Anschluss in reverse

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 23, 2010

The dean of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry tells the Religion News Service what everyone needs to know about Vatican II:

A great majority of Catholics (once) thought of the church as outside of time altogether -- that what they did on Sunday is what Jesus did at the Last Supper, and early Christians did in the catacombs. Vatican II attacked this notion of the church as providing a timeless set of answers to life's questions about meaning.

Let’s get this straight. Did Vatican II teach that what we do on Sunday—we’re speaking about the Mass, I assume, not watching football games—is not what Jesus did at the Last Supper? That would be remarkable. That would be newsworthy. That would be, actually, heresy.

The RNS interviewer recognizes that Father Massa’s line of thought differs from that of other Catholic thinkers. So the question naturally arises:

As a Jesuit, are you worried about publicly disagreeing with the pope?

(The interviewer evidently finds it remarkable that a Jesuit would disagree with the Pontiff.)

A: No. I'm a historian. I'm only laying out the past.

That’s odd. Historians usually base their work on documents, when documents are available. The documents of Vatican II are available, and they do not support Father Massa’s interpretation.

Q: How does Benedict's recent reform of the Mass in English and support for the Latin Mass fit into your theory?

A: It's partly personal preference. He's Austrian, and likes looking back to the past.

 

Austrian? Well, Massa may not be much of a historian, but he's certainly not a geographer.