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Dear Father Angelo,
I am a native English speaker. I wrote something in English and then translated it into Italian. It’s something I thought of one day and from that day on I felt compelled to write it down and send it to the right people.
I would be very grateful if you read it and let me know what you think.
Best regards,
Dino
A consideration of Vatican II using the concepts of genus and species.
Without going into the historical context, inner workings, and doctrinal details of the Vatican II documents and rather relying on what most Catholics already know, the following analogy I think is more revealing: Aristotle says that the natural way of learning and knowing things range from the generic to the more specific. Just as when we see something moving in the distance we identify it first as a body and then as an animal approaches and even closer as a man and finally as this particular person Socrates.
Now we need to understand that there is a difference between our knowledge of a thing and the thing itself. Our knowledge is always more generic than the thing itself existing in reality which is very specific. If someone were to give the definition of the species of a thing instead of giving the definition of the genus of that thing, one would be giving a more precise and more complete account of the thing. In other words, the more specific our knowledge becomes about something, the more our knowledge resembles the thing. The truer our knowledge is, in the sense of having more truth – adequatio rei et intellectus.
This is the natural way man comes to know. Trying to move in the opposite direction is unnatural and against human nature. Trying to forget what you already know about something in order to know it more generally is an act of violence against yourself. It would imply a force that goes against one’s nature.
Now what is more generic and less specific, is more universal. Whereas what is more specific is more exclusive. Likewise, when we say the word animal it can apply to many things. Where when we say man we exclude many things and apply to only one type of animal. Now the things that exist aren’t actually generic, they’re specific.
The Church founded by Our Lord is a real existing reality. It is something specific with its essential elements and properties.
Now the Councils, pronouncements and doctrines throughout the centuries became more and more specific. The Church’s self-awareness came ever closer to the reality of its own being. It is impossible to move in the other direction. In other words, it is impossible to move from specific knowledge to a more general, confused one. A generic knowledge of something is always more confusing than a specific one, just as it is more confusing to know something only as an animal than to know it specifically: for example, a man.
This should not be confused with the knowledge that particular people had of the Church. Of course the apostles and early Christians had very specific knowledge of the Church. However, the doctrine formulated by the Church was not so specific. Over the centuries this doctrine has been better formulated and more specified. This was necessary above all to exclude heresy and error. A more generic knowledge is instead more open to heresy and error.
Now, in order for Vatican II to be less divisive, open to non-Catholics and also to allow consensus among the father councilors, the council wanted to reverse the natural procedure and proclaim something more generic than previous councils.
Now one could object that the Council did not teach errors. Entering this debate is not easy and not for most of us. However, knowing that the advice has deliberately decided to be less specific and more general is known to all of us. Can we say that generic knowledge of a thing is deficient compared to more complete specific knowledge of a thing? Trying to go against yourself and forget what you once knew creates the impression that you must have once made a mistake. Why else would one try to forget what they once knew? Especially if what was known was once thought to be precious and true, a treasure to be safeguarded.
How many people do we know who used Vatican II to look back and interpret the older Councils? Anything more specific than the Second Vatican Council is frowned upon as superfluous and outdated. But does the truth age? Nonetheless, can we blame them for acquiring this habit when this is a natural consequence of artificially regressing and not progressing in knowledge? To try to be less specific and more generic.
I’ll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.
Priest’s answer
Dear Dino,
1. before entering into the topic in which you draw me in, I congratulate you on your expressive ability despite being a native English speaker.
Secondly, I apologize for the long delay in replying to you. But only today did I reach your email dated November 13, 2021.
2. Regarding what you wrote, I recognize the truthfulness of your statements on our way of knowing which is explored in depth starting from the general and moving to the particular: from the genus (animal) we move on to the specific (rational animal, i.e. man) and even more determinedly to the individual: this individual is Peter or Paul.
3. You observe that the Council followed a reverse procedure and that for this reason its doctrine remains more generic.
In this regard three things must be observed.
First of all, it must be remembered that the Council did not intend to specify any particular dogma of faith. Other councils, almost all, have had this purpose.
The Council was intentionally intended as a Council of a pastoral nature.
4. Secondly, precisely because it is pastoral in nature, the Council wanted to characterize itself with an ecumenical connotation, underlining how Christians have many things in common, of greater weight than those that divide them.
The ecumenical connotation was necessary and is still particularly urgent today in order to be able to meet and face each other not as enemies, but as brothers in Christ. It is a fact that both the Orthodox churches and those of the Protestant world very often have a poisoned tooth with Rome, and that is with the Catholic church, even considering the Pope as the antichrist and the sacraments celebrated by Catholics as invalid.
The Church, precisely because it is Catholic, has the duty to reconcile all its brothers in Christ.
This in no way means forgetting the certain truth guaranteed from above that the Catholic Church has acquired with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and which it has the duty to announce.
If anyone did it, it was clearly against the will of the Council.
5. Thirdly, if many documents are of a pastoral nature and some also of an expressly ecumenical character, it must nevertheless be remembered that the Second Vatican Council deepened the doctrine,
It has specified that the episcopate is not only superior in dignity to the presbyterate, but is the first degree of Holy Orders, specifying that the other two are those of the diaconate and his diaconate.
In this way it excluded the subdiaconate from the so-called major orders.
6. Furthermore, it expressed more completely the concept of infallibility which is linked not only to the expressions pronounced by the ex-cathedra Supreme Pontiff, but also to the pronouncements of the Supreme Pontiff made in communion with the bishops even though they are scattered across the globe. See number 25 of Lumen gentium.
7. Finally, in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes the Council reaffirmed anthropology according to Catholic doctrine, defining man: “corpore et anima unus” (unity of soul and body, GS 14).
It equally recalled the intrinsic and essential link between Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church: “It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” (DV 10).
I thank you for what you wrote, I wish you a peaceful continuation of the Christmas holidays, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.
Father Angelo
