Benedict XVI Admits Qualms of Conscience about Vatican II
After the German publisher Droemer Verlag first released it on 9 September 2016, much has already been deeply discussed and variously reported about Benedict XVI’s new interview-book, Benedikt XVI. Letzte Gespräche (Benedict XVI – Last Conversations) which so far has only been published in the German language. It has been shown, for example, how the former pope supports whole-heartedly Pope Francis’ papacy and how he still defends his decision to leave his Petrine office, not calling it a flight, but, rather, a calm, fearless move on his part. It has now also been reported that the former pope insists that the Church was in a good state when he himself decided to leave his office.
Another part of the book, however, will also be of much interest to the Catholic world, inasmuch as Joseph Ratzinger discusses in that section his own role at the Second Vatican Council and even the often destructive consequences of this Church event. Only recently, in March of 2016, he had already made some critical remarks about the Council which soon attracted world-wide attention. For, Ratzinger had described a “two-sided deep crisis,” especially with regard to the Church’s own missionary work following the Second Vatican Council. Now in his new book, he seems to admit that he has qualms of conscience with regard to his own involvement as a peritus at the Council, even if he still insists that the Council itself was necessary. In the following, I shall present some larger portions of the new book’s chapter on the Second Vatican Council, inasmuch as this Council still haunts the Catholic Church and still repeatedly stirs much debate. This chapter is entitled: “Konzil: Traum und Trauma” (“Council: Dream and Trauma”) and can be found on pages 142-167 of the book. I will make intermittent references to some of the pages.
Continue reading at 1 Peter 5.