Reading traditionalist materials as I have of late, it seems like there’s a real sadness that the Church doesn’t use the anathema like she did in the past. Even Vatican I proclaimed several anathemas.

From the start, though, Vatican II was to be different. I quote from Bl. John XXIII’s address opening the council:

We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.

That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her.

The anathemas of the Council of Trent were used to support a series of hugely destructive wars. Those wars reduced the influence of the Church and set the stage for the development of the ideologies of the French Revolution, which in turn developed into horribly destructive totalitarian schemes. The anathemas of the first Vatican council had little effect outside the Church, while the world outside the Church developed unprecedented material prosperity and incredible spiritual poverty. The fathers of Vatican II had lived through the devastation of the Second World War and were in the middle of the Cold War. While aware of the grave dangers they faced, they still held out hope. That hope seems to be vindicated, as totalitarianism holds sway over a smaller percentage of mankind than it then did.

The exhortation above was clearly taken to heart by the council fathers. The Church is acting like the father of the prodigal son. Who are any of us to act like the older brother?