Cardinal O’Connor on “The Spirit of Vatican II”

It is my own repeated reminder to all who will listen that but a minority of Catholics have a familiarity with the actual documents of the Second Vatican Council.  I fear that the same lack of familiarity characterizes many who speak glibly of the spirit of the Council, dismissing with near-contempt those who suggest what the Fathers of the Council actually said.  This, twenty-eight years after the publication of the documents!

(O’Connor, “Foreword,”Trojan Horse in the City of God [1993 edition], pp. x-xi)

Cardinal O’Connor on “the Post Vatican II Church”

“In no way, of course, would de Lubac ground his fear in any of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. On the contrary, he speaks of the deliberate efforts to establish a ‘post-Conciliar Church,’ that is, a ‘new Church.’ It is not unfair to say that such efforts have exploited the Council and have disguised themselves as authentic interpretations of the Council. . . .
Yet many contemporary writings about the Council, [von Hildebrand] observes, can sadden us and fill us with grave apprehension. . . .. It would not be unfair to ask whether von Hildebrand’s critique of distorted interpretations and the invasion of the Church by secularism, which might have been accurate in describing the early years of turbulence following the Council, is apt for 1993. I believe it is equally apt for 1993, unfortunately because so many of his warnings were ignored and ridiculed in 1967.” (John Cardinal O’Connor, “Foreword.” _Trojan Horse in the City of God (1967)_ by Dietrich von Hildebrand, Manchester, NH: Sophia IP, 1993, pp. ix-x; all other quotations from _Trojan Horse in the City of God_ on this blog are this edition).