Because I am concerned about certain defects in the official Catholic moral teachings, I want to highlight here the American Jesuit moral theologian James T. Bretzke's "Moral Theology and the Paradigm Shift of Vatican II" in the 800-page 2023 book The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, edited by Catherine E. Clifford of Saint Paul University in Ottawa and Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University in Philadelphia (pp. 418-431).

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 11, 2023: The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the Roman Catholic Church took place during my years of undergraduate studies (1962-1966). It was called by Pope John XXIII, but the task of officially promulgating Vatican II's historic documents fell to his successor, Pope Paul VI.

Now, in 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his own historic encyclical Humanae Vitae, re-affirming the church's official opposition to the use of artificial contraception by married couples - an opposition that has not yet been officially reversed and is not likely to be reversed by the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis, as I have indicated in my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):

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More recently, I have discussed Pope Francis in my OEN article "Pope Francis on Catholic Liturgical Formation" (dated July 4, 2022):

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The church's dubious teaching on contraception is explored by the lay American Catholic philosopher John T. Noonan, Jr., in his classic study Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, 2nd ed. (1986; 1st ed., 1965), which includes his reflections on Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical in an appendix (pp. 535-554). No doubt the deserved resistance to the moral teaching of Pope Paul VI's 1968 infamous encyclical colored the contemporary reception by practicing Catholics in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world of Vatican II's various wide-ranging teachings.

For a recent discussion of Pope Paul VI's 1968 infamous encyclical, see the lay American Catholic theologians Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler's article "Conservative defense of Humanae Vitae is not just about contraception" (dated February 6, 2023) at the National Catholic Reporter website:

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In it, the authors quote Pope Francis as saying that the church has "'called to form consciences, not to replace them'" in paragraph 37 in his 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia [Latin for The Joy of Love]: On Love in the Family that is available in English and other languages at the Vatican's website. This is a crucial moral principle.

I highlight Salzman and Lawler's NCR article in my OEN article "Pope Francis on the Joy of Love" (dated February 8, 2023):

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In any event, I consider Vatican II to be an important event in my lifetime. It represents a watershed moment in the history of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. But its official documents are still being interpreted and still forming the practices of practicing Catholics today.

New English translations of six key documents of Vatican II can be found in the 2012 book Vatican II: The Essential Texts, edited by Norman Tanner, S.J. (Image Books/ Random House). In it, one introductory essay is Pope Benedict XVI's Address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005 (pp. 3-13), in which he sets forth what he refers to as two contrary hermeneutics regarding interpretations of Vatican II's documents: (1) the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture, and (2) the hermeneutic of reform (p. 4). According to him, only the hermeneutic of reform is the proper way to interpret the texts of Vatican II.

For discussion of Pope Benedict XVI's dubious legacy, see Matthew Fox's 2011 book The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved (Sterling Ethos).

Now, within the context of worldwide Roman Catholicism, Vatican II is such a stunning and sweeping development that we can speak of the pre-Vatican II church and of the still emerging Vatican II church.

However, within the context of American culture, the 1960s also brought us the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy; the Cuban missile crisis, the black civil rights movement, the passage of landmark civil rights legislation, the Vietnam War, protests against the Vietnam War, the police riot in Chicago at the time of the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and the election of President Richard Nixon in 1968.

Today many of Trump's supporters, including many practicing American Catholics who fantasize about the pre-Vatican II church, idealize the postwar 1950s in American culture - when America was "great" after emerging victorious in World War II.

Now, Vatican II's still emerging significance is explored in the 80 essays in the 800-page 2023 book The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, edited by the lay Catholic scholars Catherine E. Clifford of Saint Paul University in Ottawa and Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University in Philadelphia. It includes three indexes: (1) "Index of Names" (pp. 755-766); (2) "Index of Subjects" (pp. 767-772); and (3) "Index of Vatican II Documents" (pp. 773-777). However, I am sorry to report that the term conscience does not appear in the "Index of Subjects."

For the table of contents and author information, see the Oxford University Press website:

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Recently the Canadian Catholic theologian Professor Clifford published the article "[Pope] Francis' synod reforms show voices of Catholic laity can no longer be ignored" (dated May 10, 2023) at the National Catholic Reporter website:

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Recently the Italian-born Catholic church historian Professor Faggioli published the article "[Pope] Francis & the 'Elitist' German synod: Why the pope's criticism is so strong" (dated February 22, 2023) at the Commonweal magazine website:

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Now, the lay American Catholic journalist and columnist Michael Seen Winters has ably reviewed The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II in two recent columns at the National Catholic Reporter website:

(1) "'Oxford Handbook of Vatican II' is, pun intended, magisterial" (dated May 5, 2023):

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(2) "'Oxford Handbook of Vatican II' comprehensively covers the council and its reception" (dated May 8, 2023):

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I commend Michael Sean Winters for reading the 777-page text and writing such a thorough review of the book. I doubt if another reviewer will write a more thorough review of the book. In the first part of his thorough review, Michael Sean Winters details the late American Jesuit church historian John W. O'Malley's Chapter 1: "From Trent and Vatican I to Vatican II" (pp. 9-25).

Father O'Malley is the distinguished author of scholarly books about the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), and the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965):

(1) Trent: What Happened at the Council (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013);

(2) Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018);

(3) What Happened at Vatican II (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).

In the second part of Michael Sean Winters' thorough review, he especially commends the Canadian Jesuit theologian Gilles Routhier's Chapter 20: "Vatican II and the Theology of Reception" (pp. 333-345). Father Routhier of Laval University in Quebec City has published numerous scholarly books in French - not one of which has yet been translated into English.

Now, in two of my recent OEN articles, I have focused on discussing Catholic moral theology:

(1) "Two American Jesuits Discuss Rape in Catholic Moral Theology" (dated March 29, 2023):

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(2) "John T. Noonan on Slavery in Catholic Moral Thought" (dated April 13, 2023):

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Consequently, rather than try to highlight the 80 wide-ranging chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, as Michael Sean Winters does, I want to discuss only Chapter 25: "Moral Theology and the Paradigm Shift of Vatican II" (pp. 418-431) by the American Jesuit moral theologian James T. Bretzke of John Carroll University in Cleveland, the author of the 2013 book Handbook of Roman Catholic Moral Terms (Georgetown University Press).

Presumably the priest sex-abuse scandal and the accompanying scandal of cover-ups by bishops involved priests and bishops formed by the pre-Vatican II moral paradigm. Presumably the practicing American Catholics who support Trump and the culture of grievance that he represents (in Michael Sean Winter's terminology) involve practicing American Catholics who actively resist being formed by the Vatican II moral paradigm.

Their resistance to being formed by the Vatican II moral paradigm is manifested in their vociferous resistance to the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis. See Massimo Borghesi's 2021 book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated from the Italian by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic).

Recently Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, spoke of the resistance to the decrees of Vatican II in his wide-ranging remarks to 32 Jesuits in Budapest, Hungary, on April 29th, the transcript of which was published on May 9th in the Jesuit-sponsored journal La Civilta Cattolica. The pope's wide-ranging remarks are highlight in Carol Glatz's article "Pope Francis says abusive Catholic clergy 'deserve punishment'" (dated May 10, 2023) at the National Catholic Reporter website:

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In it, Pope Francis is quoted as saying that "'the resistance [to its decrees] is terrible. There is an unbelievable [support for] restorationism'" (Glatz's bracketed material). The pope rejects the desire to go back in time to pre-Vatican II times.

Now, in Father Bretzke's Chapter 25: "Moral Theology and the Paradigm Shift of Vatican II" in The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (pp. 418-431), he calls attention to the prolific German Redemptorist priest and moral theologian Bernard Haring (1912-1998). Bretzke says that Haring "play[ed] a very important role as a peritus [expert] at the council in the drafting of Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern world, as well as Optatam Totius itself" (p. 419). Bretzke also mentions Haring's three-volume work in moral theology in German in the 1950s that was translated into English in 1963 as The Law of Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity (p. 419). In Bretzke's "Suggested Reading" (p. 431), he lists the English translation of Haring's post-Vatican II three-volume work Free and Faithful in Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity (1978-1981).

So what, if anything, can we infer from the change in titles from Haring's pre-Vatican II three-volume work in moral theology to his post-Vatican II three-volume work in moral theology? Did the documents of Vatican II inspire Haring to switch from emphasizing the Law of Christ to emphasizing Free and Faithful in Christ? In which Vatican II documents should we look to find the source of Haring's apparent inspiration to change his tune, figuratively speaking?

In Bretzke's subsection titled "Conscience" (pp. 426-428), he says, "The locus classicus for the council's expanded understanding on conscience is found in Gaudium et Spes 16, which speaks of the 'sanctuary' of conscience as being both a sacred place in which the individual meets God in a privileged manner and a safe place in which no other force or authority may legitimately intrude (including the official magisterium)" (p. 427).

Bretzke also says, "The seeds planted in Vatican II's documents that involve conscience - Gaudium et Spes [the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World], Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic constitution on the Church], and Dignitatis Humanae [Declaration of Religious Freedom] - would continue to germinate and grow, but the struggles over the fruits of their cultivation further illustrate the thesis about the difficult tensions involved in deep-seated paradigm shifts" (p. 427). All three of the Vatican II documents that Bretzke mentions here are in the fresh English translations in the 2012 book Vatican II: The Essential Texts, mentioned above.

So let's take a look at what Bretzke refers to as "The locus classicus for the council's expanded understanding on conscience," Gaudium et Spes 16, as translated into English by John Mahoney, S.J., in Vatican II: The Essential Texts (pp. 194-298):

"Deep within their conscience individuals discover a law [reminiscent of Haring's pre-Vatican II emphasis on The Law of Christ] which they do not make for themselves but which they are bound to obey, whose voice, ever summoning them to love and do what is good and to avoid what is evil, rings their heart when necessary with the command: Do this, keep away from that. For inscribed in their hearts by God, human beings have a law whose observance is their dignity and in accordance with which they are to be judged. Conscience is the most intimate center and sanctuary of a person, in which he or she is alone with God whose voice echoes within them. In a marvelous manner conscience makes known that law which is fulfilled by love of God and of neighbor. In their faithfulness to conscience, Christians are united with all other people in the search for truth and in finding true solutions to the many moral problems which arise in the lives of individuals and in society. And the more a correct conscience prevails, so much the more do persons and groups abandon blind whims and work to conform to the objective norms of morality. Not infrequently, however, conscience can be mistaken as a result of insuperable ignorance, although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity; but this cannot be said when a person shows little concern for seeking what is true and good and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin" (pp. 207-208).

The conceptualization of conscience in this passage suggests that it involves a kind of inner dialogue within the person.

In conclusion, if we were to conceptualize Vatican II as a paradigm shift in the Roman Catholic Church, as Bretzke's title suggests, then we might have to embrace a trickle-down theory of assimilation to account for the resistance to Vatican II's teachings among certain conservative Catholics.

(Article changed on May 11, 2023 at 6:24 PM EDT)

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview