Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century
By Romano Amerio
This is an excellent work, largely ignored and only recently brought back into the mainstream discussion. We have seen what the so-called fruits of Vatican II brought, much confusion, to say the least. A favorable review of a book regarding the thought of Amerio was published in the publication of the Jesuits in Rome, La Civilta Cattoloica. For the record, he never rejected Vatican II, nor supported the actions of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. But, even Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger saw the revolution which was taking place before his very eyes:
“The impression grew steadily that nothing was now stable in the Church, that everything was open to revision. More and more the Council appeared to be like a great Church parliament that could change everything and reshape everything according to its own desires. Very clearly resentment was growing against Rome and against the Curia, which appeared to be the real enemy of everything that was new and progressive. The disputes at the Council were more and more portrayed according to the party model of modern parliamentarism….For believers, it was a remarkable phenomenon that their bishops seemed to show a different face in Rome from the one they wore at home. Shepherds who had been considered strict conservatives suddenly appeared to be spokesmen for progressivism. But were they doing this all on their own? The role that theologians had assumed at the Council was creating ever more clearly a new confidence among scholars, who now understood themselves to be the truly knowledgeable experts in the faith and therefore no longer subordinate to the shepherds….But now in the Catholic Church all of this - at least in the popular consciousness - was up once again for revision, and even the Creed no longer appeared untouchable but seemed rather subject to the control of scholars. Behind this tendency to dominance by specialists one could already detect something else: the idea of an ecclesial sovereignty of the people in which the people itself determines what it wants to understand by Church…” (Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, pp.132-134).
The review can be found here at Chiesa.
Pax.
Laurence Gonzaga
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