Reforming Council

Donald Norwood reminds us in Reforming Rome that the Reformers were eager for a ecumenical council to resolve the conflicts sparked by the Reformation. In 1560, Calvin writes, “In order to put an end to the divisions which exist in Christianity, there is need to have a free and universal council” (quoted 38). 

Trent was not that council. Convened by the Pope, Calvin and the other Reformers were suspicious that it would tilt toward the curia. A few Protestants went to Trent but none participated in the debate. Cardinal Caspar Contarini, the one high-ranking Catholic who understood Protestant teaching on justification, died before the Council began, and if he had lived he probably would have faced censure.

Vatican II, though, was a much different affair. Non-Catholic theologians were invited and listened to. The Council issued no anathemas. It was indeed a universal council, the largest council, Norwood says, ever: “over 2,500 bishops from almost every country in the world. Trent at most was attended by 200 bishops. The largest of the medieval councils never had more than 400 participants” (39).

The results were of the kind to warm a Protestant heart: “The Mass in a local parish has been simplified thanks to the Council’s first act, the reform of the Liturgy. . . . The Reformers would now find little to object to and would be delighted that their request for the use of the vernacular has at last been granted. . . . Renewed attention to the Scriptures, encouraged by Dei Verbum, has led to the use of a Common Lectionary in many different church traditions.” Vatican II “gave a voice to many like Congar, De Lubac, Courtney Murray, and Rahner who had often been silenced. It listened to progressive bishops like Suenens.” (41).

The Catholic church didn’t become Protestant in the 1960s. Vatican II was not entirely the universal council that the Reformed hoped for. But it’s the closest thing we’ve got, and should be received as the gift that it is.