Osservatorio Internazionale cardinale Van Thuan Newsletter n.450 2013-01-28As you have already been informed, the issue of the “Bulletin of the Social Doctrine of the Church” now available in bookstores is dedicated to Vatican II and the relationship between pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Social Doctrine of the Church. Presented below is the editorial by Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi which offers an eloquent overview of the issue as such.
Most. Rev. Giampaolo Crepaldi
We decided to tackle this theme in an effort to do our part within the Year of the Faith convened by Benedict XVI, as well as within the Year of the Council as we could call it, because the commemoration of the opening of Vatican Council II on 11 October 1962 will last for an entire year.
We planned the contents of this issue taking into consideration above all three fundamental indications.
The first of these is what we read in the first charter of Caritas in Veritate entitled “The Message of Populorum progressio”. Refuted here is the thesis according to which Paul VI would have accorded lesser importance to the Social Doctrine of the Church. This thesis was extensively employed and even assumed a majority position among experts in the 1970’s, and is still widespread today. In addition, it has always been linked to the assessment of Vatican Council II.
Since Vatican Council II would have downplayed – or, according to some people, even denied – the Social Doctrine of the Church, Paul VI lowered the level of his social teaching, writing not an Encyclical, but an Apostolic Exhortation – la Octogesima adveniens – and especially the famous paragraph 4 thereof, wherein, according to many observers, he transferred teaching responsibility in social affairs from the Pontiff to the bishops and the Christian communities, thereby reducing the Social Doctrine of the Church from a “doctrinal corpus”, as reiterated later by John Paul II, to practical discernment regarding things to be done in specific contexts and surroundings.
Now, the first charter of Caritas in Veritate literally dismantles this paradigm and definitively decrees its groundless nature. Forsworn is not only the claim that Paul VI had become the defender of a sort of lower level social doctrine of the Church, but above all that Vatican II had condemned or contradicted the previous social Magisterium.
Restored, therefore, was the perfect continuity of the social teaching of Paul VI with that of the Pontiffs before and after him, and the continuity between the Church’s pre-conciliar and post-conciliar social doctrine.
Hence the capital importance of paragraph 12, which I quote in its entirety: “The link between Populorum Progressio and the Second Vatican Council does not mean that Paul VI’s social Magisterium marked a break with that of previous Popes, because the Council constitutes a deeper exploration of this Magisterium within the continuity of the Church’s life. In this sense, clarity is not served by certain abstract subdivisions of the Church’s social doctrine, which apply categories to Papal social teaching that are extraneous to it.
It is not a case of two typologies of social doctrine, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the contrary, there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new. It is one thing to draw attention to the particular characteristics of one Encyclical or another, of the teaching of one Pope or another, but quite another to lose sight of the coherence of the overall doctrinal corpus.
Coherence does not mean a closed system: on the contrary, it means dynamic faithfulness to a light received. The Church’s social doctrine illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are constantly emerging. This safeguards the permanent and historical character of the doctrinal “patrimony” which, with its specific characteristics, is part and parcel of the Church’s ever-living Tradition.
Social doctrine is built on the foundation handed on by the Apostles to the Fathers of the Church, and then received and further explored by the great Christian doctors. This doctrine points definitively to the New Man, to the “last Adam [who] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), the principle of the charity that “never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). It is attested by the saints and by those who gave their lives for Christ our Saviour in the field of justice and peace.
It is an expression of the prophetic task of the Supreme Pontiffs to give apostolic guidance to the Church of Christ and to discern the new demands of evangelization. For these reasons, Populorum Progressio, situated within the great current of Tradition, can still speak to us today.”
Evident in this paragraph are direct or indirect references to the indications regarding the correct interpretation of Vatican II given by Benedict XVI in his eloquent address to the Roman Curia on 22 December 2005, which will be evoked repeatedly in this issue of our Bulletin. In fact, this is the second fundamental benchmark we kept in mind with preparing this issue.
On that occasion the Holy Father set down precise markers not as a way to bring reflection about the Council to an end, but rather so that reflection could forge ahead along a worthwhile itinerary. Present in his words was an in-depth concern over an erroneous and sterile interpretation that could even be damaging for the Church, as well as acknowledgement of the fact that the correct interpretation had produced good fruits, and would have produced even more if well cultivated.
The Holy Father knows the interpretation of Vatican II is not over. He himself encourages and fosters it, but does provide procedural indications to be respected if people expect it to produce these good fruits. In fact, there is the danger that repeated also during this “Year of Vatican II” may be expressions of prejudicial opposition already seen in the past, or, exacerbated by the solemnity of the occasion, such forms of open opposition may even escalate.
In my opinion, the core point is to understand what it means for Vatican II to be interpreted in the light of tradition. The aforementioned first chapter of Caritas in Veritate evokes this concept numerous times. Paragraph 10 states that the Social Doctrine of the Church is also a “Tradition”, and is so because assumed as the point of view of the Social Doctrine of the Church is that of the “Tradition of the apostolic faith”, as Benedict XVI reiterated at Arequipa in May 2007. In addition, the word ‘tradition’ is used twice in paragraph 12.
There is then a third factor or element that guided us in the preparation of this issue of the Bulletin. Joseph Ratzinger has dedicated considerable attention to Vatican II in his writings. He did done so as a theologian, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as a Cardinal, and now continues to do so as Supreme Pontiff.
Emerging in everything he has written and said would seem to be an important indication regarding method. It is necessary for the correct interpretation of the Council to become “movement”. He has said this repeatedly when referring to the field of the liturgy, expressing the wish for a new “liturgical movement” akin to the one which had prepared the Council. This will then render reforms possible, as well as the selfsame “reform of the reform”.
I believe this also applies for the Social Doctrine of the Church. In numerous cases its interpretation and use linger in positions typical of the 1970’s, positions of negation or dilution into a generic service to the world without being grounded in truths. In such cases the references to the social order and to natural law are looked upon as obsolete.
People dogmatically accept secularisation, retaining it to be a purification of the Christian religion without considering that religious secularisation leads to ethical secularisation and ends up in nihilism. Denying the value of the public truth of the Catholic religion also entails a withering of the spiritual life reduced to subjectivism.
Needed therefore is a “movement of the Social Doctrine of the Church”, which, according to the format of the “reform in continuity”, would resume tradition and once again situate the Social Doctrine of the Church existentially within the totality of Christian doctrine and within the life of the Church.
