At Lifesite I read of the goofy notions of a Polish cardinal who occupies the see once held by Karol Card. Wojtyla.
You might recall that, not so long ago, there have been assertions that the entirety of the Church’s tradition, practice, liturgy, must be interpreted/reinterpreted through the lens of Vatican II. That’s clearly absurd, since it a) there is no “Vatican II” in that there isn’t total agreement about its meaning in the 60s (to which the Council Fathers intended to speak) for us in 2026 (60+ years later) and it b) elevates it above all other ecumenical councils and decisions made by the Church.
On 3 October 2026, Grzegorz Card. Ryś, Archbishop of Kraków, advanced his understanding of Vatican II and its relationship to Catholic Tradition.
His central propositions gleaned from the Lifesite piece are these:
1. Vatican II is the interpretive key to the whole of Catholic Tradition. Rather than simply interpreting the Council within the Church’s preceding Tradition, Catholics must read the entire Tradition in light of the Council. He claims this is necessary to remain within the Church.
2. Vatican II recovered an older, more authentic current of Tradition. The Council supposedly returned to the earliest Tradition, which provides the standard against which subsequent developments must be measured. I have no idea what he is talking about. So, gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
3. Rejecting the Council threatens ecclesial communion. Ryś expresses particular concern about Catholics who attribute the Church’s contemporary difficulties to Vatican II. He seems to equate having difficulties with some non-binding, non-dogmatic document of the Council with rejecting the Council.
4. The Church must move from kingship toward service. He contrasts Catholic Action’s traditional spirituality of Christ the King with a conciliar emphasis on Christ the Servant, suggesting that older institutions require substantial theological reconstruction. Telling: he rejects the Social Kingship of Christ. What I wonder is, is emphasis of Christ as Servant an about face against Christ as King? (Hint: that would be stupid, of course.)
5. Openness is identified with mercy. He contrasts a merciful, open Church with an unmerciful, closed Church, although he acknowledges that progressives can themselves be intolerant of opposing views. I would add is that progressives are the most closed to opposing views.
6. The Church’s future lies in participatory communities. He favors smaller Eucharistic communities, greater responsibility among the baptized, and synodality (there it is!) over a model emphasizing administration, institutional structures, or merely nominal membership.
As I went over this, I was mindful of a description of the impact of Vatican II by the Jesuit historian John W. O’Malley who wrote in his book about Vatican II something that explained the “spirit” of the Council. In nutshell, O’Malley – not a theologian and clearly a lib – thought that the real content of the Council was not the black on white of the documents but rather the marked change in tone. It is in this change of tone or attitude that we find the real message of the Council, so strong that it forces reinterpretation of everything that went before. In short, it is justification for rupture. This is really what the Polish guy is referring to. He obviously isn’t interested in what the documents say in black and white. He has construed a quasi-secret over-arching aliquid of Vatican II that exists in the troposphere where only the initiates can read it with special glasses.
Card.Ryś, therefore, has uncovered a remarkable new principle of Catholic theology: the Church’s twenty centuries of Tradition must now be interpreted through the prism of an event that occurred between 1962 and 1965.
Apparently, the Fathers, Doctors, Popes, and Councils were working with an incomplete set of lens until Vatican II supplied the indispensable spectacles through which everything preceding it must henceforth be viewed.
There is an obvious problem. Vatican II belongs to Tradition. It does not stand above Tradition as its supreme judge.
Indeed, the Council itself says this (but only in black and white, so don’t worry). Dei Verbum 10 explicitly teaches that the Magisterium is not above the Word of God but serves it, guarding and faithfully explaining what has been handed down. The Council is a recipient and authoritative witness of the apostolic deposit, not its retrospective inventor. Moreover, Vatican I taught in Dei Filius 4 that the understanding of doctrine may develop while retaining eodem sensu eademque sententia, the same meaning and the same judgment. That very concept was strongly asserted by John XXIII in his opening speech at Vatican II, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia.
Ryś’s proposed hermeneutical arrangement turns this principle upside down: earlier doctrine must now be submitted to a later interpretive authority, as though the Church’s previous teaching enjoyed only provisional validity.
Ryś’s appeal to the oldest current of Tradition is particularly confused. Who selects which ancient current is normative? By what authority does one bypass centuries of legitimate doctrinal development? Such an appeal to antiquity becomes theological archaeology which wields a selective shovel. In this view, centuries of ecclesial development can be excavated, inspected, and blithely discarded whenever the discoveries run against your preferred between-the-lines interpretation of Vatican II.
Benedict XVI addressed this danger in his important address to the Roman Curia on 22 December 2005. He distinguished a hermeneutic (interpretive principle) of rupture from reform in continuity. He insisted upon the identity of the one Church throughout history, notwithstanding legitimate developments and changes in disciplinary arrangements. The Church did not undergo a new foundation in 1965.
Ryś’s contrast between Christ the King and Christ the Servant is really unfortunate. Are we suppose to accept that Catholic Action’s devotion to Christ’s social kingship requires overturning because the Council stressed service? Read Lumen gentium 36:
“Further, He has shared this power so that serving Christ in their fellow men they might by humility and patience lead their brethren to that King for whom to serve is to reign.”
Vatican II expressly joined Christ’s kingship to service, culminating in the principle that to serve the King is to reign.
Keep in mind that a great deal of energy these days is being put into blotting out Lumen gentium and replacing it with notions about walking together into a fog of… whatever.
Then there is the Ryś’s bit about openness and mercy: an open Church is merciful and a closed Church is unmerciful. Hurray! He solved it! Two millennia of ecclesiology reduced to the intellectual sophistication of a revolving door. One wonders whether Our Lord’s injunction to enter by the narrow gate (Matt 7:13–14), or His command to correct an offending brother (Matt 18:15–17), would qualify as “open”. I fear it wouldn’t. Hence “todos todos todos” right? Communion for adulterers, right? On the other hand, mercy presupposes truth. Genuine charity does not consist in erasing doctrine and the laws shaped by it. A physician who refuses to diagnose an illness may be very agreeable company, but his dying patients would be justified in doubting his mercy.
Then we get to the tiring stuff about synodality and small participatory communities. It seems to me that Catholics have been forming communities around the Eucharist (parishes?), practicing works of mercy, and exercising baptismal responsibility since apostolic times. None of these activities required the invention of a dreamy new ecclesiology. However Ryś seems to suggest that synodality and participation somehow supercedes the Church’s divinely established sacramental hierarchy and authoritative teaching office.
Finally, there is Ryś’s extraordinary suggestion that reading all Tradition through Vatican II establishes whether one remains within the Church.
This conflates acceptance of an ecumenical council, properly understood according to the authority of its teachings, with submission to a particular interpretation of that council. And we are forced to ask, “whose interpretation would that be?”.
Catholics owe the Council the assent appropriate to its teachings.
They do not owe assent to every theological theory subsequently marketed under its name.
Vatican II was the 21st ecumenical council, not the 1st and Only, and it is certainly not the Last Word about all the others.
The Catholic Church existed before Vatican II.
Her doctrine did not expire when the Council was opened and her Tradition was not outdated when it closed.
The best way to show due respect to Vatican II is to stop treating it as though it were the Incarnation (or in the view of some, an apparition of Vishnu). The only intelligent way to read the documents Vatican II in the light of the entire Catholic Tradition.
By wary of anyone who asserts that there is a true meaning and import of Vatican II in its unspoken messaging between the lines.
I wonder at what point Vatican II-ism will be defined as a distinct heresy? Someone’s going to have to come up with a better name for it than that. But, much like Arianism from way back in the day, this heresy seems so prevalent within the Church hierarchy it’s as if the entire World groaned and discovered it was stuck in Hippie Boomer Antiquarianism.
While everything Fr. Z says is correct and deserves to be declared over and over again, the zealots of this new heresy will not be swayed by such piffle as logic and reasoning. The Gnostic Lords of THE COUNCIL know real TRUTH and SALVATION comes from their special knowledge of what THE COUNCIL intended, so the actual words on the document have little significance. Or, to paraphrase the late Jorge Bergoglio, “Who you gonna believe? Me and the Holy Spirit or your own lying eyes?”
It sounds like the Cardinal has discovered The Spirit of the Council ™, a heady brew which can deprive a man of his reason if imbibed in sufficient amounts. This danger is especially prevalent amongst “scholars” and “experts” amongst whom the effects become more profound and longer-lasting due to constant exposure!
The most worrying thing about this principle, as offered by Cardinal Ryś, is that logically all subsequent Magisterial teaching, notably by Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict, must be discounted, as they cannot be viewed through or subjected to the corrective lens of Vatican II.
So following His Eminence’s argument, not only was the Church’s teaching provisional before the Council, but must have ended when it closed. Three years alone of pure Revelation. The absurdity of this argument is manifest, but of coure, and thankfully, a victim of its logic must also be Ryś’s own words.
Great!
Have the Cardinal himself go back and read ALL of Tradition with his “light” of V2.
It is a better use of his time than such global pronouncements – and it will keep him out of our hair for a rather long time.
As an added bonus, the Cardinal may possibly learn some useful things.
Shoot, and here I was interpreting everything in the long history of the Church through the lens of Second Lyon. I guess I got the “second” part right, at least…does that make me 50% in communion with the Church? One foot in, one out sort of a deal?
Isn’t this Cardinal’s approach the same way of thinking that has permitted recent Popes to suggest that the application of the death penalty for any crime is almost always immoral? As I understand the argument, it’s immoral now because the protection of society was the only justification for execution and nowadays one can protect society (but perhaps not prison guards) by keeping villains locked up for their lifetimes whereas in the past this was not possible. However, I think that governments in the past frequently kept villains imprisoned for long periods of time. So, this means that Popes in the past who approved of and perhaps even imposed the death penalty were immoral, i.e. sinners?
Fr. Z said, “The Church did not undergo a new foundation in 1965.”
That’s what you think.
Isn’t that what the argument really is about, has always been about? They (the Progressives or Modernists or Rationalists or agents of the OneWorldReligion, whatever you want to call them) decided everything from the old house must go into the dumpster, because to them Vatican II was a gut rehab, down to the skeleton, and nothing of the prior Faith must survive. Doesn’t matter what the documents actually said. They had a mandate above and beyond the documents. And if they didn’t actually dig up the foundation, it doesn’t matter, because that’s all deep underground and no one sees it anyway, so whatever’s built on top just can ignore it.
They thought you understood that.
And now, the new twist we’ve been hearing lately is, if you don’t accept the new “Vatican II interpretation” of what Catholicism believes and teaches, (which often doesn’t even correspond to the actual words of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels) well, there’s the door…don’t let it hit you in the ahem on your way out.
It’s as if the Roman Golf Club was taken over by tennis freaks, and now golf is no longer allowed. Tennis only, please, or you cannot be a member.
Says who? You, Bishop Rys? The Pope? Too late. I’m baptized. I’m a lifelong member. And me and my golf clubs are not leaving.
The absurdity is to suppose that the Council should never be interpreted in the Light of Tradition.
I cannot see any mention whatsoever of “synodality” in the texts of the Council.
Well said, Josephus Muris Saliensis.
I’m thinking about dressing up as the Spirit of Vatican II for Halloween. Basically, I’ll be wearing a white bedsheet and carrying a guitar.
Fantastic commentary here, Father. Thank you! The portion you shared from Lumen Gentium 36 is especially enlightening. Important to single this out again and again whenever someone wants to minimize Christ’s kingship:
“He has shared this power so that serving Christ in their fellow men they might by humility and patience lead their brethren to that King for whom to serve is to reign.”
Likewise, I believe what needs to be singled out over and over again are the comments the two popes of the Second Vatican Council said about the council itself. It’s like that meme with the bus driver from The Simpsons (“Don’t make me tap the sign again”)…
I do wonder if the Cardinal, and many others, can even recall these words of St. John XXIII and St. Paul VI. I’m guessing not, because to assert that EVERYTHING before Vatican II must be read in light of said council is downright bizarre, at best. As you said, Father, there are 20 other ecumenical councils.
So I’m going to “tap the sign”. Everyone needs to remember the following, including Cardinal Ryś:
“Now the Church must once more reaffirm that teaching authority of hers which never fails, but will endure until the end of time…
“[The Council’s] intention is to give to the world the whole of that doctrine which, notwithstanding every difficulty and contradiction, has become the common heritage of mankind — to transmit it in all its purity, undiluted, undistorted…
[I]n the present time, the entire Christian doctrine, without any deviation from it, should be received by all in our times with new zeal, with serene and peaceful minds…
[The council has not been called] primarily to discuss certain fundamentals of Catholic doctrine, or to restate in greater detail the traditional teaching of the Fathers and of early and more recent theologians. We presume that these things are sufficiently well known and familiar to you all.”
(Pope John XXIII, Opening Address for the Second Vatican Council, October 11, 1962)
“There is no better comment to make than to say that this promulgation [of Lumen Gentium] really changes nothing of the traditional doctrine [on the Church]. What Christ willed, we also will. What was, still is. What the Church has taught down through the centuries, we also teach”.
(Pope Paul VI, Address of November 21, 1964)
“We must be careful: the teachings of the Council do not constitute an organic and complete system of Catholic doctrine; this is much broader, as everyone knows, and is not questioned by the Council or substantially modified; indeed, the Council confirms it, illustrates it, defends it and develops it with a highly authoritative apologia, full of wisdom, vigor and trust…
“We must not detach the teachings of the Council from the doctrinal heritage of the Church, but rather see how they fit into it, how they are coherent with it, and how they bring testimony, increase, explanation and application to it…
“It would therefore not be true to think that the Council represents a detachment, a rupture, or, as some think, a liberation from the traditional teaching of the Church, or that it authorizes and promotes an easy conformism to the mentality of our time… [and that is] because the ‘Spirit of the Council’ really wants to be the Spirit of truth (cf. John 16:13).”
(Pope Paul VI, General Audience of January 12, 1966).
Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many. –Mk 3
“There is an obvious problem. Vatican II belongs to Tradition. It does not stand above Tradition as its supreme judge.”–Fr. Z
The problem with Relativism is that it claims that it is true that nothing is true. These people should never have been allowed anywhere near the Ecclesial levers.
Fr Z. summarized:
“Vatican II recovered an older, more authentic current of Tradition. The Council supposedly returned to the earliest Tradition, which provides the standard against which subsequent developments must be measured. I have no idea what he is talking about. So, gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.”
I can’t believe how much Protestant infiltration there has been in some Catholic thinker. This is nothing more nor less than the Protestant idea of Restorationism, in my opinion, which was, I think, the impetus for the Resourcement movement (which is sometimes called or aligned with Modernism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorationism
The logical problem with the Cardinal’s thinking is that, according to Scripture, we are to grow into Christ, come to full stature (Ephesians 4:13), as a Church. Who wants to go back to an adolescent Church with pimples, to paraphrase Maise Ward? Ancient traditions are a foundation, not an end, just as the man builds on the framework of the boy. Just as Christ grew in wisdom and knowledge, so must the Church.
The Chicken
Unless somebody says 1. clerics (including ALL deacons) should be praying their breviaries in Latin (SC 101), that we should be regularly be praying Vespers as a parish on Sundays and solemnities (SC 100), and that we should actually be doing ancient vigils again – and not just the Easter one (SC 35), I don’t want to hear their theories about what the 21st Council said or didn’t say. The 21st Council actually actually gave us a lot more work, which essentially nobody has attempted to do.
Living in the American Southwest, it’s clear that the Catholic Church is still suffering growing pains–or laboring to give birth–after 500 years of expansion and colonization. It is telling that the Tridentine liturgy dates from precisely that tumultuous time of theses, human sacrifice, and alleged smallpox.
In an age of #nokings and rabid promoters of democracy by any means necessary, it is honestly difficult for this triumphalist guy to see Christ’s sovereignty and victory in all the pluralism and all the dogpiling. Whereas China and Russia seem to be bastions of insular monoculture, and keeping out foreign influence is their bread and butter, the West has welcomed all mingling and D.E.I. and mosques next door to parishes across the street from temples.
If Christ is my king, then perhaps I deserve to be under his thumb or crushed under his boot-heel. I’m still not enjoying it. I’m still coming to terms with the humility and daily sacrifice of a Christian life. I am not a Traditionalist oppressed by the institutional Church; I am an Earl who simply cannot take flight to anywhere else, as the Old Order comes to an end around me.
My thoughts in parentheses.
Catholics must read the entire Tradition in light of the Council. He claims this is necessary to remain within the Church.
(So the good Cardinal is deleting a large number of Catholics from the Church?)
Vatican II recovered an older, more authentic current of Tradition.(sounds much like the protestants who think their founders rediscovered “authentic” Christianity. )
Card.Ryś, therefore, has uncovered a remarkable new principle of Catholic theology: the Church’s twenty centuries of Tradition must now be interpreted through the prism of an event that occurred between 1962 and 1965. (Seems every historical age has those who believe they have reached the pinnacle of understanding and those before were ignorant. Unfortunately, those are the ones who cause a lot of trouble.)
The Council is a recipient and authoritative witness of the apostolic deposit, not its retrospective inventor.
(Just like in the business world rather than build on the past those in charge strive to invent some new way of managing people.)
Ryś’s contrast between Christ the King and Christ the Servant is really unfortunate. (Much like Protestants like to strip out the parts of Christianity they favor and dismiss the rest.)
“forming communities”
(more protestant think–ANYTHING BUT GOING TO MASS!)
Catholics owe the Council the assent appropriate to its teachings. (I think some of us are already doing that! Lol)
They do not owe assent to every theological theory subsequently marketed under its name. (How many bishops wave the VII flag everytime they admonish us pewsitters to get on board with the latest diocesan program? Everything seems to be attributed to VII. Gosh, we’re lucky the Church made it to 1962.)
The Cardinal and those like him are in danger of boring us to death and wearing us out to the point we don’t care. Maybe that’s the point.