If I may continue to ask more questions.
Did this change satify the conditions of infallibility?
As I understand these conditions they are:
Speaking ex cathedra as Supreme Pastor
Explaining a doctrine of faith or morals
To be held by the Universal Church
"Modern" is the operative weasle word of the whole sordid business. For the sake of not being lynched by the enthusiasts of goofy liberal neo-modernism, I will limit my focus to how liberals in America have applied and interpreted the alleged mandate of the "Spirit of Vatican II" to modernize. "Modern" is a very unfortunate term. Liberals, in their fuzzy and murky ways, began to think that the "modern" world was somehow a model for the Church to follow. Suddenly, everything modern - including absurd modern art and architecture, folk music, and liberal and socialist political movements - was good and everything old and traditional was viewed as bad, reactionary, narrow, rigid, out of date. Forget the fact that scholars were already offering critiques of the ideology of progress which forms the underpinning of modernity. Vatican II, at least in its American interpretation, blended with a spirit of liberal giddiness of the 1960s. In so far as certain clerics became liberals, they ceased being authentically Catholic and the Church in their charge took on an unCatholic atmosphere of silliness.
There is simply no binding mandate whatsoever on any Catholic to accept the liberal American interpretation of Vatican II which turned the Mass into a circus. There is no binding mandate for Catholics to like New Agey folk music, modern architecture, minimalist liturgies, gay socialist counter-culture among the clergy, the secularization of Catholic education, priests offering stand-up comedy or political speeches as sermons, and buffet-fed bishops leading lives of leisure while remaining silent about the reigning scandals whether they be sodomite clergy or pro-abortion Catholic politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion. All of these things would have been UNTHINKABLE for most Catholics prior to the late 1960s. None of them are binding.
It is outrageous for any literate adult Catholic to suggest that the interpretation of Vatican II which issues a neo-nmodernist license to change everything, gut the Church's institutions, and level parishes with iconoclastic wreckovation and minimalist liturgies is in any way binding upon the consciences of Catholics. The whole circus from folk Masses to Enneagrams and nuns in horrible pantsuits is a product of MODERN culture. There is very little in modern culture that elevates the lives of Catholics. The stylistic controversies of modern culture do not change the articles of faith, the Creed, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Seven Sacraments which remain the essence and substance of the Catholic faith. No Catholic need feel obligated to bow down to an inferior modernized style of presenting Catholicism. These are fads.
When the pajama party of playing musical chairs with the Mass finally ends, sensible Catholics will ask for a return to some dignity, solemnity, and reverence in their worship. Hints in this direction can already be seen. They will also seek a re-Catholicization of Catholic institutions. The "modern" world will be seen for the absurd tragedy and farce that it has been. Traditions will return. The faith will remain as it always has been. Liberal movements will self-destruct. Sensible people generally flee from the most liberal and modernistic parishes and Catholic institutions. The more conservative and orthodox trends in Catholicism are the only places where the genuine marks of the Church and the substance of the faith are to be found. There is just simply no binding mandate to build churches like this monstrosity cathedral in LA. That's a fad in modern bad taste. Nothing more. No amount of liberal modernist jargon can make it anything other than that. It is, however, a very apt symbol of "the Spirit of Vatican II."
An intelligent debate about "the Church in the Modern World" would have to include a defense of traditional culture and the need for the Church to defend Christian civilization from modern culture. How the rhetoric of "the Spirit of Vatican II" managed to get this spin going on "modern" as always good is quite bizarre actually. Contemplate this - how can "the Spirit of Vatican II" be both bringing the Church up to date with the "modern world" and returning to the practices of the early Church of antiquity? Is a folk Mass an early Christian "Agape" or is it a modern folk concert with scriptural readings and Holy Communion? Think about it. It's this kind of cognitive dissonance that is all over the place with "Spirit of Vatican II" jargon.
Whatever the council was supposed to be about, this nonsense rhetoric about the "modern world" and modernization is in dire need of critical review.