Vatican II: a triumph of naïve optimism? - Catholic Herald

Vatican II: a triumph of naïve optimism? - Catholic Herald

Dear Fr Aidan,

Thank you for your reply to my previous letter on the concept of Tradition, a subject we can't leave behind just yet, since we're shadowing the agenda for the discussions between the SSPX and Rome, and our topic now is the interpretation of Vatican II in continuity with Catholic doctrinal tradition.

First of all, though, I wasn't suggesting that the sufferings of the SSPX - ostracisation and exile, not to mention the pain of excommunication - constitute a martyrdom. Neither was I comparing the persecution of Christians across the world with the distress of those who watched the religious life that sustained them being dismantled. It's just sad to think of priests who refused to accept the reforms being driven from their parishes and dying of broken hearts, as Archbishop Lefebvre claims happened in A Bishop Speaks.

But were they attached to Tradition or to a particular tradition of expressing Tradition, to borrow your distinction between "Revelation as transmitted in the Church's life" and "the ways in which the Church presents it"?