the great themes of the Second Vatican Council: ressourcement and aggiornamento

From the Rome Diary of Fr. Neuhaus

This is, of course, in perfect continuity with John Paul's favored passage from Gaudium et Spes that Christ--who is the way, the truth, and the life--is the revelation of man to himself. If Christ is the truth about everyone and every thing, then the way forward is by following the way of Christ. This is the genuine progressivism proposed to the Church and the world by John Paul and by Benedict. The Church does not seek to be counter-cultural, but it is unavoidably counter to the modern mindset in proposing that fidelity and continuity, not autonomy and novelty, are the paths toward a more promising future...

In this respect, he will be carrying forward the work of John Paul the Great in bringing together again the great themes of the Second Vatican Council: ressourcement and aggiornamento. The reappropriation of the tradition and the conversation with the contemporary world are not two agendas, one dubbed conservative and the other liberal, but the two essential dimensions of the renewal of the Church.

And, if the Council is right in saying that the Church is the sacrament of the world, the renewal of Church is the way toward the renewal of the world, as the first Benedict believed and so powerfully demonstrated.