Rome and Canterbury

Yesterday, June 14, Pope Francis and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, met for the first time since they both took over leadership positions in their respective Churches in mid-March. They talked in private for over thirty minutes in the Pope’s library. Afterwards they prayed together and then had lunch together with their respective delegations, in the Vatican guesthouse where Pope Francis lives.

Archbishop Welby described the visit as a personal, rather than official, visit, “a very private discussion about the nature of our faith and of our spirituality of prayer, of the experience of the grace and mercy and love of God.” He said, “We also touched on other subjects to do with international issues where we looked for ways in which the Churches can develop cooperation and demonstrate our affection for each other, which is a real affection at a very deep level.”

One participant revealed that over lunch the Pope suggested that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury issue a joint statement on human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children and the Archbishop agreed. 

When asked what personal impression he had of Pope Francis, the Archbishop reflected for a moment and then said: “an extraordinary humanity, on fire with the Spirit of Christ.” 

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales accompanied Archbishop Welby. He said they started their visit by praying at the tomb of St Peter and afterwards at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

This encounter can seem ever so normal. Yet fifty years ago, when the Second Vatican Council opened, such a meeting was unthinkable. Pope John XXIII (Blessed John XXIII) invited delegates from other Christian communities to attend the Council as observers. Yet during the third session of the Council, the question was raised: Was it permissible for the Council Fathers (the bishops) to join the non-Catholic observers in praying together the Lord’s Prayer! Such was the state of affairs at that time.

In the course of the Council several historic events took place. One of the most dramatic was the meeting of Pope Paul VI with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, on January 5, 1964 in Jerusalem. The two churches had not only been separated since 1054, there had been no formal contact in over 400 years. In 1963, Pope Paul wrote a handwritten letter to Patriarch Athenagoras. The last time this had been done was in 1584 when Pope Gregory XIII informed Patriarch Jeremiah II about reform of the calendar.

These exchanges led to the formal lifting of the mutual excommunications pronounced by the two churches in 1054. Toward the end of the Council, a joint declaration by the Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, was read out in St. Peter’s. In it the Roman and the Orthodox Churches “consigned to oblivion” the centuries-old excommunications that had poisoned relations between them. That same day in Istanbul, at the patriarchal cathedral, Athenagoras I presented the papal delegation, headed by Cardinal Shehan, of Baltimore, with an annulment of the excommunication of Cardinal Humbert, the legate of Leo IX, in 1054. In Rome, when Metropolitan Meliton of Heliopolis, the representative of Patriarch Athenagoras, received the brief that formally annulled the excommunication of the eleventh-century Patriarch Michael Caerularius, he was embraced by Pope Paul in the kiss of peace with the words “Pax tecum” (“Peace be with you”). Turning to go back to his place, the Metropolitan was greeted by a storm of applause from the Council.

Another major event occurred on the eve of the conclusion of the Council in December of 1965 when Pope Paul VI gathered with the non-Catholic observers at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls for an ecumenical prayer service. It was the first time that any Pope had ever participated in an interdenominational religious service. The lesson in English was read by Dr. Albert C. Outler, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas; the lesson in French was read by Father Pierre Michalon, a Catholic priest and a Council theologian; the lesson in Greek was read by the Archimandrite Maximos Aghiorgoussis, rector of the Greek Orthodox parish church in Rome. The hymn “Now Thank We All Our God,” in which all joined in English, was written by the seventeenth-century German Lutheran composer Johann Cruger.

Today the various Christian communities continue to have many points of division. However, the Second Vatican Council irrevocably changed the relationships between Catholics and Orthodox as well as between Catholics and other western Christians.

Problems facing the Church

In 1962, a thirty-five year old theology professor, Father Joseph Ratzinger, was invited by the Archbishop of Cologne, Joseph Cardinal Frings, to accompany him to the Second Vatican Council as his theological advisor.

At the end of each of the four sessions of the Council, Father Ratzinger wrote an essay on the significant points raised in the Council deliberations. These essays have been published in English as Theological Highlights of Vatican II.

In his reflections on the third session of the Council in the fall of 1964, he,  in response to the question, “What concrete problems did the Council face” wrote: “These problems may be crystalized into the following groups:

1.      The problem of divine worship.

2.     The problem of centralism in the Church.

3.     The problem of relations with non-Catholic Christendom and the ecumenical movement.

4.     The problem of new directions in the relations between Church and State, or what might somewhat imprecisely be labeled the end of the Middle Ages, or even the end of the Constantinian era.

5.     The problem of faith and science, or, more specifically, the problem of faith and history, which had become a basic problem for faith through the triumph of the method of historical criticism.

6.     The problem of the relation of Christianity to the modern ethic of work, to technology, and in general to the new moral problems posed by a technological society.

While the Council attempted to address most of these problems, they continue to be issues for the Church today.

Retirment

What may not be obvious is that retirement by those in ordained ministry is something relatively new in the Roman Church. Prior to the Second Vatican Council it was normal for bishops and pastors to remain in office until they died. Likewise there were no limits on the roles of Cardinals either in the Roman Curia or in the Conclave.

However the Council in its Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops it the Church (CHRISTUS DOMINUS) stated:

“Since the pastoral office of bishops is so important and weighty, diocesan bishops … who have become less capable of fulfilling their duties properly because of the increasing burden of age or some other serious reason, are earnestly requested to offer their resignation from office either at their own initiative or upon the invitation of the competent authority. “(#21)

The Decree also stated that:

‘Pastors who are unable to fulfill their office properly and fruitfully because of the increasing burden of old age or some other serious reason are urgently requested to tender their resignation voluntarily upon the invitation of the bishop. “(#31)

In 1966 Pope Paul VI in his Apostolic Letter, ECCLESIAE SANCTAE, Implementing Decrees of Vatican Council II issued norms which were to “be observed by way of experiment, that is until the new Code of Canon Law is promulgated, unless in the meantime some other provision is to be made by the Apostolic See.”

“RESIGNATION OF BISHOPS

“(NO. 21 OF THE DECREE CHRISTUS DOMINUS)

“(11) That the prescription of No. 21 of the Decree Christus Dominus may be put into effect, all bishops of dioceses and others who are juridically their equals are earnestly requested of their own free will to tender their resignation from office not later than at the completion of their 75th year of age to the competent authority which will make provision after examining all circumstances of individual cases.

“(#20 - 3) So that the prescription of No. 31 of the Decree Christus Dominus may be carried out all pastors are asked of their own free will to submit their resignation from office to their own bishop not later than at the completion of their 75th year.”

Then in 1970, Pope Paul VI issued a motu proprio that decreed that cardinals over the age of 80 would cease to be papal electors.

Pope Paul VI designated  the point of entry to the conclave as the determining date but this was modified by Pope John Paul II in his 1996 who changed this so that you had to be under 80 on the day prior to when the start of the sede vacante.

The revised Code of Canon Law, issued in 1983 set a retirement age of 75 for cardinals that head up dicasteries (Curial offices) or other permanent Vatican institutes as well as for diocesan bishops. The Code also specified the right of the Pope to resign his office, a resignation that did not need acceptance by any body.

Pope Benedict’s decision to retire is part of a process begun by the Council which introduced the practice of retirement from ministry for the good of the Church.

Implementing a Vision

As Church, particularly on the parish level, I think that we have barely begun to give practical shape to the implications of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.  The Council document on the Liturgy describes the liturgy as the action of Christ. However, we still use the language of things for the sacraments; we speak about receiving the sacraments not initiating people into the mystery of Christ.

Sacraments are deeply personal because they are celebrations of faith. But the sacraments are not private; they are communitarian because they celebrate the interaction of the faith of the individual and the faith of the community.

However, I do not see evidence that this view has permeated the thinking of people at large. I find that parishioners have yet to take ownership of the responsibility for growing the Church. How many parishioners have ever extended an invitation to someone to explore the Christian faith? How many parishioners take responsibility for engaging with the catechumens in their faith journey?

It still seems a common practice to deal with the catechumenate as a program rather than as a faith journey. The invitation is extended to “join the RCIA” rather than to explore who Jesus is. The timetable often follows the calendar which is not necessarily the way faith develops.

The vision of Church that underlies the Rite of Initiation of calls for a renewal of parish life that remains to be implemented.

Adult Bptism

In the General Introduction to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (for use in the United States) we read:

In the sacraments of Christian initiation we are freed from the power of darkness and joined to Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

Baptism incorporates us into Christ and forms us into God’s people.
Baptism is, above all, the sacrament of that faith by which, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we respond to the Gospel of Christ.

The preparation for baptism and Christian instruction are both of vital concern to God’s people, the Church, which hands on and nourishes the faith received from the apostles.

In the actual celebration, the people of God… should take an active part. Thus they will show their common faith and the shared joy with which the newly baptized are received into the community of the Church.

Prior to the Council, the focus of baptism was on the removal of original sin and the celebration was essentially private.

The revised rite for adult baptism looks to the paschal mystery of Christ, sees the Church in biblical terms as the people of God, identifies the goal as a faith response to the Gospel, and is communitarian.

Christian Initiation

One of the important and far reaching actions of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council was their decision in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy directing that the ancient practice of Christian Initiation be restored:

The catechumenate for adults, comprising several distinct steps, is to be restored and to be taken into use at the discretion of the local ordinary. By this, means the time of the catechumenate, which is intended as a period of suitable instruction, may be sanctified by sacred rites to be celebrated at successive intervals of time. (#64)

In January of 1972, the Congregation for Divine Worship published the “typical edition” of the rite for the Christian initiation of adults. An English translation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was then prepared by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy and, as of September 1, 1988, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults became the mandatory rite for use in the United States.

In the United States, many “converts” are Christians, that is, they have already been baptized and are seeking admission to the Catholic Church.  There are also those who have been baptized and infants but never catechized. A catechumen however is a person who has never been baptized.

Pastoral practice in the United States often brings these three groups together. While there are benefits to this practice, it also runs the risk of minimizing the unique place of baptism in the life of a Christian.
Whereas earlier pastoral practice tended to focus on membership in the Catholic Church, the restoration of the catechumenate focuses attention on the process of conversion by which an individual seeks to be united to Christ as a disciple. We are called to discipleship not simply to membership.

The implications of this change in focus have yet to permeate our thinking. (Not long ago, I was present for the celebration of a baptism in which the priest spoke of membership in the local community and in the larger Church community but never mentioned Jesus or the Holy Spirit!)

Centralization

In his book, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, Father Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) lists “The problem of centralism in the Church” as one of the concrete problems the Council faced. He went on to write that the “problem of papal centralism is readily understandable to everyone.”


The Council’s response to this problem was an effort to develop the notion of Episcopal collegiality with a degree of autonomy of bodies of bishops, usually in the form of national conferences.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (#36-39) states that:

It is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, (i.e. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.) to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.

Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above.

Even in the liturgy, the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not implicate the faith or the good of the whole community; rather does she respect and foster the genius and talents of the various races and peoples. Anything in these peoples' way of life which is not indissolubly bound up with superstition and error she studies with sympathy and, if possible, preserves intact. Sometimes in fact she admits such things into the liturgy itself, so long as they harmonize with its true and authentic spirit.

Provisions shall also be made, when revising the liturgical books, for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions, and peoples, especially in mission lands, provided that the substantial unity of the Roman rite is preserved; and this should be borne in mind when drawing up the rites and devising rubrics.

Within the limits set by the typical editions of the liturgical books, it shall be for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to specify adaptations, especially in the case of the administration of the sacraments, the sacramentals, processions, liturgical language, sacred music, and the arts, but according to the fundamental norms laid down in this Constitution.

Father Ratzinger describes this as “an especially important development” in “the decentralization of the liturgical decision-making… the formulation of liturgical laws for their own regions is now, within limits, the responsibility of the various conferences of bishops. And this is not by delegation from the Holy See, but by virtue of their own independent authority. This decision makes it possible to restore to the liturgy that catholicity which the Church fathers saw symbolized in Psalm 44 – the bride in her many colored raiment.”

The importance of this decentralization was illustrated by Archbishop Eugene D’Souza of Nagpur, India, who stated that “the marriage rite as it now stands is completely unintelligible to many of our Catholic people living in rural areas…. For example, since a ring means nothing at all to some of our people, a dish called the ‘thalee’ is handed by the husband to the wife.” In other places the ends of a woman’s sari and a man’s dhoti are tied together in a knot as a sign of the marriage contract.

However, the hopes of the Council have not been realized. In 1991, when the bishops of the United States approved a new lectionary for use in the celebration of Mass, it was forwarded to the Congregation for Divine Worship which confirmed it. That confirmation, however, was revoked by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of that Congregation, established a seven man working group to revise the lectionary. Of those seven, one had a graduate degree in Scripture and two were not native English-speakers.

Now, word comes from Rome that the Congregation for Divine Worship is being reorganized with an added office for liturgical music, art and architecture. This office is charged with providing guidelines to ensure that hymns sung during Mass and the structure of new churches corresponds to the mystery being celebrated.

Many years ago, I celebrated morning Mass in the Cathedral of Nairobi. When I placed the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle after distributing Communion, I was struck by the large Celtic cross on the door of the tabernacle. I am concerned that a small committee in Rome will have little understanding of the music and architectural traditions of the non-European church.

After all, there was a pope who wanted to paint out the Last Judgment that Michelangelo had painted in the Sistine Chapel.

Historical Research

One of the important areas that laid the groundwork for the Conciliar decree on the liturgy was historical research into the early development of the Mass. One of the outstanding scholars in the field was the Jesuit, Father Joseph Jungmann. He taught catechetics, pastoral theology and liturgy from 1925 to 1963 – with the exception of the seven years, 1938-1945, when the Nazis closed the theology department – at the University of Innsbruck.

In the late 1950’s Fr. Jungmann was regarded as the outstanding liturgical scholar in the German speaking world. In 1960 he was named to the conciliar preparatory commission and then served as a peritus (theologian) during the Council and as a consultor for the Councilium, the body entrusted with the implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy.

Jungmann authored over 300 books and articles. It was during the academic exile that Hitler imposed, that he wrote his two volume history of the Mass, later published in a one volume English edition as “The Mass of the Roman Rite.” This work has been acclaimed as the one work more than any other single book that prepared the way for the Conciliar reform of the liturgy.

The work of Fr. Jungmann and other historians of the liturgy enabled the Fathers of the Council to evaluate the liturgy in the light of its historical development.

Women

It can be challenging to realize the state of the Church fifty years ago. For example, Father Hermann Schmidt, SJ, professor at the Gregorian University who served as a consultant to the council’s preparatory commission on the liturgy spoke at a press conference. Asked about the role of women, he said that council Fathers could draw up norms permitting greater participation by women in the liturgical life of the Church, such as authorizing women’s choirs, noting that the current norms stressed the desirability of male choirs.

Logistics

For the opening session of the Second Vatican Council, the entry procession of abbots general, superiors general, bishops, cardinals and patriarchs took a couple of hours. The Council was an immense project. Between 2100 and 2200 bishops met in the working session of Vatican II. In addition there were some 500 theologians, guests from other Christian Churches, secretaries, ushers, technicians, and assorted support staff. Seating, sound, coffee bars, toilets all had to be put in place. The cost, just for outfitting St. Peter’s Basilica was a million (1962) dollars.

However, the logistics were not simply physical. There was the challenge of organizing a decision making meeting of over 2000 members. By comparison the United Nations General Assembly has 193 members and the United States Congress, 435. The Vatican had no prior experience to call upon; the previous council was a hundred years prior and had a mere 750 participants.

Pope John had established a preparatory commission which had developed a set of documents for the bishops to consider and vote on. The expectation of those in Rome was that the bishops would accept what was presented to them and go home. The Roman Diocesan Synod that Pope John had called for at the same time that he announced the Council generally followed that pattern

If the Council fathers had followed this path, meeting logistics may not have become an issue. However, the morning the Council met for its first working session, it became clear that the gathered bishops intended to engage in serious and open debate.

Language and Culture

The first topic the Council took up was the liturgy. In a press conference, Willem van Bekkum, Bishop of Ruteng in Indonesia, spoke in favor of using local languages in the Mass. He was an elected member of the council’s Commission on the Sacred Liturgy.

He said there is a need “to speak more spontaneously” but that “spontaneity disappears when the faithful are faced with a foreign tongue.” He expressed his hope that the language of his country as well as those of other Asian and African nations will become “sacramental languages.” If this were accomplished — through their introduction into the liturgy in general and the Mass in particular — he said, “a much more vital and rich liturgy will be achieved.”

Bishop van Bekkum was one of the main speakers at the international liturgical congress at Assisi, in September 1956. In his talk at that time he appealed for use of the vernacular in the Mass. He also urged the adoption of local customs and traditions into the liturgy wherever possible, and called for “restoration of the order of the diaconate to the laity.”

He told newsmen here that since 1956 his See has had a 24-man diocesan liturgical commission composed of four priests and 20 laymen.

“I considered my people much wiser than myself, especially the aged ones among them,” he said, “and so like a pupil I was always ready to learn whatever I could from them, especially whatever in their culture had possibilities of adaptation in the field of liturgy.”

Indonesians along with other Asians and Africans are concerned with the functions and meaning of their worship, he said. “Their celebration of a feast consists not only in hymns and prayers but rather in functions, that is, in all that the people do during the day or days of celebration. All these functions of the people make up the one structure of a people in worship.”

Bishop van Bekkum confessed that on arriving in Rome for the council he felt proposals for incorporating native customs into the liturgy would get little hearing. Now, he said, he is highly optimistic.

“I have learned that the experience we had in Ruteng has been multiplied hundreds of times over throughout Asia and Africa. And I have found a warm sympathy for these ideas among liturgical experts from the West.”

I had the good fortune of meeting Bishop van Bekkum at the Liturgical Week in Seattle in 1962, just prior to the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He described his efforts at enculturation of the liturgy in his rural. (I remember his saying that he could get anywhere in the world more quickly than he could get to the airport) diocese.

He would arrive at a village for Mass and met the villagers in the cemetery where he would bless the graves. Then they would process to the village well which he would bless. Mass would be celebrated in the village square and people would bring up the bread and wine. He commented that he found it problematic that “at every Eucharist, Jesus was imported” since there was no wheat bread or grape wine in his part of Indonesia.

He would later serve on the Bishops Committee of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy which oversaw the reform of the rites of the Mass and Sacraments.

He died in 1998 at the age of 88.

The Use of the Vernacular

One of the most forceful speeches arguing for the use of the vernacular in the liturgy was given by Maximus IV Saigh, the Melchite Patriarch of Antioch (who it is reported to write to the Pope, addressing him as the Successor of Peter in Rome, and signing his letter as the Successor of Peter in Antioch).


“It appears to me that the almost absolute value which is attributed to the Latin Language in the liturgy, in instruction and in the administration of the Latin Church presents a kind of anomaly for the Eastern Church; for without doubt Christ spoke to his contemporaries in their own language. He used a language which was understandable to all his hearers, namely Aramaic, when he celebrated the first Eucharistic sacrifice. The apostles and disciples acted likewise. It would never have occurred to them that the celebrant in a Christian assembly should read the passages of scripture, should sing the psalms, should preach or break the bread, using a different language than that of the congregation. Paul himself says explicitly, ‘If you bless with the spirit [i.e. in an unintelligible language], how is one who is present as an outsider to say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not understand what you are saying? You may give thanks well enough, but the other is not edified…In church I should prefer to speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in [unintelligible] tongues’ (1 Cor 14:16-19). All the reasons one can bring forward in favor of the untouchability of Latin – a liturgical language, but a dead one – must give way before this clear, unequivocal and precise reasoning of the Apostle. The Latin language is dead, but the Church remains alive. So, too, the language which mediates grace and the Holy Spirit must also be a living languge since it is intended for men and not for angels. No language can be untouchable…”

Quoted in Theological Highlight of Vatican II by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger “to show that the discussions could produce profound insights.

Fr. Ratzinger also notes that “it was not uncommon that glowing panegyrics in favor of Latin were themselves delivered in labored pidgin Latin, while the most forceful advocates of the vernacular could express themselves in classical Latin.”

Inclusion of the Laity

“Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.”


“From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.”

#7 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 4, 1963

These lines enunciate one of the fundamental principles Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, namely that the liturgy is the work of Christ, head and members. That is, that the liturgy is the action of all members of the Church.

To appreciate the impact of this statement, one need only look at the Roman Missal in use prior to the Council. In the twenty-eight pages of rubrics that directed the proper celebration of Mass, there are only eleven lines that make reference to the congregation, lines that indicate how the priest is to administer Communion.

Similarly, in The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, by Adrian Fortescue and J. O’Connell, one of the standard English texts used by priests to guide the proper celebration of the Mass and other liturgical rites, the index contains no listing for congregation or laity although there are twenty-eight listing for the color of the vestments.

The Problem of Liturgy

For the Church, divine worship is a matter of life and death. If it is no longer possible to bring the faithful to worship God, and in such a way that they themselves perform this worship, then the Church has failed in its task and can no longer justify its existence. but it was precisely on this point that a profound crisis occurred in the life of the Church. Its roots reach far back. In the late Middle Ages, awareness of the real essence of Christian worship increasingly vanished. Great importance was attached to externals, and these choked out essentials…


The main measure (of the Council of Trent) was to centralize all liturgical authority in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the post-concilliar organ for the implementation of the liturgical ideas of Trent. This measure, however, proved to be two-edged. New overgrowths were in fact prevented, but the fate of liturgy in the West was now in the hands of a strictly centralized and purely bureaucratic authority. This authority completely lacked historical perspective; it viewed the liturgy solely in terms of ceremonial rubrics, treating it as a kind of proper court etiquette for sacred matters. This resulted in the complete archaizing of the liturgy, which now passed from the stage of living history, became embalmed in the status quo and was ultimately doomed to internal decay.
taken from: Theological Highlights of Vatican II by Joseph Ratzinger, Paulist Press, English Edition, 1966


One must ask whether fifty years after the opening of the Council, the present centralizing process does not risk producing similar results.

Problems facing the Church at Vatican Council II

It is perhaps fair to say that the first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smoldering within.

In the fall of 1964, then, what concrete problems did the Council face? These problems may be crystallized into the following groups:

1. The problem of divine worship.

2. The problem of centralism in the Church.

3. The problem of relations with non-Catholic Christendom and the ecumenical movement.

4. The problem of new directions in the relations between Church and State, or what might somewhat imprecisely be labeled the end of the Middle Ages, or even the end of the Constantinian era.

5. The problem of faith and science, or, more specifically, the problem of faith and history, which had become a basic problem for faith through the triumph of the method of historical criticism.

6. The problem of the relation of Christianity to the modern ethic of work, to technology, and in general to the new moral problems posed by a technological society.

taken from: Theological Highlights of Vatican II by Joseph Ratzinger, Paulist Press, English Edition, 1966

One can fairly ask whether fifty years after the opening of the Council, these problems have been adequately addressed.

Pope John XXIII

This coming Sunday, September 28, is the 54th anniversary of the election of Angelo Roncalli as Pope John XXIII. Elected in 1958, at the age of 77, many expected him to be simply a “placeholder.”


However, just two months after his election, he became the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in his Diocese of Rome. On Christmas day, he visited children infected with polio at the Bambino Gesù Hospital and then visited Santo Spirito Hospital. And the following day he visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where he told the inmates: "You could not come to me, so I came to you."

He wrote in his diary of: ...great astonishment in the Roman, Italian and international press. I was hemmed in on all sides: authorities, photographers, prisoners, wardens...”

Roncalli, who came from a poor peasant background, described himself as a "prisoner of opulence" in the Vatican. "I have nothing against these good noble guards," the pope confided, "but so much bowing, such formality, so much pomp, so much parading make me suffer, believe me. When I go down [to the basilica] and see myself preceded by so many guards, I feel like a prisoner, a criminal; and instead I would like to be the 'bonus pastor' for all, close to the people. [...] The pope is not a sovereign of this world. “

He recounted how much he disliked at the beginning being carried on the sede gestatoria through the rooms, preceded by cardinals often more elderly and decrepit than himself, confessing that this was not very reassuring for him, “because ultimately one is always teetering a bit."

In January of 1959, he announced his intend of convening an ecumenical council. The cardinals gathered in St. Paul's Outside the Walls greeting his words with stunned silence. And L’Osservatore Romano did not think the announcement worthy of its front page.

In 1959, Fr. Roberto Tucci was appointed director of the Roman magazine of the Jesuits, "La Civiltà Cattolica". He met with Pope John at Castel Gandolfo and noted in his diary: "Striking simplicity and affability of manners that dispel any embarrassment and are very touching. Welcome at the door and accompaniment almost back to the threshold again."

When the Council opened on October 11, 1962 (fifty years ago) and the 2540 bishops had taken their places in St. Peter’s, Pope John dismounted the sedia gestitoria at the entrance to St. Peter’s and walked down the central aisle. Like his brother bishops, he wore a miter. He addressed the assembled Council, beginning “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia,” Mother Church rejoices today. He told them that “in the current conditions of human society, (some) can see nothing but betrayal and destruction. They say that in comparison with the past our age has done nothing but decline and deteriorate. And they behave as if they had learned nothing from history, which is the teacher of life, and as if in the times of the earlier Councils the Christian idea and Christian life, morals, and the just freedom of the Church had done nothing but blossom and triumph.”

He went on, “but we have to decisively contradict these prophets of doom who keep on predicting nothing but disaster, as if the world was about to end.”
Less than two months before he died, Pope John issued an encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris, addressed “to all men of good will.” Darius Milhaud composed a choral symphony with that title for the dedication of the new Parisian radio building, making John’s encyclical the only one ever set to music.
John XXIII died on June 3, 1963 and, later that year, on December 3rd, President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award, in recognition of the good relationship between Pope John and the United States.
And in 2000, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Pope John XXIII blessed. His feast day is June 11, the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

A Momentous Shift

This fall will bring the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Fifty years is a long time and much of the Catholic world is not old enough to remember that historic event when some two and a half thousand Catholic bishops gathered in Rome each fall for four years. The first fruit of their work was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, promulgated on December 4, 1943, a document that resulted in the revision of the entire liturgical life of Roman Rite Catholics.


That document states that every liturgical celebration is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church. To appreciate the import of that statement one needs to have lived before the Council.

In “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described,” a 469 page handbook describing the proper celebration of the liturgy, published in 1937, there is not a single entry in the index for “laity” or “congregation.” The Mass was the action of the priest. The congregation was extraneous to the proper celebration of the Mass.

By the mid-2oth century the “dialogue Mass’ began to be introduced, a Mass in which the congregation answered the prayers of the Mass together with the servers. This was considered a concession. In the 1950’s the seminarians at St. Joseph’s College, the minor seminary for the Archdiocese of San Francisco that I attended, the seminarians were permitted to join the servers in responding to the priest three mornings a week.

About 1960, the Congregation of Rites which was in charge of the liturgy of the Roman Rite had some concerns about this practice and published a document which prohibited the congregation from praying the Lord’s Prayer aloud in the vernacular while the priest was saying it in Latin.

An early 20th century catechism presents the understanding of the Mass that was common prior to the Council. A Catechism of the Catholic Religion by Bishop Louis Mary Kink, Bishop of Leavenworth, revised edition 1943, was designated as the official textbook for parochial schools in that diocese.

The book has three chapters under the heading The Holy Eucharist: On the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, On Holy Communion, and On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The first chapter begins “The greatest of all the sacraments is the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments, because it is Jesus Christ, from whom we receive all grace.” It concludes: “The real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist requires that we offer Him our must humble and fervent adoration.”

The second chapter, On Holy Communion, in answering the question, What graces does Holy Communion give to our soul” says: “Holy Communion unites us most intimately with Jesus, increases sanctifying grace, and strengthens us in the practice of virtues.”

The third chapter, On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, begins: “The greatest act of religion is sacrifice, which is a visible gift offered to God by a priest who destroys it to acknowledge God’s supreme dominion over life and death.”

It then explains that”The shedding of the blood and the death of Jesus take place in Holy Mass by the double consecration of the bread and wine.”

It continues “Christ gave the power to offer the sacrifice of the Mass to His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood” and “The principal parts of the Mass are the Offertory, the Consecration, and Communion.”
Note that the principal parts of the Mass do not include the scripture readings, the liturgy of the Word.

Mass takes place through the power given to the priest; there is no reference to the working of the Holy Spirit. And communion is seen only in terms of the individual and Christ.

The simple but profound greeting at the beginning of Mass, “The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” which did not exist in the earlier form of the Mass, invites a much richer understanding of the Mass.