Ratzinger’s recent letter
Our Lady at Fatima affirmed that in the end her immaculate heart will triumph, Father Kolbe prophesied an era of the Immaculate Conception. He strikes that the last two councils were preceded by the gift of two Marian dogmas, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption into heaven in body and soul of Mary. It almost seems that Maria signals the poles of reference. the Immaculate Conception, Vatican I, papal infallibility, identity and the Assumption, Vatican II, the loving gaze on people, learning about Jesus, God and man, from everyone, understanding for the particular journey of each. The divine and the human, Jesus, God and man.
When these poles contrast or merge instead of being united but also distinct, they end up emptying man. Identity without even the distinct moment of exchange is closed and extinguished, dehumanized; the exchange without the distinct moment of free identity formation becomes homogenizing, another way of shutting down, of closing oneself in schemes. In both cases man does not mature and power and apparatuses impose themselves. An authentic maturation and participation of each does not develop.
Thus it is interesting to observe that the union and distinction of identity and exchange favor the exit from abstractions, emptyings, homogenisations, rationalism. In fact, identity stimulates deep-seated research, exchange helps it not to close itself in schemes but to always renew itself in search of the authentic human being, of true well-being.
Ratzinger’s very recent letter ( https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252608/benedict-xvi-reflects-on-vatican-ii-in-new-letter ) on the Church and the world is thus profoundly stimulating. Here too we can observe that the journey of faith in history is an ever deeper return to the Jesus of the Gospels, as he himself taught us. Vatican I without Vatican II can become closed to humanity, to the world. Vatican II without Vatican I can become confusion with the world, homologation in a generic and emptied human being. In the world but not of the world, says Jesus.