Dear Fr Aidan,
Thank you for your reply to my letter on ecumenism in which you maintain that I went beyond “the limits of acceptable criticism” by asserting that the documents of Vatican II contain “modernist-derived theses or ideas”.
Since we are now getting to the heart of the matter, perhaps I could respond to this before addressing the next topic on the agenda for discussion between the SSPX and Rome: the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions. You say it is permissible to point out the Council’s faults, for example “failures of prudence” and “weakness”, but that the “doctrinal intentions embodied in the Council documents” must be accepted “insofar as they are legitimate developments of what was already found in Tradition as received in the pre-Conciliar Church”. This, then, is surely the crucial point, because if Vatican II’s “doctrinal intentions” do not represent “legitimate developments” of Tradition, then Catholics have the right to reject them just as the SSPX has done.
