"Traditionalists Against Benedict XVI"

Sandro Magister reports, "The discussion is becoming heated over how to interpret the innovations of Vatican Council II, above all on freedom of religion" — Who's Betraying Tradition. The Grand Dispute. (Earlier installments on the dispute — High Up, Let Down by Pope Benedict and The Disappointed Have Spoken. The Vatican responds.) From the first report:

In the memorable speech that Benedict XVI gave to the Roman curia on December 22 of 2005, on how to interpret Vatican Council II, there is a point that still continues to be a source of conflict today.

It concerns the freedom of religion.

On this point, the Council innovated in a decisive way. It affirmed what various popes had denied before: the freedom of every citizen to practice his own religion, even if it was "false."

The 1864 encyclical "Quanta Cura" by Pius IX had explicitly condemned such freedom. Only the one true religion, the Catholic religion, deserved full right of citizenship in a state. The practice of other faiths could only be tolerated, within certain limits.

Vatican Council II, however, put at the center of the duties of a state not the truth, but the person. And it affirmed that recognition must be granted to every person's right to practice his religion, whatever it might be.

All due respect to Pio Nono, I find myself siding with the "extreme conservative arch-liberal" (as Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn described himself) Pope Ratzinger on this one. Helpful is this reminder from Casa Santa Lidia that the Church thinks in centuries — 100 years to recover from the aftermath of Vatican II.