The Hermeneutic of Reform as a Task for Theology

Abstract

The lecture on hermeneutics given by Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman curia on 22 December 2005 led to various interpretations. Many thought that the pope then proposed practising a hermeneutic of continuity, when he explicitly opposed to a hermeneutic of discontinuity one of reform. Read in its context, however, it is clear that this magisterial lecture was addressed to the Lefebvrists, who wished to be re-integrated into the Catholic Church. In fact, an attentive reading of the text shows that Benedict XVI takes up those themes that he had developed earlier in his negotiations with Mgr Marcel Lefebvre, who not only rejected the Vatican II Council and wished to abolish and revise certain documents, but also claimed that the Church that adheres to the Council is a new Church, a modernist Church, that is in rupture with tradition.