French Bishops

more Catholic than the Pope when it comes to the Second Vatican Council

"Communion may be accompanied by questions, requests for precision or further reflection,' they indicated. 'It cannot tolerate a systematic rejection of the Council, criticism of its teaching, or denigration of the liturgical reform decreed by the council." {not clear here if the "systematic" applies to the whole sentence or just the first phrase}

In contrast the Pope as early as 1967

"It was this pessimism which made him dislike so much in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. Again and again, in his 1967 commentary on the Council’s work, Ratzinger declares that sections of the constitution are 'quite unsatisfactory'. The attitude which shaped Gaudium et Spes, he lamented, 'is not at all prepared to make sin the centre of the theological edifice'. Even Lumen Gentium, in its teaching on salvation outside the Church, he found 'extremely unsatisfactory', its formulation bordering on Pelagianism. The truth is that Aquinas, the Second Vatican Council, and liberation theology alike represent shifts away from Augustine in a semi-Pelagian direction – shifts which Ratzinger deplores as Utopian. "

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