I have a quote from Yves Congar (not Ratzinger)"It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus of 1864 said, and even just about the opposite of propositions 16, 17 and 19 of this document."
This quote is mutilated (not blaming you). I just read recently Fr. Congar's Challenge to the Church: the Case of Archbishop Lefebvre (quite an interesting read), and 16, 17, and 19 are not the propositions of the Syllabus he lists (from memory, I think he says 15 and 77-79). He goes on to argue that DH is a logical outgrowth of the teaching of Pius XI and Pius XII - of course this doesn't really solve the problem, but just pushes the supposed contradiction back.
In any case, there is no actual contradiction between QC and DH. And I doubt very much that Cardinal Ratzinger said that there was.
Thanks for your reply.
Michael Davies in his "Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebve" quotes Fr. Congar:
"It cannot be denied that a text like this does materially say something different from the Syllabus of 1864, and even almost the opposite of propositions 15 and 77-9 of the document."
You were right about the propositions :-)
Do you own Fr. Congar's book? Is it possible that the quote used in Fr. Kramer's book is how it appeared in French? It still wouldn't help explain the propositions goof up, though...