Again, I agree that the Orthodox Church should become comfortable with the Latins’ ability to heal and straighten themselves and that the comfort level today is low. When you talk of guarantees, that is a legal term. The Latin bishops in Florence thought they had guarantees, too, when the Easter bishops signed the papers. Obviously, a reunion is impossible without a council or a series of councils producing definitive binding documents, but your real concern should be with the internal disposition of the Latin Church, and I share that concern.
Vatican II is a complex phenomenon. If you study it from caricatures that some who disagree with it make it out to be, you are making the same mistake as when some Orthodox listen to Protestant caricatures of anything Catholic. Serious study takes time. It is a flawed council in that it produced several vague documents — most likely, deliberately vague — which can be read as if to justify modernism. But in its defense:
1. It is a pastoral council: it did not define any dogmas. It had to be convened to respond to the changes in the sociopolitical realities post WWII.
2. The resurgence of informed traditionally minded laity, — such as your Catholic friends here at FR, — is also a fruit of Vatican II. It had an effect of shaking up the Church and not all that came out of it was negative.
3. The abuses, theological and liturgical, took the wrong cue from the Vatican II, but the Vatican II itself is at worst vague, but never encouraged any abuse.
What happened, in short, was that there was a modernizing itch in the Church and Vatican II gave an excuse for these people to scratch the itch. At this point, the momentum is with the orthodoxy, not with the modernizers. The horrific social consequences of the 60’s are now plain to see, and alongside them we see liberal theologies crash and burn, or go Episcopalian. The traditionalist — yet loyal to Rome — wing of the Latin Church won. What remains is the mop-up operation: waiting for certain bishops to retire, certain orders to lose membership, etc. Vatican II will be remembered as the council which transformed the Catholic Church from a collection of ethno-cultural Churches that Western Catholicism was following the Reformation, into a smaller but more vibrant Church of people who chose to be Catholic and want to remain Catholic, because they understand and like Catholicism. The era of abuses is largely over. The patient is still weak, but conscious, and asked for chicken soup. Give us time.
But in its [i.e. Vatican II] defense:
1. It is a pastoral council: it did not define any dogmas. It had to be convened to respond to the changes in the sociopolitical realities post WWII.
2. The resurgence of informed traditionally minded laity, — such as your Catholic friends here at FR, — is also a fruit of Vatican II. It had an effect of shaking up the Church and not all that came out of it was negative.
3. The abuses, theological and liturgical, took the wrong cue from the Vatican II, but the Vatican II itself is at worst vague, but never encouraged any abuse.
As such it is not infallible because it was never declared infallible. Therefore it could have been scrapped when things started going "naked" if you know what I mean. I disagree with the "sociopolitical realities" post WWII need simply because the same "realities" did not cause the East to follow suit.
Unlike the laity in the East which is educated through unchanging tradition, in the west there was always a group of theologically minded and informed lay people, such as lay theologians with Masters and PhD degrees. The problem is in the sheepish culture of following whatever the Church does. If the Pope allowed abuses right in front of his eyes, then who was to say it was wrong given the demi-god status of the Bishop of Rome?
As a lay person, no matter how informed you are, you are risking being ostracized at best and excommunicated at worst for questioning the Catholic Church and her clergy. In the mindset where one man is the Church, such questioning is equivalent to disobedience that must be punished.
Finally, the fact that no one "encouraged" abuses is a lame excuse in my opinion. It's like saying Pope Honorius I was not to blame for the heresy of the Bishop of Constantinople because he knew about it but did nothing to stop it! He was condemned as a heretic for it, and rightfully so, because it happened on his watch and with his full knowledge and tacit approval, although he himself never professed it.
At this point, the momentum is with the orthodoxy, not with the modernizers.
But that's where the problem is. The Church scrapped her tradition and now any pope can choose which direction to take the Church in. For the last 500 years or so, the Latin Church was irrevocably bound by the Council of Trent. Obviously someone decided it wasn't. Today it is bound by a "momentum," a pendulum that can, and most probably will, swing as time progresses. Forty years ago the world was nothing like what we have today. This country was not the same country, geopolitically, ethnically, culturally, etc. literally speaking. Chances are, forty years form now, it will be nothing like it is today. So, if you base your Church on the "momentum" it will be unrecognizable in the next generation or so.
The Church faced the same issues as a result of industrial revolution in the 19th century, which is why the Vatican I was convened—to fight modernism! But the Church did not scrap the Tradition in order to accommodate the new "momentum," but decided to stay the course. You can't serve two masters. The Church ought to know that. So, giving in to the "itch," as you say, was giving in to Mammon. And the result is predicable. It's like the wayward Jews fading in and out of Judaism in their history, embracing anything and everything the "momentum" dictated at the moment.
Vatican II will be remembered as the council which transformed the Catholic Church from a collection of ethno-cultural Churches that Western Catholicism was following the Reformation, into a smaller but more vibrant Church of people who chose to be Catholic and want to remain Catholic, because they understand and like Catholicism
How could it be a collection of "ethno-cultural" Churches when it used one and the same language and one and the same liturgy? And I don't now why is being "vibrant" a positive attribute of a Church? To me, seeing things through Orthodox eyes, the Vatican II was an excuse to disown the Church and create a new "Church" in man's own image, an taste. How can anyone know what it means to be "Catholic" in a Church where anything goes ? This is no different than Anglican Communion, where no matter what you believe you will find a parish that shares your belief. The Catholics here tell me that some Catholics are not Catholics and other say the Pope is the Antichrist. It makes me wonder, given the diversity of interpretations of the Vatican II, expressed in vivid pictures, how can anyone for sure know what is really "Catholic."
The Catholic Church today seems to have regressed form being a community of "ethno-culutral" Churches bound by the same tradition and liturgical language throughout the world (which is the meaning of catholic when you think about it), to a community of heterodox sub-culutre assemblies of people who all call themselves "Catholic" while speaking in tongues that others don't understand, and obviously not sharing the same idea of what the liturgy is all about. At one of this rainbow Catholicism, there are the TLM Catholics and on the other are the scantily clad liturgical dancers, with "anything goes" between these two.
We Orthodox are not impressed and do not share your enthusiastic and optimistic view of the Latin Church. We see some positive inclinations and admirable efforts made by the Pope to reform the reform, of which he was himself no small architect, almost as an attempt at "meal culpa," in lieu of Augustinian-like Retractions. But the fact that we see exactly what you see, people who have accepted the reforms and are happy with the product created.
We are happy for you. But do not expect us to buy your product.