"It is easy," he now says "to understand why Pope John Paul II felt a special compassion for those who found it difficult to accept the liturgical reforms of the council." This new found compassion of the archbishop, however, is tempered by the thought that the classical rites are now promoted not so much by the older generation who knew the pre-conciliar liturgy but by "a newer, younger crowd." He wishes to address a series of questions to the "new devotees". As someone who is young enough to fit the description and old enough to be flattered by it, I think it incumbent upon me to answer Archbishop Weakland’s questions and perhaps to pose him a few questions of my own, in a spirit of continued dialogue.

The first question he asks is: "Do they accept the whole of the conciliar documents or not?" He goes on to explain that the liturgical reform was intrinsic to the purpose of the Council itself, as the documents themselves state. He poses a further question: "Can the two, the reform of the liturgy and the reform of the Church, be separated?" The basis of this question is that the groups that promote the old liturgical usages also promote an old theology by means such as pre-conciliar catechetical material. These people are effectively ignoring the Second Vatican Council by using the ruse that it was not a dogmatic council, which is not to be countenanced if division in the Church is to be prevented.

To the first question any "traditionalist" must unhesitatingly affirm all the dogmatic statements of the Second Vatican Council, as indeed must anyone who wishes to keep communion with the Catholic Church. This is a sine qua non of being a Catholic.

There is a difference, however, between a clear magisterial enunciation of Catholic teaching by an ecumenical council and a prudential decision made by a council. I am required to believe as a matter of Catholic and Divine Faith that Mary is the Mother of God, as defined by the Council of Ephesus. I am not required to give assent to the decisions made by that Council about the ecclesiastical jurisdiction into which the province of Dalmatia falls (and given the current problems in the Balkans who could dispute that!), or the right of the Archbishop of Cyprus to use green ink.

 I am required to adhere to the teaching of the Church at the Second Vatican Council in the document Lumen Gentium that the Church is governed by the Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him. I am required to believe, as taught in Presbyterorum Ordinis, that the priesthood of the ordained differs in essence not just in degree from the priesthood of all believers. I am required to believe that abortion and weapons of mass destruction are both monstrous evils as we find in Gaudium et Spes. 

I am not required to believe that the arrangement of the psalms for the Divine Office, as a matter of practical liturgical fact, is better in the new rite than in the old. I am not required to believe as a constitutive part of the Catholic Faith the prudential judgement that liturgical rites should be free from repetitive prayer and be in the vernacular. And the fact that the operation of my intellect leads me in a different direction from the prudential judgement of the Council Fathers does not make me an opponent of the Second Vatican Council, anymore than opposing green ink for the Archbishop of Cyprus makes me an opponent of the Council of Ephesus.

It is pleasing that the Archbishop refers to the documents of the Council rather than the spirit of the Council, or the process of reform instituted by the Council, or the renewal begun by the Council. All of these latter phrases are ways for people to claim Apostolic authority for something which belongs in the realm of private theological opinion which no one has the right to inflict upon the Church at large. To refer to adherence to the documents of the Council trains the sights on public acts promulgated by the weight of magisterial authority. It is beyond the authority of the Church to require adherence to attitudes or to a process of ongoing change or openness to the spirit of the Council. It is a clear case where the spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life.

A clear distinction should be made, moreover, between the post-Conciliar reforms instituted by committees of experts after the Council and the decisions of the Council Fathers themselves. While these committees did participate in the authority of the Council, and indeed of Pope Paul VI, it is nothing more than a tricky sleight of hand to substitute willy nilly the authority of one for the other. Which thimble conceals the pea of magisterial authority?

To the second question Archbishop Weakland asks about the separation of the reform of the Church from the reform of the liturgy, one must quickly reply, that of course one cannot separate them. But what do you mean by reform? Are people forbidden from using catechetical material published before 1960? Is that ecclesiastical reform? Unfortunately the idea has crept into the minds of some that the content of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching is essentially negative. We can’t use that, it’s pre-conciliar. We don’t believe this anymore, or do that anymore. We’ve changed all of that old stuff. To be faithful to the Council, therefore, means that we must reject all that went before it and embrace a state of constant doctrinal and liturgical change. 

This ecclesiastical Maoism is construed as reform. I reject that sort of reform as not only anti-Catholic, but also as essentially anti-intellectual. If by reform, on the other hand, you mean that people grow in holiness, knowledge of their Faith and love of God; that they learn to fulfill their obligations in the civil sphere; that they become more Christ-like; that the clergy become more learned, more aware of the great riches of the scholastic, patristic and scriptural roots of their Faith; that the liturgy is celebrated reverently and with devotion and understanding; that we love one another more, then I accept that reform, because that is the reform that the Fathers of the Council intended.

My own first question is this: Why do you begin with an appeal to Episcopal authority? I thought the Church had gone past all of that reliance on clerical authority and hierarchical power. The appeal to authority, except the case of Divine Revelation, is generally an indication of a lack of an ability to conduct reasoned argument on the subject in question and an authoritarianism characteristic of the "bad old days" to which no-one, least of all traditionalists, wishes to return. There is a proper place for authority, and that place is the maintenance of the deposit of faith. "Among the pagans they lord it over one another. It is not to be like that among you."

My second question is does Archbishop Weakland accept the dogmatic pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council and the teachings of Magisterial authority which have followed in the last decade? Does he believe that liberal or progressive Catholics should be called upon to profess assent to the binding magisterial teachings of the Church? If not, then on what basis does he ask assent to the authority of the Council from us?

My third question and last question also concerns the moral use of authority.