Vatican II... Good, Bad, or Misunderstood? Part 3 of 3

This will be a rather short post. Most of what was misunderstood about Vatican II resulted in what was bad about Vatican II. Mostly, what is misunderstood about Vatican II is what it actually is. Vatican II is part of Church history. A lot of people like to talk about pre- and post-Vatican II. While this works well when discussing matters related to Vatican II, such as this series, it creates the idea of two separate Churches. This is a false idea, as it is One Church. The Catholic Church before Vatican II is the same church as after Vatican II. Things change, to be sure, practices are different. But it is the same Church established by Christ. This is what often angers me the most about a lot of liberal Catholics. They complain that the Church that Christ founded is now gone when the Vatican tries to bring some conservative traditions back to the Church. What they're saying, implicitly, is that the Church that Christ founded did not exist pre-Vatican II. It's often ridiculous assertions like this that show that most liberal Catholics don't understand what the Catholic Church is all about, a Church that the gates of hell would/will not prevail against.

Another thing that is misunderstood about Vatican II is what the "spirit" of Vatican II is actually about. The spirit is not about change or reform. It's about the needs of the flock. The spirit of Vatican II should seek to make the Catholic Church better the souls of the flock. As stated before, I believe that making the Mass use the language of the vernacular was a good thing. I believe that this bettered the souls of the Catholic faithful. However, female ordinations, blessings of homosexual "marriages", and the desire to take away the power from everyone and give it to the laity (forming Catholicism from a heirarchy, like the Kingdom of God, into a democracy) do not benefit the souls of the Catholic flock.

Furthermore, I have encountered so many people that, though they "know" what the "spirit of Vatican II" was all about, have never read an entire document from Vatican II!

What I think is most misunderstood about Vatican II is what it was really about, and its place in Catholic history. It should be seen as a good thing, which many ultra-conservatives don't like to do. Vatican Ii should be embraced totally. However, it doesn't matter what people thing might come from Vatican II, no one has a right to anything that wasn't laid out in those documents. One cannot say "well, Vatican II would have supported this or that". You simply don't know, and it's dangerous to assume that an infallible council meant to say things that it didn't say.