Original Schemas of Vatican II show what might have been

Prior to Vatican II, a whole slew of “schemas,” or documents, were drawn up by a worldwide commission of theological experts.  Fully orthodox, these schemas were intended to guide the conciliar discussions and, if all went well, be approved as the official VII documents with only minor changes.  They were completely, totally orthodox.  They spoke with great clarity and the conviction of Truth.  And they were killed off, one by one, by the progressive elements at the Council which, with the sure support of both pontiffs who oversaw VII, managed to utterly dominate the Council.

These documents were naturally written in Latin. Latin was for at least 1600 years the universal language of the Church (Greek being used in some parts in the early Church).  So, they have been impenetrable to most of us who do not have a command of that language, which is a sad thing, because it used to be that anyone with a decent education could read Latin and Greek.  But thanks to the work of Fr. Joseph Komonchak, who has laboriously translated these documents, 5 of the 9 schemas are now available for us to read in English:

• On the Sources of Revelation (De fontibus revelationis)
• Defending Intact the Deposit of Faith
• On the Christian Moral Order
• On Chastity, Marriage, the Family and Virginity
• Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

I’m not sure who, I think it may be Boniface, at the other Unam Sanctam Catholicam site, has read the documents and noted the great differences between the pre-conciliar schemas and the actual approved documents of Vatican II:

In reading these original schemas, one is struck by their clarity, their directness, and relative to the subsequent conciliar documents, their brevity. It is also interesting to see in what ways the content of these documents are notably different from the documents that were eventually promulgated. For example, “On the Sources of Revelation” states very plainly that there are two sources of revelation which constitute a single deposit of faith; Dei Verbum, on the other, is emphatic that there is but one source of revelation which is passed on in two modes of transmission.

The source material is interesting as well. An examination of the footnotes of the discarded schemas reveals an abundant number of citations from Pascendi, Mortalium Animos, the Syllabus and even the anti-Modernist oath, none of which are cited in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, for example.

The tone is markedly different; instead of the humble “searching for truth” [1] that we note in the conciliar documents, the original schemas lucidly and authoritatively proclaim the truth, as well as about the errors which pervert it. De fontibus revelationis, subject to so much scorn by the Council Fathers, issues several formal condemnations. In order to see the difference in tone between the two sets of documents, consider the first as passage from the schema “On the Christian Moral Order”, paragraph 6:

“[The Church] grieves, however, that many people are transgressing the divine law, more from weakness than from wickedness, though rarely without grave guilt. It notes with great horror that errors are being spread everywhere, errors that open the way to perdition and close the gate of salvation. There are those who deny a personal God and so deprive the natural law of its foundation; there are those who, repudiating the mission of Christ, reject the law of the Gospel; there are those who rely only on human principles in explaining the moral order and therefore rob it of its genuine and ultimate obligation and sanction…Their impiety and impudence reach such a point that they attempt to assault heaven and to remove God himself from the midst. With notorious wickedness and equal foolishness they are not afraid to state that there is no supreme, most wise and most provident God distinct from the universe; there are those who maintain that the moral law is subject to changes and to evolution even in fundamental matters…” [Like, say, the German bishops?]

Now compare this with a parallel passage from Gaudium et Spes chapter 21, also dealing with atheism:

“The Church calls for the active liberty of believers to build up in this world God’s temple too. She courteously invites atheists to examine the Gospel of Christ with an open mind.”

When the Council got underway, the progressive Council Fathers saw the schemas of Ottaviani as an obstacle to their program of reform. Cardinal Bea, one of the more influential Cardinals and a favorite of Pope John XXIII, explained to his progressive colleagues:

“We must help the Holy Father achieve his goals for the Council, the ones he expresses in his radio messages and in his exhortations. These are not the same as those of the schemas, either because the Theological Commission, which directs them, is closed to the world and to ideas of peace, justice, and unity, or because of the division of the work and a lack of co-ordination. They’ve made room for everything except the Holy Spirit.” [2] [That is an amazingly rude and dismissive statement to make.  Cardinal Bea, one of the most damaging of the progressives at Vatican II, is essentially stating that Cardinal Ottaviani has no faith.  I am biting my tongue off to not discuss the tendency of modernists to project their own faults on others.  Oops.]

Thus, these schemas, which were ‘closed to the world’, were replaced with what we currently have, and the defects of which we are all well aware. As they were never adopted, these schemas have no authority; but in reading them, one cannot help but contemplating the council that might have been.

So there you go, perhaps some weekend reading for you. The documents are not that long, certainly compared to many of the VII documents themselves.

Studying Vatican II reveals a great deal about human psychology.  Various prelates would stand up at various times in the conciliar sessions and express their dismay and outrage at the way the Council was developing.  They would ask the Council if they really intended to radically make over, even upend, the Faith.  And then they would sit back down and the Council would continue as if nothing had occurred.

It was an interesting exercise in mass psychology, with heavy media pressure serving as a sort of catalyst.  Progressives like to argue that the original schemas were overthrown by some motion of the Holy Spirit.  There was a motion alright, but can’t say I’m convinced the Holy Spirit was the source of it.  It was a council unlike any other in Church history in so many respects.  And there are a lot of influential people in the Church today who think it’s time to resurrect that “spirit” and continue it’s work.