"It is of the very nature of Catholic Christian faith to adhere to an unchanging divine revelation, to acknowledge that there is something in the Church that is above the ups and downs of cultures and the rhythm of history.... To be conservative, to be a traditionalist is in this case an essential element of the response due to the unique phenomenon of the Church. Even a man in no way conservative in temperament and in many other respects progressive must be conservative in his relation to the infallible magisterium of the Church, if he is to remain an orthodox Catholic."
Basically, since revelation was brought to fulfillment in the Word, the progressive element in the Church is only in coming to understand and apply it more fully. There is a process of renewal, of sloughing off worldly accretions, but the City of God and the City of Man are never going to have the same goals or methods.
I think it was in this first sense that ressourcement theologians like Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou and Louis Bouyer were called "progressive". They wanted to return to earlier sources, to the Church Fathers, to revitalize the thinking and liturgy of the Church. Though most of them are no longer alive, their project informed the Vatican II Council and continues into today.
Hildebrand doesn't really talk about this meaning of "progressive" in the chapter, perhaps because by the time he was writing, the equivocal nature of the term had become evident. The ressourcement theologians listed above had all become as gravely concerned with the state of the Church as Hildebrand was, and other "progressives" ---Rahner, Haring, Kung and Schillebeecx among others -- had become openly heterodox.
Dietrich von Hildebrand does not care for the term "conservative" in Catholic usage because on its own, it can become too simplistic. Very often it is used negatively and politically by the media and by detractors. This has the effect of framing the controversy as one between reactionaries defending hidebound human traditions and the prophets of the new. That's a false dichotomy.
As he says:
And with the labels "conservative" and "progressive" they are in reality putting the faithful in the position of having to choose between opposition to any renewal, opposition even to the elimination of certain practices that have crept into the Church -- because of human frailty such as legalism, external pressure in questions of conscience, grave abuses of authority in monasteries, and a change, a "progress", in the Catholic faith which can only mean its abandonment.
He says that there is a third choice --- basically adding up to orthodoxy. In this model, you conserve revelation and discard what is a merely human accretion.
How does he describe orthodoxy? It's faith in the Triune God and in His promise to lead through the Church, and full participation in its sacramental and moral life. Here are a few of the phrases he uses:
- "I have chosen you out of the world"
- "Instaurare omnia in Christo"
- "Test all things; hold fast to what is good."
- "Sentire cum ecclesia".
- "The gates of hell will not prevail against it."
His message is that what the Church possesses is eternal, and She will possess it eternally. The focus is on eternity and on the Bridegroom.
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