Ratzinger a Obispos de Chile

Cardinal Ratzinger

Address to the bishops of Chile on July 13, 1988

The second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest. This idea is made stronger by things that are now happening. That which previously was considered most holy – the form in which the liturgy was handed down-suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited.

The second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest. This idea is made stronger by things that are now happening. That which previously was considered most holy – the form in which the liturgy was handed down-suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited.