Vatican II: Six Decades of Pseudo-Theology

Years ago, during a very brief meeting at New York University with the eminent English conservative Roger Scruton, I shared with him — an Anglican by tradition — my reservations about the Second Vatican Council and my interest in the old liturgy. He had no reservation in his analysis. He said more or less that the Catholic Church had “joined in the spirit of self-hatred and suicide” that pervaded the West in the 1960s.

My reservations turned into doubts and real problems. They were echoed at the very top. “The truth is that the Vatican Council II itself has not defined any dogma and has consciously wanted to express itself in a more modest range, merely as a pastoral Council,” Pope Benedict XVI would explain. “However, many interpret it as almost a super dogma that takes away everything else.”

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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Years ago, during a very brief meeting at New York University with the eminent English conservative Roger Scruton, I shared with him — an Anglican by tradition — my reservations about the Second Vatican Council and my interest in the old liturgy. He had no reservation in his analysis. He said more or less that the Catholic Church had “joined in the spirit of self-hatred and suicide” that pervaded the West in the 1960s.

My reservations turned into doubts and real problems. They were echoed at the very top. “The truth is that the Vatican Council II itself has not defined any dogma and has consciously wanted to express itself in a more modest range, merely as a pastoral Council,” Pope Benedict XVI would explain. “However, many interpret it as almost a super dogma that takes away everything else.”