Chicago Cardinal on the hermeneutic of continuity

Not this blog but the concept behind the title. Cardinal George of Chicago has a column in Catholic New World, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago in which he asks "Will the real Vatican II please stand up?" Much of his analysis is taken from the address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia in which the Holy Father spoke of two ways of interpreting Vatican II. One was the hermeneutic (principle of interpretation) of discontinuity and rupture. As Cardinal George says:
It is as if the Church after the Council was a new, a different Church from all that had gone before. Where the texts of the Council did not support this interpretation, they were put aside in the name of the “spirit” of the Council.
Speaking of the other interpretation, the hermeneutic of continuity and reform, the Cardinal quotes the Holy Father's words:
The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes.

(Hat tip to the New Liturgical Movement.)

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