Benedict Reforms Vatican to Head Off New Mistakes, Yet Still Waffles on Vatican II

Multiple news outlets are reporting that on March 10th Pope Benedict XVI issued a pastoral letter to all Catholic bishops, apologizing for the controversy he caused by lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop and changing some Vatican structures and procedures to reduce the chances of such mistakes in the future. However, in defending his attempts to reconcile Catholic ultraconservatives with the church, the pope continued to voice the same kind of tepid support for Vatican II that caused such a hostile response from Catholic progressives in the first place.

Spiegel Online International offered this summary of the pope's letter: "Pope Benedict XVI has made a rare admission of a 'mishap' in the Vatican's handling of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson. A cardinal partly to blame for the debacle has been stripped of his power, and the pope says the Vatican ought to make better use of the Internet--to inform itself about crises more quickly."

The article continued: "The Ecclesia Dei Pontifical Commission, which was responsible for the Richard Williamson case, is being dissolved and will be merged with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith... As a result, Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, who triggered the Williamson debacle in mid-January, has been deprived of his power and, at almost 80, will slip into a well-earned retirement. 'Now that was quite a crash,' a prelate who witnessed the events said on Wednesday afternoon "

The article also noted that, in a substantive effort to improve communications within the Vatican bureaucracy, the pope appeared to be specifically directing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to use a regular Wednesday meeting of Vatican department heads to ensure that all of them were on the same page on issues of major significance.

The Vatican issued official translations of the pope's letter this morning. The English translation confirms the points Spiegel emphasized. The pope acknowledges that the nearly simultaneous lifting of the excommunications and Bishop Williamson's reiteration of his Holocaust denial "caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time." He said it was "An unforeseen mishap for me...that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication."

The pope said he did not intend lifting the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops to be seen as turning back the clock on Vatican II, either in general or in its specific condemnation of anti-Semitism and its outreach to the Jewish people.

Yet the pope placed most of the blame for the Catholic outcry he provoked on critics he believes are too devoted to the changes decreed by Vatican II. Thus he says: "I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility." Even while making it clear to the Society of St. Pius X that "the Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962," Benedict feels compelled to add: "But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life."

The pope goes on to accuse such defenders of Vatican II of misusing their freedom, "biting and devouring" those they criticize like the people Paul chastized in Galatians 5:13-15, and of attacking him merely because he tried to reach out to estranged fellow Catholics: "At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."

I join those commentators who have already found this over-wrought. But I am also afraid it indicates that the pope did not entirely 'get' what his critics were saying. By over-emphasizing how much Vatican II shares with the doctrinal history of the church, and by under-emphasizing the many ways in which the Council was a true reform of the past, the pope continues to exhibit the kind of tepid support for the Council for which he was criticized in the current controversy and in previous ones. Until he gives Vatican II its due, in word and in deed, he should not expect the proponents of Vatican II to agree with him or trust him or be silent when he tries to diminish the Council's importance.