The Disputed Teachings of Vatican ll: Continuity and Reversal in Catholic Doctrine

by Thomas G. Guarino

The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) radically shook up many centuries of tradition in the Roman Catholic Church. This book by Thomas Guarino, a noted expert on the sources and methods of Catholic doctrine, investigates whether Vatican II’s highly contested teachings on religious freedom, ecumenism, and the Virgin Mary represented a harmonious development of—or a rupture with—Catholic tradition. Guarino’s careful explanations of such significant terms as  continuity, discontinuity, analogy, reversal, reform,  and  development  greatly enhance and clarify his discussion. No other book on Vatican II so clearly elucidates the essential  theological  principles for determining whether—and to what extent—a conciliar teaching is in continuity or discontinuity with antecedent tradition. Readers from all faith traditions who care about the logic of continuity and change in Christian teaching will benefit from this masterful case study.

Genres: Catholic

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2018

About the author

Thomas G. Guarino (STD, Catholic University of America) is professor of systematic theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He is the author of several books, including Vattimo and Theology and Foundations of Systematic Theology.

Reviews

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned something, but it is a very dull read and tends to repeat itself.

[Rory Fox · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some informative summaries of the discussions and conclusions of Vatican II, but a little simplistic in its conclusions.

At the heart of the book is the claim that Vatican II reversed prior Church teaching on certain matters. But, that reversal is a (good) ‘development’ of doctrine, not a (bad) corruption, because much of the Church’s ordinary teaching is just fallible opinions which can be reversed.

Is ‘reversed’ the right way to describe what is often a more subtle nuancing of previous teaching? More seriously, the Church can take opposite views on a matter without there being any reversal of teaching at all. For example, prior to the Pandemic the Church taught that all Catholics must go to mass every week. During the Pandemic it taught the opposite, viz that Catholics must not go to mass. This is not a ‘reversal’ of Church teaching, it’s the application of unchanging principles to changing circumstances.

What examples like this mean is that just because the Church seems to say opposite things, it does not necessarily mean there has been any change of teaching at all. Assuming a change of teaching from a reversal of wording, is a jumping to a conclusion, rather than a properly argued reaching of a conclusion.

And that is the problem at the heart of this book. It assumes reversals without giving an analysis of the original teaching, the new teaching and the question of what or whether there are unchangeable principles underlying the teaching, and to what extent there are changeable circumstances at work, warranting the change (eg like a sudden onset of a pandemic).

For example the Council of Florence said that the unbaptised will go to hell. Vatican II seems to say the opposite. Is that a reversal of teaching? Not necessarily, because in the 1850s Pope Pius IX brought into Catholic theology the idea of ‘invincible ignorance.’ Vatican II maintains the old teaching, that those who deliberately reject baptism are excluded from Salvation. It just recognises that there is now a new category of people who are not excluded. It would be simplistic to describe that as a change of teaching.

The book lists other examples of reversed teaching, such as Religious Freedom, and positivity about Ecumenism. In each case it lines up sets of words and shows how Vatican II's words are opposite. And then it just jumps to the conclusion that there is a reversal. But is there?

Yes on the surface Religious Freedom is a reversal of 1700 years of Church teaching. But, it takes place in a political situation which is a reversal of 1700 years of government. When there were monarchies with rulers who professed faiths, then governments could embody and express a faith. But how can a democracy be a representative of a faith, when leaders are voted in and out of office every few years? The Political situation of democratic governments facing the Church at the time of Vatican II is completely different to the monarchical politics in which its original teachings were developed. Is that set of changed circumstances a relevant explanatory factor to what seems to be a change of teaching? That’s the type of question that the book needs to press, but it doesn’t do so.

Overall, this is a readable account which should be accessible to any interested graduate (even though the book consciously markets itself to theology students). About 30% of the (digital version) of the book is bibliographies and notes, so there is a good range of follow up materials. However, ultimately I felt disappointed with the book as it just doesn’t press its analysis sharply enough, and so its conclusions seem to represent assumptions rather than arguments.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful for thinking about and understanding the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. I think, however, that the author exaggerates the discontuniuty in some of the disputed teachings. For example, Guarino thinks Nostra Aetate is a dramatic reversal of the Church's traditional teaching that Jews will not be saved. I think the difference between the earlier teaching and that of Vatican II is much better explained as a development that followed from the modern Church's continued reflection on the idea of "invincible ignorance". At Florence, where they the Church taught Jews would not be saved, they were regarded as culpably refusing to enter the Church; at Vatican II their invincible ignorance was accepted. Vatican II did not teach against "supersessionism", in fact it taught that those who refuse to enter the Catholic Church will be eternally damned. Guarino also believes that Dignitatis humanae constitutes, at least in certain important aspects of it's teaching, a serious reversal of previous magisterial teaching, and this is acceptable as the reversals are only of authentic but not definitive magisterial teaching. This hardly seems justified when DH begins by saying that it changed nothing of the Church's previous doctrine about Religious Liberty. On top of that, many theologians have taught that Quanta Cura (one of the documents who's teaching Guarino thinks has been reversed) contained infallible teaching. For example, the recently canonized St. John Henry Newmans writes in his "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk"

The Pope cannot address his people East and West, North and South, without meaning it, as if his very voice, the sounds from his lips, could literally be heard from pole to pole; nor can he exert his "Apostolical authority" without knowing he is doing so; nor can he draw up a form of words and use care and make an effort in doing so accurately, without intention to do so; and, therefore, no words of Honorius proceeded from his prerogative of infallible teaching, which were not accompanied with the intention of exercising that prerogative; and who will dream of saying, be he Anglican, Protestant, unbeliever, or on the other hand Catholic, that Honorius on the occasion in question did actually intend to exert that infallible teaching voice which is heard so distinctly in the Quantâ curâ and the Pastor Æternus?

What resemblance do these letters of his, written almost as private instructions, bear to the "Pius Episcopus, Servus Servorum Dei, Sacro approbante Concilio, ad perpetuam rei memoriam," or with the "Si quis huic nostræ definitioni contradicere (quod Deus avertat), præsumpserit, anathema sit" of the Pastor Æternus? what to the "Venerabilibus fratribus, Patriarchis primatibus, Archiepiscopis, et Episcopis universis, &c., with the "reprobamus, proscribimus, atque damnamus," and the date and signature, "Datum Romæ apud Sanctum Petrum, Die 8 Dec. anno 1864, &c., Pius P.P. IX." of the Quantâ curâ?

It is therefore somewhat grating to see Guarino approvingly citing Fr. Martin Rhonheimer: "The conclusion is unavoidable: precisely this teaching of the Second Vatican Council is what Pius IX condemned in his encyclical Quanta Cura." Much better and more faithful to both the pre-conciliar teaching and, perhaps more importantly, to the mind of the Council Fathers is the interpretation of DH given by Thomas Pink, who has argued at length against the interpretation of Fr. Martin Rhonheimer and Guarino.