# Hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council

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The Hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council, or the Hermeneutics of Vatican II, refers to the different interpretations of the Second Vatican Council given by theologians and historians in relation to the Roman Catholic Church in the period following the Council. The two leading interpretations are the "hermeneutic of continuity" (or "hermeneutic of the reform") and the contrasting "hermeneutic of rupture" (or "hermeneutic of discontinuity").
This field of research is taught in some universities and explored by learned societies such as the School of Bologna and the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences. It is the subject of publications by specialists such as Giuseppe Alberigo, John W. O'Malley, Christoph Theobald, Gilles Routhier, Romano Amerio and Roberto de Mattei, who all consider there to have been a hermeneutic of discontinuity, while the Vatican, particularly during the Pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have endorsed the concept of a hermeneutic of continuity.

## Interpreting the Council

Unlike other Councils of the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II poses a problem of interpretation which theologians and historians have grabbled with the legacy of the Council and how it should be interpreted in the world. This peculiarity can be derived from the intention of the Council itself, which was not to define "one point or another of doctrine and discipline" but to "re-establish in value and splendor the substance of human and Christian thought and life". This intention was followed by a lack of dogmatic definitions, which gave rise to a debate on the nature of the documents and their application.
All ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church have had their historians who have contributed to providing an interpretation starting from their point of view. However, only for the Second Vatican Council have two contrary hermeneutics been confronted. According to some critics, the presence of opposing hermeneutics can be attributed to an ambiguity or ambivalence of the conciliar documents.

## Hermeneutics of continuity

According to the hermeneutics of continuity, the Second Vatican Council must be interpreted in the light and in continuity with the magisterium of the Church preceding and following the Council, or in the light of sacred tradition.
Already in 1966, a year after the closing of the Council, Pope Paul VI highlighted two interpretative tendencies considered erroneous:
   And [...] it seems to Us that two possible errors must be avoided: first, that of supposing that the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council represents a break with the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition that precedes it, almost as if it were such a novelty that it should be compared to a shocking discovery, to a subjective emancipation, which authorizes the detachment, almost a pseudo-liberation, from what until yesterday the Church has authoritatively taught and professed [...] And another error, contrary to the fidelity that we owe to the Council, would be that of ignoring the immense wealth of teachings and the providential renewing fruitfulness that comes to us from the Council itself
The hermeneutics of continuity inspired the pontificate of Pope John Paul II[8] in the Vatican and was explicitly formulated by Pope Benedict XVI on 22 December 2005:
   Why has the reception of the Council, in large parts of the Church, been so difficult up to now? Well, everything depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or – as we would say today – on its correct hermeneutics, on the correct key to reading and applying it. The problems of reception arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics found themselves in confrontation and argued with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but ever more visibly, bore fruit. On the one hand there is an interpretation that I would call "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture"; it has often been able to avail itself of the sympathy of the mass media, and also of a part of modern theology. On the other hand there is the "hermeneutics of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church, which the Lord has given us; it is a subject that grows over time and develops, but always remains the same, the only subject of the People of God on the move.
Benedict XVI has returned to the same question on other occasions[9][10], underlining the importance of the Second Vatican Council being received in the light of the entire doctrinal baggage of the Church[11]
The main scholars who support the hermeneutic of continuity are Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, President of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, Avery Robert Dulles and Francis Eugene George, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Dominican Bishop Charles Morerod and the legal philosopher Francis Russell Hittinger.[12]
A critique of the hermeneutic of continuity contests its theological rather than historical approach, with the presumed consequence of taking away importance from the Council considered as an event.[13][14]

## Hermeneutics of rupture

The hermeneutics of rupture, also known as the hermeneutics of discontinuity, tends to give value to the Council as an event, also in consideration of some particular characteristics of Vatican II: the absence of a specific historical purpose, the rejection of the originally Roman Curia-backed preparatory schemes, the assembly elaboration of the documents and also the perception of the Council as a crucial event by public opinion. This hermeneutics aims to valorise not only the documents approved by the Council, but also the debates within the assembly and the perception of the Council externally, by the faithful.
Benedict XVI, a few months after his election as Pope, expressed a severe criticism of the hermeneutics of discontinuity:
   The hermeneutics of discontinuity risks ending in a rupture between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such are not yet the true expression of the spirit of the Council. They are the result of compromises in which, in order to reach unanimity, many old things that are now useless had to be dragged along and reconfirmed. However, the true spirit of the Council is not revealed in these compromises, but rather in the impulses toward the new that underlie the texts: they alone represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from them and in conformity with them, one should move forward. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its novelty, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts, making room for the novelty in which the deepest intention, although still indistinct, of the Council would be expressed. In a word: it would be necessary to follow not the texts of the Council, but its spirit.
The progressivist supporters of the hermeneutics of discontinuity are represented by the so-called "Bologna School" directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, a student of Giuseppe Dossetti, author of a "History of the Second Vatican Council" in five volumes. They "emphasized the 'spirit' of the council, styling the progressive reformers as the heroes and the conservative minority at the council as the enemies of progress". It is named after the city of Bologna, the intellectual centre of this school of thought and the headquarters of the main organ associated with this line of thought; the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences. Other leading thinkers in the Bologna School were Alberto Melloni, Giuseppe Ruggieri and Maria Teresa Fattori. Outside Italy this approach is supported David Berger, John W. O'Malley, Gilles Routhier and Cristoph Theobald.
Many Catholic traditionalist groups, such as the Society of Saint Pius X, and some scholars such as the philosopher Romano Amerio, also support the perception of the Second Vatican Council as a hermeneutic of discontinuity from sacred tradition and the pre-Concilliar Magisterium of the Catholic Church, accompanying it with a strong criticism of the Second Vatican Council, questioning some of its texts and especially its legacy (in contrast to progressivists who see the discontinuity as a good thing).[17] In 2010, the historian Roberto de Mattei intervened in the debate with the book Il Concilio Vaticano II. Una storia mai scritta ("The Second Vatican Council – An Unwritten Story"), in which, without entering into the merits of the theological discussion, he argues on a historical level the impossibility of separating the Second Vatican Council from the post-conciliar abuses, isolating the latter as a pathology that developed in a healthy body.