Fr. Z's Blog

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.