The Second Vatican Council continues to be of great importance as it
serves as “the necessary foundation for communion between all those who
make up the Church,” affirmed Bishop Jose Ignacio Munilla of San
Sebastian, Spain.
The council closed 45 years ago on Dec. 8.
The bishop spoke of Vatican II's importance during his homily on the Dec. 8 Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
“The Second Vatican Council is not the property of any one faction of
the Catholic Church. It must not be used for division but rather for
communion. To do the contrary would be to manipulate reality,” he said.
Bishop Munilla recalled that the council was opened by John XXIII on
the feast of Mary the Mother of God in 1962, and closed by Paul VI on
the feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, 1965.
“As Pope
Benedict XVI has reminded us, Vatican II took place between these two
Marian feasts,” he underscored.
Bishop Munilla went on to stress that Vatican II must not be
understood as a break with the past, but rather, as Pope Benedict XVI
has pointed out, as a continuity with the tradition of the Church, a
“hermeneutic of ‘reform'.”
“That is,” he continued, “the council is not a rupture with the
previous tradition, but rather a necessary reform in continuity with the
Magisterium before and after the Second Vatican Council.”
For this reason, he said, if the council is read and understood
properly, it can be “an increasingly greater force for the
ever-necessary renewal of the Church. In the Second Vatican Council we
find the essential foundation for communion between all those who make
up the Church,” he concluded.
SIC: CNA/INT'L