SiSiNoNo: The Errors of Vatican II

[Stone]

SiSiNoNo
March 2003 No. 51

The Errors of Vatican II

PART II

In Part 1 of what promises to be a lengthy serialization, we discussed the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council in general. In this overview, we especially highlighted its ambiguous nature as to the law, how at the outset it presented itself to the world, and some general contradictions and omissions in some of its texts.

In Part 2, we will begin to summarize the errors ascribed to Vatican II in particular, starting with a basic division of its errors into those which are doctrinal and those which are pastoral (recognizing that such a distinction is not always well-demarcated). This installment will concentrate on the doctrinal errors concerning: 1) notions of "Tradition" and "Catholic Truth," 2) the Catholic Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary, 3) the Holy Mass and the Sacred Liturgy.

DOCTRINAL ERRORS

The "Rethinking" of Tradition and the Doctrine of the Church

Vatican II's doctrinal errors emerge from propositions that, wholly or in part, contradict what has always been taught by the Church or that obscure, diminish, or alter it. These errors are formulated in all of the texts-and are treated in texts that in general concern fundamental truths-in which the Council wanted to express its own doctrine and its "rethinking" of sacred Tradition and Church teaching:

This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church-the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old (Dignitatis Humanae).

To deduce how much this last assertion corresponds to reality we will discuss in the course of this series of articles the following topics of which the first three are treated here. The errors in doctrine concern:

1. the ideas of Tradition and Catholic truth;
2. the Holy Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary;
3. the Holy Mass and the Sacred Liturgy;
4. the Priesthood;
5. the Incarnation and Redemption, and the concept of "Man";
6. the "Kingdom of God";
7. the sacrament of Matrimony and the condition of woman;
8. the sects, heretics, and schismatics (i.e., the so-called "separated brethren");
9. non-Christian religions;
10. politics, the political community;
11. the relationship between Church and State;
12. the notion of "Religious Liberty" and the role of individual conscience

PASTORAL ERRORS

A Permanent "Living-Together" Relationship with Heretics and Schismatics

Essentially, pastoral errors consist of proposing bad pastoral teaching-bad because the Council's bad doctrinal errors are put into practice and/or also wholly or in part, contradict or alter the Church's traditional pastoral teachings or appear per se to contradict them.

From a general point of view, Vatican II's entire pastoral outlook is polluted because it is founded on aggiornamento, that is, on the principle of dialogue with error, rather than with those who are in error in order to convert them.

When we begin to discuss them, we shall present the pastoral errors in the following way. Preliminarily, we shall make a synthetic analysis of the false value placed on man and the world, deprived as it is of any essential reference to Church teaching and Catholic thinking. This is primarily developed in Gaudium et Spes and comprises the theoretical basis for a major part of Conciliar pastoral teaching. Next, we shall go on to give some examples of this bad pastoral teaching as contained in Gaudium et Spes and in doctrinal documents.

From these examples we shall see how Vatican II's pastoral teaching always articulates its two basic policy lines and how they are connected, that is: 1) the clerical aggiornamento (or updating) in all of its components to be in line with modern, contemporary culture in all of its forms-humanistic, scientific, technical, artistic, etc.-, 2) the "ecumenical" collaboration of priests and faithful with the so-called "separated brethren," with other religions, with all men, not in order to convert them to the one true faith, but to ally with them on behalf of mankind's progress and unity.

For the rest, ecumenism, clearly understood in the sense of article 8 of Lumen Gentium (§8), and of paragraphs 1-4 of Unitatis Redintegratio, proclaimed as true and proper the general principle of the pastoral teaching in UR (§24):

It is the urgent wish of this Holy Council that the measures undertaken by the sons of the Catholic Church should develop in conjunction with those of our separated brethren so that no obstacle be put in the ways of divine Providence and no preconceived judgments impair the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

This invitation to permanent symbiosis with heretics and schismatics was naturally accepted and put into action. This practical implementation allows us to assert that the ecumenical degeneration in the celebration of worship and in pastoral activity that are today so widely diffused have their roots in the Second Vatican Council itself and not in the so-called "post-Conciliar period."

Errors in pastoral teaching concern the following of which we will treat separately later in this series:

1. the interpretation of the meaning and significance of the contemporary world;
2. aspects of the Sacred Liturgy;
3. aspects in the study and teaching of doctrine;
4. the formation of religious and seminarians; the office and duties of bishops and priests;
5. the formation of and directives given to missionaries;
6. directives given to the lay apostolate;
7. the aggiornamento in education.


So, let us now move on to speak of the first three doctrinal errors of Vatican II, beginning with its errors concerning ideas of Tradition and Catholic truth.

1. Errors Concerning the Ideas of Tradition and of Catholic Truth

• Vatican II sports an erroneous concept of Sacred Tradition as a complex of teaching, thanks to which as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her (Dei Verbum§8).
  
  This is to make it sound as though Tradition, which guards the deposit of faith from the time of the Apostles' preaching, does not already possess "the fullness of divine truth!" In the reading of the above, one is led to believe there might be something else to be added or that what is already there can be modified.
  
  This idea of the Church being in "incessant tension" with the "fullness of divine truth" openly contradicts the Church's idea of the "deposit of faith" (I Tim. 6:20). In turn, this error is connected to "subjectivism"-the signature of modern thinking-typified by the "New Theology," of which the reigning idea is that everything is always moving in a continual upward progression, and that absolute truth does not exist, rather, only the endless tending of a subject toward a truth whose endpoint is himself.
  

• Further, Vatican II teaches the incredible assertion, contrary to common sense, that all of Tradition, should be subjected to a "continual reform." Thus if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in church discipline, or even in the way that church teaching has been formulated-to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself-these can and should be set right at the opportune moment (UR §6; Gaudium et Spes [hereafter GS] §62). This last statement, proclaimed in the vernacular version of John XXIII's October 11, 1962 Inaugural Address and which Pope Paul VI confirmed to the letter, is a principle condemned by St. Pius X (Pascendi §11; Lamentabili§§63,64} and Pius XII (Humani Generis).
  

• The following proposition, professed by the Council to justify religious liberty, is completely false in relation to the truth of Catholicism, since divine truth surpasses the capacity of our intellect, and cannot be believed without the help of Grace.

  This Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power (Dignitatis Humanae [hereafter DH], §1).

  The Church has always taught that faith is a gift of God. Moreover, this assertion negates the consequences of original sin in the intellect and will, because of which they are wounded and weakened and therefore prone to errors and deception.
  

2. Errors Concerning the Holy Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary

• Vatican II teaches a false notion of the Holy Church in its error known as the "subsistit in." Due to this error, the concept of the Church is no longer that of the one, true Church of Christ as was always taught. According to its bold assertion the "Church of Christ" subsists in the Catholic Church and also "through God's goodness" in "multiple elements of sanctification and truth" which are outside her (LG §8; DH §1; UR §3).
  
  Contrary to the Faith, these statements amount to affirming that there can be salvation of souls outside the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic Church is no longer the unique means of salvation. Thus, too, the communities of heretics and schismatics are also "instruments of salvation" (UR §3), despite their "deficiencies," because "the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church" (UR §3).
  
  Still left to the Catholic Church is that it is "the all-embracing means of salvation" since it is "the general means of salvation" (ibid). Therefore, the Church finds herself demoted from being the sole means of salvation to being just "a general means"-a very obscure phrase. Due to these statements, the Catholic Church now provides "the all-embracing means of salvation" yet, it provides only the fullness of means and not the only means. This means that, in the mind of the Second Vatican Council, there are means said to be less full which confer salvation. But salvation in itself cannot be "less full," since there is no idea of being "half-saved." Due to these less full means being now found among the brethren termed "separated" and due to their enjoying the Holy Spirit's assistance, salvation can be obtained through them not as individuals but in terms of their being separated communities of heretics and schismatics.
  
  We find ourselves faced with a manifest theological error, since the "separated" communities are precisely so because they have refused the Holy Spirit's help in correcting their own errors which have led them to be separated. The Council's new doctrine is also incoherent at the level of logic because it is incomprehensible how means of salvation which contain "deficiencies" (and are thus less than those of the Catholic Church) can give the same salvation offered by the Catholic Church. Unequal means would have to correspond to unequal results, not the same result! [See Sidebar "Note on Dominus Jesus — Ed.]
  

• The obscure notion of the "Church of Christ" as "Trinitarian mystery," which is the obscure Trinitarian ecclesiology according to which a succession takes place from the Church of the Father to the Church of the Son, and then to the Church of the Holy Spirit(LG §§2-4), a notion which is unknown in the deposit of Faith. According to it, apparently the result of a deformation of a passage of St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. Ill, 24, 1), they openly profess a rejuvenation and renewal of the Church by the work of the Holy Spirit, as if we were in a final third age of the Church (LG §4). This perspective seems to reaffirm the errors of Joachim of Floris (d. 1202) condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council.
  

• An erroneous notion of collegiality. This idea is juridically abnormal because it recognizes, contrary to tradition and the Church's constitution, two subjects of the supreme power of jurisdiction: the Sovereign Pontiff and the College of Bishops with, at its head, the Pope, although only the latter can exercise it freely (LG §22; also Nota Praevia). Moreover, this erroneous collegiality entails the de facto disappearance of the personal responsibility of each bishop in the government of his diocese, and its replacement by the collective responsibility of the episcopal conferences (Christus Dominus [CD] §37), which now also are ascribed legislative powers (CD §38), and even a wide autonomy in numerous domains traditionally reserved to the exclusive competence of the Holy See.
  

• Vatican II presents a gravely erroneous and ambiguous representation of the traditional definition of the Catholic Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. This is especially clear in LG, which is dedicated to this point:
  

  In the human nature united to Himself the Son of God, by overcoming death through His own death and resurrection, redeemed man and remolded him into a new creature (cf. Gal. 6:15; II Cor. 5:17) (LG§7).

  
  The idea here seems to express the Redemption as already having taken place for each man(!) and that from that moment it is declared that man was transformed "into a new creature," not because he believed in Christ, not because he was converted and became a Catholic with the help of the Holy Ghost, not by his faith supported by grace (as clearly stated in Gal. 6:15 and II Cor. 5:17) but improperly quoted by the Council), but through the fact, per se, of Christ's Incarnation, sacrifice, and even His Resurrection. Therefore, the "Mystical Body" will be made up of "new creatures," who are considered to have been remolded in this way. This is the error of the objective and universal redemption, the battering ram of the "New Theology." It makes a total abstraction of the roles of free will, faith, and works in obtaining salvation. Obviously, the aim of this concept is to assimilate the "Mystical Body of Christ" into humanity (LG§1).
  

• Another false notion of Vatican II is that of the "Church," which is newly conceived as "the people of God" and no longer as "the Mystical Body of Christ"(LG §§9-13) which is definitively more exclusive. On the one hand, the new definition takes the part for the whole, meaning that it takes the "people of God," mentioned in I Pet. 2:10, for the totality of the Church. This is a radical twist lending itself to a strictly "democratic" and "communitarian" vision of the Church herself, a vision alien to Catholic Tradition but close to the thinking and meaning of Protestant heretics. On the other hand, the hierarchy is included in the idea of "people," and so are defined simply as "members of the people of God" (LG§13). This is an unusual and indefensible "communitarian" perspective. According to this new perspective, the hierarchy is dumbed down and made to seem to participate in the Mystical Body of Christ along with "the people."
  
  This false notion of "the people of God" is superimposed on the orthodox idea of the "Mystical Body." In this new conception, the hierarchy now participates in the "collective" as represented by the "people of God." In this new view, the priest loses his authentic meaning because he becomes a mere function of the "people of God" as a whole. This function is exercised under two forms:
  1. the "common priesthood of the faithful," and
  2. the "ministerial" or "hierarchic" priesthood, that is, the authentic priesthood of priests.
  

• Vatican II obscures the idea of the Church's holiness, which belongs to the deposit of faith.
  Similarly, the Church encompasses with her love all those who are poor and who suffer, the image of the poor and suffering founder. She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ. Christ, "holy, innocent and undefiled" (Heb. 7:26) knew nothing of sin (II Cor. 5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb. 2:17).
  

  The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal (LG§8).

  
  This is an obvious theological error, since it is the sinnerwho is in need of purification, not the Church (!), thanks to whom the sinner obtains it. Holiness and perfection belong to the Catholic Church in as much as it is the Mystical Body of Christ, founded by Him and governed through the intermediary of the Holy Ghost, that is, always safeguarded by the Church through the deposit of Faith and the Sacraments. For us, these have a religious, metaphysical, and theological value, which the faults of Churchmen or the faithful cannot, by definition, damage. Therefore, it is completely erroneous to insist that those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from the mercy of God for the offences committed against Him and are at the same time reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins (LG §11).
  
  It is also erroneous to insist that "the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect ..." (LG §48) because of sin, which continually wounds her. This is wrong to say because sin offends God, but wounds and therefore damages only whoever commits it. Punishment only applies to the sinner since judgment is for the individual. It is not in the deposit of Faith that the Catholic Church herself can be "wounded" by the sins of her members.
  

• By its man-centeredness, Vatican II has deformed the notion of "sin."
  

  For sin brought man to a lower state, forcing him away from the completeness that is his to attain (GS§13).

  In other words, sin prevents man from attaining his "fullness." Rather, it should say that, sin "prevents him from attaining his salvation." The error promotes the belief that man's "fullness" and the absence of contradictions within himself are the principal values and, moreover, are elements of the idea of sin. On the contrary, the Church's perennial teaching is that sin is an offense committed against God because of which we merit legitimate punishment, including eternal damnation. This truth of the Faith was not recalled in any of the Council's texts.
  

• There is an attribution of a new mission to the Holy See - to bring about human unity - which does not correspond to anything ever taught before in the Catholic Church. LG§1 asserts:
  

  Since the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of sacrament-a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and unity among all men - she here purposes, for the benefit of the faithful and of the whole world, to set forth, as clearly as possible, and in the tradition laid down by earlier Councils, her own nature and universal mission. The condition of the modern world lends greater urgency to this duty of the Church; for, while men of the present day are drawn ever more closely together by social, technical, and cultural bonds, it still remains for them to achieve full unity in Christ.

  
  This is not surprising, since Article 42 of GSsays "the encouragement of unity is in harmony with the deepest nature of the Church's mission..." and then quotes the above passage from LGto support itself.
  
  But this does not mean unity in service of the salvation of souls, a unity that is therefore attained through conversion to Catholicism. Rather, this unity seems to result merely from the "intimate union with God" of the entire human race as such. This idea was introduced into the Council's texts thanks to a heterodox reinterpretation, typical of the "New Theology," of the dogmas of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Those texts were turned upside down to the extent of pushing them aside in order to put into place the idea of the so-called "objective" Redemption being realized, thanks to the Incarnation, in all men, independently of their conscience and will, as if they were "anonymous" Christians.
  
  But the Church's mission is the one that Our Lord gave her: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptising them..." (Mt. 28:19). Thus, the Church's "intimate mission" is to convert the greatest possible number of souls to Christ before the Parousia, without caring about bringing about the unity of the human race, a chimeric ideal, and one that is intrinsically anti-Christian because it is a form of the divinization of man, exalting him and gazing upon him, an ideal imported from Illuminist philosophy and piously professed by Freemasonry.[/i]
  

• Vatican II tells us "the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith"[/color](LG§58), as if-for one could understand her "pilgrimage of faith" in this way - from the Annunciation, she did not know that Jesus was the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, the prophesied Messiah now announced.
  

• The Council documents teach another gravely inadequate idea of the Church, reducing her to just one sociological, descriptive, and simple aspect, which is summarized in this excerpt:
  

  The Church also claims freedom for herself as a society of men with the right to live in civil society in accordance with the demands of the Christian faith (DH§13).

  
  This leads to complete amnesia of the fact that the Church has always been [deemed] as a perfect society by nature and by law due to Her divine institution and exalted end:
  

  And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most exalted of all authority, nor can it be looked upon as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it (Immortale Dei, Leo XIII).

  Vatican II guarded against reaffirming this traditional doctrine of the Church's indirect power over civil society and the State.
  
  
  3. Errors Concerning the Holy Mass and Sacred Liturgy
  
  •Vatican II officially adopted the obscurantist idea of the "Paschal mystery," the battering ram of the "New Theology." Redemption is realized principally "in the paschal mystery of the passion, resurrection and ascension" of Christ (Sacrosanctum Concilium [hereafter SC] §5).
  

  Therefore, redemption is no longer principally the result from the Crucifixion's value as an expiatory sacrifice by which divine justice was satisfied. Moreover, the Holy Mass is identified with the "Paschal Mystery." The Council declared that the Church, from its beginning, was always brought together in an assembly "to celebrate the Paschal mystery" (SC§6) and that she "celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day"(SC§106)

  
  Next, Baptism is treated. By baptism, "men are grafted onto the Paschal mystery of Christ" (SC§6), and not that it causes them to enter into the Holy Church, as if the "Paschal mystery" were the same thing as the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a vague, indeterminate, irrational definition that (precisely because of these characteristics) permits altering the meaning of the Redemption and the Mass, thereby hiding the sacrificial and expiatory nature of the latter behind emphasis on the Resurrection and the Ascension-on the Glorious Christ instead of the Suffering Christ-contrary to what was affirmed at Trent.
  
  •The Second Vatican Council is guilty of error in its unclear and incomplete definition of the Holy Mass as "a memorial of [our Lord's] death and resurrection..." with death and resurrection placed on the same level and without the least mention of the dogma of transubstantiation or of the character of the Mass itself as a propitiatory sacrifice (SC§§47).
  
  Because of this silence, this definition falls again into the category solemnly condemned by Pope Pius VI as being "pernicious, unfaithful to the explanation of Catholic truth on the dogma of the transubstantiation, favorable to heretics" (Auctorem Fidei). It also introduces a false concept of the Holy Mass, a concept which served as the basis for the new liturgy desired by the Council, thanks to which the errors of the "New Theology" were delivered to the faithful.
  
  The Protestant taint of this definition devolves even more clearly in Article 106 of SC: “the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord's day or Sunday. For on this day Christ's faithful are bound to come together into one place. They should listen to the word of God and take part in the Eucharist, thus calling to mind the passion, resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God who "has begotten them again, through the resurrection of Christ from the dead, unto a living hope" (I Pet. 1:3).”
  
  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the original Latin text shows more clearly than the English that, according to SC, the Holy Mass's end]is memorial and praise. For more proof of this prevailing mentality, see also Ad Gentes Divinitus (§14):
  

  “catechumens participate in the Holy Mass, meaning that they "celebrate with all the people of God the memorial of the death of the Lord" in which the Holy Mass is simply the memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ celebrated by all Christian people.”

  
  There is not the least mention of the renewed Sacrifice of the Cross offered in an unbloody way for the expiation and pardon of our sins. It should be noted here that already in these Articles there is the definition of the Mass that will be again vigorously stated in the deadly Article 7 of the 1969 Institutio Generalis of the new Roman Missal. This was a definition which, at the time, elicited protests from many of the faithful and priests, including the famous positions taken by Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani because of these demonstrably Protestant words of heretical character: "The Lord's Supper is the assembly or meeting of the People of God, met together with a priest presiding, to celebrate the Memorial of the Lord."
  
  Compare this definition with the orthodox one contained in the Catechism of Saint Pius X:
  No. 159. What is the Holy Mass? The Holy Mass is the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which, under the species of bread and wine, are offered by the priest to God on the altar in memory and renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
  
  •The spirit of Vatican II is to elevate the Eucharistic assembly, presided over by the priest, to being the center of the visible Church: “Therefore, the eucharistic celebration is the center of the assembly of the faithful over which the priest presides. Hence priests teach the faithful to offer the divine victim to God the Father in the sacrifice of the Mass and with the victim to make an offering of their whole life (Presbyterorum Ordinis §5).”
  
  Notice, therefore, the function of the priest in the Holy Mass is reduced to that of teaching the faithful to offer the divine victim and themselves in union with that victim. Does this mean that the priest must "teach [the faithful] to offer the divine victim" and remain silent about the fact that, above all, the priest makes the offering in persona Christi behalf of sinful men for the expiation of their sins?!
  
  Also manifested here is the idea of the concelebration of the priest and the people, expressly condemned by the pre-Conciliar Magisterium. This is an idea based on the Protestant false conception that the faithful are strictly all priests of the New Testament by reason of baptism, from which it follows that there can be no real distinction between the "priesthood of the faithful" and the "hierarchic priesthood."
  
  •Vatican II is guilty of the specific meaning attributed to the "Liturgy of the Word," a meaning not limited to preaching and the sermon, but considered capable of realizing in itself Christ's presence in the Holy Mass. Thus, SC states:
  

  "[Christ] is present in his word since it is he who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in Church" (§7).

  The "word" is one of the sensible signs by which man's sanctification under the guise of sign perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each to these signs...(SC §7; also see SC §10).
  
  And so:
  

  “[T]he preaching of the Word is required for the sacramental ministry itself, since the sacraments are sacraments of faith, drawing their origin and nourishment from the Word. This is of paramount importance in the case of the liturgy of the Word within the celebration of Mass where there is an inseparable union of the proclamation of the Lord's death and resurrection, the response of its hearers and the offering of itself by which Christ confirmed the new covenant in his blood. In this offering the faithful share both by their sacrificial sentiments and by the reception of the sacrament. (Presbyterorum Ordinis §4).”

  From this passage as well as from the previously quoted ones, “Scripture seen in this way is no longer meant for the instruction of faith, a faith from which mystical experience can flow. Now Scripture is meant to produce mystical experience, an experience which is supposed to nourish knowledge of the faith (The Problem of the Liturgical Reform: A Theological and Liturgical Study, p.66. Angelus Press.).”
  
  This is an irrational concept of Protestant origin and does not conform to the deposit of Faith. It leads to thinking of the Holy Mass as merely spiritual nourishment of the collective of the faithful.
  
  •The Second Vatican Council devalued the "private Mass" which the Holy Church always allowed, and which was celebrated without the presence and active participation of the faithful, but was individual and quasi-private. This devaluation was expressly disapproved by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei, yet Vatican II affirmed it:
  

  “It must be emphasized that rites which are meant to be celebrated in common, with the faithful present and actively participating, should as far as possible be celebrated in that way rather than by an individual and quasi-privately. This applies with special force to the celebration of Mass (even though every Mass has of itself a public and social nature) and to the administration of the sacraments (SC, §27).”

  
  Martin Luther was particularly hostile to the "private Mass" and attributed his fervor in opposing it to the Devil's inspiration.
  
  •Vatican II promoted the adaptation of worship to secular culture, to the different traditions and temperaments of people, to their language, music, and art, through creativity and liturgical experimentation (SC§§37-40,90,119) and through simplification of the rite itself (SC§§21,34). This was against the constant teaching of the Magisterium according to which it was the peoples' cultures that must adapt to the exigencies of the Catholic rite, with nothing ever having been conceded to creativity or experimentation or to any idea of men's temperaments in any given time in history.
  
  •The Second Vatican Council introduced the novel, unheard-of, and extraordinary competence attributed to episcopal conferences in liturgical matters, including a broad faculty for experimenting with new forms of worship (SC §§§22,39,40), as against the constant teaching of the Magisterium, which always reserved all competence in that area to the Sovereign Pontiff, and was always hostile to all innovation in the liturgical domain (Inter Gravissimas, Gregory XVI, Feb. 3, 1832.).
  
  -Canonicus
  
  Translated by Suzanne M. Rini and edited by Fr. Kenneth Novak. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975). All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
  
  [Red font emphasis - The Catacombs. All other emphasis in the original.]