“What about Vatican II?” I asked my Catholic friend, in response to his assertion that Catholic doctrine is stable while the Church’s understanding thereof develops. We were in college together, young bucks full of vim and vigor, passionate about our common Christian faith, even while we stood on opposite confessional sides of the Reformation divide.
A small cohort of us went through college together as majors in Religion-Philosophy, and, as our college was small, we had most every class together, whether New Testament, Classical Philosophy, Reformation, or Intellectual History. At nights we would gather at Perkins—a family restaurant open late—and down copious cups of coffee while discussing and debating the fundamental issues and finer points of Christian faith and life. As iron sharpens iron, we sharpened each other as we challenged each other, the core of our little group comprising a couple Lutherans, a Baptist, my friend the Catholic, and a Presbyterian. (We all united, however, to challenge our Anglican history professor.)
I knew little about Catholicism then. Although baptized Catholic, I was raised Lutheran from the time I was a young boy. And so I had many misconceptions about Catholic faith. (Given the spirit of the age and the crisis in catechesis, I probably would have maintained them as a Catholic.) My Catholic friend patiently endured my questions and challenges. I developed an informed and sympathetic understanding of Catholicism, even while I remained committed to the magisterial Reformation, and in time after college, I felt what Chesterton described: “It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment a man ceases to pull against it he feels a tug towards it. The moment he ceases to shout it down he begins to listen to it with pleasure. The moment he tries to be fair to it he begins to be fond of it.”
Potential converts are attracted to the Catholic faith because in a world gone mad they perceive there authority, nobility, gravity, and unity, goodness, beauty, and truth. But the Church one finds in apologists’ books is often not what one finds on the ground in local parishes, as both Catholics and non-Catholics know. We’re generally past the dark days of butterfly chasubles and pizza-n-Pepsi masses, laus Deo, but grave problems remain regarding the liturgy, fidelity to Church teaching, the vitality of Christian experience, simple mass attendance, and mission. And many blame the Second Vatican Council.
The Second Vatican Council itself is not to blame for post-conciliar malaise. But for many converts the Council is an issue, given its aftermath, and here irony abounds. The Council was called to initiate a great age of Christological engagement ad extra with an increasingly decadent world weary of itself, but what resulted was an era of ad intra confusion within the Church itself. Did not the Council precipitate a rupture, a break from prior tradition, occluding much of the Faith’s vigor and beauty? What about Vatican II?
As I was on my journey to Rome, I had to reckon with Vatican II. And that meant three things: First, getting up to speed on Catholic history prior to the Council. Second, reading the documents the Council produced. And third, finding an adequate hermeneutic for the Council.
For those who did not experience the pre-Conciliar Church (and for many who did) there exists a temptation to nostalgia, a romantic, sentimental longing for the past that enervates discipleship and devotion in the present, the only time in which we can live. Nostalgia is thus the deadly sin of sloth. But nostalgia is not Tradition. I think criticism of the pre-Conciliar Church is often overblown, but there were real problems in need of fixing and real opportunities in need of seizing.
And so when one reads the actual documents that the Council produced, especially the four Constitutions on liturgy, revelation, the Church, and the Church in the modern world, which Pope Benedict recently called “the four cardinal points of our guiding compass,” one finds all sorts of beauty, goodness, and truth, authority, nobility, gravity, and unity. The documents are Christocentric to the core, and meant to empower the Church for mission.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the eschaton. It got realized prematurely as certain theologians and churchmen and -women engaged anew in the perennial heresy of separating letter and spirit. The nebulous “Spirit of Vatican II” thus arose as a warrant for whatever whims one wished, while the writings were received and appropriated piecemeal in instances of progressive prooftexting. And so on Sunday in his homily, Pope Benedict called for a return to the letter:
I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the Council—that is to its texts—also to draw from them its authentic spirit, and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in them. Reference to the documents saves us from extremes of anachronistic nostalgia and running too far ahead, and allows what is new to be welcomed in a context of continuity. The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change.
The legacy of the Council remains undecided. As my Catholic friend, now Fr. James P. Shea, president of the University of Mary, said last Thursday in his keynote address at our diocesan symposium on the Council, “Centuries from now, will the Second Vatican Council be remembered as a reform Council that failed, or as a reform council that succeeded? . . . The question is unanswered, but I believe it lies with subsequent generations.” This is now our task: to receive the Council by drawing upon the Spirit of the texts to find power for Christian mission in the present, in continuity with Sacred Tradition.
Leroy Huizenga is Director of the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. His personal website is LeroyHuizenga.com. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
RESOURCES
Homily of Pope Benedict XVI, Mass for the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the Opening of the Year of Faith
Fr. James P. Shea, “The Enduring Legacy of Vatican II”
Leroy Huizenga, “Tradition Is Not Nostalgia”
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Comments:
Love is not possessive, nor is it coercive, nor does it serve to manipulate for the sake of self-gratification. While it is true that there may be elements of truth in other churches, those who recognize that Christ Was Baptized into His, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and promised to remain with His Church to the end of Time, recognize that there is only One Word of God, Our Savior, Jesus, The Christ, and thus in the ordered, complementary, communion of Perfect Love that Is The Blessed Trinity, there can be only One Spirit of Perfect Love between The Father and The Son, Who proceeds from both The Father and The Son.
I know you believe the Word is important, but I believe that the effectiveness of the Second Vatican council was thwarted by the neglect of the scriptures in the formation of Catholics--for centuries. In order to take the gospel message to the world, is not the Word of God important enough to teach the faithful? The famine for the knowledge of the Word, sadly, continues.
I attended a class on Augustinian theology at a conservative Catholic college not long ago. I was the only person with a bible in the class. I recently attended a
retreat for Catholic confirmation students--again-- no Bibles.
I could go on but will leave this quote from the Pope
in describing the logic of the Second Vatican Council he wrote
" the sincere search for the unity of all Christians is a dynamic process animated by the Word of God."
Thank you.
What of nostalgia?
So spiritual nostalgia is a deadly sin and not a soul longing for the beauty and truth of the past because it does not want to follow the fashion of the day? With all due respect, just because your nostalgia has affection for something does not make the nostalgia of another a deadly sin. Is not one of the reasons Christ came specifically because the fashions of the day had gone too far from the Truth?
What of these "problems in need of fixing"? If Vatican II introduced no new doctrine, if she was purely pastoral, then what were the specific problems?
What of these "real opportunities in need of seizing"?
Christ's direction to go out and preach His Word, and for His disciples to shake the dust off their feet of those who rejected His Word seems to have been an anathema to the "spirit of Vatican II" and its evangelizing; note I am not speaking of Vatican II's actual documents. Over the past 50 years much more focus has been put on how to fashionably say His Words so disciples interested in worldly acceptance do not have to face the shaking of dust. In such behavior I see much more of "Adam" than any Apostle. The Apostles experienced horrible martyrdom specifically because they did not embrace things such as the "spirit of Vatican II".
Other thoughts come to mind...but the old "ears to hear" and brevity comes to mind.
In Christo
Keep in mind not only has there been a consistent and concerted effort by most bishops and theologians in resisting the letter of Vatican II since the onslaught of the sexual revolution that they either joined or remained silent in the face of, pulling most of the young priests in their charge along with them, certain that Pope Paul VI got it all wrong in Humanae Vitae, but that the entire Western World was under siege by atheistic humanism, especially throughout academia (including Catholic universities) and in the arts, university professors diligent and aggressive in their indoctrination of their students, most of the future leaders in politics, the social sciences and religious institutions (why the Catholic Church should be grateful to Evangelicals). The documents of Vatican II and the theologians who remained true to their letter (Benedict XVI, John Paul II, Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, et al) stood almost entirely alone as a bulwark in the face of this all-encompassing assault. Even in my Archdiocese we were actively encouraged not to read the documents themselves or the theologians who championed them, but to read “those who interpreted them best”, Like Richard McBrien (we were even encouraged not to read the Catechism, but his book, “Catholicism”, “the most accurate presentation of the ‘Catechism’”.
When I look at and listen to the many young priests exiting seminaries today, it is obvious that the vast majority of them are actively and enthusiastically engaged with the letter of Vatican II. We can even witness bishops coming around, and soon these young priests will become bishops.
The evidence is in: Vatican II has been a resounding success, Peter’s apparently frail, weather-beaten ship, at first barely passing through the deluge of Satan’s army, is now hoisting those beautiful sails always kept in reserve by the Holy Spirit.
I like Gil's comment -- perhaps he's right, and this is the greatest Council of all. I trust God in this and assume it will work out decades or even centuries from now. But in the middle of it all, and in the middle of the craziness that was the 20th century? Who can see it clearly?
Thanking you in advance.
"Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held. This is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith."
(http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html)
The 20 ecumenical councils before it are still infallible, like the ecumenical council of Trent that declared that Catholics with faith can lose salvation from unrepented mortal (grave) sin. And that baptism or the implicit desire of baptism is necessary for salvation.
