The Second Vatican Council:

[MC Just]

i just read this article and thought it was interesting..

By Alice von Hildebrand

George Sim Johnston has written an article on the still hot topic of Vatican II. The past forty years have been marked by such confusion that we might yet be too close to the events to gauge them with fairness and accuracy. Nevertheless, Johnston’s article, “Open Windows: Why Vatican II Was Necessary” (Crisis magazine, March 2004), is both challenging and thought-provoking. He rightly condemns the “self-satisfied tri-umphalism” sometimes found in the pre-Vatican II Church — the pitiful self-complacency of those who, while living very mediocre lives, nevertheless plumed themselves for belonging to the one true Church. Just as the Chosen People of the Old Testament — instead of becoming humbly grateful for an immense privilege of which they had no merit — could be tempted to look down upon others, so mediocre Catholics too often forgot that the blessing they had in belonging to the one true Church did not justify their feeling superior to others. Unfortunately, human beings have a special talent for going from one error to an opposite one. “Triumphalism” became a slogan to be denounced, with the result that today innumerable Catholics have lost sight of the privilege they have received and shy away from proclaiming the glory of the one true Church. A sad proof of this is a statement of someone close to me — a daily communicant — who chided me for believing that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ, and that the Savior has given the keys to Peter. “No religion is true,” I was told. “All of them are seeking the truth.” That Christ said, “I am the Truth” (something that no other religious leader had ever dared assert) is now forgotten. And this is how the inter-religious meeting in Assisi in October 1986 is interpreted.

I take exception to Johnston’s endorsement of Martin Buber’s claim that success is not one of the names of God. Christianity is the greatest success story in human history. Calvary, the greatest imaginable human defeat, was followed by the Resurrection, without which, St. Paul tells us, we would be the most miserable of all creatures. Surprisingly, in his answer to criticisms about his endorsement of Buber’s claim, Johnston replies that Calvary “is the defining event of Christianity.” He does not mention the Resurrection! In a nutshell, Christian history is constant human defeats followed by glorious supernatural victories. St. Paul has expressed this truth in his second Epistle to the Corinthians: “perplexed, but not driven to despair…struck down, but not destroyed…” (4:8, 9). This is success indeed, but a success that God alone can explain.

Johnston tells us that Pope John XXIII wanted to take the Church out of “her Tridentine shell” to an active engagement in the modern world. But the Council of Trent brought a rich harvest of saints and religious orders, all of which were founded with the intention of spreading the light of the Gospel to the world, either in contemplative orders or in active ones. St. Francis de Sales, St. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, St. Vincent de Paul, the holy Curé d’Ars, Don Bosco (one of the greatest educators of all time), St. Thérèse of Lisieux (apostle of the missions) were all nurtured in the “shell” of the Council of Trent.

Johnston writes that Vatican II aimed at opening the Church to the world, and that because of Vatican II the Church is now “for the world.” But the word “world” is ambiguous. When one reads the Gospel of John, chapters 14-16, one is struck by how often the “world” is mentioned. Christ tells us that the world hates Him, that He has no part in the world. He tells His Apostles that if the world has hated Him, it will also hate them. The Devil is called “the Prince of this world.” One cannot conceive of a sharper rejection of “the world.” There is a religious and metaphysical duel between God and the Prince of this world, and this duel will go on until the end of time, when the Evil One will be defeated. He who loves Christ must hate the world, with all its pomp, for the world is the kingdom of Satan. In Baptism we are ordered to renounce the world. Paul VI lamented that “the opening to the world became a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking” (Nov. 23, 1973).

The word “world” also has another meaning. It refers to the world that God created out of nothing — the visible world which reflects God’s beauty, the world inhabited by His children, the place where they will either achieve their end or betray the mission God has given them. That Christians should be actively engaged in this world was Christ’s command: “Go and teach all nations.” This is so true that even those called upon to enter a purely contemplative order, far from forgetting the world, pray, sacrifice, and do penance for their worldly brothers. The admirable missionary work that has been done over the centuries is a response to the call of evangelizing the world. I recall that during my youth in what used to be “Catholic Belgium,” the nuns constantly reminded us of the importance of missionary work. We had a yearly retreat mostly given by missionaries who moved our hearts to pray and sacrifice for their work. The Pères Blancs did admirable missionary work in Africa; they too came from the “Tridentine shell.” Unfortunately, since Vatican II, Christ’s command to “Go and teach all nations” has been replaced by “Go and dialogue with all nations.”

Pope John XXIII was hoping for a deepening of missionary activities. That his hopes were dashed is shown by a remark he made in confidence to his close friend, Silvio Cardinal Oddi, shortly before John XXIII’s death. I was privileged to have a two-hour interview with Cardinal Oddi in March 1985. His Eminence told me the following: “Knowing that his death was close, John XXIII called me and told me: ‘Silvio, Silvio; my pontificate has been a failure. All the things I wanted to accomplish have not been done; what I did not want to take place is being realized.’”

How are we to interpret these tragic words except by assuming that His Holiness rightly feared that his message had been distorted and misunderstood? A case in point is that of a Hindu woman, as reported in the British publication Christian Order, who went to a missionary informing him of her wish to enter the Church. She was told that it was in no way necessary, that she should strive to become a better Hindu. Missionary activity is so much on the decline that certain so-called Catholics interpret this sacred work as an expression of an arrogant and prideful “triumphalism.”

Many of us are talented at doing the right things in the wrong way. It cannot be denied that some Catholics have thundered against errors and heresies, while failing to unveil the beauty of the Savior’s message, He who is “gentle and humble of heart.” Truth is beautiful and this should be shown to those who have been fed on prejudices. On the other hand, the proclamation of truth is not possible without a condemnation of error. St. John admirably combines a presentation of the radiance of truth with “anathema sit.” The Apostle of Love was also “the son of thunder.” Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and today we have lost sight of the gravity of religious, metaphysical, and ethical errors. Plato reminds us that the higher a truth ranks, the more we should be concerned about knowing it accurately. If I err concerning the length of a pig’s intestines, it is of no consequence. If I err concerning God, it is a grave matter. Modern man not only tolerates religious aberrations, but no longer perceives that they are poisonous to the human soul. Homilies today tell us repeatedly that God loves us — a great truth indeed — but words such as sin, the Devil, and Hell are now anathema. Two priests I know were severely reprimanded by their bishops because they were “turning their parishioners off” by referring to eternal punishment in their homilies.

How many priests dare thunder against abortion — this abomination that must make the angels weep? How many bishops proclaim that “pro-choice” politicians are not permitted to receive Holy Communion? Worldly prudence — the password of politicians — is not a Christian virtue.

Had John XXIII witnessed all this, he would have wept.

Johnston is right in lamenting the fact that seminarians in the pre-Vatican II Church were fed an “ossified” version of the teaching of St. Thomas. Fr. Benedict Groeschel told me that when he was a novice he would read the Confessions of St. Augustine — hiding the book under his desk, while a boring professor was rehashing dried-up Thomistic ideas taken from a shallow textbook. When I told my uncle (a real Jesuit) that I was hoping to get a Ph.D. in philosophy, he exclaimed: “My dear niece, you made a poor choice. When I was a novice I was the only one unfortunate enough not to be able to fall asleep during our philosophy class.”

When “the windows were opened,” many seminarians, novices, and priests devoured the works of Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud, and Sartre. At least, they were not boring. Carl Rogers convinced thousands of them that the purpose of life was self-fulfillment, and he was so convincing that he spawned an exodus of thousands of priests, nuns, and novices.

Leo XIII’s great encyclical, Aeterni Patris (1879), illustrates this point. It gave Thomism pride of place when there was a dire need to warn the faithful against the errors dominating the philosophical field. Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Darwin, and Spencer were the intellectual heroes of the day. His Holiness knew that philosophy (ancilla theologiae) is all-important in scholastic formation and also knew that the superb clarity of St. Thomas’s ideas made him more accessible to seminarians than St. Augustine, whose thought was not as systematic.

The choice was wise, but, unfortunately, when interpreted wrongly, it led to poor results. A case in point: In February 1943, the Dean of the Department of Philosophy at Fordham University, Fr. Hunter Guthrie, S.J., found a pink slip on his desk, firing Dietrich von Hildebrand, my late husband. The latter, who studied at Göttingen under Husserl and Reinach (like Edith Stein), had been branded a non-Thomist and declared unworthy to teach in a Catholic university. For Dietrich, who had been in the U.S. for just over two years and had landed penniless on these shores, it would have meant disaster. (Thanks to Jacques Maritain, his name had been put on a list of one hundred professors whose trip to the U.S. was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. From 1941 to 1943, the Foundation paid his salary.) After 1943, Fordham would have had to pay his salary, and they decided to let him go.

Fr. Guthrie protested: He refused to sign the paper firing one of his most distinguished professors. He saved Dietrich, but Fr. Guthrie was then transferred to Georgetown University.

When history passes judgment on the accomplishments of Fordham University, the name of Dietrich will certainly be mentioned, while the names of his detractors will, I suspect, sink into obscurity.

Men have an uncanny talent for going from one error to another. I recall that in the late Sixties, a nun who had felt the “liberating influence” of Vatican II proclaimed loudly that “Thomism is dead.” The dear sister had fallen in love with “contemporary thought,” making no distinction whatever between positive contributions and outspoken aberrations. Moreover, to declare a philosophy produced by a gigantic mind and a great saint “dead” is a risky assertion to make. Truth remains truth, and whatever is true in St. Thomas’s works cannot possibly die. Clearly the sister followed the Zeitgeist, a spirit that was prevalent in the wake of Vatican II. Anything that was new was welcome and “refreshing.” An ossified Thomism — so unfaithful to St. Thomas — was to be rejected. But to make a hero of Sartre is another matter.

Johnston laments that prior to Vatican II the Church was “a juridical machine operated by the bishop of Rome. Over the centuries, the Church’s government had become top heavy and centralized.” Vatican II wanted to correct this shortcoming, says Johnston, by emphasizing “collegiality.” We certainly have heard much about “collegiality” in the course of the past forty years. Here is an instance, once again, where we have gone from one excess to another. Today when Peter, who holds the keys, makes it clear that he wants certain things to be corrected, his requests are unceremoniously ignored. Many laymen have deeply grieved the response given to Ex Corde Ecclesiae by the U.S. bishops. It is well known that the German Bishop Karl Lehmann (now Cardinal Lehmann) repeatedly ignored the orders of the Pope prohibiting his staff from signing papers permitting abortion. It is only when Peter used his full authority “as holder of the keys” that Lehmann finally yielded. What is the sense of having authority if it is not used? Things were not so at the time of Pius XI, who took away a cardinal’s red hat because the latter had dared challenge a papal decision. Pius XI was a true leader.

Authority can be abused; but when authority is no longer authoritative, another type of cancer menaces the Church. We all know of bishops who certainly do not live up to their calling. Rome is aware of this. But these bishops know they can continue shirking their responsibilities because they know they will not be demoted.

Another issue raised by Johnston is the reform of the liturgy. One clear aim of the Council was to guarantee the use of the Latin language as the sacred language of the Church. The vernacular was granted “wider use” only where it was of great advantage to the faithful, but the Council also said that “the use of the Latin language…is to be preserved….” The Council’s words are so clear that one wonders how it could be so radically misinterpreted. The Latin tongue, being a dead language, guarantees orthodoxy. The vernacular keeps changing, and to pray the liturgy in the vernacular cannot possibly give us this guarantee. Words keep shifting their meaning. “Discrimination,” which used to have a positive meaning (to make intelligent distinctions), is now a dirty word. Why were the wishes of the Council trampled upon? Why was the use of the Latin tongue anathematized? Why were we repeatedly told that “Vatican II ordered this” when there was not a word of truth in these assertions? Who is responsible for hijacking the Council’s documents and perverting their message? The faithful are entitled to raise these questions; sooner or later, history will provide the answer, and we should not be overly surprised if one day we will discover that Judas continues to plague the Church. Why is it that the deeper participation of the faithful at Mass is interpreted to mean constant commotion, whereas it meant to say that the faithful should better understand the meaning of the Holy Sacrifice as an unbloody repetition of the sacrifice of Calvary, and refrain from praying the Rosary during the celebration of this most sublime of mysteries? It is true indeed that many Catholics were not properly instructed and never truly understood the awesomeness of the mystery of the Mass. But once again, why must we go to the extreme of making the Mass some sort of social performance in the mold of a liberal Protestant service?

Why is it that Communion rails have been removed at great expense when the Council says nothing about this most regrettable innovation, not to mention the iconoclastic habit of eliminating precious works of art in both painting and sculpture that were supposedly “distracting” us. One need only read the life of St. Teresa of Avila to realize the importance of Christian art in religious life: Both sacred music (replaced today by “masterpieces” of artistic mediocrity) and beautiful sculptures are essential to authentic Catholicism, which understands the crucial importance of the visual and auditory arts in communicating the divine message.

An extremely sensitive topic concerns a change of position on religious freedom, which Johnston starkly refers to as a “radical departure.” The Church is willing to collaborate with any form of government which respects the moral law. No doubt to “impose” truth, as Johnston puts it, is counterproductive. On the other hand, Christ has given His Apostles the mission of teaching all nations, and this implies more than just issuing a “proposal,” as Johnston tells us the Council recommends. Many contemporary thinkers today lament the fact that the “separation of Church and state” is leading to a subtle attack on any legitimate manifestation of religion in the public life. Christmas crèches are no longer allowed; prayers in public schools have been abolished; the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” is challenged. If democracy refers to the metaphysical equality of all human beings, it is to be warmly welcomed. If it means that “all ideas are equally valid” and that there is no hierarchy in the universe, we are facing a grave problem.

The universe has an architectonic structure, and liberal democracy tends more and more to wage war on any type of hierarchy. Whether we like it or not — and woe to those who do not — God is the King of the universe and any systematic elimination of this Kingship bodes evil for those who advocate it. Divine Monarchy is the very cornerstone of the universe. Johnston says, “The council made it clear that she no longer wanted a confessional state tied to a monarchy; it was high time to make peace with liberal democracy.” It is not my intention to claim that monarchy is the best form of government, but in our world it is being so maligned that I wish to offer a remark in its defense. The very structure of a monarchy is symbolic, and one of the things we can all deplore is that after Vatican II, symbols — which are so meaningful in religious life — have been abandoned. French monarchs were anointed in Rheims by bishops and were reminded of the fact that their authority came from God, and that one day they would have to give an account to Him — the King of the universe. They were His representatives; they were to be a father to their people, aiming at serving their good, spiritually and physically. Few lived up to this noble calling, but let us not forget that Catholic nations produced great saints who were kings. Consider St. Louis IX, one of the greatest monarchs in history; England and Germany also produced saintly kings and queens. A tree that can produce such fruits cannot be completely bad. I am still looking forward to the time when liberal democracy produces a saint. I cannot think of a single president of the U.S. who would qualify for this honor. Once again, one can legitimately challenge whether the intentions of the Council have been properly interpreted by Johnston.

Let us pray ardently that our spiritual leaders will (with the help of a self-sacrificing and prayerful faithful) bring the Holy Barque of Peter back on course.

Alice von Hildebrand is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York. She is the author, most recently, of The Soul of a Lion (Ignatius), about her late husband, the Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand; The Privilege of Being a Woman (Veritas Press); and By Love Refined (Sophia Institute Press). She has written extensively for many Catholic periodicals and appears frequently on Mother Angelica’s EWTN.

[Era Might]

I recall reading Johnston's piece, and agree it was a poor defense of the Council. It's important to place the Second Vatican Council in its proper context as a continuation of Catholic tradition, not a beginning or an end. It was a "new beginning" of sorts, a new Pentecost, but not in the sense of a rupture with the past.

John Paul II warned in his first Encyclical, "Redemptor Hominis", that criticism of the Church, whether of today or of yesteryear, must be tempered and prudent:

[quote] This growing criticism was certainly due to various causes and we are furthermore sure that it was not always without sincere love for the Church. Undoubtedly one of the tendencies it displayed was to overcome what has been called triumphalism, about which there was frequent discussion during the Council. While it is right that, in accordance with the example of her Master, who is "humble in heart", the Church also should have humility as her foundation, that she should have a critical sense with regard to all that goes to make up her human character and activity, and that she should always be very demanding on herself, nevertheless criticism too should have its just limits. [b]Otherwise it ceases to be constructive and does not reveal truth, love and thankfulness for the grace in which we become sharers principally and fully in and through the Church. Furthermore such criticism does not express an attitude of service but rather a wish to direct the opinion of others in accordance with one's own, which is at times spread abroad in too thoughtless a manner.[/b][/quote]

Oh yah, and Alice Von Hildebrand rox.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Era Might

[MC Just]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Sep 6 2005, 11:36 AM']I recall reading Johnston's piece, and agree it was a poor defense of the Council. It's important to place the Second Vatican Council in its proper context as a continuation of Catholic tradition, not a beginning or an end. It was a "new beginning" of sorts, a new Pentecost, but not in the sense of a rupture with the past.

John Paul II warned in his first Encyclical, "Redemptor Hominis", that criticism of the Church, whether of today or of yesteryear, must be tempered and prudent:
Oh yah, and Alice Von Hildebrand rox.
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exactly.

[Didacus]

I am still in the process of understanding the details of Vatican II. The more I read, the more I understand its purpose and even I suspect that one of the council's 'errors' (for lack of a better term) is that it did not come early enough. It should have been twenty years earlier. but then again, I was not even born then... So that's just a speculation of my part at most.

Thanks for posting the article, I think it was very helpful to me. Anyone know of other good readings like this one?



My favorite part of the article:

[quote]One need only read the life of St. Teresa of Avila to realize the importance of Christian art in religious life: Both sacred music (replaced today by “masterpieces” of artistic mediocrity) and beautiful sculptures are essential to authentic Catholicism, which understands the crucial importance of the visual and auditory arts in communicating the divine message.[/quote]

This is so true. A good portion of people who go to church (Catholics) have so little idea of the sanctity behind it. They see music and images as simple objects of 'art' rather than seek the inspration that lies within them - which is their [i]real[/i] beauty. (hence, when one sees a statue of Mary, he/she should wonder [i]about [/i]Mary and her life and all the good that comes from it even for an instant, and not simply say 'what a nice little statue'.)

[MC Just]

[quote name='Didacus' date='Sep 6 2005, 12:36 PM']I am still in the process of understanding the details of Vatican II.  The more I read, the more I understand its purpose and even I suspect that one of the council's 'errors' (for lack of a better term) is that it did not come early enough.  It should have been twenty years earlier.  but then again, I was not even born then... So that's just a speculation of my part at most.

Thanks for posting the article, I think it was very helpful to me.  Anyone know of other good readings like this one?
My favorite part of the article:
This is so true.  A good portion of people who go to church (Catholics) have so little idea of the sanctity behind it.  They see music and images as simple objects of 'art' rather than seek the inspration that lies within them - which is their [i]real[/i] beauty.  (hence, when one sees a statue of Mary, he/she should wonder [i]about [/i]Mary and her life and all the good that comes from it even for an instant, and not simply say 'what a nice little statue'.)
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ive seen so many catholic parishes with "flower power" stained windows, no saints but splashes of paint.

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

its a problem.

[MichaelFilo]

I am sad to read it. My sentiments were well represented by that document.

God bless,
Mikey

[Cam42]

Having read both articles, I would say this:

[quote]He rightly condemns the “self-satisfied tri-umphalism” sometimes found in the pre-Vatican II Church — the pitiful self-complacency of those who, while living very mediocre lives, nevertheless plumed themselves for belonging to the one true Church.[/quote]

This applies directly to what we have been calling the radical traditionalists. And Alice von Hildebrand is right on the money with that.

[quote]Johnston tells us that Pope John XXIII wanted to take the Church out of “her Tridentine shell” to an active engagement in the modern world. But the Council of Trent brought a rich harvest of saints and religious orders, all of which were founded with the intention of spreading the light of the Gospel to the world, either in contemplative orders or in active ones. St. Francis de Sales, St. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, St. Vincent de Paul, the holy Curé d’Ars, Don Bosco (one of the greatest educators of all time), St. Thérèse of Lisieux (apostle of the missions) were all nurtured in the “shell” of the Council of Trent.[/quote]

And I would take a closer look at just what Alice is getting at. There are a good many saints who are not Tridentine, but nevertheless revered even more so. They are too numerous to name, but remember the Tridentine era only lasted roughly 400 years. What about the Church Fathers? Thomas Aquinas, Basil the Great, Gregory the Great, Francis of Assissi, Boneventure, etc.....

And the modern saints, what about those saints who lived beyond the Tridentine era? Are they somehow not as saintly? St. Josemaria Escriva comes to mind. There is more to all of this than what Alice is getting at. John XXIII was prophetic in understanding that the Church must evaluate and engage the times in which she exists.

[Cam42]

[quote]How are we to interpret these tragic words except by assuming that His Holiness rightly feared that his message had been distorted and misunderstood?[/quote]

I disagree with this....John XXIII had control of what was going on in the Council. He also had to be open to the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit were not at work with John XXIII and the Council, then the Church is for naught. I think that to assume this, is to question the very mandate of the Church on Earth.

[quote]Johnston is right in lamenting the fact that seminarians in the pre-Vatican II Church were fed an “ossified” version of the teaching of St. Thomas.[/quote]

And that is why John Paul II and neo-Thomism is so very important. There is a need for authentic understanding of Thomistic thought. However, it must be done is a modern way. To classically teach Aquinas opens the door to this "ossification" all over again. Hence the need for neo-Thomistic thought.

[quote]Leo XIII’s great encyclical, Aeterni Patris (1879), illustrates this point.[/quote]

And this is why it is rallying cry for most neo-Thomists and Thomists alike.

[quote]Another issue raised by Johnston is the reform of the liturgy. One clear aim of the Council was to guarantee the use of the Latin language as the sacred language of the Church. The vernacular was granted “wider use” only where it was of great advantage to the faithful, but the Council also said that “the use of the Latin language…is to be preserved….” The Council’s words are so clear that one wonders how it could be so radically misinterpreted. The Latin tongue, being a dead language, guarantees orthodoxy. The vernacular keeps changing, and to pray the liturgy in the vernacular cannot possibly give us this guarantee. Words keep shifting their meaning.[/quote]

I could not agree more. And this has been my rallying cry for years and years. I was at a symposium in 1997, where she elaborated on this and it is part of the basis for my understangin of the Liturgical action.

[quote]Why were the wishes of the Council trampled upon? Why was the use of the Latin tongue anathematized? Why were we repeatedly told that “Vatican II ordered this” when there was not a word of truth in these assertions? Who is responsible for hijacking the Council’s documents and perverting their message?[/quote]

Notice however, that this is a support for the change of the Liturgy. She is lamenting the misinterpetation.

[quote]Why is it that the deeper participation of the faithful at Mass is interpreted to mean constant commotion, whereas it meant to say that the faithful should better understand the meaning of the Holy Sacrifice as an unbloody repetition of the sacrifice of Calvary, and refrain from praying the Rosary during the celebration of this most sublime of mysteries? It is true indeed that many Catholics were not properly instructed and never truly understood the awesomeness of the mystery of the Mass. But once again, why must we go to the extreme of making the Mass some sort of social performance in the mold of a liberal Protestant service?[/quote]

I do, however, disagree that we go to an extreme. She is making it sound as if this is the norm. It most certainly is not. I am not saying that it doesn't happen. I have witnessed it, first hand. However, I would say that the majority of parish Masses are not this extreme that she promotes.

[quote]The Church is willing to collaborate with any form of government which respects the moral law. No doubt to “impose” truth, as Johnston puts it, is counterproductive.[/quote]

That is absolutely true. To do anything else to eliminate free will and to impose tyranny and remove any free choice. One must be able to take the teaching of the Church and accept it, freely. To impose the truth, is to remove the most important aspect, freedom.

[quote]Johnston says, “The council made it clear that she no longer wanted a confessional state tied to a monarchy; it was high time to make peace with liberal democracy.”[/quote]

Make peace with, not destroy or remove. There is a difference.

[quote]The very structure of a monarchy is symbolic, and one of the things we can all deplore is that after Vatican II, symbols — which are so meaningful in religious life — have been abandoned.[/quote]

This is true, but; BUT this is not because of Vatican II. It is from the people who live after the Council. They misinterpret the Council to acquiesce to the position that is tantamount to modern day iconclasm.

[quote]I am still looking forward to the time when liberal democracy produces a saint.[/quote]

St. John Nepomucene Neumann comes to mind. The Archbishop of Philadephia. It was fitting indeed that Bishop Neumann was beatified during the Second Vatican Council. I would look to the fact that it is accepted that he created the Catholic School system as we have it today, in the United States.

I don't claim to be nearly as educated nor as smart as Dr. Von Hildebrand, it is not not as clear as she puts it. There are apsects to which she writes that can be disagreed with. While I support some of what she writes, in this article, I also think that she gets a bit heavy handed and authoritarian in certain parts of the article.

I had to put my response into two posts....too much to say.......

[qfnol31]

[quote]And that is why John Paul II and neo-Thomism is so very important. There is a need for authentic understanding of Thomistic thought. However, it must be done is a modern way. To classically teach Aquinas opens the door to this "ossification" all over again. Hence the need for neo-Thomistic thought.[/quote]

The favored Theology class at my school (and wow is it loved!!!) is Moral Theology taught in the classical Thomistic approach.

Believe me when I say it's far from dead or unappealling. :

[qfnol31]

Oh, and I have a slight tendency to be wary of neo-Thomism as I think that a "modern" approach can get really close to Revisionism and Proportionalism (Fr. Curran, et cetera).

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Sep 7 2005, 01:58 AM']Oh, and I have a slight tendency to be wary of neo-Thomism as I think that a "modern" approach can get really close to Revisionism and Proportionalism (Fr. Curran, et cetera).
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That is exactly what happened in the pre-conciliar Church and it is exactly what Dr. von Hildebrand was pointing out.

Neo-Thomism is not about removing any Catholicity of the teaching of Aquinas, but rather approaching it in a way that is consistent with times in which we live. It is an invigorated way of teaching the truth of Aquinas.

Who do you think the mentor of Grisez was? It was Deitrich von Hildebrand.

Neo-Thomism is not a move toward Fr. Curran, et al., but rather a move away. It is a way to argue against their position and authentically teach the philosophy and theology of Aquinas.

[quote name='Alice von Hildebrand']I recall that in the late Sixties, a nun who had felt the “liberating influence” of Vatican II proclaimed loudly that “Thomism is dead.” The dear sister had fallen in love with “contemporary thought,” making no distinction whatever between positive contributions and outspoken aberrations. Moreover, to declare a philosophy produced by a gigantic mind and a great saint “dead” is a risky assertion to make. Truth remains truth, and whatever is true in St. Thomas’s works cannot possibly die. Clearly the sister followed the Zeitgeist, a spirit that was prevalent in the wake of Vatican II. Anything that was new was welcome and “refreshing.” An ossified Thomism — so unfaithful to St. Thomas — was to be rejected. But to make a hero of Sartre is another matter.[/quote]

That quote is the point of neo-Thomism. It is the argument against the Zeitgeist. It is the argument against the sister. It is the argument again the "ossified" Thomism.

I am not saying that classical Thomism shouldn't be taught, quite the contrary. I would say that neo-Thomism is the ability to interpret this passage:

[quote name='Gaudium et Spes #4'] The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and interpreting them in light of the Gospel.[/quote]

If neo-Thomism is taught in conjunction with authentic classical Thomism (not the ossified version, which was prevalent in the pre-conciliar Church of the 1930's-1950's), then it is invaluable.

[qfnol31]

[quote]Neo-Thomism is not about removing any Catholicity of the teaching of Aquinas, but rather approaching it in a way that is consistent with times in which we live. It is an invigorated way of teaching the truth of Aquinas.[/quote]

Now that I know. It is a movement which is faithful to the Magisterium and Tradition, acceptable for Catholics to believe, but I think that regardless of the intention it can come close to many things that we don't want to believe. That doesn't make it bad, but I am wary of anything that comes close to other things.

[quote]Neo-Thomism is not a move toward Fr. Curran, et al., but rather a move away. It is a way to argue against their position and authentically teach the philosophy and theology of Aquinas.[/quote]

And I agree with this; I just think that in practice some results of the philosophy involved can come close to Fr. Curran, even though that's most definitely not the intention.

(I recognize, as well, that neo-Thomism is far from being the same teaching as Fr. Curran, I just think that some of the arguments that come into play, most especially in the moral spectrum, can be linked in a way).

[Apotheoun]

Luckily no one has to be a Thomist or a NeoThomist to be Catholic.

[qfnol31]

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I'm a Thomist, personally, but the Holy Father is a "decided Augustinian."