Cardinal Says Pope Isn't "Undoing" Vatican II

Denies Media Rumors About Reversal Documents

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 28, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's closest collaborator is denying media rumors that the Pontiff is working to gradually "undo" the changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's secretary of state, stated this in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano published Thursday.

He addressed the debate surrounding false rumors in the Italian media about supposed documents that would reverse changes in the Church since Vatican II, especially regarding the liturgy.MORE...

NOTE:

Recently there have been some developments which suggest that a move toward orthodox Tradition is underway in the Vatican. Benedict XVI seems to have admitted that Vatican II and its subsequent implementation (in retrospect) represented to some extent a rupture with the Traditional Roman Catholic Church See THIS.... He also reversed the excommunications of certain SSPX clergy and through his Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum July 2007, made the Latin Mass of John XXIII available without indult, correctly stating that the Latin Mass has never been juridically abrogated.

Unfortunately, in the same document he upheld the conciliar and post conciliar liturgical changes as the norm while labeling the Latin Mass an extraordinary form ("the missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II obviously is and continues to be the normal form -- the 'forma ordinaria' -- of the Eucharistic liturgy... As for the use of the 1962 'missale' as a 'forma extraordinaria' of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.")

It is certainly possible that all of these movements in the direction of Tradition are genuine attempts on the part of Benedict XVI to move the Church back to pre-Vatican II orthodoxy. However, they could also be nothing but head-fakes designed to pacify conservative Catholic's who while preferring the Latin Mass are willing to accept the Novus Ordo Missae and the conciliar New Theology. The preponderance of the evidence to date from my perspective is that Benedict has not made the monumental decision to either radically correct the conciliar church and or to reinstate the Tridentine Latin Mass of Pope St. Pius V both of which are required if there is to be a return to Traditional orthodox Roman Catholicism--the True Faith of Jesus Christ.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert