One of the criticisms the SSPX has about the Second Vatican Council (and those initiatives and documents subsequently based on documents and the event of the Council) center on the documents being man-centered rather than God-centered.
As a young but already prominent theologian Fr. Joseph Ratzinger wrote commentaries on Council documents. He criticized Gaudium et spes on just such a point, that it was overly anthropocentric rather than Christocentric. However, he found in Gaudium et spes key paragraphs which provided the proper interpretive key for reading the rest of the document. For example, GS 22, one of the most famous paragraphs – and rightly so, helps us to read the whole of Gaudium et spes in the proper light.
22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. …
In order to deal with social questions of burning urgency, we have to have the proper starting point, the proper anthropology. Our view of man must never be separated from Christ.
As Catholic Christians we learn who we are by considering who Christ is. Man’s proper end becomes clearer and our worldly aims take on deeper meaning and efficacy when Christ holds the proper place. Our consideration of Christ, and what He did for us and asks us to do for each other and the world must form the core of our search for solutions for the ills of the world and the proper development of peoples.
Without the right lens, we can get a distorted vision of nearly anything!
I am just musing to myself, in a way. But you might want to look over that section of Gaudium et spes before reading the Holy Father’s new encyclical.
BTW… look up GS 27 while you are at it.
