The Utterly New Way of the Second Vatican Council

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The Utterly New Way of the Second Vatican Council

Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies blog | August 19, 2024

The Vatican II document styled Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium presents us with a novel vision of the Church as "a sacrament of salvation" and "sign of the unity of mankind." 

Factor in LG's teaching that "elements of sanctification exist in [non-Catholic] assemblies" and that the "Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church", you have an ecclesiology so far from traditional doctrine as to represent an entirely new conception of what it means to be 'Church.' but don't take my word for it, here is Pope John Paul II:

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..."

- Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis

So, LG is establishing ways the Catholic Church is related by degree to non-Catholic religious bodies first with the 'separated brethren' (another conciliar novelty) but then astonishingly to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Therefore we have lost the dogma of Extra ecclesia nula salus completely which has given way to an amorphous, invisible 'church' that includes all humanity - and this too, John Paul II teaches with shocking audacity:

...The opening made by the Second Vatican Council has enabled the Church and all Christians to reach a more complete awareness of the mystery of Christ, "the mystery hidden for ages" in God, to be revealed in time in the Man Jesus Christ, and to be revealed continually in every time.

...Accordingly, what is in question here is man in all his truth, in his full magnitude. We are not dealing with the "abstract" man, but the real, "concrete", "historical" man. We are dealing with "each" man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery.

...this is "each" man, "the most concrete" man, "the most real"; this is man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother."

- Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, 1979

"...utterly new way, quite unknown previously..."
"...to reach a more complete awareness of the mystery of Christ..."
"...with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery."
"...this is 'each' man ...in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ..."
Astonishing what you see when you isolate the novel phrases.

And the result?

"Two months after the event, in a Christmas speech to his Cardinals published in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano, John Paul said,

“The day of Assisi, showing the Catholic Church holding hands with our brothers of other religions, was a visible expression of [the] statements of the Second Vatican Council.”

The interfaith event at Assisi was thus described by John Paul II not as a tragic misrepresentation of Vatican II, but as the glorious realization of its teaching. Pope John Paul II went on to celebrate the inter-religious prayer meeting at Assisi as a new direction for the future, “The event of Assisi” he said, “can thus be considered as a visible illustration, an exegesis of events, a catechesis intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitments to ecumenism and to the inter-religious dialogue which was recommended and promoted by the Second Vatican Council.” Toward the end of the speech, the Pope urged his Cardinals to continue on the same new path, “Keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future.”

- Pope’s Christmas Address to Roman Curia,” L’Osservatore Romano, January 5, 1987, pp. 6-7.

John Paul II and various religious leaders, Prayer Meeting of Religions, Assisi, Italy 1986

And (get ready for it) for Pope John Paul II, the Holy Spirit is the inspiration behind these false religions!

"It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions. In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.”

- Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7.

All this is condemned by St. Pius X in his encyclical against Modernism:

"How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true."

- Pascendi gregis #14

Lumen gentium provides the basis for an "...utterly new way" of seeing the Church, "quite unknown previously..." thanks to the Second Vatican Council. John Paul II's vision of a Christ united with each man forever in which each man is already a "sharer in Jesus Christ" easily portends to a Church which is comprised of the entire human race.

In this universal church in which each man is united to Christ forever and in which "the Holy Spirit ... is mysteriously present in the heart of every person” there is no need for evangelical preaching, missionary work, or personal conversion. No, what is needed is dialogue between men of all religions in order to discover that consciousness which is being aroused in the Teilhardian march towards Omega Point - the consciousness that we are all already united to the God-Man and only lack the realization of it. This is the inescapable conclusion of the New Theology. This is why the Churches are emptying and the average Catholic is utterly confused as to what his Church teaches and what it means to be saved at all.