Vatican II Didn’t Kneel to Modernity

Pope Leo XIV is discussing the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes during his weekly catecheses. The document has faced criticism for revising earlier condemnations of modernity, leading some to claim the Church yielded to the world.

Joseph Ratzinger previously described Gaudium et Spes as a revision of the Syllabus of Errors, which was attached to the 1864 encyclical Quanta Cura. While the Syllabus sought to distance the Church from liberal modernity, John Henry Newman argued the document was a collection of statements taken out of context that did not prevent Catholics from being loyal citizens of democratic states. Jillian Parks notes that while the council document shows discontinuity with the Syllabus, the theological difference may be minimal because the Syllabus did not constitute serious doctrinal teaching.