As we have already seen, the Second Vatican Council's document on the liturgy did not happen in a vacuum. There had been a liturgical movement for most of the 20th century and even experimentation in different countries in terms of actual participation and facing the people and reading the Scriptures in the vernacular.
So much of Vatican II was conditioned by what had happened organically in the first part of the 20th century and some of which went back to the 19th century.
The three areas that Vatican II addressed that is still controversial for traditionalists are:
A. Ecumenism: A desire for Christian unity began with Protestantism and even in the early 1900's the Catholic Church participated also in what would come to be the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that normally concludes on the Solemnity of Saint Paul.
B. Liturgy: The desire for a reform liturgy goes well ahead of Vatican II. Pope Pius understood this and began to reform the Holy Week Liturgies in light of this organic development. Pope John XXIII made some reforms of the missal which is now the EF's missal.
C. The Word of God: Pope Pius XII understood the scriptural developments taking place and by 1943 opened the doors to Catholic scholarship to the historical critical method of studying the Scriptures.
Each of these areas are conservatively discussed at Vatican II and the documents are conservative in nature while acknowledging the organic development that had already occurred.
But in implementing the vision of Vatican II each of these three areas developed bacteria infections that could easily be described as carbuncles.
A. Ecumenism's carbuncle is a false egalitarianism that says there is no real difference between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations. This leads to open communion and a loss of Catholic identity.
B. Liturgy's carbuncle is a manufactured liturgy that allows for so much flexibility of style and wording makes it totally different from the template of the Tridentine Mass which is the Mass that is being reformed. Today's expression of the OF Mass in many places is so different from the EF Mass that a Catholic who never experienced the EF Mass would think that it has nothing to do with Catholicism.
C. The Word of God's carbuncle is that the faith of rank and file Catholics is questioned when promoting the term myth to describe the creation accounts and other aspects of the Old and New Testament. Rather than building up faith, it tears it down, a consequence of the Historical Critical Method, if properly used, does not have to take place.
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