Ten, Eleven or So Positions

Over at Fr. Z's, reader "jack" puts forth the following insightful categorization. I've editted the numbers after seven as there was a duplicate seven though a new entry, and inserted two words he missed in the last and mentioned in a followup comment; other than that I'm not doing any editting.

Now that the debate is how to deal with V2, I’m seeing these positions emerge:

1. Rupturing Ruptured Pentecostals : i.e., The Liberals. They say V2 was a ground zero for the Church, they rejecting everything that came before, and oddly muchy of what came after (e.g. Dominum Jesum, etc.). Thus they are stuck in the 60s. They, like all Liberals, Leftists, and ideologues in general, demolish what came before, look instead at a blue print, and build from scratch. They say that V2 was a supercouncil, or the only council. But regardless of what they say, they in fact ignore what the texts of V2 really state and instead believe in a phantom called “The Spirit of Vatican II”, a spirit which has nothing to do with the texts of V2. Because they claim to have a direct telephone line to this supposed spirit, I call them “Pentecostals”. They too “speak in tongues” – ICEL tongues or the words of psychobabble and Cultural Marxist politics, and their version of “Slain in the Spirit” and “Holy Rolling” is liturgical dance.

2. The Looney , the Sedevacantists. “Back to 1958!”

3. The Ultra Ultras: “Williamson can do or say no wrong! Fellay has betrayed Williamson! Heck, the Society has betrayed Williamson!”

4. The Ultras, or The Double Oughts (to pun on some shot shell terms): “Everything about V2 is wrong! It was the Great Apostasy! V2 ought to be totally demolished and junked! We ought to go back to 1962! It’s Rome that needs conversion”.

5. The Cafeteria Traddies: “Let cut out what was bad in V2, and leave what’s left”

6. The Post Hoc Fallacious. “What came after the Council – Bugnini, ICEL, facing the people, in the hand, praise bands, assorted other liturgical abuses, assorted heresies and moral scandals, liturgical dance, etc. – ARE the Council and are authorized by the Council.” Liberals, by the way argue, this way too. But in fact, these events and activities betrayed the Second Vatican Council.

7. The Single Oughts: The Protestant Catholics: “V2 ought to be interpreted by The Tradition, The Tradition being an established, un-developing, unchanging, and inerrant Bible.”

8. The Great Divorcees : the pastoral divorced from the prophetic.
They say either
i. “the pastoral isn’t part of the magisterium”, or
ii. “whatever is pastoral isn’t binding”, or
iii they separate violently the Pastoral and the Prophetic offices of the Church as if there were no relation between the two, just as High Church Anglicans separate the Priestly office from the Pastoral and Prophetic.

9. Filers in the Wrong File Cabinet : “Quanta Cura is dogma; V2 is pastoral.” Both in fact are pastoral.

10. The Foghorns: “V2 is unclear and ambiguous” – a massive fogbank. These critics sound the warning. “BEEEEEEEEEE-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!” (One wonders if the Foghorns will accept the clarifications when they are forthcoming from the Holy See)

11. The Continuarians. Hermeneutic of Continuity; V2 continues The Tradition and develops it. If one prunes, then one does it to nourish.