“The Spirit of Vatican II” isn’t so much a concept as a slogan.
For
over 40 years it’s been used to justify innovations ranging from Mass in
the vernacular (like it or not, an overwhelmingly popular change)
to co-consecration by “eucharistic ministers” (a heretical fantasy once
widely indulged in “progressive” parishes).
Above all, the Spirit of
Vatican II – a post-conciliar phenomenon rather than something that
emerged during the Council – has branded itself as the empowerment of
lay people.
The truth is more complicated. Power has been redistributed to some
lay people, but we’re not talking about the Legion of Mary.
Far be it
for me to trade in stereotypes, but if you meet a school head in her 60s
with spiky grey hair, Mary Jane shoes and a rotating theological
vocabulary of seven words of New Testament Greek, the chances are that
she’s been empowered. (She may also be very nice, it’s only fair to
say.)
As for clergy, embracing the Spirit of Vatican II has been a
necessary but not sufficient condition for getting on. Most of today’s
bishops were steeped in “collaborative ministry” long before they
received their mitres.
Traditionally, a liberal English bishop could
hold his own in a room full of Tabletistas, rolling his eyes at the
mention of the Vatican to show that he was On Their Side but also
moderating their more querulous demands.
In the past he may have
interfered on their behalf in parishes, too, if he caught a conservative
priest trying to Turn Back the Clock.
At meetings of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales,
meanwhile, there has been an unspoken assumption that curial
instructions judged to be in the Spirit of Vatican II would be followed
more scrupulously than those that failed the test.
And now?
I wonder.
The bishops did very little to implement Summorum Pontificum,
but then (a) it’s largely self-implementing and (b) no one in Rome was
twisting their arms.
Compare this to the new English translation of the
Missal, which the Tabletistas would like the bishops to drag their feet
over, but which it looks as if they’ll introduce fairly meekly.
Is this
because Rome made sure they signed up to it in advance, or because the
increasingly tired and fractious campaign against it represents “the
last expiring gasp” of the Spirit of Vatican II? That is William Oddie’s suggestion on his Catholic Herald blog.
In another post, William notes with surprise that Bishops Kieran Conry and Crispian Hollis, of all people, actually seem to be welcoming the Ordinariate.
Again, it makes you wonder what happened to the Spirit of Vatican II,
whose elderly lay guardians view with horror the prospect of special
arrangements for Anglicans opposed to women priests.
I can think of several explanations, but the one I prefer involves an
episcopal change of heart – or at least of mind – brought about by Pope
Benedict’s visit to Britain.
The message of the papal services was that
freewheeling liturgical experiments can no longer be justified with
reference to the Council.
Also, that none of the developments of the
1960s invalidated traditional pious observances such as Exposition of
the Blessed Sacrament.
And the Ordinariate?
As they say in the Vatican, Roma locuta est.
It’s a pleasing thought, anyway: the essentially bogus,
self-congratulatory “Spirit of Vatican II” evaporating as a result of
the witness of one of the last people alive who actually attended the
Council.