First posted in 2012, some extracts from Msgr. Gherardini's book on Vatican II wherein he states the council needs to be reexamined and reassessed.
Vatican II: a "stupefying superficiality" of Magisterium
50 years ago today (October 11, 1962 to October 11, 2012) the Second Vatican Council first convened. Already the celebrations have begun with enthusiastic, downright dithyrambic eulogies. Some do not hesitate to declare that the Church was genuinely re-founded by that Council, thus putting an end to the Constantinian Era that extended from the Edict of Milan in 313 until the saving date of October 11, 1962. Pardon the understatement!
In his book, Vatican II, a Much-Needed Discussion, Msgr. Brunero Gherardini wrote in 2009:
With a stupefying superficiality they stretched out over the previous Magisterium a veil, or a shroud, preventing the observer from taking his bearings from the past, from the Tradition that is a constitutive part of the Church and the central pillar of Christianity. [In this view] there was nothing and there must be nothing but the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council."
And he added further on:
It seems to me, now that the time for applause has passed, that an historical and critical reflection on the conciliar documents is imperative today by necessity: a reflection that investigates the connections between these documents (if there are indeed any) with the Catholic Tradition in its continuity.
I consider such a reflection as one of the most urgent duties of the Church’s Magisterium, of every bishop and of the Catholic educational institutions, for the good of the Church; in addition to this duty there is the right of the entire people of God to have a clear and objective explanation of what Vatican II was on the historical, ethical and dogmatic level. This is a matter of the faith and of authentic Christian witness."
Source: DICI, 10-12-2012
