Vatican II in a nutshell

BY ANTHONY EGAN SJ

‘The bishops met in Rome and then we had Mass in English.” This comment I heard from a younger person, born after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), is right, of course—but there was much more to Vatican II than that.

Vatican II was indeed a meeting of all Catholic bishops, the 21st of its kind and the second to be held in the Vatican City, Rome. A Council of the Church is called to discuss important religious matters and in some way to define a way forward for the Church, often to resolve disagreements over theology that is causing division.

Vatican II was different.

When Pope John XXIII called the bishops to Vatican II in 1961, it was not to resolve disagreements over doctrine. On becoming pope in 1958, John decided that the Church was too inward-looking, not engaged enough with society. While there was no need to reform doctrines, the Church’s practice left much to be desired.

In other words, as historian John O’Malley put it, Vatican II was about the reform of the Church’s style. When he opened the Council on October 11, 1962, Pope John set the tone by calling on the bishops to see the world as a place filled with new possibilities for proclaiming the Gospel. Their task was not to condemn society but to engage with it positively and to see how the Christian faith could work with people of goodwill to make it better.

Almost immediately the documents prepared for the Council by the Vatican administration were rejected by the bishops as too negative. They also felt strongly that they, the bishops, should as a team write the statements to come out of the council. In this, too, we see a “new” approach: previous Councils had done this, but recently most important documents had been written in Rome by the pope and his advisors without the input of the world’s bishops.

Naturally it meant that the council took longer: it had four sessions from 1962 to 1965, in which everything was debated and advice was sought from leading theologians who advised the bishops. Non-Catholics were also present as observers. During this time Pope John died and Paul VI, his successor in 1963, shepherded what John started to its conclusion.

The Council produced a series of documents that in many ways helped to change the face of the Church. Occasionally it reversed previously held beliefs.

Non-Catholics were now seen as “separated brethren” rather than “heretics” (for Protestants) and “schismatics” [literally “breakaways”] (for Eastern Orthodox). Non-Christians were no longer seen as damned for not believing in Christ but as seekers after Truth; indeed the Council saw the presence of Christ anonymously within other faiths.

The council firmly rejected hostility to Judaism and condemned anti-Jewish attitudes as contrary to Christian love, particularly since such an attitude condemned Christ—a Jew—himself.

It also defended freedom of religion, rejecting the view that the Church in Catholic countries should have a say over government policy and should urge governments not to tolerate non-Catholics. Church and state must be separate, they proclaimed, and the Church should dialogue with governments over matters of the common good.

The laity were no longer expected to passively “pray, pay and obey”. Laypeople should proclaim the Gospel in their lives, and in active engagement for social justice, which was seen by the council as crucial to any evangelisation.

One of Vatican II’s key decrees revolved around the future role of bishops. Taking as its base the early Church, it decreed that all bishops govern the Church together in union with the pope, but never without him. The pope can make decisions on his own, but always in consultation with the bishops.

And, yes, among its pastoral decisions the Second Vatican Council reformed the liturgy. It decreed that the Mass could be celebrated in the vernacular (languages other than Latin), according to the needs of the people as perceived by the local bishops’ conference. Such translations were implemented everywhere, adhering to the principle that they were done in “noble simplicity”, faithful to the Latin but understandable in the vernacular.

Clearly, then, 50 years after Blessed John XXIII called Vatican II we can see that it meant more than “Mass in English”(or Zulu, or Sotho, or Afrikaans!): Vatican II was about everybody participating in the mission of evangelisation, and a more open attitude to non-Catholics. It was a whole new attitude to being Church.