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Vatican II- Ten Years Later
The last session of the Second
Vatican Council ended just 10 years
ago, Dec. 8,1965.
Many observers have called the
intervening decade a period of the
fastest change in the history of the
Church. Some have claimed that no
other major social or political
institution in history has undergone so
much change, so quickly, without
violence.
“In terms of history, the changes are
monumental,” said Sister Mary Daniel
Turner, a Sister of Notre Dame de
Namur and executive director of the
Leadership Conference of Women
Religious (LCWR).
Sister Turner, one of a number of
American Catholic leaders asked by NC
News to assess the impact of the
council, said that to her the most
important development flowing from
Vatican II was “a new sense of the
Church as a community, as people” and
a much deepened sense of what is meant
by “the universal character of the
Church.”
One of the changes felt most
immediately by Catholics throughout
the world was the reform of the liturgy.
This was also the most significant
change, said Bishop James S. Rausch,
general secretary of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops and
U.S. Catholic Conference
(NCCB-USCC).
Bishop Rausch also recounted
nulnerous other changes that came out
of the council -- a new emphasis on
action for peace and justice, an infusion
of a spirit of love in Catholic relations
with other Christians and with
non-Christian religions, the development
of functional Church structures that are
“responsive to needs,” the
reidentification of the Church as the
People of God.
But at the top he put the Church’s
efforts to renew Catholics’ prayer life.
“The Church’s effectiveness in the
world,” Bishop Rausch said, “grows out
of our relationship to Christ. If this isn’t
founded in the central act of worship,
from which we come and out of which
we go forward, then we’re not really on
target.”
Father Frederick MacManus, who as
executive director of the Bishops’
Committee on the Liturgy was a major
force behind the liturgical changes in
this country for most of the decade
following the council, said the chief
value of the liturgical renewal was that
it returned to a proper perspective. “So
many of our practices before,” he said,
“did not adequately reflect the real
spiritual life, the true interior life, of the
Church.”
The reforms carried out in the liturgy
“were not entirely successful,” he said,
but this was due chiefly to a failure to
promote the reforms properly and
educate people in their value. But as a
result of the liturgical renewal, he said,
it is now much clearer “that the
spiritual life of the Church is dependent
on her sacramental life.”
But Father MacManus said he
thought the most significant change that
the Second Vatican Council brought
about was a different Catholic attitude
toward the relationship of the Church
to the world, “what flowed logically
from the (Pastoral) Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World.”
According to Father Reid Mayo,
president of the National Federation of
Priests’ Councils, the spirit of that
document is also central. Through it, he
said, “we recaptured a sense of mission,
we came to realize anew what it means
to be pilgrims, not refugees ... that the
Gospel message has to penetrate into
whatever arenas are there, in each age
and each place.”
Catholic leaders also cited a new
appreciation of pluralism, significant
structural changes, and the development
of shared responsibility as major aspects
of “the spirit of Vatican II.”
Divine Word Father Joseph Francis,
president of the Conference of Major
Superiors of Men, described the major
development as “a tremendous feeling
of a more adequate relationship with
God, in the dimension of God’s love for
us as persons, rather than a relationship
that sees us simply as cogs in the
institution, obeying the rules.”
The simple fact of the council, which
drew all of the world’s bishops together
every autumn for four years and showed
the wide “pluriformity of the Church,”
Father Francis said, was “just as
important as what has come out in the
way of documents and formulations.”
Sister of Loretto Mary Luke Tobin,
former president of the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious, and
now director of citizen action for an
interdenominational organization for
women’s equality, Church women
United, was the only U.S. woman
The Second Vatican Council -
Vatican II - was only the 21st
ecumenical council (that is, council of
the whole Church) in the history of
Christianity. First in nearly a century, it
was a major watershed almost certain to
be remembered as the major Catholic
event in the 20th century.
Its first phase began Jan. 25, 1959,
when Pope John XXIII - only 90 days
into his papacy - surprised the world by
announcing that he was going to call
together all of the world’s bishops for a
much-needed “aggorniamento” or
updating of the Church.
There followed four years of
intensive theological preparation, most
of it in secret behind the Vatican’s
tightly closed doors. But what was
happening became known well enough
that, by the time the council’s first
session began on Oct. 11, 1962, the
whole Christian world was watching
with apprehension and anticipation.
For two months each year from 1962
to 1965 the world’s bishops assembled
in Rome, some 2,000 strong, to argue,
debate, suggest, modify and refine their
understanding of the Church’s teachings
and its mission in the world.
Pope John died in June, 1963, a few
months after the council’s first session.
The new Pope, Pope Paul VI, declared
that the major task of his papacy would
be to complete the work begun by Pope
John.
When the final session ended 10 years
ago, Dec. 8, 1965, the bishops and Pope
had approved 16 documents totalling
more than 103,000 words.
The cumulative effect of the bishops’
works was electric - and confusing.
Heady optimism was mixed with
uncertainty, uncertainty with caution
and fear.
Predictions of radical developments,
such as the reunion within a decade of
all Christians, under the Pope, could be
heard side by side with cautions that
“essentials,” such as the use of Latin in
the consecration of the Mass, would
never be changed.
Catholics were forced to learn a
whole new vocabulary of unfamiliar,
sometimes unpronounceable words:
ecumenism, collegiality, aggorniamento,
vernacular, charism, evangelization.
By the end of the four years of work,
the college of bishops in union with the
Pope had published two dogmatic
constitutions, on the Church and on
Revelation; a constitution on the
liturgy; a pastoral constitution on the
Church in the modem world; three
declarations, on Christian education, on
religious freedom, and on the Church
and non-Christian religions; and nine
decrees. The decrees were on
communications, ecumenism, the
Eastern rites, bishops, priestly
formation, religious life, the laity,
priests, and missionary activity.
Now, in a retrospect of 10 years,
some of the confusion has begun to
clear away and it is possible to see at
least the major lines of development
that resulted from the council.
Among those developments have
been:
Structural change and the
decentralization of power: The world
Synod of Bishops was established to
meet periodically and discuss major
issues facing the Church. National
conferences of bishops were established
and given discretionary powers in a
number of areas formerly reserved to
the Holy See, along with a strong
consultative role in areas still reserved to
papal authority. The Vatican’s central
offices were made more international in
character. Bishops were given significant
pastoral discretion within their own
dioceses. Within each diocese
diocesan and parish pastoral councils,
priests’ senates and other consultative
bodies were strongly encouraged.
- Liturgy: All of the major liturgical
books - the Roman Missal, the rites for
the sacraments, and the Liturgy of the
Hours -- were revised and published
within 10 years after the council. Many
liturgical specialists would add,
however, that two major tasks in
liturgical reform have barely begun --
the education of Catholics in the real
meaning of liturgical prayer, and the
adaptation of the liturgy to particular
cultures.
Ecumenism: Dialogue and
cooperation has been opened up with
almost every other Christian
denomination at every level from the
local to the international. In the
council’s Decree on Ecumenism, the
Catholic admission that both sides were
*at fault in the historical divisions was a
crucial step in setting a positive tone for
the relations between Catholic and
non-Catholic Christians.
Non-Christian religions: The
council’s repudiation of all forms of
anti-Semitism has been hailed
repeatedly as the beginning of a new era
of Christian-Jewish relations. Positive
conciliar statements on the common
search for God in all religions have led
to the beginnings of Catholic dialogue
with Moslems, Buddhists and others.
-- Church and world: The Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the
Modem World, which begins by
declaring that the joys and anguish of
the world are the joys and anguish of
the followers of Christ, has set the
framework for a new attitude of
Catholic involvement in international
peace and social justice. Among the
results have been the establishment of
justice and peace offices at every level
of the Church and the involvement of
innumerable laypersons, Religious,
priests, and bishops in justice and peace
apostolates.
- The laity: Laypersons were called
on much more strongly to exercise an
essential role of ministry and mission in
the Church. They were called the People
of God, a priestly people, a kingly
people. The responsibility of each
baptized person not only for personal
holiness but for the whole community
was emphasized. The effects in
grassroots enthusiasm and involvement
cannot be measured.
Innumerable other changes of
structure, attitude and style flowed
from the Second Vatican Council and
the spirit is engendered.
And what has happened in 10 years
is, according to many observers, only
the beginning because, by its nature, the
council was intended as only the start of
a renewal what would have to continue
throughout the Church’s existence.
As Pope Paul noted during the final
session of the council in 1965, “From
now on ‘aggiomamento’ will signify for
us a wisely undertaken quest for a
deeper understanding of the spirit of the
council and the faithful application of
the norms it has happily and prayerfully
provided.”
invited to the council as an official
observer. She said she saw the greatest
accomplishments of the council as “a
greater broadening of the ecumenical
aspect, a greater openness to the
problems of the world, arid a greater
willingness to see Christians engaged in
working for justice.”
Russell Shaw, an NC News reporter at
the time of the council, later director of
the National Catholic Office of
Information, and now secretary for
Public Affairs for the NCCB-USCC, said
he has seen a notable shift in the way
others viewed the Church before and
after the council. “Before the council,
the news media and the public at large
tended to think of the Catholic Church
as a great monolith,” he said. “The
possibility of significant differences of
opinion hardly occurred to reporters.
It’s just the opposite now. In fact
reporters tend to see little but the
differences now. They seem not to
recognize the substantial underlying
unity that still exists.”
Donald Thorman, founder and
publisher of the liberal independent
Catholic weekly, National Catholic
Reporter, said the achievement of the
council might best be described “in that
word which has become a cliche,
‘openness’ -- first, in personal terms, of
taking personal responsibility for
decisions. . . people are open to more
than just one point of view; and
secondly, openness in Church
structures, in the genuine good-will
efforts at developing parish councils,
diocesan councils, priests’ senates. This
has opened the Church up to new ideas,
and purely in organizational or
sociological terms it has opened the way
for more involvement and more
satisfaction among the laity, priests, and
men and women Religious.”
Another Catholic newsman, Alphon*''
Matt, Jr., whose weekly Catholic
newspaper, The Wanderer, has long been
a forum of conservative concerns, said
he believes
“Catholics
Protestant,
receptive to
that since the council
have become more
They’ve become less
the teaching of Holy
Mother Church, more filled with a spirit
of independence and pride -- not pride
in the good sense, but a false pride.
We’ve lost our unity and cohesiveness.
“I don’t personally feel that Vatican
II itself, that is, the substance of the
council’s teachings, was responsible for
this. The things that I find disturbing
are the misinterpretations of Vatican
II. .. A lot of the misdirection and
failure is a failure to take the directives
of the council as a whole.”
To Marist Brother Joseph Davis,
executive director of the National
Office for Black Catholics (NOBC), the
Vatican II achievement was “a great
expanded view of the Church”
especially in the area of “collegiality” or
broader participation in
decision-making.
The spirit of collegiality, along with
“the much clearer affirmation of
pluralism in the council,” he said, has
given new hope especially to black and
Spanish-speaking Catholics in this
country.
“It is through the collegial process,”
he said, “that we will find the route to
full participation in the Church.”
From those interviewed, the same
message came through repeatedly if in
very different ways: The Second
Vatican Council brought changes in so
many different areas that none of the
specifics could capture adequately the
meaning of the council in the life of the
Church.
More important than any one
document was the spirit -- or, as many
have suggested, the Spirit -- that
pervaded every document.
Thorman summed it up: “The
documents have provided important
insights for the professionals in the
Church. But most people haven’t even
read them. The documents did not
come across to the people .. . What
came across was a spirit, a spirit of
enthusiasm and of interest.”
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NC News Service
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PAGE 7—The Southern Cross, December 11,1975
POST-CONCILIAR CHANGES -- Changes in the liturgy were some of
the most important developments rising from the Second Vatican Council
according to observers. Above, a church in Minnesota is filled with
worshippers at a Mass celebrated in the post-conciliar style facing the
congregation. In Baltimore (lower photo) a handshake of peace is
exchanged at a Mass, one of the symbols of an emphasis on the
community aspect of worship which also came from Vatican II. (NC)
Photos by Katie Ritchie (above) and Robert H. Davis)
THE LAST SESSION -- Pope Paul VI and Fathers of the Second
Vatican Council leave St. Peter’s Basilica after the last session of the
council Dec. 7, 1965. The period since the end of the council has been
called the fastest changing era in the history of the Church. (NC)
Post Office Box 10027
SAVANNAH, GA. 31402
V /
Charismatic Catholics
Editor:
Apparently Mr. Garland (letter,
SOUTHERN CROSS, 12-4) doubts that
there are so many genuine Roman
Catholics of good standing who are
Charismatic Catholics. There’s a strong
possibility that there are many who
share Mr. Garland’s feeling. I can assure
him and anyone else, that the
experience of this beautiful new way of
life, for me, has been of God.
I feel Mr. Garland should be at least
open to the possibility that this
experience is an infilling of the Holy
Spirit and a new close relationship with
Christ. Believe me its real and its
powerful. My life is changed because of
the knowledge I have that God truly
loves me even though I’m a sinner and
He takes care of me and anyone else
who trusts Him.
I’d suggest Mr. Garland and anyone
else who’d like answers to the “new
thing” that is coming about might
obtain some of the books available. I’d
suggest “Catholic Pentecostals” by
Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan.
As for the priests dancing on the
altar, I was there and it was a
manifestation of joy in the Lord. We
believe in praising God and thanking
Him in all things.
If there’s a question about the proper
place of a life in the Spirit - just re-read
the portion of the Gospel of St.
Matthew, Chapter 3, verses 11 and 12.
I pray that the Lord will bless Mr.
Garland and may use his letter for
calling the attention of many readers to
the subject of the Charismatic Renewal
in the Catholic Church. May he know
some of the peace and joy that is from
God. Albert N. Garland, we love you!
Sincerely,
Marguerite Balmer,
Savannah
(Address signed letters to: Editor, THE
SOUTHERN CROSS, P.O. Box 10027,
Savannah 31402. They must contain the
writer’s address and should not exceed 300
words in length. Names withheld on request.
Editors reserve the right for reasons of space
to condense letters.)
UNION-CAMP