An appraisal of the Second Vatican Council from the mouth of a Bergoglian Papabile.
On October 11, 60 years ago, the Second Vatican Council opened. On this occasion an interview was conducted with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi to look back and take stock: What was the Second Vatican Council and what is left of it? Matteo Zuppi, member of the Community of Sant'Egidio, was appointed Archbishop of Bologna in 2015 by Pope Francis, in the spirit of a Bergoglian “kindness”, succeeding Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, visited by Francis in Bologna in 2017, created Cardinal in 2019, and 2022 by named by him as his deputy to the Italian Bishops' Conference. Since he received the purple, Cardinal Zuppi has been considered a possible papabile in the coming conclave, which is why his remarks are of particular importance. The historian and publicist Cristina Siccardi analyzed the interview.
Vatican II and the hopes and disappointments of Cardinal Zuppi
By Cristina Siccardi*
When Vatican II opened 60 years ago, on October 11, 1962, the progressive faction of the assembly, a minority, was scraping. Its protagonists stood ready, prepared and enthusiastic for the revolutionary changes that Pope John XXIII made possible. who, for no apparent reason, had decided to convene a council for a Church that was to be "dusted" with new and exciting goals - above all, no longer condemning the theological errors and mistakes of the world, but resolving towards them to accept and follow the secularized and anti-Christian "signs of the times".
Time is, as they say, a “gentleman”, we just have to practice the virtue of patience, and the causes of these revolutionary decisions have led to a physiological derailment of their effects. Through the decades we can make an informed assessment of motives and consequences, and we have evidence of this in the protagonists of the time themselves, which we hear and read with great Christian reverence. There is a poverty and sparseness in their elaborations that is embarrassingly impressive: they are ex-revolutionaries who have glorified themselves and are now stunned, with nothing left to say and groping in the dark, seeking support they cannot find, and about tripping over the shards that they themselves have broken.
