Four breakthroughs of Vatican II By Father Richard P. McBrien
Cardinal Franz König, archbishop-emeritus of Vienna, where he served for nearly 30 years, is now 97 years of age and as sharp as the proverbial tack. One of the few leading figures at Vatican II who is still alive, König recently shared his personal reflections about the council in the pages of The Tablet, the London-based Catholic weekly (Dec. 21/28).
According to the Austrian cardinal, “Vatican II set in motion four trail-blazing, creative and lasting stimuli” to church renewal and reform.
The first had to do with the universality of the church. Even apart from what the Council actually taught in its 16 documents, the conciliar event itself was a dramatic and compelling manifestation of the church’s multi-cultural and global character. There were bishops of every color and nationality speaking and debating in many different languages.
The third important breakthrough wrought by the Council was its emphasis on the lay apostolate.
“This multitude of different nationalities and cultures changed our awareness,” König writes. “The church laid aside its European attire, which many of us were so familiar with, and some even identified with the church itself, and became aware that it was a global church.”
This change of consciousness was reflected particularly in the dropping of Latin as the universal language of the church’s liturgy in favor of the vernacular.
The second breakthrough was the Council’s support for ecumenism. The two key catalysts were Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Augustine Bea.
John XXIII had been a papal diplomat for a number of years in Turkey and Bulgaria, where he forged close contacts with the Orthodox and other separated Oriental Churches.
It was at the pope’s insistence that non-Catholic observers were invited to the Council as official observers.
According to Cardinal König, "Bea’s role at the Council cannot be rated highly enough. He and his secretariat took over the responsibility for inviting and looking after the observers, who were by no means passive, as their designation might suggest, but played an increasingly influential role."
The extraordinarily helpful participation of the non-Catholic observers was “first and foremost Cardinal Bea’s achievement,” König insists. After the Council was over, one of the most highly respected observers, Oscar Cullmann, the eminent Scripture scholar, acknowledged that the expectations of his fellow Protestants were, for the most part, "fulfilled and even surpassed on many points."
The third important breakthrough wrought by the Council was its emphasis on the lay apostolate. Before Vatican II, Cardinal König reminds his younger readers, the church was for all practical purposes a “two-class system,” with the hierarchy on top and the laity below.
Against this view, the Council insisted that all of the baptized are members of the pilgrim People of God and that all share responsibility for the life, mission and ministries of the church – laity as well as clergy and religious.
The fourth breakthrough concerned the relationship between the church and non-Christian religions, especially but not exclusively Judaism.
In that document, the Council affirmed that the church
“rejects nothing of what is true and holy” in other religions and stressed the importance of dialogue with them. The most controversial part of Nostra Aetate, however, concerned the church’s relationship to the Jews.
John XXIII had been determined to put an end to accusations that the Catholic Church is anti-Semitic and, soon after his election as pope in 1958, he asked Bea to consider how the so-called Jewish question could be incorporated into the Council.
http://www.the-tidings.com/img/mail_this.gifAfter four years, however, the declaration was approved overwhelmingly. The fourth breakthrough had been achieved.
*Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. *
pnewton:
Sorry. I was unable to follow the links without subscribing. Is the headline recent or from the 1960’s? Also I do not like to subscribe lest some group have a slanted agenda. I will look into National Catholic Reporter. Does anyone have experience with them?
And Bishop Fabian and I think exactly alike on the SSPX.
