An Open Invitation to All Comers to Explain the Documents of Vatican II and Their Relation to Other Church Documents

I’m a lawyer. Well, at least, I’m a former law professor. That means I like to play with not just ideas but language. In the words of One L author Scott Turow it means that I can—or at least am supposed to be able to—“frame a legal argument, to distinguish between seemingly indistinguishable ideas[, and to understand] the mysterious language of the law, full of words like estoppel and replevin.”

I have also studied theology both at the undergraduate and doctoral levels. As a result it’s easy for me to apply my legal skills in the subject of theology, which has its own mysterious language that often doesn’t mean what it seems to say.

That’s one of the keys to understanding both disciplines. When you use the word “malice” in law, it looks like a perfectly good English word. But it isn’t really English. It’s legalese. And legalese may have a meaning that is somewhat different, very different, or totally different from the word’s English meaning.

Or, in Catholic theology, the word “substance.” Sounds like a term of modern science, and it is. But Catholic theologians use it in a totally different way. And unless you understand this, you can’t understand the meaning or the theology into which it fits.

As a result, in both disciplines, you can get some interesting results. In 1761, James Otis, American lawyer, declared that “An act against the Constitution is void.” In 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall stated in Marbury v. Madison (aka, the case that President Obama forgot to read in law school) that “a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” But while the wording of these two clauses is almost identical, they in fact reflect very different ideas of constitutionalism and government.

With that in mind, I wish to raise a major problem—perhaps even a potential crisis—facing the Catholic Church. And the crisis may (or may not) hit any day now. On 15 April, the deadline will arrive for the SSPX to reply to the “doctrinal preamble” to reconciliation of SSPX to the Church that has been issued by the Vatican.

According to one commentator, the defect of the doctrinal preamble is this:

On at least four points, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are obviously in logical contradiction to the pronouncements of the previous traditional Magisterium, so that it is impossible to interpret them in keeping with the other teachings already contained in the earlier documents of the Church’s Magisterium.  Vatican II has thus broken the unity of the Magisterium, to the same extent to which it has broken the unity of its object.

Now, as I noted at the outset, one thing I do as a legal scholar is to “distinguish between seemingly indistinguishable ideas.” But I want your help on this one, because two heads (or the hive mind of the Internet) are better than one. I am going to list the four ways in which the SSPX declares that Vatican II documents have contradicted earlier teachings of the Church. Your goal is to provide, on this blog, convincing arguments that the VII documents did not contradict the earlier teachings of the Church in the ways alleged below by SSPX.

This is a big deal, because there are only a few broad possibilities here. Either 1) SSPX is wrong about this or 2) SSPX is right about this. If SSPX is wrong, then either 1a) the VII statements can be logically reconciled with earlier magisterial documents (no problem) or 1b) the VII documents are merely pastoral and not magisterial, and thus there is no actual magisterial conflict (again, no problem), or 1c) the documents prior to Vatican II did not rise to the magisterial level (unlikely, but if so, again no problem as regards the current crisis-in-the-making), or 1d) some combination of the previous three possibilities (again, no problem for our current purposes). 

If SSPX is right, then either 2a) the Church has taught doctrinal error prior to Vatican II, 2b) the Church has taught doctrinal error in Vatican II documents, or 2c) the Church has taught doctrinal error both in Vatican II documents and in magisterial documents prior to Vatican II. All three of these means that the Church has fallen into error, that it isn’t infallible, that all of its teachings on faith and morals are thus suspect, and that consequently it cannot be the One True Church established by Christ against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.

Obviously, no Catholic wants 2a, 2b, or 2c to be the case. I doubt even that anyone in SSPX wants 2a, 2b, or 2c to be the case. But to avoid 2a, 2b, and 2c, we all of us have to credibly establish that either 1a, 1b, 1c, or 1d) is the case.

So here’s where I turn it over to you. For the sake of the Faith, can you reconcile the following four statements of  Vatican II documents to the earlier magisterial statements, or in some other fashion show that there is no conflict between them? Here they are. I've provided the links; all you have to do is analyze the documents.

“[AA)] The doctrine on religious liberty, as it is expressed in no. 2 of the Declaration Dignitatis humanae, contradicts the teachings of Gregory XVI in Mirari vos and of Pius IX in Quanta cura as well as those of Pope Leo XIII in ImmortaleDei and those of Pope Pius XI in Quas primas.

“[BB)] The doctrine on the Church, as it is expressed in no. 8 of the Constitution Lumen gentium, contradicts the teachings of Pope Pius XII in Mystici corporis and Humani generis.

“[CC)] The doctrine on ecumenism, as it is expressed in no. 8 of Lumen gentium and no. 3 of the Decree Unitatis redintegratio, contradicts the teachings of Pope Pius IX in propositions 16 and 17 of the Syllabus, those of Leo XIII in Satis cognitum, and those of Pope Pius XI in Mortalium animos.

“[DD)] The doctrine on collegiality, as it is expressed in no. 22 of the Constitution Lumen gentium, including no. 3 of the Nota praevia [Explanatory Note], contradicts the teachings of the First Vatican Council on the uniqueness of the subject of supreme power in the Church, in the Constitution Pastor aeternus.”

     Please spread this out to other Catholic blogs and ask people to come comment here in good faith. Thanks.