Chapter 25 The Spirit of the Council

What ambiguities and heterodox orientations could have been avoided if Vatican

2 had been a dogmatic council and not a so-called pastoral

one.

When we examine the successive drafts of the conciliar documents, we perceive the orientations

they express.

Let me take up some of these.

To be sure, Lumengencium distinguishes between the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood of the priests.

Number 10. Good.

But then, the text comprises long pages that speak of the priesthood in general, confusing the two,

or making the priesthood of the priests, one function among others, of the common priesthood, number

11. Likewise, it is well said that man must submit himself to the law of God, Dignitatis Humane, number two.

Then, the liberty of man is exalted with his personal conscience. Number three,

it comes to the point of upholding the objection of conscience, in a manner so general that it is false.

It states, man must not be compelled to act against his conscience.

Now, this is true only of a true conscience or of an invincibly erroneous conscience.

The result is a tendency to put conscience above

the law and subjectivity above the objective order of things, whereas it is quite evident that

conscience is created to conform itself to the law. In like manner, at all times, particularly in the Declaration

on Religious Liberty, it is repeated that there must be no compulsion and no coercion.

Gaudium at Spez number 47 and Dignitati Shumane numbers 1, 2, 3, and 10.

Liberty is defined as the absence of constraint.

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