Read the Actual Text

 “It seemed to me that timing the launch of the Year of Faith to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council would provide a good opportunity to help people understand that the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church's Tradition ... I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” I would also like to emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say concerning the Council a few months after my election as Successor of Peter: “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.” (Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei, 5)

Inasmuch as the constant invocation of the “spirit of Vatican II” to justify liturgical innovations has caused much confusion among the faithful, we should take advantage of the Year of Faith to read the actual text of the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium). I think we have had enough of so-called liturgical experts (technocrats) who legitimize their “creativity” by hiding behind the authority of Vatican II. If it is true that their innovations were mandated by Vatican II, they should support their argument with the actual text of Sacrosanctum Concilium. I might sound like a fundamentalist but I think it is about time that we question these experts: Where in the documents of Vatican II did the Church say that you could do what you tell us to do? It is about time that we stop accepting this barrage of liturgical innovations and begin questioning these “experts.” Let us empower ourselves. Read the actual text of Vatican II.