Ding dong the witch is dead.

Next month marks the 40th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council (Dec. 8, 1965). Thus it follows that the "Spirit of Vatican II," that ever-nebulous entity, is also turning 40. Forget the mid-life crisis; last spring's papal election sounded the official death-knell for the unholy ghost.

How glorious to hear the majestic bells of St. Peter's announce Habemus papam. Nearly as glorious was seeing all the youngsters (in their 20's and 30's) in the square below, wildly cheering when they heard who'd been elected.

"He's a Rottweiler!" shrieked the aging malcontents, both within and without the Church. "Bring it on," said the long-suffering faithful. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd penned the by-now famous phrase, "The cafeteria is officially closed," to which one can only respond, 'Amen, Alleluia.'

Not that Pope Benedict's predecessors were pushovers. On a universal level, we have been the net beneficiaries of decades of extraordinary papal teaching from our beloved John Paul the Great, as well as Paul VI. However, on a parish and diocesan level, many of us continue to be haunted by that often invoked, but never-defined phantom. "The Spirit of Vatican II," wrote then-Cardinal Ratzinger (in the Ratzinger Report, 1985) betrayed the "typical mentality of the opulent bourgeoisie of the West." The 'progressive' theologians felt that the actual documents had to be "surpassed ... for they were only a starting point." And boy, were they surpassed.

The 'Spirit' (hereafter SVII) began as a poltergeist: construing, interpreting, and extrapolating, until the pronouncements and practices implemented on her behalf bore little resemblance to the conciliar documents, and the Church bore little resemblance to the Bride of Christ. SVII became a dark and haggard spectre; her churches offered weak catechesis, compromised moral teaching, and clergy, religious and lay leaders who thought "apologetics" meant being sorry for being Catholic. According to Paul VI, it was a position that "passed over from self-criticism to sell-destruction."

In The Ratzinger Report, Cardinal Ratzinger labeled SVII the "'Konzils-Ungeist", calling it a "pernicious anti-spirit ... to which the history of the Church would first begin with Vatican II, viewed as a kind of point zero." The cardinal went on, "There is no 'pre' or 'post' conciliar Church. In no wise did the Council intend to introduce a temporal dichotomy in the Church."

This latter mindset is apparent when you betray your sympathy for outdated things like fasting on Fridays, kneeling during the Consecration, or the occasional use of Latin. Invariably, some wide-eyed fellow parishioner asks, "Are you pre-Vatican II?" Best to answer as did Mother Angelica (foundress of EWTN): "Jesus was pre-Vatican II," which was her witty way of saying, 'That's a stupid question.'

Stupidity has reigned too long. Already in 1975, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, "It must be clearly stated that a real reform of the Church presupposes an unequivocal turning away from the erroneous path whose catastrophic consequences are already incontestable." And this was before feminist nuns doing liturgical dance in skin-tight leotards.

Last April, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus wrote, "With the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the curtain has fallen on the long-running drama of the myth of "the spirit of Vatican II," in which the revolution mandated by the Council was delayed by the timidity of Paul VI and temporarily derailed for twenty-plus years by the regressive John Paul II, as the Church inexorably moved toward the happy denouement of "the next pope" who would resume the course of progressive accommodation to the wisdom of the modern world" ("Rome Diary," First Things online).

On April 20, 2005, in his first full-length message to the Cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI said, "I wish to affirm strongly my determination to continue the commitment to implement the Second Vatican Council, in the footsteps of my Predecessors and in faithful continuity with the 2,000-year tradition of the Church." Doesn't exactly sound like the growl of a Rottweiler, but it works for me.

The children of SVII will not go quietly, but go they will. They will leave, or die, or (I hope) embrace the truth. Meanwhile, let them rant to the CBC and the Globe and Mail. They can do so in safety and seclusion, because they comprise their own audience. The faithful, young and old, deem them irrelevant. Let them wallow fruitlessly in their opulent bourgeoisie; the rest of us can take a deep breath (must be that fresh air from the open windows of the Church) and get on with the process of evangelization.

"Spirit of Vatican II," Requiescat in Pace. I'm looking forward to the substance of Vatican II. Long live Benedict XVI.

Mariette Ulrich is a mother and a homemaker. She writes from Scott, Saskatchewan, where she lives with her husband Dan, and seven daughters.