By Darrick Taylor, The Stream, Oct. 13, 2022
Darrick Taylor teaches history at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.
By now, everyone understands (or should understand) that Pope Francis thinks of himself as implementing the agenda of Vatican II. The unstated but occasionally explicit theme of his speeches, letters, and remarks is that his predecessors failed to do so. And his actions, from Amoris Laetitia to Traditionis Custodes, have all aimed to move Catholic teaching past where it was in the 1960s.
He consistently criticizes those who “oppose the council” for being nostalgic for the pre-Vatican II Church and for what he calls “backwardism.” Like many who appealed to the “Spirit of the Council” to justify radical departures from Church teaching, Francis seems to divide Church history into two periods: that before the Council, and what comes after. …
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