Vatican II: For Better or For Worse, by David Torkington

By David Torkington, Crisis Magazine, Aug. 1, 2024

David Torkington is a Spiritual Theologian, Author and Speaker who specializes in Prayer, Christian Spirituality and Mystical Theology. You can find out more about him at davidtorkington.com.

When Pope John XXIII should have been calling Catholics to repentance, prayer, and sacrifice, he decided to call a Council to do the impossible.

When the bishops and their theological advisers met in Rome for the Second Vatican Council, journalists divided the participants into two main groups: Progressives and Conservatives. It was a gross exaggeration because within each group there were many different schools of thought. But, for the sake of the point that I want to make, let the names of these two main opposing groups stand, for in all caricatures there is always more than a grain of truth.

The progressives tended to look to what was called the New Biblical Theology to do for the forthcoming Council what Scholastic Theology, and more precisely Thomism, had done for the Council of Trent. The conservatives wanted Scholastic Theology, and Thomism in particular, to be the main theology used at the Second Vatican Council. However, there was a spy in the camp in the form of an ultra-progressive group who did not want either the New Biblical Theology or the Old Scholastic Theology. They wanted a totally new theology for the new world in which the Church found herself. …

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