Do progressives actually read the 16 documents of the council?  Study them? If they do, they really must have to be mental contortionists to contend that the Council affirmed the progressive agenda.

This time it is a sociologist. In an online science publication, of all places.

Non-Catholics influenced Vatican II liberalization of Catholic Church, new study says

August 11, 2010

A new analysis of voting patterns among bishops at the Second Vatican Council points to the indirect influence of non-Catholic churches in the Council’s liberalization of the Catholic Church.

Melissa Wilde, an associate professor of sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, led a team of researchers that investigated data from the Vatican Secret Archive to determine the critical factors influencing how bishops voted at the Second Vatican Council.

The article goes on to make the claim that the two most contentious debates concerned the validity of a document titled “On the Sources of Revelation,” which upholds the inerrancy of the Bible, and the importance of the Virgin Mary.

First the document on divine revelation is titled,  Dei Verbum (Divine Revelation).  It is true the final document was the result of fierce debate between radical progressives and radical traditionalists neither of the radical positions won.

The document affirmed that all revelation comes through Christ “who is both the one mediator and the fullness of all revelation (#2). It then, in keeping, with the consistent teaching of the Church, that revelation comes in two forms, Tradition and Holy Scripture:

“For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. (#9)

The document goes (in #10)on to affirm that only the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church, has been entrusted with interpreting the Word of God. It concludes this section with this:

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

The document of revelation also called for the laity to read and study the bible, as it had not been a common practice. I did not believe this for a long time, because when I was growing up there was always a bible in our house. And it was read. Lesson one in an experience of one does not always translate into the general population.

As for Mary there was not much of a controversy. The debate on Mary primarily, from what I found, was on whether a separate document should be given to her. It was determined that the role of Mary in the Church should be included in the document Lumen Gentium(Light to the nations #60-67).

No doctrines on Mary were changed.  The document affirms her importance to the Church as the Mother of God and calls for her to be venerated.

Nothing to see here. But I am comforted by the knowledge that many of the Church Councils incurred fifty years or more of debate. And the progressives are my age and older.