The New Theology: true pastorality requires a new understanding of doctrine

"Pope John [XXIII] and Vatican II initiated a profound shift in how one perceives doctrinal authority..." (15:30ff)

  - Dr. Richard Gaillardetz, Oblate School of Theology for the Second Annual Louis Vance Chair of Systematic Theology Lecture. 

This must be unpacked.

First of all because Pope John elevated the very theologians (and by extension their condemned theses) that were suppressed under Pope Pius XII. These men (Balthasar, Congar, Rahner, de Lubac, Chenu, Ratzinger, etc...) advanced what Fr. Garrigou LaGrange called "Nouvelle Theologie" or a new theology which he concluded led us right back to Modernism, the synthesis of all heresies. Secondly, Pope John in the opening address of Vatican II deliberately set aside all condemnations of error for the life of the council - and this certainly represents a fundamental shift in the 'perception of doctrinal authority...' Which left us with the double whammy of rehabilitating condemned theology and the inability to condemn any errors. What else could this bring but revolution in the "pastorality" (the professor's word) of the Catholic Church?

     Scholastic theology was set aside with its emphasis on reality, immutable essences, and concrete manifestations of the divine Being and in its place emerged personalism, phenomenology, and existentialism - all condemned in Pius XII's Humani generis. Thus, experience was elevated above objective truth - including both natural and supernatural theology - in order to reach mythical 'Modern Man' in ways the neoModernists felt were palatable to him. St. Pius X on the danger of building doctrine upon human experience:

"How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the [first] Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true. That they cannot feel otherwise is clear. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever?"

ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS 

Truly pastoral as opposed to what?
Pius XII? Was his magisterium not 'truly pastoral'?
Does this excitable academic not know that Pope Pacelli's colloquial title was Pastor Angelicus? The angelic pastor? 

These guys never come out and say what their theories all purport: the Church under Pius XII was in grave error in praxis if not in doctrine, and the conciliar Pontiffs have corrected centuries of these errors. The facts of history however point to a completely opposite conclusion: the Church was in robust health under Pius XII and has been declining precipitously ever since.

The New Ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium

There is no escaping several novelties in Lumen gentium (LG), among which are the church as 'sacrament' (yes, we know the Latin is = to 'mystery'); the introduction of the concept of the unity of mankind (not specified as in Adam, a unity of mere nature); the Church as "the Church of Christ which subsists in the Catholic Church"; the unbalanced and overly optimistic view of the non-Christian religions; the amorphous title "People of God" which many have conflated with all mankind per LG 1,1); and lastly, the Council's ethic of not condemning any errors at all, providing no canons or anathemas, which leaves all these ambiguities open to various interpretations.

We cannot minimize the figure of Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. in the drafting of this document, either. Knowing that he was an evolutionist, and an existentialist, and a proponent of the "anonymous Christian" theory, we must look for the Rahnerian signature if not always in the texts, then in the possible ways of exegeting it. For Rahner, the distinction between nature and the supernatural is muted if not dissolved. He also sees a radical unity between matter and spirit a la Teilhard de Chardin. This leads to his heterodox theory of the supernatural existential - that all men have divinity at their radical center. Seeing Rahner's theology and thoroughly novel metaphysics signature helps us to understand why LG has destroyed so much of orthodox ecclesiology today.

Finally, taking the above into consideration, we must see how Pope John Paul II interpreted Vatican II in his encyclical Redemptor hominis which claims,

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..."

This new way is contingent upon his doctrine that "by His incarnation Christ has united Himself to each man" (GS #22) - "united to each man forever, and each man is a sharer in the mystery of the redemption (RH)." John Paul II obviously sees in the Council a permission to boldly thrust forward Rahner's (and DeLubac's) theory of each man having the divine life of supernatural grace within. In light of this doctrine, LG is quite easy to exploit as a vehicle for teaching a conflation between the Church and all humanity. And this very thing the neoModernists do, some more covertly than others, but always advocating Teilhard's Cosmic Christ and the advance of a [fictitious] evolutionary march that is growing in consciousness among all men of every religion.

Let us not pretend that there is not a dire need for true dogmatic testing in an era where the Nouvelle Theologie provides a different hermeneutic and alien canons for those that would see the Church corrupted as St. Pius X describes in Pascendi gregis.

Theology is and always shall be Queen of Sciences

1. Theology is the science of the study of God. It had always been the "Queen of Sciences" until the Copernican Revolution juxtaposed theology against natural science by introducing a new cosmological model that opposed divine revelation. This cleavage has never been repaired, and the pro-Modernist partisans in the church are constantly seeking to exploit this cleavage against dogma, morality and Tradition.
The Evolutionism condemned in Pascendi gregis by St. Pius X destroys all religion because it denies that God can be the direct object of scientific study. It relegates God to a knowledge attainable only by internal experiences, and these driven by necessity (vital immanentism). Therefore, as St. Pius X teaches in Pascendi, the Modernist keeps the two spheres of theology and natural sciences separated in order to exploit a new metaphysic (the philosophy of Becoming in the place of the Scholastic philosophy of Being).
2. Modernism is the confluence, compendium, and rendezvous of all the heresies because it accomplishes what each of them on their own never could: the dissolution of the God revealed by Jesus Christ from the human mind. Modernism posits science as the judge of the sources of revelation, and as such, purges them of all supernatural content. Modernism assumes that profane science with all its changing and wrongly deduced theories and hypotheses is the canon or standard to use in measuring the truths revealed by God to man.
What then?
True science is judged by revelation, not the other way around. True science in St. Thomas Aquinas begins with God and ends with God. The essences and accidents of nature and nature's laws are subject to their Creator. This is not the case today, and if you imagine St. Thomas would be a scientist today like the great names of astronomy, biology, paleontology, cosmology, physics, etc.. then you would be wrong. St. Thomas would never imagine to separate natural sciences from theological science which is the judge and distiller of all natural truths and facts. The Catholic Church in our time has drifted far, far into the Modernist outlook that places science above theology (see: John Paul II's remarks to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1992). This is a form of idolatry. We will never arrive at a true understanding of nature, science, metaphysics and sound philosophy by separating the Queen of sciences from her subjects or worse yet, subjecting revealed Truths to mere profane scientific theories.