John Paul II the Revolutionary?

“The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis, which hasn’t really yet been understood,” said [Archbishop Vincenzo] Paglia.

Apologists for recently canonized Pope John Paul II scrambled to defend the late Pontiff for the apparent exploitation of the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family that bears his name. A closer look at the rationale utilized by the current leadership of the Institute may raise eyebrows. However, the stunned reaction might not be at the audacity of their claims, but the coherence of their explanations.

Let’s unpack this.

Archbishop Paglia taps into one of Pope John Paul II’s most ubiquitous themes: consciousness, or “awareness” of the Church:

The Institute “couldn’t just stay like it was,” Paglia said, because of changes “both in the awareness of the Church and also the social, cultural and anthropological conditions of the world.”

About which awareness Pope John Paul II taught in his inaugural and programmatic encyclical:

   "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..."   Redemptor hominis

It couldn't stay like it was because in the Wojtylian universe, all things are evolving. Who could forget the way the international media leaped upon his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 October 1996 when he affirmed

“…some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.  In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”

Surely this is at least ‘an’ explanation of the Pope’s reliance on the novel theory of a “living Tradition” from which he found the missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre wanting in his ‘deficient’ understanding of Tradition (see: motu proprio Ecclesia Dei Adflicta).

Next, Archbishop Paglia explains that John Paul II’s revolution “hasn’t really yet been understood.”

This is evident in the two ways to perceive the pontificate of Karol Wojtyla. The overwhelmingly popular vision of John Paul II is the crusading evangelist, traversing the globe to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to all men while collaborating with world leaders to bring down the Iron Curtain. The other way is to actually examine his words and deeds against the backdrop of Catholic Tradition, which yields some unwelcome if not disturbing conclusions.

The dominant theme of John Paul II’s long pontificate was that by His incarnation, Christ has united Himself to each man forever. He found this novel understanding of the Gospel in Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) #22, which is erstwhile known as “the mystery of man.” Through this mystery – completely unknown in Catholic Tradition before 1965 – Christ "reveals man to man himself.” This revelation is that each and every man is formally, ontologically, and eternally united to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus, Archbishop Paglia can also wink,

“You have to remember that before [Familiaris Consortio], it wasn’t that the divorced and remarried just couldn’t get Communion, it was they were practically excommunicated and expelled. They were outsiders. After John Paul, everybody was inside the house … I can’t just send them out on the terrace!”

“Everybody was inside the house” of course refers to the new ecclesiology of Vatican II’s Lumen gentium where the Church and mankind are dangerously conflated in ambiguous language. This idea is buttressed by the Pope's doctrine of universal union of each man with Christ via the Incarnation.

Now, if everybody is inside the house, who can be excluded from the supper table? Thus, Pope Francis is announced as the authoritative interlocutor of this revolution of John Paul II’s that hasn’t really been understood yet:

He [Paglia] said that Pope St. John Paul II began the “revolution” in the Church for Communion for the divorced and remarried, and that Pope Francis is carrying this on as the saint’s “best interpreter.”

In the vision of an evolving cosmos in which each man is united to Christ forever, the very idea of church is in flux.  How can we mere laymen ever hope to apprehend such exalted ideas without Pope Francis pulling away the veil that the consciousness of the Church was not ready for prior to his Pontificate?

Nor are we to set aside Pope Wojtyla’s bizarre understanding of each religion being a vehicle for union with God and inspired by the Holy Spirit:

It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions. In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person” (Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7).

Perhaps it is overlooked by Pope John Paul II that St. Pius X condemned this idea 80 years earlier:

“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."    Pascendi Dominici gregis

This vision of all men, in all religions united eternally with Christ in an evolving cosmos has of course, certain implications about which the Pope draws very specific conclusions:

Assisi Prayer is a "visible illustration, an exegesis of the events, a catechesis, intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitment to ecumenism and to the interreligious dialogue which was recommended and provided by the Second Vatican Council."
(Christmas address of the Pope to the Cardinals and members of the Curia on 22 December, 1986, L'Osservatore Romano, 5 January 1987, page 7)

But can we draw such a conclusion as Archbishop Paglia’s based simply on the general themes of Pope John Paul II’s theology and praxis? Has he really done anything revolutionary in the field of Catholic doctrine pertaining to the sacrament of matrimony? If you ask those who studied his novel ‘Theology of the Body’, the answer will be a profound yes:

George Weigel has described Theology of the Body as "one of the boldest reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuries." He goes on to say it is a "kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church." Weigel believes that it has barely begun to "shape the Church's theology, preaching, and religious education" but when it does "it will compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed."  [Weigel, George (October 1999). Witness to Hope (First ed.). Harper Perennial. pp. 336, 343, 853. ISBN 0-06-018793-X.]

Those taking offense at Pope Francis’ teaching in Amoris laetitia because of a perceived opposition to the doctrine laid down by John Paul II in Familiaris consortio should take a deep breath and a long look at the late Pope’s entire body of doctrine. While others trifle with rearranging the furniture inside the house, John Paul II set in motion the wholesale replacement of the entire foundation. 

Teilhard's Cosmic Christ: Not the Christ of Catholic Faith

"Christ saves. But must we not hasten to add that Christ, too, is saved by Evolution?" (Pere Teilhard de Chardin, Le Christique, 1955)

The Cosmic Christ of Teilhard de Chardin is an evolving being. He is currently advancing to the status of a super-Christ in whom all souls, all creatures, and all matter will be united in a single organism. This is called Point Omega. The cosmic Christ is not concerned with sin, redemption, or salvation as the church understands these things. He is concerned with the consciousness of mankind.

Allegedly (so the theory purports) man is now consciously aware of his stage of development in the evolutionary process, and is uniquely postured to manipulate the evolutionary process through social and political reform and “progressivism” in religion, philosophy, and ethical norms. The consciousness desired is that all men obtain the awareness that they are already formally, ontologically (simply by their being and existing) united to the Cosmic Christ whether they know it or not or want it.

Pope John Paul II taught that each man was united to Christ forever by the Incarnation. When the Incarnation of the God-man is viewed as a stage in evolutionary development, we see the choicest human being ever in the person of Jesus Christ - and His incarnation effects a change in the nature of all mankind. All that is lacking is the consciousness of this formal union with the God-man. Therefore missionary evangelism is abolished and ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue is ordered. This is intended to arouse within each man the consciousness of his union with the cosmic Christ.

Pope Francis appears to echo not only the universalism of John Paul II but the Teilhardian theory of Omega Point:

83. ...all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator."
Pope Francis, Laudato si

These ideas have been long condemned, particularly during the period when modern philosophy first infiltrated the Catholic Church during the turn of the last century:

Therefore the religious sentiment, which through the agency of vital immanence emerges from the lurking places of the subconsciousness, is the germ of all religion, and the explanation of everything that has been or ever will be in any religion. The sentiment, which was at first only rudimentary and almost formless, gradually matured, under the influence of that mysterious principle from which it originated, with the progress of human life, of which, as has been said, it is a form. This, then, is the origin of all religion, even supernatural religion; it is only a development of this religious sentiment. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be. - Those who hear these audacious, these sacrilegious assertions, are simply shocked! And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of infidels. There are many Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings! There is no question now of the old error, by which a sort of right to the supernatural order was claimed for the human nature. We have gone far beyond that: we have reached the point when it is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and entirely. Than this there is surely nothing more destructive of the whole supernatural order.

Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS 

This brings us to Fr. Henri de Lubac’s definition of “living Tradition” invoked by John Paul II in the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988:

The advocates of the new theology follow the same current when, with Blondel, they define the truth as the mind's correspondence with infinitely variable and progressive life. And since truth is life and Tradition should transmit the truth, de Lubac concludes at the existence of a living Tradition. According to him, then, the ulterior beliefs of the Church need not necessarily be logically bound to what she has always explicitly believed from the earliest centuries."
Father Dominic Bourmaud, One Hundred Years of Modernism, Angelus Press, 2006, pages 248-249

The tree of Modernism grew up in the following way: Fr. George Tyrell, S.J. had for a pupil in England young Teilhard de Chardin. Tyrell was excommunicated by St. Pius X for the heresy of Modernism condemned in Pascendi gregis. Teilhard was also ordained a Jesuit and was suppressed by his order to avoid the censorship of Rome. He was not allowed to teach or publish until his death in 1955. Fr. Henri de Lubac, S.J. defended Teilhard's theories very publicly until he too was suppressed by the Jesuits. His book Surnaturel was suppressed by his Superior General because of its heterodox teaching on the relationship between the natural and supernatural orders. De Lubac's (and by way of association, Teilhard's) theories are condemned in Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani generis. When Pius XII died, John XXIII made de Lubac a peritus or theological expert at the Second Vatican Council. The theological coup de etat was completed when John Paul II made Henri de Lubac a Cardinal. It is believed that the theory of the "mystery of man" as mentioned in Gaudium et spes #22 is de Lubac's. It forms the foundation of John Paul II's doctrine of a Christ united to every man forever by the Incarnation.

The theory of Evolution as championed by Tyrell, Teilhard, de Lubac, Pope Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis is incompatible with Catholic dogma.

We’ll give Saint Pius X the last word on Teilhard’s 'theology-fiction’and de Lubac's 'living Tradition':

"To finish with this whole question of faith and its shoots, it remains to be seen, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about their development. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself, and the penalty of disobedience is death.
... Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and as clearly flows from their principles."
Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS

The Modern World of 1965 is Fading Away

The concession to such an epoch as "the modern world" characterized by dozens of expressions found in the the Second Vatican Council's 16 documents wedded it to a specific era thereby limiting its value for enduring application. It is the only council ever to address its own time as a separate epoch. The first 20 ecumenical councils speak to all and forever. Vatican II used many expressions such as "today", "nowadays", and even in the very title of its documents! Nostra aetate means "in our time" and the unfortunate document Gaudium et Spes is styled "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World." Therefore as a complete anomaly in Church history, Vatican II is the only council that deliberately avoided dealing with dogma and attached an expiration date to its teaching. The Modern World (so-called) in 2065 will certainly be different from the "modern world" of 1965.

From Dietrich Vonhildebrand's classic Trojan Horse in the City of God. 

Great Principle or Human Folly?

Pope Francis promulgated an Apostolic Letter motu proprio (of his own initiative) on September 3rd, 2017, in which he revises a clause in Canon Law to more clearly delineate the powers to determine liturgical legislation and norms between the Pope and the episcopal conferences. Paragraph one reads

The great principle, established by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, according to which liturgical prayer be accommodated to the comprehension of the people so that it might be understood, required the weighty task of introducing the vernacular language into the liturgy and of preparing and approving the versions of the liturgical books, a charge that was entrusted to the Bishops.

But is it truly a "great principle" (magnum principium)? Is this principle based on truth or speculative theories?
My analysis:
Fr. Josef Jungmann's Corruption Theory is a fruit the Ressourcement movement and thinking. Jungmann's theory that the primitive liturgy was corrupted between the Constantinian and Baroque periods is dependent on upon certain historical conclusions that are not settled. In addition to his Corruption Theory his Pastoral Liturgy Theory also presupposes the Ressourcement ethic of anthropocentric liturgy centered in the EXPERIENCES OF THE FAITHFUL. This reliance on experience is condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi gregis #7 and #14. His system also relies heavily upon modern philosophy (after all, he's a Jesuit) and a pseudo-historicism that is rejected in #30 of the same encyclical.
Fr. Jungmann is certainly an important voice in the Liturgical Movement and a luminary in contemporary liturgical scholarship. But his personal conclusions are not something Catholics are required to accept and much less rely upon as though this is the only cogent explanation for liturgical development.
The overestimation of a pristine liturgical norm that was lost after the Edict of Milan and was only meaningfully recovered with Paul VI's fabricated liturgy is based on the Documentary Hypothesis which since its peak in popular acceptance in the 1970s has been in steady decline since.
Jungmann's theories are dependent upon an ahistorical or even antihistorical understanding of liturgy and the role of the Popes in preserving it.
Lastly, the experiment in liturgy begun in 1963 after the signing of Sacrosanctum concillium has yielded none of the results promised by its theorists, chief among whom were Fr. Jungmann, Dom Beauduin, and of course Annibale Bugnini. In fact Cardinal Ratzinger concludes the Roman liturgy has collapsed:

"I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us.
...But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?"

And is it true that that these reforms were undertaken because the Catholic faithful did not understand the mystery of the holy sacrifice of the Mass because it was in Latin? In 1960, 75% of American Catholics attended Mass at least weekly. Today that figure hovers around 25%. Of that 25%, almost none are aware that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice the Son offers to the Father as the Divine Victim immolated in an unbloody manner on the altar at the hands of the sacerdotal priest in persona Christi. So what has this great reform-to-improve-comprehension actually produced?  And why would the Pope want to double down on such a dismal failure, if not for ideological reasons?

As far as the vernacular, the dogmatic Council of Trent (1545-1563) infallibly condemned liturgy in the vernacular only (Session 22, Canon IX). So what is really going on here? And what will the further balkanization of the Catholic Church do to its universality in creed and prayer?

"The vulgar languages are in continual change; often words do not have today the same meaning that they had yesterday, or at best have one meaning for one person and another for someone else. About these terms we can truly say with Sallust, "Vera vocabula rerum amisimus" (Catil., c. 52). We have lost the right words in these cases. However, the Latin language is not only the most organic and logical language that has ever existed, but, for the very fact that it is no longer spoken by the people, it is now fixed, precise, and unequivocal, and presents us with well defined technical terms which have already been consecrated by the Church as the fruit of long discussions and solemn definitions, terms which it would be dangerous to ignore."

- The Memoirs of Antonio Cardinal Bacci