Otto Hermann Pesch (1931-2014), died shortly after his 83rd birthday, regarded as a "giant in Catholic theology" and a leading specialist on St. Thomas Aquinas' and Luther's doctrine of justification. From the mid 1970's he taught Systematic Theology until the late 1990's as the only Catholic on the Protestant Theological Faculty at the University of Hamburg in Germany.

As one of the most esteemed ecumenists in the Catholic world, he wrote a veritable "summa theologica" on Ecumenism (a two volume "Katholische Dogmatik aus okumenischer Erfahrung" based on his ecumenical experiences over 44 years of Catholic-Protestant Dialogue). His "The Second Vatican Council: Prehistory-Event-Result-Posthistory" (Marquette University Press, 2014) was edited by one of his academic disciples Dr. Marcus Wriedt, professor of Historical Theology at Marquette University who notes that the English publication was supported both financially and spiritually by the liberal Karl Cardinal Lehmann who himself played an important role at the II Vatican Council (1962-1965). As Dr. Wriedt writes:

"the book certainly informs about the history of the Second Vatican Council. It gives insights in the discussion whose results have been promoted as constitution and doctrinal advice to the Catholic world of the mid-20th century. With this, it tries to evoke understanding of the inner-Catholic debate to non-Catholics or even hostile Protestants who have no clue about the world 'intra muros' of the Council. In addition, it is an emphatic cry for a greater ecumenical engagement."

How accurate and objective were Pesch's "revolutionary insights" and "ecumenical perspective" to promote a greater understanding of Vatican II for readers, warrants examination. Like other priestly contemporaries during that troubled post-Conciliar period, Otto Hermann Pesch would leave the Dominican Order, was laicized, and married. In the Preface of his book, Pesch writes that:

"This book intends to explain the history of the Second Vatican Council, the controversies with regard to the elaboration of the texts, and the results along with the story of their reception in the Roman Catholic Church."

The author is successful in treating and summarizing the content of the Constitutions, Declarations and Decrees emanating from the Council, and tracing the different drafts and editions of the documents that gave rise to heated discussions and stormy debates among the 2540 voting-members of the Council dealing with the liturgy, liberation theology, ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, marriage and sexuality and the relation of the Church to Jews and non-Christians. He provides some interesting tidbits in his historical survey:

• Pope John XXIII spoke Latin poorly;
• the Council's "Message to the World" (October 20, 1962) was written by two Dominican 'periti' Marie Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar;
• The reader benefits from the author's identifying the leading figures involved in the drafting and writing of Conciliar documents.

Pesch does not acknowledge, however, that the left-wing and more radical element among the "progressive" Cardinals and bishops shamefully and scandalously advocated heterodox positions during the Council's proceedings. There is no acknowledgement that their errors threatened the dogmatic unity of the Catholic faith.

It is curious that an esteemed ecumenical theologian writing on Vatican II invariably refers to the "Roman Catholic Church" (a term of actually Protestant origin, and admittedly used by many Catholic writers). However, NOWHERE in its 16 documents do the Fathers of Vatican II officially refer to the "Roman Catholic Church". They always speak of "The Catholic Church", PERIOD! The 16 documents of Vatican II do not teach that there exists an "ecumenical Church" or "Mystical Body of all Christian communities" that is wider and broader than the Church visibly united to the See of Rome. This has been the notion cherished by some Protestants and liberal Catholics seeking to ground such an erroneous ecclesiology in the texts of Vatican II. It is also one unfortunately shared by Pesch.

This destructive error has certainly won its way into American catechetical materials. For example, a 2008 book on The Apostles Creed issued by the National Catholic Educational Association baldly states:

"When the Apostles' Creed mentions the catholic Church, it means not so much the Roman Catholic Church but the universal Church."

Similarly, surprising are Pesch's repeated references to the "uniate" Eastern Churches though the terms "uniate" and "uniatism" are regarded now by Eastern Catholics themselves as a pejorative term of contempt, like the epithet "papist" for "Catholic".

More astonishing is the question Pesch as a theologian posed to himself towards the beginning of his book regarding the authority of an Ecumenical Council such as Vatican II:

"Where does the Council get its authority from? The question is not yet answered."

This strange comment flies in the face of Vatican II's teaching (contained in its central document, Lumen Gentium, #25) setting forth traditional belief that bishops are:

"Authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ" who "when assembled in an ecumenical council, they are, for the universal Church, teachers of and judges in faith and morals, whose decisions must be adhered to with the loyal and obedient assent of faith."

Pesch leaves no doubt he believed that Vatican II did far more than transform the Catholic Church into a "world-wide Church" engaged in a desirable dialogue with all and sundry. It was truly "revolutionary" not only in bringing about changes in attitudes and policies regarding relations with non-Catholics but had a direct impact in modifying traditional Catholic doctrine and morals. Pesch was among those liberal and radical "progressives" who sought in the name of ecumenism, "diversity and pluralism" to include dissenting Catholics and non-Catholic Christians as members of the one Church. While he claimed in a number of places in his book that Vatican II made "no radical change in doctrine" (only a "changed perspective"), heterodox positions result from his exegesis of Conciliar texts believed to contain a "contradictory pluralism". Such "contradictory pluralism" in Conciliar texts was caused by the necessity of making doctrinal compromises with conservative opponents resisting theological progress.

It is a sophisticated casuistry and hermeneutic that Pesch applied to the understanding of key texts of the Council (such as the meaning of "subsistit" with regard to ecclesiology and in a sense favorable to some Lutherans' idea of Church unity). He envisioned the emergence of a "New Church with a new unity" that would include the Anglican and other "Churches" of the Reformation. A major thesis of Pesch's book is that the texts of Vatican II cannot be read in the literal manner dear to "fundamentalists, conservatives, and ultra-conservatives". They rather reveal a "revelatory openness" to doctrinal change which embodies the real "Spirit of Vatican II". On page 153 he wrote:

"It is out of the question to urge that these [actual] texts, the result of 'watering down' efforts [by the conservative minority] are the real statements of the Council."

Thus, doctrinal change as allowing "Open Eucharistic Communion" with Lutherans is justified for the sake of more effective "pastoral and ecumenical considerations". Like many other authors dealing with Vatican II texts, Pesch held there were ambiguities in the formulation of the Council's texts, but he does more than that. He believed the Council's texts contained doctrinal contradictions! How an Ecumenical Council gifted with infallibility in the teaching of doctrine can commit or propose errors in doctrine, he does not explain. A puzzled reader of Pesch's History cannot fail to ask:

Are Catholics really to think that the Fathers of an Ecumenical Council confirmed by the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, gave us doctrinal texts with inbuilt ambiguities resulting in a "contradictory pluralism" like the notorious Anglican Thirty-Nine articles?

There are a host of questionable (and heterodox) positions defended by our ecumenical theologian:

1. As previously observed, Pesch advocated "Open Communion" with his Lutheran friends, and he registered clear dissatisfaction with Rome's blocking "any form of Eucharistic Communion with the Churches of the Reformation."
2. The communities issued from the Protestant Reformation and lacking the Apostolic Succession (that doctrine, too, had to be re-interpreted) he regarded as entitled to be termed "Churches", and not merely "ecclesial communities."
3. A "return ecumenism" sanctioned in Papal documents dealing with the return to Catholic Unity of the separated Eastern Churches, he declared "abandoned" by Vatican II.
4. He registered support for the ordination of women, and approved of the widespread abuse of "general absolution."
5. He favored the elimination of the Latin rite's obligatory celibacy discipline.
6. He clearly expressed his personal satisfaction that "the old opinion that the Church has to exert herself to make everyone a Church member is not taken up" by Vatican II. So much for the Church's mission by Christ to "teach all nations" (Matt. 28: 19) and to call all separated Christians to be gathered "into the unity of the One and only Church which Christ bestowed on His Church from the beginning... a unity which She can never lose." (Decree on Ecumenism, #4)
7. There is little concern expressed by Pesch for the salvation of souls despite Lumen Gentium's emphasis on the "necessity of the Church for salvation... Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse to enter it, or to remain in it." (LG #14)
8. He declared his unhappiness with Paul VI's Humanae Vitae's condemnation of the intrinsic evil of contraception, thereby placing the Church in opposition to "the scientifically grounded conviction and the practice of great portions of the Catholic world."
9. A seriously flawed concept of the primacy of conscience over the Magisterium leads Pesch to admire the "lived experience" of dissenters who follow their conscience to dissent from Catholic teachings since the Magisterium would not reflect the view of all the faithful.
10. The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, "Dei Verbum", he found "contains badly concealed breaks in logic, even contradictions and is a model for the compromise of contradictory pluralism."
11. As for the Church's sacraments, he claimed that "The historical foundation of all seven sacraments through the historical Jesus is questionable."
12. Pesch further alleged that Vatican II's doctrine on inerrancy admitted of historical and scientific errors, and that the Council's texts on marriage and sexuality provided a cautious opening for the admittance of the divorced-and-remarried to receive Holy Communion.

When Pope John XXIII convoked the Council, Pesch observed that few Catholics expected the revolutionary changes that would occur:

"The greatest challenge that the Council posed for a widespread Catholic mentality of that time [may be summed up] in the punchline 'They can decide what they want to in Rome, I'm staying Catholic'. After 50 years, it still poses for many Catholics: that something might, can, and indeed should change, in all areas from liturgy to canon law to theology and the interpretation of binding church doctrine... This attitude of resistance would lead to the schismatic position of Archbishop Lefebrve: "From Rome, nothing can be changed. One must if necessary, remain 'Catholic' without Rome and against Rome'."

It is clear that Pesch's book presents and defends the views of those he regarded as 'progressives' at the Council. His sympathies were always with the arguments of the progressives. To identify, however, as progressives the overwhelming number of Bishops at the Council who voted for the final texts of its 16 documents is simplistic. For it was they who rejected what Pesch and others desired: a radical re-interpretation of the Church and loosening 'binding church doctrine'. There is no doubt that many self-termed progressives felt that:

"The Church had become a foreign body in a changed world: respected, but misunderstood and unloved." [They therefore sought] "after two decades of futile defense, Catholics to be allowed to be modern in thought and feeling... and [no longer to be subject to] a church pressure that hitherto had dominated the entire life of Catholics."

The more radical progressives may indeed have sought to make the Church loved by the world but they also appeared to have largely ignored what Christ also spoke of: namely, that aspect of the world "for which He would not pray" (Jn. 17: 9, 14-18). In agreement with the agenda of the "progressive party" of Conciliar prelates, theologians, and 'periti', Pesch proved himself an adherent of the Bologna scholar Giuseppe Alberigo's school of Vatican II interpretation which treated the Council as an unprecedented, revolutionary, and unique "Event" that changed the Church forever. It was a school that would enshrine in the mind of liberal and radical Catholics worldwide that pernicious "hermeneutic of doctrinal discontinuity and rupture" which Pope Benedict XVI blamed for a fundamental misunderstanding of the Council and for distorting the meaning of its actual texts to the detriment of the Church's authentic Catholic Tradition.

Pesch registered basic agreement with the views of such dissenters from Magisterial teaching as Karl Rahner (his mentor and who is frequently quoted), Hans Kung, Walter Kasper, Heinrich Fries, and the "progressive" Rhine contingent of German French, and Dutch Cardinals Frings, Suenens, Alfrink, etc., and allied Bishops active in the Conciliar debates and discussions. Aided by cheer-leading journalists who constituted that "Council of the Media" (Pope Benedict XVI's term), progressives as a bloc proved successful in capturing all the microphones of the Media to entrench the bogus "spirit of Vatican II" on millions of the faithful, including many Bishops. Liberal Bishops would implement a false ecumenism by failing to enforce Catholic doctrine and discipline in the post-Conciliar period against neo-modernist interpretations.

Ironically, the same Pesch who held that the final texts of the Council represented "the responsibly formed convictions of the majority of the Council" repeatedly admitted to personal disappointment and distress with those same texts. For, the overwhelming majority at the Council heeded the resistance of the "conservative groups" to clearly reject the radical proposals of innovators who attempted to change the traditional doctrines of the Church and nullify, in effect, the pronouncements and decisions of the Papal Magisterium. Pesch confessed to be particularly troubled by theologians having to abide by the "demand for internal and external obedience even with regard to the non-defined statements of the Magisterium" (cf. Lumen Gentium, #25, and CDF's "Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, #23"). The Instruction he criticized as "effectively end[ing] any hope for license for free speech in the Church".

His anti-Papal animus (coupled with the progressives' efforts to grant local churches more autonomy and to give increased authority to National Conferences of Bishops) is more starkly revealed in his article "Papacy as an Obstacle to the Ecumenical Dialogue?" published in Stimmen der Zeit, 10/2011, p.661-667). There he brazenly wrote:

"Throughout the first Millennium a primacy of the Bishop of Rome... is out of the question, and 'a fortiori' a universal primacy of jurisdiction with an infallible Magisterium."

He favored the anti-Roman party which sought to limit the authority and influence of the Papacy. Papal supremacy and infallibility he believed to be rather the result of history and not of the historical Christ.

Pesch's biases and prejudices are evident throughout his book. He had only disdain and contempt for officials of the Roman Curia, for "Integralists" and "Ultramontanists", and those conservative Fathers who adamantly opposed with their interventions the false and misleading interpretations of Catholic doctrine proposed by the more radical progressives. There is no recognition that they saved the texts of an Ecumenical Council from incorporating modernist errors long condemned in the magisterial documents of Blessed Pius IX, St. Pius X, and Pius XII. It is the worst form of obscurantism for a theologian to deny that the errors of a neo-modernism had emerged in the theological ferment of post-World War II's "la nouvelle theologie" and that these errors were openly and scandalously proposed and defended in the debates of Vatican II.

Pesch blamed the conservatives - and not without flashes of bitterness - for the doctrinal "compromises" leading to the "contradictory pluralism" and lack of clarity he judged were reflected in the formulation of the final texts of the Council. On the other hand, he praised the progressives' attempts to dismantle the Church's bureaucracy and highly centralized authority. For him this would be the manifestation of the "Spirit of Vatican II" breathing the fresh air of freedom from the Vatican's "intellectual and moral oppression of academic theologians".

Much more could be said concerning Pesch's partisan view of the Second Vatican Council promoting a "hermeneutic of discontinuity". Important correctives to his fatally flawed perspective can be found in Roberto de Mattei's "The Second Vatican Council : An Unwritten Story" (Loretto Publications 2012) which gives many of the important speeches of the much-maligned conservative Fathers at the Council, and Archbishop Agostino Marchetto's "The Second Ecumenical Vatican Ecumenical Council: A Counterpoint for the History of the Council" (University of Scranton Press, 2012) which carefully examines critical issues and the controversies which took place during the Council and which would become points of confusion and misinformation.

Theologians would do well to study in depth all the alleged "ambiguities" in Conciliar texts which provided the rationale for what this writer believes to be a profound misunderstanding of Vatican II as a Council of Revolution and Rupture.

 

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