Mention the Second Vatican Council to young Catholics today, and chances are that they will voice their lack of interest in the Church’s most important event in four centuries, believing it to be as relevant to their lives today as the dusty LPs of Engelbert Humperdinck and Mantovani.
They might say that they are turned off by talk of a council that took place long before they were born. In terms of Church history, of course, Vatican II was a very recent event.
If the history of the Church was a football pitch and we stood on the goal-line, Vatican II would be about two and a half metres ahead of us. Or, if Church history was a 24-hour day, with the first Pentecost representing a second after midnight and today being a second before the next midnight, Vatican II would have happened at around 11:24pm.
In short, Vatican II is still immensely relevant precisely because it took place so very recently—just 36 minutes ago.
As we begin our year-long weekly series of articles under the Hope&Joy banner, we hope to bring the Second Vatican Council and its teachings closer to the Catholic community. By focusing on various themes as they relate to the vision and teachings of the council, we hope to present Vatican II not as an abstract point in history, but as a living entity which reverberates in everything we do as Catholics.
Vatican II changed not only the way Catholics celebrate the Eucharist, but also how they relate to one another. It is significant that in our inaugural Hope&Joy article there is a refrain of references to the laity. Where once the laity’s role was, in the popular wisecrack, to “pray, pay and obey”, the faithful are now called to active participation in the mission of the Church.
The various documents of Vatican II, and those that flowed from the council, serve to guide us in living out our call to the royal priesthood. The mandate, so often reiterated by Popes John Paul II and Benedict, to be missionaries in the workplace by showing others the hope and joy of our faith is a fruit of the Second Vatican Council.
The Hope&Joy movement takes its name from Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), the council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. In 1982, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) described Gaudium et Spes as “an attempt to officially reconcile the Church with the world” and as an escape from the “ghetto complex” which the Church had maintained since the French Revolution of 1789.
Vatican II changed profoundly the way in which the Church relates to the modern world, in particular to other Christian churches and adherents of non-Christian faiths.
The council did not have much to say about Catholics who become inactive in their faith, but it is fair to say that Pope Benedict’s decision to set up the Congregation for New Evangelisation to oversee the Church’s missionary activities in Europe is a reflection of the spirit of Vatican II. It says that even in traditionally Christian regions, the Church must come to the people, not expecting the people to come to her.
In the course of our Hope&Joy series, we will look at concrete examples of how the teachings of Vatican II are being lived out, and offer reflections on what these teachings mean in our pursuit to live our lives with Christ at the centre.
The series will cover themes as diverse as death and liturgy, ecumenism and priesthood, family and media. We will also look at subjects such as HIV/Aids and how that crisis, which erupted two decades after the council, relates to its teachings.
The series will not go into questions about whether the ecclesiological expectations of Vatican II have been met; that is an important debate for another time.
Our aim is to present the Second Vatican Council as still relevant in the life of the Church, having moved with the times, from the LPs of Engelbert Humperdinck and Mantovani in the 1960s to the digital era of Lady Gaga and Lady Antebellum.
In 1988, addressing the Chilean bishops, the then Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed: “The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of ‘superdogma’ which takes away the importance of all the rest.”
Benedict XVI ought to know, given that he attended the Council.
Editorial ‘A journey of hope and joy’
I was 21 when the council convened – too busy trying to be in a marriage and bring children into the world to really pay much attention. Certainly by the age of 30 an excitement had begun, deep within, at what was being filtered through – no doubt my source was The Southern Cross.
There is no exact memory of my first time celebrating Eucharist in English – now I can hardly imagine where my mind was when I heard the words in Latin. Not that I do not today respond at the core of my being to a well sung version of the Tridentine Mass. And with the imposition of the latinised English liturgy, I sometimes wish the parish priest would rather play such music than subject us to the jarring language.
However, just as I cannot pinpoint the beginning of the deeply felt excitement around the new wind blowing in Our church, I also cannot recall the exact time when I felt dis-ease about the ‘turning back to the medieval ages’. It was certainly before the Times magazine April 2001 report on paedophilia and abuse by clergy.
So it was with great Hope and Joy to hear about the initiative of this name.
I like so much to read the positive statement you write which reconfirms my certitude that the Church (both capital and small) will never be the same again. [Snip] “By focusing on various themes as they relate to the vision and teachings of the council, we hope to present Vatican II not as an abstract point in history, but as a living entity which reverberates in everything we do as Catholics”. ( and the following paragraph).
However, we must also, at least in the background of all this Hope&Joy, remember the sentence which follows and which applies to the whole world – “the griefs and anxieties”. This part is as essential to remember as the positive part of the sentence from Guadium et Spes. This point could also have been made in the article that appeared in the Catholic Link on the subject of HIV Aids.
You point out that the council {snip}“did not have much to say about Catholics who become inactive in their faith…” This means that either the Council Fathers were not reading the signs of the times honestly or it means that the movement out of church activity began after the Council. Maybe that is why some say, in the face of lack of empirical evidence, that Vatican II was the cause for disillusionment. Either way, we have to be realistic – there is always a shadow side to everything!
Dear Donal,
Might I be so bold as to point out what is common knowledge, namely that when Fr Joseph Ratzinger attended that Council as a peritus to Cardinal Josef Frings, he held a somewhat different theological perspective to that which he held in 1988, or today! Entire books have been written about this (see, for example, Tom Fox’s recent book “The Pope’s War – Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How it Can be Saved”).
It is interesting to note the perspective of surviving Council Fathers … there is the fascinating recent perspective of Giovanni Franzoni (a former Benedictine abbot, Catholic theologian, and eyewitness to Vatican II) entitled “Vatican II: Lost and betrayed” … which is posted over at the ACP (Association of Catholic Priests) Website: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/09/vatican-ii-lost-and-betrayed-giovanni-franzoni/ .
Franzoni writes “From these few examples (others can be furnished), it’s quite clear that it was Paul VI who made decisions that cut off the council in its potentialities, and laid the foundations for a reductive interpretation of the documents of Vatican II. That was how Wojtyla and Ratzinger could later refer to it to pursue a restrictive and limited implementation of the Council.”
I would suggest that it is worth reading his perspective in its entirety to gain a little balance!
While Fr Ratzinger was peritus to one bishop, Fr Hans Küng was, if I’m not mistaken, peritus for the Council! To read his recent observations on Pope Benedict XVI, follow the link to the Der Spiegel interview at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,787325,00.html .
For a taste of Professor Küng’s view:
“SPIEGEL: Many Catholics feel that the Church is in a rather desolate state. The cover-up of the sexual abuse of children by priests has driven believers away from the Church in droves. What’s going wrong?
Küng: If you put it that simply, I’ll give you a simple answer. Ratzinger’s predecessor, John Paul II, launched a program of ecclesiastical and political restoration, which went against the intentions of the Second Vatican Council. He wanted a re-Christianization of Europe. And Ratzinger was his most loyal assistant, even at an early juncture. One could call it a period of restoration of the pre-council Roman regime.”
Warmest wishes,
Vincent
Looking forward to this already.
It is indeed common knowledge, but it is reassuring to know that in common with many people and reflecting on the course of the Church in the aftermath of the council, Fr Ratzinger grew in wisdom in the intervening years, which is an example to all.
Professor Kung, in contrast, never abandons his definitively-held teachings; fortunately for the faithful, neither does the Apostolic See.
People who are “disappointed” in the council consistently refer to the “spirit”, not the “letter” of the council, in many cases not even bothering to read its documents. If they had, they would not have been disappointed; least of all during the current pontificate. Reshristianization has nothing to do with what you regard (hardly original) as a reconstruction of the Roman Empire with all its pomp etc. Europe is a dying continent, morally and now economically as well, with a systematic destruction by individual governments of 2000 years of Christian civilisation. Now that really is something to worry about.