|
Chapter 3 The Preparation Of The Council 29. The Second Vatican Council. Its preparation. It seems that Pius XI may at one time have considered reconvening the Vatican Council interrupted by the violent events of 1870; what is certain, from the testimony of Domenico Cardinal Tardini, is that Pius XII pondered the suitability of either reconvening the old council or summoning a new one, and that he had the relevant considerations examined by a commission appointed for the purpose. The commission decided against either course. Perhaps it seemed that the doctrine of the encyclical Humani Generis was itself enough to correct whatever errors were appearing in the Church. Perhaps it was thought that no prejudice should be done to the papal government, which the authority of a council might lessen or seem to lessen. Perhaps it was sensed that a council would be pervaded by a democratic spirit incompatible with Catholic principle. Perhaps the Pope was influenced by his habitual feeling that his full responsibility meant he should have an indivisible fullness of power; whence it happened that at his death many important positions in the Curia were vacant. No great weight was given at that time to the alleged benefits of the bishops of the world knowing, and talking to, each other; such thinking betrays democratic leanings, and it was not then believed that merely bringing men together meant either that they really knew each other, or that they understood the matters they were considering. The proposal to call a council was set aside. From the point of view of the See of Peter, there is a long standing suspicion hanging over the idea of a council. Cardinal Pallavicino, the historian of the Council of Trent, found an image to express it: “In the mystical heavens of the Church, one cannot imagine a conjunction more difficult to arrange, or more fraught with dangerous influence, than a general council.”1 The announcement of the calling of a council came upon the world quite unexpectedly, due, as John XXIII himself said, to a sudden inspiration. In the case of Vatican I, an enquiry among the cardinals had been held as early as 1864, and a majority of them had been in favor of calling a council. A few had been against; in order to avoid airing and aggravating disagreements, or because the relevant errors had already been condemned, or because conditions in the Church could not be changed without the assistance of the states.2 In the case of Vatican II, there were no prior consultations as to whether the council was necessary or opportune; the decision came from John XXIII by the exercise of his ordinary charism, or perhaps by the influence of an extraordinary one.3 On 15 July 1959 the Pope established the central preparatory commission, which contained a large majority of cardinals and a number of patriarchs, archbishops and bishops, chosen according to an indeterminate criterion by which it remained unclear whether doctrine, or prudence in administration, or a relation of special trust with the Pope was the determining factor. This central commission sent out to the bishops of the world a questionnaire concerning the matters that should be dealt with; it collected and classified their opinions, itself established lesser commissions, and drew up the schemas that were to be submitted to the ecumenical gathering. The bishops’ replies reveal at the outset some of the tendencies which were to prevail at the council, and not uncommonly display, through their straying on to irrelevant or useless matters, an inability to stick to the point. At Vatican I there had also been far-fetched proposals. There had been suggestions in favor of Rosmini or St. Thomas; important subjects certainly, but other suggestions had descended to the problem of Catholic servants in non-Catholic households, the blessing of cemeteries and other small disciplinary questions, quite disproportionate to the scope of an ecumenical council. All in all, there was a uniform inspiration to the preparation of Vatican II which expressed, so it seemed, the Pope’s intentions.4 The opposition, in this preparatory period, acted less in the internal than in the external arena, delaying its full activity until the plenary period of the council. 1.Mansi,
Vol.49, p.28. 30. Paradoxical outcome of the Council. The outcome of Vatican II was quite different from what had been foreshadowed by its preparation: indeed, as we will see, the preparations were immediately and entirely set aside.5 The council was born, so to speak, of itself, independently of the preparation which had been made for it. In certain respects, Vatican II could be said to have turned out like the Council of Trent, which, as Sarpi6 maintains at the beginning of his History, “emerged with a form and a result quite contrary to the plans of those who brought it about, and dismaying to those who had done all they could to hinder it”; contrary to the designs of those who supported a Catholic reform which would reduce the powers of the Court of Rome, contrary to the fears of that very Court7 which, according to the Servite, tried to frustrate its success at every turn. Sarpi draws a conclusion regarding the divine operations, and a religious maxim from all this: the paradoxical outcome of the Council of Trent is a “clear evidence for resigning our thoughts to God and for not trusting human prudence.8 As at Trent, in Sarpi’s version, so at Vatican II, events turned out quite differently from what had been prepared; quite differently from the projections, as they say. It is not that there are no modernizing strands of thought apparent in the preparatory phase.9 They did not, however, leave the deep and definite impression on the collection of preliminary schemas that they were subsequently to make upon the final documents promulgated by the council. Thus, for example, in the schema on the liturgy, a flexibility aimed at accommodating different national characters was proposed, but it was restricted to mission territories and no mention was made of the altogether subjective demand for creativity on the part of the celebrant. The practice of communal absolution, to the detriment of individual confession, aimed at easing moral demands, was indeed proposed in the schema de sacramentis. Even the ordination to the priesthood of married men (though not of women) found a place in the schema de ordine sacro. The schema de libertate religiosa (Cardinal Bea), one of the most troubled and disputed of the ecumenical assembly, put forward in substance the great novelty which was in the end adopted, apparently removing Catholic doctrine from the ordinary path canonized and always maintained by the Church.10 The utilitarian principle is characteristic of modern pragmatism and activism, which see value in productivity (whether of objects, or of work, as the case may be) but which ignore the immanent, non-transitive operations of the person, placing them below transitive activities having their effect ad extra.11 Nonetheless, it too found express formulation in the schema de disciplina cleri, which advanced the idea that bishops and priests should be ineligible for office on reaching a given age, and should retire. The fruit of this tendency to activism was the motu proprio, Ingravescentem aetatem, which institutes a deminutio capitis12for cardinals over the age of eighty. One particular request concerning the cassock paved the way for the custom of wearing lay dress, thus obscuring the specific difference between the priest and the layman, and leading to the neglect of the rule which made the cassock obligatory during the performance of ministerial functions. Particular opinions of the broader theological schools also crop up in the preparatory work. It was requested, for example, that a debatable proposition regarding the limbo of infants, and even of adults, should be accepted as conciliar teaching. This subject was completely omitted,13 as being too close to the thorny dogma of predestination, of which the council says nothing, but the broad pelagian spirit which it presupposes pervaded post-conciliar theological thinking, as we will show later on. The influence of those who wanted to make innovations in the training of the clergy, clearly shown during the preparatory period, was even more obvious during the meetings of the full council (schema de sacrorum alumnis formandis). The Church’s long standing educational tradition, which has been given shape in the seminary system, implies that priests ought to be formed in a particular way, corresponding to the particular ontological and moral character of their consecrated state. The schema requested instead that the formation of the clergy be assimilated as far as at all possible to that of the laity; hence the ratio studiorum of seminaries ought to be modeled on those of the state, and clerical culture in general should lose all the specific differences distinguishing it from that of the laity. The grounds given for this innovation were those which became the oft-repeated theme of the council; that the Church’s personnel should conform to the world, in order to perform their specific teaching and sanctifying tasks in the world. Similarly, on the question of reunion of non-Catholic Christians, there were voices heard which ignored the difference between the Protestants on the one hand; without the priesthood, without a hierarchy, without the apostolic succession and without, or almost without, sacraments; and on the other hand the Orthodox, who have almost everything in common with Catholics, except the primacy and infallibility. At the previous council, Pius IX had drawn a very clear distinction: he sent papal representatives bearing letters of invitation to the eastern patriarchs (who all replied that they could not come) but he did not recognize the different Protestant denominations as churches, regarding them as simple associations, and issued a call ad omnes protestantes,14 inviting them, not to take part in the council, but to return to that unity from which they had been separated. The latitudinarian attitude, which appeared in the preparatory period, rests on an implicit partial equality between Catholics and non-Catholics, and was initially only a minority point of view, but it was subsequently responsible for the invitation of Protestant observers on the same basis as the Orthodox and made itself felt in the decree de oecumenismo.15 There is one last element common to the preparatory period and to the final result: the general optimism which colored the diagnoses and forecasts of a minority of the central preparatory commission. In the fifth section, de laicis, of the schema de Ecclesia, there appeared the idea that growth in the scientific understanding of nature, that is, an extension of that kingdom of technology which is modern culture, was also an extension of human dignity and happiness; but this was rejected by the majority, who insisted on the indifferent nature of technical progress: it extends the possible field of moral activity, but the latter is not intrinsically assisted by it. Nonetheless, this theme of the domination of the earth by means of technology, attained sacral status16 in the final document and came to pervade all post-conciliar theological thinking. The promotion of technology to the status of a force which civilizes and morally improves mankind, gave rise to the notion that the world as such progresses, and also aroused a gale of optimism. Optimism was in fact to preside over the entire outlook of the plenary meetings of the council and to obscure the real state of Catholicism from sight. It is worth recording the criticisms which one Father on the central preparatory commission made of the overly rosy description of the state of the world, and of the state of the Church in the world. “I do not approve of the description of the state of the Church given here with such exuberance, more in hope than in truth. Why, and in comparison with what period, do you speak of an increased religious fervor? Should not statistical facts, as they are called, be kept before us, from which it is clear that the worship of God, Catholic belief and public morals are, among many people, collapsing and indeed almost in ruins? Are not men’s minds generally alienated from the Catholic religion: the state being separate from the Church, philosophy from the dogmas of faith, the investigation of the world from reverence for the Creator, technical discoveries from conformity with the moral order? Does the Church not labor under a shortage of workers in the sacred ministry? Are not many parts of Holy Church cruelly trampled underfoot by the Giants and Minotaurs who strut about the world, or fallen into schism, as among the Chinese? Has not the enemy devastated our missions among unbelievers, which had been planted and watered with such zeal and such charity? Is not atheism lauded no longer merely by private persons, but (what is altogether unheard of) by whole nations, and upheld by the laws of the state? Are not our numbers diminishing proportionally every day, while Mahommedanism and Paganism increase greatly? We are now a fifth part of the human race, who recently were a quarter. Are not our morals turning pagan, by divorce, abortion, euthanasia, sodomy and the pursuit of Mammon?”17 The speaker concluded by saying that his diagnosis proceeded humano more,18 in view of historical facts, leaving out what the Providence of God could do for His Church “beyond the bounds of human thinking,” and outside the established pattern of His action. 5.
The paradoxical outcome of the council, the
breaking of the council rules, and the setting aside of the council
that had been prepared, are passed over in silence by works recounting
the course of the great assembly. See for example the synthesis
of the council given by Mgr Poupard, pro-President of the Secretariat
for Non-Believers, in Esprit et Vie, 1983, pp.241ff. To counterbalance
the omission of matters as important as these, we will examine them
at some little length. 31. Paradoxical outcome of the Council, continued. The Roman Synod. Apart from the comparison between the final documents and those first proposed, three principal facts make the paradoxical outcome of the council apparent: the falseness of the forecasts made by the Pope and others who prepared it; the fruitless-ness of the Roman synod called by John XXIII as an anticipation of it; and the almost immediate nullification of the decree Veterum Sapientia, which was meant to foreshadow the cultural cast of the post-conciliar Church. Pope John intended the council to be a great act of renewal and functional adaptation for the Church and thought he had adequately prepared it to be such, but nonetheless cherished the prospect that it would all be over within a few months;19 thinking perhaps of Lateran I under Callistus II in 1123, which three hundred prelates concluded in nineteen days, or of Lateran II under Innocent II in 1139, which a thousand prelates concluded in seventeen days. In fact the council opened on 11 October 1962 and closed on 8 December 1965, thus lasting intermittently for three years. All expectations were overthrown because of the aborting of the council which had been prepared, and the successive elaboration of another quite different council which generated itself. The Roman synod was planned and summoned by John XXIII as a solemn forerunner of the larger gathering, which it was meant to prefigure and anticipate. The Pope himself said precisely that, to the clergy and faithful of Rome in an allocution of 29 June 1960. Because of that intention, the synod’s importance was universally recognized as extending beyond the diocese of Rome to the whole Catholic world. Its importance was compared to that which the provincial synods held by St. Charles Borromeo had had with respect to the Council of Trent. New life was given to the old saying that the whole Catholic world should wish to model itself on the Church of Rome. The fact that the Pope immediately ordered the texts of the Roman synod to be translated into Italian and all the principal languages, also makes it clear that in his mind it was intended to play an important exemplary role. The texts of the Roman synod promulgated on 25, 26 and 27 January 1960 constitute a complete reversion of the Church to its proper nature; we mean not merely to its supernatural essence (that can never be lost) but to its historical nature, a returning of the institution to its principles, as Machiavelli put it. The synod in fact proposed a vigorous restoration at every level of ecclesial life. The discipline of the clergy was modeled on the traditional pattern formulated at the Council of Trent, and based on two principles which had always been accepted and practiced. The first is that of the peculiar character of the person consecrated to God, supernaturally enabled to do Christ’s work, and thus clearly separated from the laity {sacred means separate). The second, which follows from the first, is that of an ascetical education and a sacrificial life, which is the differentiating mark of the clergy as a body, though individuals can take up an ascetical life in the lay state. The synod therefore prescribed for the clergy a whole style of behavior quite distinct from that of laymen. That style demands ecclesiastical dress, sobriety in diet, the avoiding of public entertainments and a flight from profane things. The distinct character of the clergy’s cultural formation was also reaffirmed, and the outlines were given of the system which the Pope solemnly sanctioned the year after in Veterum Sapientia. The Pope also ordered that the Catechism of the Council of Trent should be republished, but the order was ignored. It was not until 1981 that, by private initiative, a translation was published in Italy.20 The liturgical legislation of the synod is no less significant: the use of Latin is solemnly confirmed, all attempts at creativity on the part of the celebrant, which would reduce the liturgical action of the Church to the level of a simple exercise of private piety, are condemned. The need to baptize infants as soon as possible is emphasized, a tabernacle in the traditional form and position is prescribed, Gregorian Chant is ordered, newly composed popular songs are submitted to the approval of the bishop, all appearance of worldliness is forbidden in churches by a general prohibition of such things as the giving of concerts and performances, the selling of pictures or printed matter, the giving of free rein to photographers and the lighting of candles by all and sundry (one ought to get the priest to do it). The ancient sacred rigor is re-established regarding sacred spaces, forbidding women entry to the altar area. Lastly, altars facing the congregation are to be allowed only by way of an exception, which it is up to the diocesan bishop to make. Anybody can see that this massive reaffirmation of traditional discipline, which the synod wanted, was contradicted and negated in almost every detail by the effects of the council. And so the Roman synod, which was to have been an exemplary foreshadowing of the council, fell within a few years into the Erebus of oblivion, and is indeed tanquam non fuerit.21 As an instance of this nullification I may say that having searched for the texts of the Roman synod in diocesan curias and archives, I could not find them there and had to get them from secular public libraries.22 19.
That is apparent from the positio of
the preliminary proceedings for the beatification of Pope John,
which became known through an indiscretion on the part of the journalist
F. D’Andrea. See Il Giornale Nuovo of 3 January 1979.
It is also clear from the Pope’s own words at the audience of 13
October 1962, which led to the belief that the council could be
over by Christmas. [When speaking to the crowds in St. Peter’s Square
on the evening of 11 October, the day the council opened, Pope John
said that it potesse finire prima di Natale. “It could finish
before Christmas.” Translator’s note.] 32. Paradoxical outcome of the Council, continued. Veterum Sapientia. The use of the Latin language is, not metaphysically but historically, connatural to the Catholic Church, and is closely connected even in the popular mind with things ecclesiastical. It also constitutes an important instrument and sign of historical continuity in the Church. Since there is no internal reality without its appropriate external manifestation, and since the internal realities arise, fluctuate, and are honored or abased together with their external manifestations, the Church has always believed that the external manifestation which is the Latin language should be maintained permanently, in order to preserve the internal reality of the Church. This is all the more true when one is dealing with a linguistic phenomenon in which the fusion of form and substance, of the external and the internal, is quite indissoluble. In fact, the ruin of Latin after Vatican II was accompanied by many of the symptoms of the “self-destruction” of the Church which Paul VI deplored. We will discuss the value of Latin later.23 Here we only want to touch upon that difference we are studying between the preparatory inspiration of the council and its actual result. By Veterum Sapientia John XXIII wanted to bring about a return of the Church to its own principles, this return being necessary in his mind for the renewal of the Church in its own proper nature at the present articulus temporum. The Pope attributed a very special importance to the document, and the solemnities with which he surrounded its promulgation in St. Peter’s, in the presence of the cardinals and of the whole Roman clergy, are unique in the history of the present century. The outstanding importance of Veterum Sapientia is not destroyed by the oblivion to which it was immediately dispatched, nor by its historical lack of success; values are not values only when they are accepted. Its importance comes from its perfect conformity with the historic reality which is the Church. The encyclical is above all an affirmation of continuity. The Church’s culture is continuous with that of the Greco-Roman world, first and foremost because Christian literature has been since its beginnings Greek and Latin literature. The Bible comes in Greek swaddling clothes, the oldest creeds are Greek and Latin, the Roman Church is Latin from the middle of the third century, the councils of the early centuries know no other language than Greek. This is a continuity internal to the Church whereby all its ages are bound together. But there is also what might be called an external continuity which crosses beyond the bounds of the Christian era and gathers up the whole of the wisdom of the pagans. We will not indeed start talking about Saint Socrates, but we cannot ignore the teaching of the Greek and Latin Fathers, recalled by the Pope in a passage from Tertullian, according to which there is a continuity between the world of thought in which the wisdom of the ancients lived, veterum sapientia, and the world of thought elaborated after the revelation of the Incarnate Word. Christian thought developed a content that had been supernaturally revealed, but it also took to itself a content revealed naturally by the light of created reason. Thus the classical world is not extraneous to Christianity. The latter has as its essence a sphere of truths above our natural lights, and unattainable by them, but it includes nonetheless the sphere of every truth which human thought can reach. Christian culture is thus prepared for and awaited “obedientially,” in the mediaeval phrase, by the wisdom of the ancients, because no truth, no justice, no beauty, remain foreign to it. Christianity is therefore in harmony with, rather than opposed to, the ancient culture, and has always been sustained by the latter; and sustained not merely by turning it into a handmaid and making a purely pragmatic use of it, as is commonly asserted, but by carrying it on her bosom, as something that already was, but was to be made even greater by being made holy. I do not wish to disguise the fact that the relationship between Christianity and the ancient world, mutually congenial though they may be, entails some rather delicate questions and requires one to keep a firm hold on the distinction between the rational and the suprarational. It is impossible to sustain Tertullian’s overly quoted formula anima natu-raliter christiana,24 because it amounts to calling something naturally supernatural. One must tread carefully to avoid the dangers which naturalism and historicism pose for a Christian religion which is essentially supernatural and suprahistorical. The idea that Christianity stretches across time and cultural change is nonetheless necessary, true and Catholic, albeit difficult. I shelter under the authority of St. Augustine, when he asserts this continuity in an abrupt and all-embracing fashion, straddling centuries and forms of worship: Nam res ipsa, quae nunc christiana religio nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos nee defuit ab initio generis humani.25 The practical and disciplinary section of Veterum Sapientia is as crystal clear as its doctrine. It is the very precision of its requirements that led to its nullification, when it was not backed up by papal authority. It decrees that the ecclesiastical ratio studiorum should regain its own distinctive character, deriving from the specific nature of a homo clericus; that substance should thus be put back into the teaching of the traditional disciplines, principally Latin and Greek; and that in order to achieve this, secular subjects which had come in or been expanded through the tendency to copy the secular syllabus, should be dropped or abridged. It lays down that in seminaries, the fundamental subjects such as dogmatic and moral theology should be taught in Latin from Latin textbooks, and that if there were any teachers who were unable or unwilling to use Latin, they should be replaced within a reasonable period. As the coping stone of this Apostolic Constitution intended to foster a general revival of Latin in the Church, the Pope decreed the establishment of a Higher Latin Institute, designed to train Latinists for the Catholic world at large, and to bring out a dictionary of modern Latin.26 The general collapse of the use of Latin, following as it did upon a project for its general restoration, provides a further proof of the paradoxical outcome of the council. Veterum Sapientia, being concerned as it was with an historically essential facet of Catholicism, called for an outstanding effort on the part of the authorities issuing it, and an harmonious response on the part of those responsible for its implementation. What was needed was the practical force displayed, for example, in the great reform of Italian schools by Giovanni Gentile,27 which fixed the form of the syllabus for half a century. Thousands of teachers who then found themselves in a position analogous to that in which Veterum Sapientia placed teachers of sacred literature, were mercilessly obliged either to conform or to resign. The reform of ecclesiastical studies, however, was annihilated in very short order, having met opposition from many quarters for a variety of reasons, principally in Germany in a book by one Winninger, bearing a preface by the Bishop of Strasbourg. The Pope, having stood firm to start with, later gave orders that the implementation of the document should not be insisted on; those who would have had the duty of putting it into effect imitated this papal weakness, and Veterum Sapientia, which had been so loudly praised as useful and opportune, was completely wiped from memory and is not cited in any conciliar document. Some biographies of John XXIII do not mention it at all, just as if it did not exist, and never had; while the more arrogant accounts mention it simply as an error. There is not, in the whole history of the Church, another instance of a document’s being so solemnly emphasized, and then being so unceremoniously cast out so soon afterwards, like the corpse of an executed criminal. The question remains, however, whether it was struck out of the book of the living because of the unwisdom shown in promulgating it, or because of the lack of courage shown when it came to demanding its implementation. 23.
See paragraphs 278-79. 33. The aims of the First Vatican Council. From the beginnings of conciliar gatherings in the Church during the apostolic period, up as far as Vatican I, an ecumenical council had always been summoned with one or more of three objectives, which were called the causa fidei, the causa unionis and the causa reformationis.28 At the councils of the early centuries, the second and third objectives were implicit in the first, and were not explicitly formulated, but obviously by settling questions of faith, such as that of the union between the human and the divine in Christ, social harmony was reestablished in the Church through the overcoming of doctrinal divisions. Thanks to the connection between doctrine and discipline, the laws of the Church’s action were thereby reestablished no less than the rule of faith. The subject of union was brought forcibly to the Church’s attention later on by the schisms of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and later still by the great division in Germany. Unity was the predominant issue at the councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439). Lastly, having been in need of attention for centuries, due to the corruption of clerical manners, the overweening worldly power of the Roman Curia and the luxurious pomp of the Papacy, the subject of reform had also been dealt with at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). These three ends were also pursued at Vatican I: the call to non-Catholics gave rise to a huge literature and wide ranging arguments. The causa unionis was made the responsibility of one of the four main preparatory commissions, as was the causa reformationis, and this gave rise to a swarm of petitions and suggestions, proving clearly enough how nothing resulted, even in those days, from the activities of small groups and camarillas. The breadth of the hopes aroused is shown by the variety and daring of the suggestions made. There were those even in the middle of the nineteenth century who wanted the council to forbid the death penalty; who proposed that si quis bellum incipiat, anathema sit;29 who called for the abolition of the celibacy of the Latin clergy; and who favored the election of bishops by democratic suffrage. The proposal made by the Capuchin Antonio da Reschio gave clearest expression to the desire for a militant organization of the Catholic masses.30 He envisaged that the whole mass of the Catholic population, from children to adults, from celibates to married people, should be divided up into “congregations,” and that the members of the congregations should not form friendships, or marry, or mix in any other way with non-members. In effect this meant separation not only from those outside the Church, or outside the practicing Church, but even from anyone inside the Church who would not join the mass organization; tamquam castrorum acies ordinata.31 The Capuchin’s idea was inspired by pagan, Jesuit or Utopian models, and envisaged the perfect society in terms of external organization according to a rational scheme. Despite these extravagances and veins of modernizing thought, the preparation made for Vatican I succeeded in imposing a definite direction on the council, which guaranteed the Church’s unity in the face of the world. As regards the causa fidei, the errors identified in the Syllabus were condemned again, either explicitly or implicitly. As regards the causa unionis, it was asserted once more that unity must necessarily come about through reunion, or the accession of non-Catholic denominations to the Roman Church, as the center of unity. As regards the causa reformationis, the principle that all the faithful are subject to the natural law, and to the divine law possessed by the Church, was renewed. The definition of the Pope’s infallible teaching authority put the seal on that truth. 28. The interests
of the faith, of unity or of reform. 34. The aims of Vatican II. Pastorality. The three traditional aims can all be recognized in the ends pursued by Vatican II, even though they are set forth and emphasized in various ways, so that one or another of them is primarily addressed or stressed at a particular time. They are, however, all swallowed up in a somewhat novel concept expressed by the word pastoral. In the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, paragraph No. 12 gives a threefold aim to the council: the internal renewal of the Church (this seems to affect both faith and reform), the spread of the Gospel in the world (this seems to concern the faith, inasmuch as it is non servanda, sedpropaganda) and lastly, dialogue with the modern world (which seems to be de fide propaganda or, as is said these days, de evangelizando mundo).33 In his speech opening its second period of meetings, Paul VI gave the council four goals. The first is the Church’s taking account of itself. It seemed to the Pope that “the truth about the Church of Christ ought to be explored, organized and expressed,” and that “what the Church thinks of itself should be defined, but not by dogmatic definitions.” A shade of subjectivism can be seen here. What really matters is what the Church is, not what the Church thinks about itself. The second goal is reform, that is, the effort of the Church to correct itself and bring itself back into conformity with its divine model (without drawing a distinction between an essential constitutive conformity, which can never be lost, and an accidentally perfectionable conformity, which is always to be sought). The Pope considers a reform of this sort to imply a reawakening of spiritual energies already latent in the bosom of the Church: it is a question of realizing and perfecting the Church as it exists through time. The third goal takes up the theme of the causa unionis. The Pope says this goal “concerns other Christians” and that the Catholic Church alone can offer them perfect ecclesiastical unity. He thus seems to stay within the bounds of traditional doctrine: namely, that union already has its definite center, around which the scattered and separated parts must concentrate. He adds that “recent movements still in full course among the Christian communities separated from us, show that union can only be attained through unity in faith, in participation in the same sacraments, and in the organic harmony of a single ecclesiastical government.” He thus reaffirms the need of a threefold agreement in dogmatic, sacramental and hierarchical matters. He does however presuppose that the desire for unity among those separated is a desire for dogma, sacraments and a hierarchy of the sort found in the Catholic Church. The Protestants, on the other hand, understand unity as a mutual drawing together by which all denominations move towards a single center, which, although perhaps found within the Christian body as a whole, cannot be identified with the center of unity which the Roman Church professes to be, to possess and to communicate to others.34 The council’s ecumenism is thus impaired by a fundamental ambiguity, hanging as it does between the concept of conversion as a reversion to the Catholic center, and conversion as a response to a need common to all denominations, Catholic and non-Catholic, for a center beyond and above them all. The fourth goal of the council is “to throw out a bridge to the modern world.” By opening a conversation of this sort the Church “discovers and strengthens its missionary vocation,” that is, its essential purpose of evangelizing mankind. The term discover goes well beyond the meaning for which the Pope employs it, since the Church has always spread the Gospel, and when new journeys and voyages discovered new countries, customs and religions and showed Christendom was only, in Campanella’s35 phrase, a finger of the world, the Church was soon possessed by a missionary spirit, Campanella himself made the first attempt at a missionary and comparative theology, and Rome created the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The Pope conceives of dialogue with the world as being identical with the service the Church must give to the world, and he expands the idea of service so far as to say expressly that the Fathers of the council have not been called together to deal with their own affairs, those of the Church, but with those of the world. The idea that the Church’s service of the world is aimed at making the world serve Christ, of whom the Church is the historical prolongation, and that the dominion of the Church does not imply servitude for man, but rather his elevation and his lordship, is here little in evidence. It seems the Pope, without bothering to draw distinctions, wishes to fly from the slightest trace or suspicion of claiming dominion of any kind, and that he sees service and conquest as contradictories; but Christ Himself said “I have overcome the world.” 32.
Not to be kept, but to be spread.” 35. Expectations concerning the Council. Having said something about the council’s goals, it is appropriate to mention the expectations held, and the forecasts made, about the effects that would flow from it. Goals are set by the will; forecasts, however, have to do with feelings and often with hopes. The term triumphalism was invented to portray a supposed attitude of the Church in the past, without stopping to realize that that portrayal was contradicted both by the Church’s sufferings in recent centuries under attacks from the modern state, and by the accusation, which the critics made simultaneously, that the Church was defensively isolating herself as something separate from the world. Triumphalist or not, the general tone of the forecasts made is nonetheless hopeful and optimistic, despite occasional bursts of realism. The hope is not, however, of the theological sort caused by supernatural certainties, and concerned with the state of things in the world to come, but an historical and worldly hope based on guesses and forecasts generated by the desires of the forecaster, or by what seems to be happening to humanity. In his speech opening the second period of the council, Paul VI displays the state of the modern world, with its religious persecutions, its atheism adopted as a principle of social life, its neglect of the knowledge of God, and its greed for riches and pleasures. “At the sight of such things” the Pope says “we ought to be dismayed rather than comforted, saddened rather than cheered.” But, as can be seen, the Pope uses a conditional mood and does not turn his hypothetical dismay into a positive statement. He follows instead the footsteps of John XXIII, who, in his opening speech of 11 October 1962 forecasts a “universal irradiation of the truth, right direction of individual, domestic and social life.” In Paul VI’s speech, optimism not only colors the forecasts, but implants itself firmly in the consideration of the present state of the Church. When one compares his words here with opposing statements made on other occasions, one can see the great breadth of the variation between the extremes in his thinking, and the strength of the Pope’s ability to forget one extreme while he was dwelling upon another: “Let us rejoice, brethren: when was the Church ever as conscious of itself, when was it ever so happy and so harmonious and so ready for the fulfillment of its mission?” Cardinal Traglia, the Vicar of Rome, abandoned the rhetorical question and frankly asserted: “Never has the Catholic Church been so closely united around its head, never has it had a clergy so morally and intellectually exemplary as at present; nor is there any risk of a rupture in its organization. A crisis in the Church is not what the council has to deal with.”36 A judgment like that can only be explained by a very excited state of mind, or a very defective knowledge of history. An excited state of mind also seems to be the origin of Paul VI’s statement in his sermon on 18 November 1965: “No other council in the history of the Church of God has had such ample proportions, such assiduous and tranquil labors, or such varied and interesting themes.” It is undoubtedly true that Vatican II was the greatest of the councils in terms of numbers attending, logistical organization, and agitation of public opinion, but these are simply attendant circumstances rather than what makes a council important. There were only two hundred easterners and three Latins at Ephesus in 431, and Trent opened with only sixty bishops. Thanks to the enormous modern apparatus of information, which works merely by stamping images on the mind, the imposing exterior of Vatican II was very successful in stirring the world’s attention, and created a conciliar opinion much more important than the actual council. In an age when things are what they are because of the way they are presented, and when things are worth as much as people can be persuaded they are worth, the council necessarily made a great stir in public opinion, and that very fact was deemed to confer greatness on the council. Neither the council Fathers nor the Pope himself were immune to this inflationary tendency. In a letter of 29 June 1975, admittedly polemical since addressed to Monseigneur Lefebvre, Paul VI declared that Vatican II is a council “which has no less authority (than others), and which in some respects is even more important than the Council of Nicea.” Comparisons between one council and another are dangerous, since one needs to specify in what respect the comparison is being made. If one looks to their practical effectiveness one will find that, for example, Lateran V (1512-1517) achieved nothing regarding the causa reformationis with which it was principally concerned, since its reforming decrees were a dead letter; but that its dogmatic decrees were important since they excluded neoaristotelianism, by condemning those who taught that the soul was mortal. Only at Trent were doctrinal clarification and practical measures equally significant, but even Trent failed entirely in the causa unionis for which it had primarily been summoned. Leaving aside all comparisons between one council and another, one can still compare one sort of council with another, and it then becomes apparent that the dogmatic sort, which fix immutable doctrine, are more important than the pastoral sort, which are dominated by historical circumstances and only promulgate transient and changeable decrees about practical matters. Then again, every dogmatic council makes decrees of a pastoral kind, based on doctrine. The proposal to deal with doctrine first and pastoral matters second was rejected at Vatican II.37 There are no dogmatic pronouncements in Vatican II’s teachings which are more than repetitions of the teaching of previous councils. The Note on the theological standing of the doctrine taught by the council, released by its Secretary General, Mgr Pericle Felici on 16 November 1965, established that in view of the pastoral nature of the council: Sancta Synodus tantum de rebus fidei vel morum ab Ecclesia tenenda definit quae ut talia aperte ipsa declaravit.38 As a matter of fact, no part of the council’s decrees is declared to constitute a dogmatic definition, but it is well understood that where a doctrine already defined in the past is reaffirmed, there can be no doubt about its theological status. However, to return to the comparison between types of council, it must be firmly maintained that the dogmatic sort are the more important, as a consequence of a philosophical truth prior to all theological propositions, and also as something revealed in Scripture. The metaphysical procession of being gives priority to knowledge rather than to the will, to theory rather than to practice: In principio erat Verbum.39If it is not based on knowledge, the action of ecclesiastical authority in making arrangements and giving orders has no foundation. That pragmatic tendency which influenced the council on so many occasions influences judgments on this matter as well. 36.
O.R., 36. Cardinal Montini’s forecasts. His minimalism. Particular mention should be made of the forecasts of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, in a book on the future council, published by the Catholic University of that city. It is a remarkable document even considered in itself, but even more remarkable for the light it sheds on the continuities and discontinuities in papal thinking, by which I mean the undeniable continuity which is evident in certain directions, and the gap that yawns between the initial optimism and the final pessimism of Paul’s pontificate. The text is as follows: “The council should trace the line of Christian relativism, laying down how far the Catholic religion must act as the iron guardian of absolute values, and how far it can and must bend in its approach, in its connaturality with human life as it exists in time.”40 Some defects of wording, such as “bend in its connaturality,” could make it difficult to expound the sense of this statement, but its fundamental meaning is clear enough. It would seem that the council is not to prepare for an expansion of Catholicism, but to adjust it so that its supernatural element is reduced to a minimum, and so that it chimes in to the greatest possible extent with the world, which is deemed, if the words are to be taken as they stand, to be connatural with it. So the Church is not, as the common image has it, to be the leaven of the world that causes it to rise, nor to work its way into humanity and change its foundations; rather, it should itself be impregnated with the world, because then it will be able to impregnate the world in turn. A statement like this presupposes that the Church now finds itself obliged to make a compromise with the world, in the way that Clement XIV felt it had to compromise in the eighteenth century, when he brought himself to suppress the Jesuits. It is a judgment based on a cautious rather than a courageous prudence. It also traces a course of action for the council based on a presupposition which the Catholic religion can hardly accept. The supposition is that man must be accepted as he is; but Catholicism takes him as he is, while not accepting him as he is, since he is corrupt: religion always keeps in view what man should be like, precisely so that it can heal him of his corruption and save him. If one sets aside the familiar predictions of a flourishing revival which Montini made as Pope, and connects his declaration of 1962 with the one he made on 18 February 1976, it can be seen to have a paradoxical importance: “We should not be afraid of the prospect of one day being perhaps a minority, we will not be embarrassed at unpopularity...it will not matter to us if we are defeated, as long as we are witnesses to the truth and to the freedom of the sons of God.” The prospect of increasing misfortune, almost of extinction, which opened in the Church in 1968, is even more apparent in the cry of the Pope’s tragic prayer at the requiem of Aldo Moro: “A sense of pessimism has annihilated so many calm hopes and shaken our trust in the goodness of the human race.” The man laments, but the Pope laments still more, close to the shadowy line,41 and confronted with the shattered assumptions of his whole pontificate.42
40. O.R.,
8-9 October 1962. All the emphases printed in the texts cited are
our own, and are made so that the parts of the text commented on
stand out clearly. The term is not used here in its sinister sense, but with its neutral meaning of a complete about-turn. These were the forecasts of those who foresaw and pursued a radical change in Catholicism. Mgr Schmitt, Bishop of Metz, openly admits as much: La situation de civilisation que nous vivons entraine des changements non seulement dans notre comportement exterieur, mais dans la conception même que nous nous faisons tant de la creation que du salut apportè par Jésus Christ.43 The doctrine underlying this prediction, although confused, was subsequently embraced both at the popular level and in the activity of organized groups which imposed important elements of their thinking on the council. Those who dare to attribute to John XXIII the intention of “blowing up the Stalinist monolith of the Catholic Church from inside44 are propagators of the catastrophal scenario. So too are the disciples of the confused and poetical theocosmologism of Teilhard de Chardin: Je pense que le grand fait religieux actuel est I’e’veil d’une Religion nouvelle qui fait, petit à petit, adorer le Monde et qui est indispensable a I’humanitepour quelle continue a travailler. II est done capital que nous montrions le Christianisme cornme capable de diviniser le nisus et l’opus naturels humains.45 The Holy Office’s monitum against Teilhard effectively became obsolete by the time of John XXIIFs death.46 Rightly convinced of the essential irreformability of the Church, the innovators propose to push the Church beyond itself, in search of a metachristianity, to use the Teilhardian term, because a renewed religion is a new religion. It is supposed that in order to avoid dying, Christianity has to undergo a mutation in the genetic and Teilhardian sense. But if religion has to go beyond itself in order not to die, the formula contains a contradiction, since it amounts to saying that Christianity has to die in order not to die. In French Catholicism before the war there were already ideas about a radical change in the Church, and Cardinal Saliege wrote: “There have been unforeseen biological changes which have the appearance of a new species. Are we now witnessing a kind of change that will profoundly modify the human structure, by which I mean the mental and psychological structure of humanity? This question, which philosophers will regard as impertinent, will be able to be answered in five hundred years.”47 43.
Cited in Itineraires, n.160, p. 106.
“The cultural situation we are living in entails changes not only
in our external behavior, but in the very notion we have of creation
and of the salvation brought by Jesus Christ.”
|
