Tag: Vatican II

Why did Pope St. John XXIII call the Second Vatican Council? And what was the Council about? Taking stock of the state of theology and the life of the Church in the 20th century, one could suggest several reasons. At the end of the day, though, it should be remembered and taken seriously that John XXIII claimed the Holy Spirit’s inspiration for calling the Council. It is quite reasonable to suggest — and also helpful to remember — this: that Vatican II was the work of the Spirit.

Before exploring the answer to this question any further, though, we should admit that Vatican II, even today, evokes a wide range of emotions. Some, for instance, think Vatican II the worst thing to happen to the Church. With it came innovations and departures from the ancient faith so horrific, it’s claimed, that many have broken away or fallen away from the Church because of it. However, on the other end, others think Vatican II changed all the mean and nasty things about Catholicism, freeing modern Catholics to be good secular liberals unbothered by a primitive creed. Here, people talk about things like the “spirit of Vatican II” but without being able to tell you where in the documents of Vatican II it says exactly what they’re saying, because it turns out they’ve not really read the documents.

These, obviously, are two extreme reactions to Vatican II, found more and more on the margins of Catholic experience these days, yet still very much present in the Church. The truth of the matter, though, is that to understand Vatican II, one must accept it as an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and that the teaching of Vatican II is expressed faithfully in the Council’s documents themselves. That is, the “spirit of Vatican II” is found in the documents themselves, read and interpreted within the communion of the Church. Thus, to understand Vatican II genuinely, as well as modern Catholicism, one must become familiar with the Council’s documents — reading them well. And you don’t have to be a theologian to do that; you just have to know how to read.

But still, what was the Council about? Speaking personally, as a former Anglican, I’ve always thought it to be significant that the Council was called on Jan. 25 — the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. You see, this feast concludes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a week in which Christians worldwide pray for the reunification of Christian believers. It was begun as the “Christian Unity Octave” by Father Paul Wattson and the Society of the Atonement just after he and other members of the society converted to Catholicism from the Episcopal Church. This “Christian Unity Octave” by the 1920s and 1930s would be celebrated all over the Catholic world; by midcentury, Protestant bodies too would join in this endeavor of prayer. And so, that John XXIII called Vatican II at this time hints at what he hoped would be a major focus of the Council — healing the unity of Christians. Remember John 17.

But, of course, there was much more to it than that. Exploring the “why” of Vatican II, one place to begin is to read John XXIII’s opening address to the Council from October 1962. “Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure,” he said, “but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us.” His hope was that the Church would offer a fresh presentation of the Catholic faith in “perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine.” Making use of modern “methods of research” and embracing “the literary forms of modern thought,” the pope wanted the Church to speak clearly to the modern world, which he made clear necessitated a rethinking. For the “substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another.” Now what John XXIII was saying is that it’s not the Faith that’s changing, but the presentation of the Faith. He said the Church must think about the delivery of the Faith, finding ways to articulate the Faith in a reasonable, sophisticated manner that is neither fideism nor fundamentalism. John XXIII had a great deal of trust in the reasonableness of faith. The Church wasn’t meant to retreat from the world; quite the contrary. The Council’s task was to take the deposit of faith and deliver it to the world in an authentic way, without intellectual cowardice or bravado but, he said, in a “predominantly pastoral” way. That is, Vatican II wasn’t primarily about articulating theology or doctrine — as, say, in the Council of Nicaea when the fathers articulated the divinity of Christ (homoousios) — but about the pastoral articulation of the Faith.

One feature, different from other ecumenical councils, indicating this new pastoral approach is that Vatican II communicated in an entirely new idiom. It promulgated no disciplinary canons, for example, although it did inaugurate the revision of the Code of Canon Law that would come to fruition in 1983. Vatican II pronounced no anathemas as did the Council of Trent. The tone of the documents of Vatican II are completely different. They are persuasive and evocative — conversational. That is, the texts are dialogical. Gaudium et spes — the Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World — for example, reads like an invitation to the world to talk about truth, goodness and peace. It’s a profoundly hopeful and open document, not defensive or condemning.

John O’Malley’s indispensable book on the Council, “What Happened at Vatican II,” notes the common characteristics of Vatican II summed up in three concepts — aggiornamento, the development of doctrine and ressourcement. The first idea, and the one associated most readily with Vatican II is aggiornamento, which can mean “updating” or “refreshing.” It means something like what John XXIII meant when he said he wanted to “open the windows of the Church and let some fresh air in.” It’s what he talked about in his opening address — not changing the Faith at all but refreshing it, updating it.

The other characteristic of Vatican II — the development of doctrine — is an idea associated with the work of St. John Henry Newman, who is in a sense one of the intellectual fathers of Vatican II. He wasn’t present at the Council. He had been dead for 70 years by the time it began. One of the most famous modern converts to Catholicism — from the Church of England — he was a great theologian and man of letters. His book, “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” which he wrote while still in the process of converting to Catholicism, made a simple but profound observation about the Christian faith. And that is — although there is the deposit of faith, revealed truth from Scripture and the Holy Spirit — the articulation of the faith develops over time. Now this idea for many was and remains controversial. Fundamentalists, of course, hate it. Many Eastern Orthodox theologians don’t much care for it either. But Newman’s point was basically this: Christian doctrine is sharpened, better articulated, and is expressed more clearly as it needs to be over time. Take, for example, the dogma of the Trinity. We believe that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, that dogma wasn’t fully articulated until 381. Why? Because, as Newman pointed out, there wasn’t any reason to articulate it fully until a fight broke out about it. The Church articulated definitively the full divinity of Christ only when Arius started causing trouble by questioning it. And after Nicaea, people were questioning the divinity of the Holy Spirit — they were called pneumatomachians, meaning “Spirit-fighters” — forcing the Church to articulate more clearly her belief in the Holy Spirit. And so, as history progresses, doctrine is better articulated. That’s what Newman meant by “development,” and it was an idea fundamental to Vatican II.

The last concept intrinsic to council, ressourcement, came about from around the turn of the 20th century, among theologians mainly in France who started doing theology in a new way. This new way — associated with Jesuits like Henri de Lubac and Gaston Fessard and Dominicans such as Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar — came to be called nouvelle théologie. But it was a way of doing theology that really wasn’t new at all; it was just different for its time. Sarah Shortall’s book, “Soldiers of God in a Secular World,” tells the story of this important theological movement. Neo-Scholasticism dominated theology in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and that was theology done propositionally, so to speak. That is, one defined terms and logically placed one’s propositions in logical order. The theologians of this nouvelle théologie, however, were committed to ressourcement, which simply means “return to the sources.” To understand the deposit of the faith and to articulate it theologically, these theologians went back to Scripture and to the early Fathers of the Church. Essentially, their method was this: If you want to know something about the Eucharist — for instance, transubstantiation — how should you study it? Well, you begin with the sources, with the Eucharist as it’s treated in Scripture. Then you explore what the early theologians believed and taught; then study the eucharistic controversies of the 10th century, and so on. By that method, exploring the sources of the Christian faith, a person can better understand what the Church means when it uses the word “transubstantiation.” And that’s better than simply taking a word and defining it in unhistorical abstraction — like “transubstantiation is X.” You see the difference? Ressourcement is a return to the sources that better helps us understand how ideas took shape within history. And it was a new way of doing theology in the first half of the 20th century, and one which shaped not just Vatican II but the whole of modern Catholicism.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

Beginning with Jesus, as is only right, and then looking at the New Testament and at a few representative texts from early Christianity, we’ve discerned, just a little, the essence of the Church. We now shift focus to explore the Church today.

But first, a brief review. The Church, remember, is ecclesia, the called body of believers. Its essence belongs to the communion of the Trinity, opened to believers in Jesus Christ, to those who by faith believe him to be the incarnate Son of God. When believers live in Jesus, he lives in them, which is how believers in Christ find themselves in communion with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That’s how the Church is holy.

But this communion with God is also at the same time communion with other believers — with the adelphoi — all those with faith sharing in Christ together. It’s a communion grown by means of the Apostles’ preaching; what John saw and heard he proclaimed to others, for instance, creating fellowship, as he said, both “with us” and “with the Father” (1 Jn 1:3). That is, the communion of the Church is both divine and human, not just holy but also catholic and apostolic. It’s built upon the preaching of the Apostles and fellowship with them, and it includes all believers. But it’s also a communion characterized always by the oneness Jesus prayed for in John 17, which, as we saw when exploring that passage in depth, meant something more than mere esprit de corps, more, too, than metaphor. Jesus spoke in terms much more demanding than just conceptual or sentimental unity; his followers were to be one. Now of course, we have yet to flesh out how the Church remains one, but we will elsewhere in exploring the sacraments and also the papacy.

But for now, that’s the Church — unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam. Whatever we think of it historically, sociologically, politically, bureaucratically, that is the Church in essence — this divine and human communion. And it’s important to remember this for several reasons. First, it helps us remember that the Church is something more mysteriously enduring and more beautiful than what we may see of the Church at any one time. When the Church isn’t beautiful, this is really important to remember. But it’s also important because it challenges our sometimes overly individualistic accounts of Christian belief. It helps us remember that the Lord’s Prayer is prayed always to “our Father” and not “my Father.” It helps us retain a more biblical understanding of Christian belief and belonging, remembering that the Church is, to use Paul’s imagery, the body of Christ; or to use John’s imagery — echoing the Song of Songs — that it’s the bride of Christ. Now there are, as we’ll see, many more images given to this mysterious communion, yet the underlying truth is the same: the Church is ecclesia, the body and the bride of Christ, a single communion rooted in God. As the great theologian Henri de Lubac put it, “The Church of God is unique: there is only a single Body of Christ, a single Spouse of Christ, a single fold, a single flock under a single Shepherd” (The Motherhood of the Church, 171). This is the truth I’ve slowly tried to describe, a truth about the essence of the Church that endures even today, and that we’ll need to remember as we continue our exploration of Catholicism. Now, however, our task is simply to find it in the present, in the Church of today.

So, fast forward. To understand the Catholic Church today, one must understand the Second Vatican Council — what it was and in a certain sense still is. It was announced by Pope St. John XXIII on Jan. 25, 1959 after Mass at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The Council opened three years later in 1962 and ended in 1965. However, in 1959, when only 10 weeks into his pontificate John XXIII called the council, it shocked the Church and the world, too. Now John XXIII was himself a surprise. Quite old when elected, many thought he’d simply keep the papal seat warm until a younger pope came along. Little did anyone expect he was going to shake things up like he did. A joyful man — humble, hilarious and holy — he said himself how the idea of calling an ecumenical council was sudden and unexpected. And not only did news of the council shock many, it changed the world. It was a meeting of massive importance for all Christians, not just Roman Catholics, and whether you know it or not, you’ve been influenced by Vatican II.

An ecumenical council is simply a great meeting of bishops and others in the Church, and it belongs to a long tradition of councils. The Church has held councils since the beginning, since the so-called Council of Jerusalem in Acts 13. Then, the question was about what to do with all the Gentiles coming into the Church. Should they follow the dietary laws of Judaism? Should they be circumcised? These were serious controversies, leading to quite heated debates. And really, ever since, the Church has been arguing, coming together informally and formally in what the tradition came to call councils — some large, some small — to argue important points of theology or discipline and sometimes a whole lot more. And we’ve gained much from this tradition. The Creed we say every Sunday, for instance, is a product of two councils — the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381. The Catholic Church calls some councils ecumenical councils, which means those that relate to the entire Church. Different traditions count ecumenical councils differently — some count only seven, some only three. The Roman Catholic Church counts 21 ecumenical councils.

Now, generally speaking, until Vatican II, ecumenical councils were called in response to some controversy, either of theology or discipline. The Council of Nicaea, for example, was called in response to the controversy caused by a rather eloquent priest from Alexandria in Egypt named Arius who was going around preaching that Jesus was a “creature,” that he was “made” and “created,” not God quite like the Father is God. And so, the Church gathered at Nicaea to refute Arius. And, if you know anything of the history of the Arian controversy, to listen to the Nicene Creed is to hear the Church basically scold Arius. For example, that the Creed says “begotten, not made” is really quite a specific dig at Arius. We no longer hear it that way, but bishops in the fourth century certainly did. The Council of Ephesus in the fourth century responded to Nestorius, the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century to the Protestant Reformation and so on. Or, for matters of discipline, as again at Nicaea when the council fathers declared that castrated clergy couldn’t be promoted — a quite odd but also quite serious issue at the time!

Yet when John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, there really was no urgent problem afoot. There were certainly in the first half of the 20th century both creative tensions and uncreative tensions in the Church. The modern world was rapidly changing, and there was significant argument within the Church about how best to confront such changes. Catholic theologians and leaders in France, for instance, wanted to engage the world quite differently than those in Italy. And there was even some talk of another council under Pius XII — whose papacy, by the way, very much reflects the wider tensions in play at the time — but it was not an idea that had gained much traction. Catholics by and large were getting on just fine, most thought. Whatever tensions existed were being managed well enough by the ordinary means of debate, censure and old-fashioned Church politics. And so, when John XXIII called the Council in 1959, most wondered what for. It’s a spiritual question, in fact, that’s still being asked today. But more on that next week.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

What was the scope and work of the Second Vatican Council? John W. O’Malley’s excellent book, “What Happened at Vatican II,” explains that the council “was quite possibly the biggest meeting in the history of the world” (p.18). As such, it’s helpful here to take a moment to grasp its massive size and range. Nothing like it has ever been seen in the history of Christianity.

Vatican II was opened on Oct. 11, 1962, and was concluded on Dec. 8, 1965. Held over four 10-week sessions, it was convened in successive autumns, augmented by innumerable public sessions and working sessions. Bishops and other religious leaders taking part in the council came from all over the world to deliberate and vote in formal council sessions, usually on what, earlier that spring, theologians and prelates had argued about in lectures, in working papers and behind the scenes. It was a long, complicated, at-times chaotic and dramatic process. Yves Congar, a great theological voice and influence during the council, wrote in his journal at its start that the council obviously had “no working method.” He wrote, “We are at sea.”

From one point of view, the council was the Church at its most bureaucratically banal. It was also a mix of the human and the spiritual, and Congar repeatedly talked about its mystical side. He wrote, “I see that a Council goes through phases of shadow and sunlight. I believe the Holy Spirit. He makes use of people” (My Journal of the Council, 10 November 1962; 26 November 1962).

As Congar made clear, when thinking about the Second Vatican Council, as we said before, one mustn’t see it just as some isolated moment in history but as something of the Spirit. The council was a very human and at times imperfect endeavor, but still it was an endeavor of the Church. Remembering here that the Church’s DNA contained in John 17 helps us think about Vatican II. Jesus promised his disciples — even today’s disciples — the power of glory and love. Thus, this gathering of the Church was a spiritual gathering before all else; and so, to understand it at all, one must understand it spiritually.

But what was this council specifically to be about? Through his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tardini, John XXIII sent out, believe it or not, a questionnaire. “The Venerable Pontiff wants to know the opinions or views … of their excellencies, the bishops,” Tardini wrote. Since there was no urgent crisis to address, Tardini needed their suggestions “in preparing the topics to be discussed at the council.” They were invited to respond “with complete freedom and honesty.” The door was open to talk about anything, and Rome actually got mountains of stuff back from this questionnaire — 2,598 opinions were solicited, gathering 1,998 responses. Some bishops answered with only a page, others sent back book-length tomes. Almost 3,000 invitations were sent out all over the world. Bishops, prelates and other religious leaders from 116 countries participated. Europe and the Americas counted for 70% of that participation. The Americans largely paid for it. If there was an ecumenical council called today, the demographics would obviously be quite different. German theologian Karl Rahner, an influential figure at the council, said once that at Vatican II the Church finally became a “World Church” (Karl Rahner, “I Remember,” 89). At any one time, 2,400 council fathers participated; overall, 2,860 people participated in Vatican II. By contrast, only 750 people participated in Vatican I and only anywhere from 29 to over 200 people participated in the Council of Trent. When Vatican II was in session, there may have been 5,000 to 10,000 people in Rome solely on council business. Rome during that time was a busy and bustling place. St. Peter’s Basilica was transformed into a forum that dwarfed houses of parliaments and congresses. There was even a bar in the nave behind the seats called Bar Jonah!

Three lay “auditors” spoke at the council, and although there were 15 women serving as auditors, none of them spoke. Among the theological experts present — the periti — some were among the greatest theologians of their time and of the century. One such peritus was Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Also, there were theologians like the aforementioned Yves Congar, though never formally a peritus, as well as Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Many great theologians added their brains, hearts and words to the council by serving as careful writers of many of the council’s documents.

A global news event, 1,000 press passes were issued to the council. News from the sessions made the headlines — one thinks of Francis Murphy’s essays for the New Yorker under the nom de plume Xavier Rynne. Among the non-Catholic observers were Protestant theologians and leaders from all over the world. One of my teachers at Duke, the late Geoffrey Wainwright, a Methodist systematic theologian, was an observer. Other Protestant theologians like Albert Outler from Southern Methodist University and Oscar Cullman were also observers. And their presence was particularly important and mattered a great deal to John XXIII. One anecdote illustrates this. In typical Roman Catholic institutional fashion, at one session the Protestant observers were put in the corner behind a pillar. Why? Because they were Protestants of course. Yet, when John XXIII noticed, he stopped everything and moved all the Protestant observers to the very front, giving them the best seats in the house. When one Protestant observer later said to John XXIII, “Now I see why it can be a good thing to have a Pope!” the pope replied, “Now my Council really begins!” Again, remember he called the council on Jan. 25 at the end of the old Christian Unity Octave. He knew what he was doing!

On paper, the result of Vatican II was a lot of documents — over 3,000 pages of Latin texts. These documents were categorized into four constitutions, nine decrees, and three declarations. The constitutions were to be the most important, the decrees less so and the declarations even less. However, once published, each document took on a life of its own. Some are clearly dated — interesting, but a product of the time. Some are the most beautiful theological texts produced in the 20th century. Speaking personally, these documents helped me discover Catholicism because they described a faith and a Church that I simply thought beautiful and biblically complete. The descriptions of the Church in Lumen gentium (on the Church) and Unitatis redintegratio (on Christian unity) moved me deeply. Sacrosanctum concilium (on liturgy) articulated for me, in biblically rich clarity, just what it is we Christians do when we gather to worship God. Dei verbum (on Scripture) helped me think clearly about how tradition and the Bible relate. The last constitution, Gaudium et spes (on how the Church lives in the world) — a controversial text then and still today for some — articulates as best as it could at the time that tense, creative relationship.

These, of course, are just some of the texts of the council, and they deserve more of our attention. But, for now, remember that to understand what we believe as Catholics, to understand the Church, we must explore and understand the Second Vatican Council — the expression of Catholicism in our time.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.