Reclaiming Vatican II

What It (Really) Said, What It Means, and How It Calls Us to Renew the Church

By: Fr. Blake Britton, John C. Cavadini - foreword

Narrated by: Lyle Blaker

Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

During the past five decades, the Second Vatican Council has been alternately celebrated or maligned for its supposed break with tradition and embrace of the modern world. But what if we've gotten it all wrong? Have Catholics—both those who embrace the spirit of Vatican II and those who regard it with suspicion—misunderstood what the council was really about?

Fr. Blake Britton discovered the truth and beauty of the council while he was in seminary and he has witnessed firsthand the power of its teachings in the life of his own parish. In Reclaiming Vatican II—a partnership between Ave Maria Press and Word on Fire Catholic Ministries—Britton presses beyond the political narrative foisted upon the post-conciliar Church and contends that Vatican II was neither conservative nor liberal, but something much more beautiful and challenging. He clears up misconceptions about the council and reveals how—when properly understood and applied—it fosters a richer experience of being in the Church.

Britton invites all Catholics to step beyond the polarization and embrace Vatican II as one of our greatest resources for being in the Church in a way that is faithful, engaged, and effective if we answer its radical call to worship and renewal.

©2021 Blake Britton; Foreword Copyright 2021 by John C. Cavadini (P)2023 eChristian

Truth is sometimes quite simple

Fr. Britton choose the way forward and past all the tedious politics of liturgy. Tradition is not an ism. Progress can be good. Both together lies the truth of what is expected of us. It is frustrating we have been going down this road of confusion for so long. However we are not unlike the body of Christ in the preceding centuries. That is we have to find our way, just like everyone else 

Easy to understand.

My first introduction to Vatican II. Such helpful background and inspiration for reclaiming what the Holy Spirit desires for Christ’s church.

Not compelling or comprehensive

Preface
- I gathered four arguments here
- as a teenager, I thought it was “nice” to have the liturgy in English because it made it easier to follow and understand what was going on
- As a teenager, I felt “ritually unclean” before Vatican II but less so afterwards
- As a college student reading Marx, I found the council’s stance on human dignity uplifting
- Based on the example of my grandmother, traditional Catholics before Vatican II did not experience a sense of participation in the mass
- But I don’t see how any of these arguments from his personal life can lead to conclusions that should be binding on a religion of over a billion people
Introduction
- Argues that the council was totally distinct from its liturgical implementation - this implementation was part of a “para-“ or “anti-council.”
- But the council and its implementation were run by the same people. For example, Bugnini both drafted Sacrosanctum concilium and lead the implementation of this document in reforming the liturgy. Paul VI both promulgated the council documents and guided the reform. If the council framers were the same people as the council implementers, then how can we say that the intentions behind the framing were radically different from the intentions behind the implementation?
Chapter 1
- Example of Schillebex inscribing his own theology into the council was a good point but not sufficient to support a universal claim about how theologians behaved. Ironically, after condemning people who inscribe their own theology into the council, Britton does this himself multiple times later in his book.
- claims that perception of liberal vs conservative camps within the council was a media fabrication but OMalley corroborates that these camps existed, as organized bodies with regular meetings alongside the council deliberations.
- Argues that problems with reform implementation are:
- Liturgical abuses
- return of religious to lay state
- Bad catechesis
- Ecumenical excesses
- Confusion between Christian and civil humanism
- Doctrinal deviation
- And that these are not intended by council fathers
- Draws parallel between going to tradition and leaving the church, but this is not apples to apples
- Argues that we must bear liturgical abuses as St Paul bearer afflictions. But the whole point of the liturgy is to prepare us to bear these afflictions, not to be an affliction itself
- Agree that we should be charitable
- “It is part of Christian gravity… to observe and to keep what we have received.”
- But this is exactly what vatican II doesn’t do
- His definition of tradition is apt and insightful, but he defines it against a straw man of traditionalism as “ossifying” and arguing that a “simple return” to pre-Vatican 2 practices will resolve the church’s problems
- Analogy of ressourcement/aggornamiento to a drilling rig digging through dirt to an aquifer. This speaks to his perception of the past. Except for the early (pre-constantinian) church, which is pure good clean water, the rest of church history is compared to dirt. This is precisely the same Protestant humanist attitude that led to the myth of the “Middle Ages” as a backwards and superstitious time when compared to rational and quasi-modern antiquity. This myth has been pretty thoroughly debunked by historians, and is actually sort of racist because it upholds this binary of modernity/classical west = civilized, everything else=backwards barbarism.
- Compares V2 with Lewis’ Mere Christianity - apt comparison because Lewis strives for a removal of distinction between different sects. Likewise V2 seeks to move away from a visible tangible church of unified belief and toward a diffuse non-tangible church whose spirit provides all Christian denominations with a general positive sense of benevolence but no clear doctrines, beliefs or practices that can unify or strengthen
Chapter 3
- Beautiful reflection on meaning of reconciliation (coming again eyelash-to-eyelash with God) and adoration (coming mouth to mouth with God)
- Beautiful reflection on the importance of silence in the liturgy
- Beautiful reflection on ad orientum - especially liked the image of the host rising as the sun in the east.
- Claims ad orientum isn’t against spirit of Vatican II, and that versus populum is only mentioned in one “passing comment” in a document that instructed tearing out all the altars so that masses could be celebrated versus populum and so you could walk behind them. This “passing comment” in the implementation of the liturgical reform posed huge costs to parishes worldwide and damaged many irreplaceable architectural works. In at least one place in the US, parishioners actively resisted its implementation and were physically attacked by police as a result. So it’s pretty wild to frame this statement as a “passing comment.” Also this document and sacrosamctum concilium were both drafted by the same man - Bugnini - and both implemented by Paul VI. So it’s a stretch to say that versus populum is not part of the spirit of V2. He disparages other people earlier for marking their own theological preferences as the “spirit of Vatican II” but he is doing the exact same thing in this case.
- Argues that the mass is a sacrifice before all else, but Bugnini’s reformed liturgy (again, the same person who drafted Sacrosanctum concilium) systematically removes or makes optional most or all references to the mass as sacrifice, in the express hope of making the mass attractive to Protestants. Again, Britton is ignoring the intentions of the framers and implementers of Vatican II and supplanting them with his own (which are commendably catholic, unlike those of the framers and implementers.)
- Vatican II reduced priority of saints feasts - he argues this is a good thing but now saints are basically an afterthought, when they are key to much of catholic land connectedness
- Parallel of V2 reforms to pius xii easter vigil is valid and a good question for traditionalists
- Argues that purpose of reforming divine office was to make it easier for parish priests because they don’t have as much free time as religious do, but this change also impacted religious, so his justification is not apt.
- “Liturgy of the hours is a neglected treasure of the church” - ironic because v2 caused much of this neglect
- Sacrosanctum concilium 34 and 124 - his argument that “noble simplicity” doesn’t mean getting rid of church ornamentation is that this is incompatible with other statements in the document, but the other statements he gives are tangential and not to the point. In fact, one statement that he uses to claim Vatican II did not promote removing most decorations seems to actively define what should be done with decorations after they have been removed. Thus this example belies his argument. Also, Bugnini, a drafter of Sacrosanctum, said during the council that, “We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Prostestants” which would certainly apply to removing statues of saints and other catholic cultural decorations.
- “Vatican II did not seek to return us to year 0 in the church” - but this is exactly what his well-drilling analogy argues we should be doing.
Chapter 4
- Calls the SSPX a sect outside the church, which is not accurate. Denver diocese statement: “Society of St. Pius X, which is not in full communion with the pope. While it is true that the society’s priests are validly ordained, they have not been given permission to exercise their ministry.”
- Congar and de Lubac on Church as sacrament - this reduces the church from an ark where you reside and are brought to safety to a signpost pointing the way to safety for you to find yourself. Individualist concept to reduce the church to a sign. This seems a bit uncharitable to me - I don’t see why it can’t be a “both/and” situation.
- The same thinkers describing church as salvation of man as man without reservation - does this point toward relativism? Episode 16 of crisis series argues this but that seems a bit uncharitable to me
- Doesn’t discuss the controversy about the true church “subsisting in” the catholic church vs being the Catholic Church. Thus Britten misses a key idea in Vatican II which leads to the problematic ecumenical initiatives that he then condemns, and instead pastes in his own (orthodox) theology in place of the council’s (heterodox) theology
- Argues that compromising in ecumenical initiatives is against spirit of Vatican II but see quote from Bugnini above
- Sexual assault crisis “No doubt was influenced by the loss of priestly identity when men ceased to think actively about the priesthood”
- Hmm maybe but also more likely people felt more comfortable coming out with accusations now that priests are closer to people
- Early Protestants were not against Mary? How do you explain the burning of the “Witch of Walsingham?” The loss of intercession of the saints in the 27 articles in Anglicanism?
- Says it’s not whether we should honor Mary but how we should honor Mary - but you can’t just tear these two things apart.
- Greek word for “hail” in Hail Mary was reserved for royalty - cool, I didn’t know that
Ch 5
- Doesn’t touch on collegiality, which is one of the major objections of his opponents
Ch 6
- argues that Vat II teaches directly against contraception but it doesn’t, rather teaches against “Methods of birth control that are found blameworthy by the church” thus kicking the can down the road to Paul VI’s Humane vitae and opening the path for personal interpretation that finds contraception not blameworthy
- Doesn’t mention reversal of the two ends of marriage - one of the major objections of his opponents. This is the third or fourth time he has simply passed on responding to a key traditionalist argument. This makes him seem like he hasn’t actually read his opponents’ work.