Real Catholic Blog

Bishop Walker Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, writes in a recently released pastoral letter, Ecclesia Semper Reformanda (The Church is Always in Need of Renewal) that the “spirit of Vatican II” is “a ghost or demon that must be exorcised.”

The letter, which is subtitled “A Pastoral Letter on the Future of the Church in the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa,” comes on the heels of Pope Benedict’s re-examination of Vatican II (which I will write about in a later post, but for a detailed look, read “Letter #33, And So It Begins” at The Moynihan Report Blog, here). Bishop Nickless was elevated nearly four years ago when he was Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Vicar General in the Archdiocese of Denver, so there’s no mistaking from which perspective he comes.

Despite the attention grabbing headlines his letter has made already (and more are sure to come from all sides), Bishop Nickless carefully examines the reasons for the split in the interpretation of Vatican II, and rightfully exposes a convenient and false understanding some have made to reconsider the (and their) Faith. But he plainly states, Vatican II did not — and could not have — changed the Faith. Our Faith stems from Jesus, not a contrived philosophy based on an certain and recent period of Church history.

He encourages aspects of worship, such as Adoration and Marian devotion, as well as regular confession, that were more widely practiced before the “reforms” of Vatican II. It is certainly a profound read. An excerpt is below, and more coverage is here at CatholicCulture.org. For the entire letter, see the link above on the letter’s title.

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture,” it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform,” of renewal in the continuity of the one subject – Church – which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council …

It is crucial that we all grasp that the hermeneutic or interpretation of discontinuity or rupture, which many think is the settled and even official position, is not the true meaning of the Council. This interpretation sees the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church almost as two different churches. It sees the Second Vatican Council as a radical break with the past. There can be no split, however, between the Church and her faith before and after the Council. We must stop speaking of the “Pre-Vatican II” and “Post-Vatican II” Church, and stop seeing various characteristics of the Church as “pre” and “post” Vatican II. Instead, we must evaluate them according to their intrinsic value and pastoral effectiveness in this day and age …

The so-called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord’s work.