The pope's memories of Vatican II, published today in L'Osservatore Romano and covered by Catholic News Service, highlight once again the battle over the council's interpretation on its 50th birthday. His money quote: "The council fathers neither could nor wished to create a new or different church. They had neither the authority nor the mandate to do so. That is why a hermeneutic of rupture is so absurd and is contrary to the spirit and the will of the council fathers."
Well that clears things up--except that it doesn't. It's true enough that the bishops at Vatican II didn't wish to create a new church, but I'm not sure any proponent of a more "developmental" approach to the teaching of the council would argue that. If anything, I would argue that the council was restoring to the church the richness of its tradition, which was put in the icebox by the Council of Trent after the Reformation and then locked by the bishops at Vatican I who saw the church's power evaporating as modernity--and by that I mean liberal democracy--advanced.
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