Note on Weigel and the "Hermeneutic of Rupture"

Note: Weigel is accusing Benedict of exercising a “hermeneutic of rupture” with “Caritas” because he is siding with “Populorum Progressio” as beginning anew with the Social Doctrine of the Church: “the proponents of Populorum Progression (the 1967 social encyclical of Paul VI that Caritas in Veritate commemorates) would seem to be promoting a ‘hermeneutics of rupture’ when they claim that the tradition of Catholic social doctrine began anew with P.P. – a claim that at least some passages in Caritas in Veritate can be interpreted to support.”

Basically Weigel is accusing the development of doctrine that took place in Vatican II – that was the passage from an epistemology of object to one of subject and the rereading of the entire doctrine of the Church in terms of the subject – of being the “hermeneutic of rupture.” Please consider this point. What is at stake is the very meaning of the Council that has not been understood as of yet. Consult, if you will, Karol Wojtyla’s Sources of Renewal on precisely this point. What was it that really took place in Vatican II, and that appeared for the first time in Populorum Progressio and then in Humanae Vitae?” This is the real bone of contention of Weigel, and it is at this point that we may be able to really come to grips with his mind and the real mind of the Council

I quote again his July 13^th piece from National Review below:

“Throughout his pontificate, and in Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI has been at pains to stress the continuity of Catholic life and thought before and after the Second Vatican Council: what he terms a “hermeneutics of continuity,” as distinguished from a “hermeneutics of rupture.” Or, in lay language, the claim that the Catholic Church reinvented itself at Vatican II is simply wrong. Yet the proponents of Populorum Progressio (the 1967 social encyclical of Paul VI that Caritas in Veritate commemorates) would seem to be promoting a “hermeneutics of rupture” when they claim that the tradition of Catholic social doctrine began anew with Populorum Progressio — a claim that at least some passages in Caritas in Veritate can be interpreted to support. This raises a very important question: Are there two Catholic social-doctrine traditions (one stemming from Leo XIII’s 1891 masterwork, Rerum Novarum, and a post-conciliar one beginning from Populorum Progressio), or is there one? This is not a merely theoretical argument, for the implications of the “two traditions” claim are considerable, especially in light of the fact that the Populorum Progressio “tradition” is the less disciplined of the two in closely identifying specific public policy recommendations with points of theological principle. Thus Benedict XVI’s entire effort to get the Catholic Church thinking of itself as a communion of believers in essential continuity over time is now back on the table of debate, because of the suggestion that something different in kind began, at least in terms of social doctrine, with Populorum Progressio.”