Some believe we have gone far beyond the need for “aggorniamento,” i.e. updating” of church structures, language and reconnecting to the culture in the vernacular.

Perhaps we have just begun the aggorniamento process which needs to acknowledge that we have arrived at a split mind within the Western/Latin Branch of Catholicism…a place where Roman and Vatican II Catholics see things so very differently, that we speak two very different cultural languages as Catholics, akin to the 1054 East-West mystical/scholastic split mind in Catholicism, including the Eastern Churches which remained in union with Rome.

This “split mind” in our Church drove the direction of Vatican II and, according to the article below and other sources, this “minority mind” had such a great influence on the Church that we are still wrestling with its contributions today.

It was, after all, Patriarch Maximos and his small Melkite band in a sea of Latin Rite hierarchs, who managed to introduce such items as:

• the use of the vernacular,
• eucharistic concelebration,
• communion under both species in the Latin liturgy,
• restoration of the diaconate as a permanent order,
• creation of what would become the periodically held Synod of Bishops
• creation of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity,
  • championing new attitudes to and less offensive vocabulary in ecumenical relationships with Eastern Orthodox and other Christians,
    • recognition of Eastern Catholic communities for what they are, “Churches,” not “rites.”

From “Eastern Christians in Australia” by Lawrence Cross in Australian eJournal of Theology 19.2(August 2012)

So, we ask, “Should so many be so hesitant of even addressing the option of a Vatican II Rite standing next to its 22 Eastern siblings in union with “elder sibling” Rome?

Sisters Lea and Consilia
4vatican2rite@gmail.com