Vatican Council II interpreted with Cushingism has changed dogmatic teaching in the Church : Michael J. Miller and Roberto dei Mattei have made a mistake

A book review, by Michael J. Miller, of The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story, by Professor Roberto de Mattei, reprinted with kind permission of Loreto Publications.

The famous black-and-white photograph of the Second Vatican Council in session, taken from a high balcony at the back of Saint Peter’s Basilica, shows more than 2,000 Council Fathers standing at their places in slanted stalls that line the nave, with more than a dozen rows on either side. It resembles nothing so much as a gargantuan monastic choir—unless it puts you in mind of the British Parliament with the dimensions quadrupled.

Contemporary perceptions of the Council varied widely, partly because of the extensive media coverage.  Although it promulgated a dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, Vatican II was not a “constitutional convention.” An ecumenical council can teach about the Church but cannot modify a divine institution, any more than a pope can invent a new doctrine or change one of the Ten Commandments.

Lionel: However when Vatican Council II is interpreted with Cushingism instead of Feeneyism there is a rupture with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS). So there is a new understanding of the dogma EENS, it is Cushingite.So in this sense Vatican Council II,interpreted with Cushingism would have rejected the dogma EENS, the past exclusivist ecclesiology of the Church and the Syllabus of Errors( ecumenism of return).

So Vatican Council II with Cushingism has changed dogmatic teaching in the Church while Roberto dei Mattei and Michael J. Miller did not know that Vatican Council II could be interpreted with Feeneyism and then there would be no dogmatic change.

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In his latest book, The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story (Loreto Publications, 2012),Roberto de Mattei, a historian in Rome, writes: “[Ecumenical] Councils exercise, under and with the Pope, a solemn teaching authority in matters of faith and morals and set themselves up as supreme judges and legislators, insofar as Church law is concerned. The Second Vatican Council did not issue laws, and it did not even deliberate definitively on questions of faith and morals. The lack of dogmatic definitions inevitably started a discussion about the nature of its documents and about how to apply them in the so-called ‘postconciliar period.’”

Lionel: Prof. Roberto dei Mattei wrote his book unaware of the difference between Cushingism and Feneeyism as a philosophy and theology.This was also not known to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the traditionalists of his time.

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Professor de Mattei outlines the two main schools of thought in that discussion. The first and more theological approach presupposes an “uninterrupted ecclesial Tradition” and therefore expects the documents of Vatican II to be interpreted in a way consistent with authoritative Church teaching in the past. This is the “hermeneutic of continuity” emphasized by Pope Benedict XVI.

Lionel: If Vatican Council II is interpreted with Feeneyism then there is a hermeneutic of continuity with the past. With Cushingism there is an interruption with ecclesial Tradition.

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A second, more historical approach advocated by Professor Giuseppe Alberigo and the “School of Bologna” maintains that the Council “was in the first place an historical ‘event’ which, as such, meant an undeniable discontinuity with the past: it raised hopes, started polemics and debates, and in the final analysis inaugurated a new era.” The “event-dimension” of the Council is Exhibit A in making the case for the elusive “spirit of Vatican II” that looks beyond the actual words of the conciliar documents to the momentum that they supposedly generated.

Lionel: It was a historical event. However it was influenced by the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 which assumed hypothetical cases are not hypothetical but objective in the present times. So the baptism of desire, baptism of blood and being saved in invincible ignorance, invisible and unknown cases in our reality, were wrongly assumed to be known people saved outside the Church. So the dogma EENS became obsolete.So there was a New Theology which say outside the Church there is salvation and not every one needs to be a member of the Catholic Church as it was taught for centuries.
So the new doctrine was only those who are not in invincible ignorance and who know about Jesus and the Church need to enter to avoid Hell (LG 14). So this is the new spirit of Vatican  Council II.

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Professor de Mattei counters such tendentiousness by making a clear distinction: “The theologian reads and discusses the documents in their doctrinal import. The historian reconstructs the events…understands occurrences in their cultural and ideological roots and consequences… so as to arrive at an ‘integral’ understanding of the events.”

Lionel: Catholic theologians and historians were unaware of the difference between Cushingism and Feeneyism and how it influences the interpretation and conclusion of Vatican Council II.
Cushingism is responsible for the hermeneutic of rupture and Michael J. Miller and Roberto dei Mattei interpret Vatican Council II and EENS with Cushingism.

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Drawing on the work of two Catholic historians and the director of a Catholic news service, this article highlights features in the historical background to the Second Vatican Council by asking the basic questions of journalism: who, what, where, when and why.

Who: John XXIII

Although several were soon to become world famous, none of the 2,381 prelates in the stalls at St. Peter’s on October 11, 1962, and no combination of them, could have initiated an ecumenical council; that was the sole prerogative of the Supreme Pontiff. At that moment the bishop of Rome was the former Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who when elected pope in 1958 had taken the name John XXIII...
Lionel: He probably did not know the difference between Cushingism and Feeneyism and overlooked the error in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949.

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What: Theological Currents

The question, “What was Vatican II about?” is objectively answered by reading the titles of the documents that the Council approved. From a broader perspective, it is often noted that in some respects the Council completed the work of Vatican I, which had defined precisely the powers of the papacy but had been adjourned before it could discuss episcopal authority in the Church.

Lionel: Yes.

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Roberto de Mattei sees the remote causes of Vatican II in the early 20th-century Modernist crisis. Although Pope Pius X peremptorily clamped down on a wide range of philosophical and theological errors, many of them “went underground” in the academic world and in certain provinces of religious orders. The real need for reform in the Church continued, but it was not being addressed by erudite and antiquarian studies or fantastic speculation. (Recall that Teilhard de Chardin, SJ had many enthusiasts in the Council hall.)

Besides Modernism, de Mattei examines various 20th-century movements within the Church: biblical, philosophical, liturgical, ecumenical. He depicts a fruitful theological pluralism which in places was bursting the seams of the neo-Thomistic system that was still prevalent, especially in the Roman Curia. Through the participation of theological experts at Vatican II, the best of that scholarship contributed significantly to the conciliar documents. But the journals of several “periti”—scholarly experts—that have been published in recent years confirm that neo-Modernism was a real force and that some advisors arrived with scores to settle and strategies for refighting old battles...

Lionel: Today Vatican Council II can be interpreted in harmony with Tradition by avoiding the false premise which had come into the Church in a big way with the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 .It  was not corrected by Pope Pius XII or any of the cardinals and bishops.Even the traditionalists did not know that with Feeneyism the Council was in harmony with Tradition.-Lionel Andrades

Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania. He headed a team of translators who prepared the English edition of The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story by Roberto de Mattei.

http://catholicism.org/the-who-what-where-when-and-why-of-the-council.html