Revisiting Vatican II

U. S. Catholic introduces this upcoming online survey by saying,

It was 40 years ago this year that the Second Vatican Council came to a close and ushered in monumental changes such as a greater role for the laity, religious tolerance, and Mass in English. The road the church has traveled since then has had its share of both bumps and scenic vistas. We want to stop for a minute and ask: How do you rate the trip?

Here's a pothole I hit every week.

"In the dialectical context of the council", [John] Huels writes, the reason for the restrictive statement against unauthorized liturgical changes "doubtless ... was to reassure the conservative minority who did not want to change anything and who feared abuses.... The [restriction] thereby helped to bring about the consensus that ultimately resulted in the nearly unanimous favorable vote on the constitution as a whole".

But this is not needed today, Huels says, because "the most vociferous opponents of the liturgical reforms have now been discredited and their leaders [Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, et al] excommunicated" ([Huels More Disputed Questions in the Liturgy] pp 147-148).

Perhaps they thought that putting particular words in a document to get votes in favor of it and then implementing the document as if it meant the opposite was fraud.

Update: Phillip Blosser posts on Sacrosanctum Concilium revisited, an article in Latin Mass magazine.

If Latin Mass is going to publish in the vernacular, it ought to also post its content online.