What are Vatican II's best doctrinal developments?

[Geremia]

Much has been discussed about the Modernism of Vatican II, but what's are Vatican II's best doctrinal developments?

[Philip G.]

I don't think I can categorize any of its developments as good and therefore best.  Any positive direction it appears it may have taken, it overshot it in a manner making it equally negative. 

[Gardener]

What doctrine did Vatican 2 declare in any sense as understood for declaration as such?

[TheReturnofLive]

Much has been discussed about the Modernism of Vatican II, but what's are Vatican II's best doctrinal developments?

Rejecting Feeneyism, rejecting the notion that being ethnically Jewish involves an intrinsic curse because of a verse in Matthew...

Those are two things that needed to be rejected imho.

And while I hate how destructive Vatican II was to the liturgy - both Western and Eastern - it at least allowed people to realize what they had and appreciate what they still have. "You never know what you have till it's gone."

[Prayerful]

Much has been discussed about the Modernism of Vatican II, but what's are Vatican II's best doctrinal developments?

Rejecting Feeneyism, rejecting the notion that being ethnically Jewish involves an intrinsic curse because of a verse in Matthew...

Those are two things that needed to be rejected imho.

And while I hate how destructive Vatican II was to the liturgy - both Western and Eastern - it at least allowed people to realize what they had and appreciate what they still have. "You never know what you have till it's gone."

Just no. Don't be silly. And when someone uses the term 'Feeneyism' as a pejorative denial of the necessity of the Church for Salvation, ignoring not just Pope after Pope, but something as basic as Ephesians iv. 5, that there be 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism', it is suggestive of uncertain orthodoxy. Well you are a schismatic, deliberately separating yourself from the Chair of Peter, putting your life hereafter in peril. V2 defined no new dogmas (see the speech of Paul VI at the close of Council), and while it lead it to a metacising of the cancer of Euro-American Modernism throughout the world, but just said the same things is too loose a fashion. Fr Feeney was victim of an uncanonical excommunication, long endured until Paul VI lifted it, procured by Richard Cardinal Cushing, later post V2 arch-modernist (and subject of accusations) for having offending the princeling Bobby Kennedy.

[Kreuzritter]

I wasn't aware that it is "Orthodox" to reject Mark 16:16 and hold that faith in Jesus Christ isn't necessary for salvation. But if you're talking about "Feeneyism" as some hardline caricature of declaring all nominal Orthodox and Protestants to be certainly lost, or people who have encountered Christ outside of the visible community of the Church, I'm not aware of Father Feeney having taught that.

[Michael Wilson]

I think that one of the things that Conservative admirers of the Council have pointed to, is the emphasis on the fact that God calls all Catholics to Sanctity and not just those in the priestly and religious life. The second thing is the teaching in L.G. That declared that Bishops receive their jurisdiction from the Pope and not from their Episcopal Consecration. My own take on the other hand, is that these two good things in themselves, don't balance out the over all evil contained in the Council documents and unleashed on the Church in its aftermath. 

[TheReturnofLive]

When I say Feeyenism, I'm referring to the caricature of a strict requiring a water Baptism for Salvation, which is demonstrably false.

But no, Faith is required for Salvation, as is the Church, and Orthodoxy rejects an invisible Church ecclesiology.

I think Vatican II did more harm than good, but I think those are two positive aspects of Vatican II.

[Maximilian]

Rejecting Feeneyism,

The bogeyman of Feeneyism -- Yes, you have hit the nail on the head in describing the zeitgeist of Vatican II.

"Everything is just hunky-dory, except there is that one fly in the ointment; if only we could eliminate Fr. Feeney, then it would be even more perfect."

Everything was peace and love, but there was that one black cloud on the horizon, that one buzzkill who was harshing the mellow, while ten thousand guitars were strumming away.



The one man who saw it all coming 10 years ahead of time, unlike the false prophets who failed to recognize reality 10 years after it had happened. The one man who analyzed the cause and correctly predicted the effect.

The one man whose followers survived the Vatican II apocalypse with their Faith intact. Whose followers decades later still maintain several on-going successful apostolates. The man who died in communion with the Catholic Faith that he never abandoned, at a time when hundreds of thousands of priests and nuns were breaking their vows (including the one featured in the video above who committed suicide while living in a lesbian relationship).

Thank goodness we have cast out from among us this wicked scapegoat. Let him take upon himself the curse that falls upon our people.

https://fatherfeeney.wordpress.com/

[Xavier]

It's worth recalling Fr. Feeney died (after receiving Extreme Unction!) in visible communion with the Catholic Church. Father professed the Athanasian Creed and thus the Church declared everything all right. Later on in life, Father modified his opinion to, "There is no one about to die in the state of grace to whom God cannot provide Baptism, and indeed, Baptism of Water" a statement which seems to also be St. Benedict centre's position and that Rome accepted as a legitimate theological opinion. More on that elsewhere.

I think the jury is still out on Vatican II. I stand by what I said in another thread about, to take just two examples, the Church in America and the Church in Ireland, in the decades before and immediately after Vatican II. We clearly see that something went terribly wrong. My view is that it was a mistake to think "there are no errors that need condemning" at this time, as sadly both Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI seemed to be thinking. Rather, the situation was more grave arguably than ever before in Church history, and dogmatic definitions against abortion and birth control especially and first of all should have been the first order of the Council. Condemnations of Communism like Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII had done; praise and explicit mention for the heroic acts of Pope Pius XII during WWII in opposing Nazism also and saving countless Jewish lives, as Pinchas Lapide and many Jewish scholars themselves now admit. Reiteration of a call to the Jewish people and all non-Christians to come to Christ and find salvation to Him.

My question is, how are Bishops and Priests, or others, who read Vatican II, helped and motivated to edify their flocks and evangelize non-Christians more? I think this is where the biggest problem lies. Imagine a missionary in a country in the Middle East. He wants to evangelize Muslims. But instead he reads Nostra Aetate and then may either conclude that's not so important now, or at least he is not helped in the same way that he would be if he read St. John Damascene, St. Thomas and St. John Bosco beside other Doctors on Islam.

Detailed Thomistic proofs of God's existence against the new atheism and secularism that was then developing, condemnations of evolutionism and polygenism, reiteration of the Accuracy and History of Sacred Scripture right from the beginning, and so on should have come. Specific approaches to refuting certain errors and evangelizing groups of people should have been developed, as the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church always did, and with detailed references to their works; e.g. compilations of the Messianic Prophesies and their fulfilment in Christ for the Jews, a Tradition that goes back to St. Paul's preaching in the synagogues; demonstrations of the Infinite superiority of Christ to Mohammed as St. Damascene and St. Thomas developed for Muslims, with much focus on the necessity of Christ and Baptism for salvation; and similarly documents aimed at reconciling Protestants and Orthodox to the Catholic Church. We are promised a Council like that one day by Fr. Holzhauzer, perhaps it will be Vatican III, or the Second Council of Trent, or something.

I agree with Bishop Fellay's view on Vatican II, and think Bishop Athanasius', who called for a syllabus condemning some errors that have cropped up after it, is also workable. The main thing is to remedy and rectify loss of vocations. Less importance given to conversions and evangelism. Loss of missionary zeal and appreciation of the importance of the Sacraments in general. The Sacrament of Holy Baptism for our non-Christian friends; the Sacrament of Confirmation for Catholics. The Sacraments of Confession and the importance of frequenting it, even weekly, as Doctors recommend; the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, that is the Eucharist and Holy Mass. TLM should have remained the normative Mass of the Roman rite and there should have been documents about Prayer, Devotions, the life of Grace, and such that spoke of Holy Mass and Holy Communion especially with infinite reverence; this is a beautiful book on the Mass (TLM) published in the 19th century, https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Sacrifice-Mass-Michael-Mueller-ebook/dp/B010CIN952

[Geremia]

LG's "universal call to holiness" ch. 5, correctly interpreted in the non-ecumaniacal sense, settled a debate of whether "the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith and the union with God which results therefrom [is] an intrinsically extraordinary grace, or is it, on the contrary, in the normal way of sanctity" (cf. ch. 6 of Christian Perfection & Contemplation by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.).

For example:

all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity [...] all the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state