things like Lumen Gentium. No honest person seeing all of this would think nothing is wrong and blame the crisis solely on “hijacking” from bad men or even the tired excuse of, “it takes 100 years to implement a council.”
Vatican II is a failed council. Millions have stopped practicing the faith. The Novus Ordo’s loose options and watered-down prayers give way to objectively inferior liturgies, which in turn is a breeding ground for abuse. Various doctrines have become muddied or swept under the rug entirely. Immoral practices have exploded.
Vatican II is a failure. It should not take 6 more decades of decay and confusion to convince an honest person of this reality. Vatican II needs to be tossed on the ash heap of Church history.
(Hat tip to Atila S. Guimaraes' In The Murky Waters of Vatican II for most of these excerpts)