October 11, 2019
For observers of Christian history, and especially for Christians in the Catholic tradition, October 11th is an important date.
Fifty-seven years ago today the Second Vatican Council opened in St. Peter’s Basilica In Vatican City. Between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops and thousands of observers, auditors, women religious, laymen, and laywomen gathered at St. Peter’s between 1962 and 1965. Pope John XXIII opened the Catholic Church’s windows for what was called “aggiornamento”: bringing the Catholic Church up to date. At the time, I was in my second year of college in Detroit and one of my professors, with a bit of dry humor, observed “the old pope is opening the windows and the winds of change will shake-up everything.”
The winds of change actually preceded Vatican II, starting in the 1940s and 1950s with a non-hierarchical theological movement called la nouvelle théologie – the “new theology.” For some people the term was a negative put-down. Nevertheless, the nouvelle théologie theologians we’re truly prophetic. One of them, Edward Schillebeeckx, ended up being my professor at the Catholic University of Nijmegen in the late 1960s. He had a profound impact on my life and thinking.
The nouvelle théologie arose especially among certain groups of French, Belgian, and German theologians. Their shared objective was a fundamental reform of how the Catholic Church was approaching theology. The movement reacted against the dominance of nineteenth century neo-scholasticism which insisted on a rigid adherence to the thought, methods, and principles of the 13th-century thinker Thomas Aquinas.
The new theology advocated an historical-critical understanding of the written “sources” of Christian belief, and a methodological approach known by its French name ressourcement “return to the sources”). It rejected, for example, the then official Catholic teaching that Moses wrote the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. The new scholarly consensus had affirmed that the Pentateuch had multiple authors and that its composition took place over centuries, starting in the late 7th or 6th century BCE. It pointedly observed that Moses died around 1592 BCE. (Some contemporary scholars understand Moses as a legendary figure and not an historical person; but I don’t care to get into that today!)
The new theology also advocated a genuine openness to “the signs of the times” and to dialogue with the contemporary world on issues of human meaning and Christian belief and understanding. That dialogue of course must be ever ongoing.
Today, on this anniversary day, it is appropriate that we all commemorate and NOT forget the prophetic message of la nouvelle théologie, the opened windows of the Second Vatican Council, and the message of its life-giving theology.
Vatican II stressed that humanity and the human condition progress through time. Cultural understandings and the ways in which we think and express ourselves change. The “signs of the times” deserve in depth reflection and concrete action rooted in that reflection. Yesterday’s understanding of the human condition is not necessarily today’s and may not be tomorrow’s. Church teaching, like all theology, is time-bound. Healthy theology dares to ask questions and dares to formulate answers that echo the tradition and resonate with the experiences of contemporary believers.
Pope John XXIII smiled at the world and opened the windows. Today there are some – like the red-hat critics of Pope Francis — who dream of a fantasy-land glorious past and want to slam the windows shut, and keep them tightly closed. They are constitutionally unable to function in fresh air and with fresh ideas. Well, perhaps we need to open even more old windows….
Post-Vatican II, we have our own contemporary theological challenges: How do we speak today about our experiences of the Divine? Who is God for contemporary believers? Two thousand years after he walked the earth, who is Jesus of Nazareth, raised from the dead, whom we proclaim Lord and Christ? And what does it mean to be a human person? And how do we develop and live a system of values that respects that humanity in all its cultural, historic, religious, ethnic, sexual, and gender varieties? And how do Christian believers collaborate to turn back the contemporary tide of racism, xenophobia, and authoritarian political leadership?
These are our contemporary issues. With faith and fortitude, we can meet the challenge.
As Vatican II said (using an inclusive language translation of the Latin text) in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men and women of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs, and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts….”
The windows are open…..
HAPPY BIRTHDAY VATICAN II
Jack
Thank you, Jack. I’m celebrating. I just got Ormond Rush’s new book, The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles. There is a lot of implementation work to do, wouldn’t you say?
Yes we have a full agenda!
Dear Jack,
I, too, was in seminary at the start of Vatican II and remember the excitement vividly when we would hear audio tapes from James Hickey our seminary rector (later, Cardinal Hickey) who accompanied the bishop of Saginaw to the council and who described in detail the activities of the day. It inspired us all and fired us up to hear the events renewing and refreshing the Church. Oh, how we were going to change the world! Never in my wildest nightmares would I believe the regression we are seeing in today’s Church from, of all places, the hierarchy. Thank goodness for our dear Pope Francis and inspirational visionaries like you. I never thought I would become my dad and hear the words, “I remember the good old days,” coming from my mouth!!! But, as you so accurately point out, there is hope for the future if we but listen to the inspired truth that was Vatican II. Yes, Happy birthday to us all who value the revelations of those important days.
Peace,
Frank
Well my friend, we can move forward especially if we do it hand in hand! Pax amice!
💞🙏💞🙏
Thanks Patricia 😇
Thank you Jack for your reminder about this important anniversary. I esp. appreciate your question: ” How do we speak today about our experiences of the Divine”
Great to hear from you Elaine.
Thank you Dick for the reminder Especially important with the Amazon Synod happening! Tomorrow in the USA we celebrate Columbus Day. Which is slowly but steadily turning into Indigenous People’s day❤️
Sent from my iPhone
>
Yes indeed….change in the wind. We need to celebrate Indigenous People and not people like CC.
Dear Jack, 1958-59 was my first year as a high school teacher at St.Joseph’s High School in North Adams, Massachusetts. I was also a member of our parish St. Vincent de Paul Society. Our Society was very excited when we found out that Bishop of Springfield Christopher Weldon was coming to meet with the Society. Bishop Weldon had just returned home from his ad limina visit to Rome and we were all anxious to hear first-hand news of the new Pope John, humble enough to be the 23rd of that title.
Bishop Weldon, this being his first visit with a Pope, was a bit nervous when he was ushered into a huge room and told to sit down in one of only two chairs in the room. Then he was left alone sitting in silence. After a short wait which seemed dangerously long, the Bishop heard a door open at the far end of the room. As he jumped to attention, a short little chubby Italian, unaccompanied by any entourage, trundled across the room, opened his arms wide, and wrapped the Bishop in a filial embrace. The Pope plunked Bishop Weldon into his chair, pulled the other chair closer and engaged in a heartfelt conversation with the Bishop. The Pope’s manner of discussion surprised the Bishop who had never encountered anyone who had so intimately conversed with him. The Pope’s complete attention, his eye contact, his openness and friendliness were so instinctive the Bishop sensed that he was in the company of an extraordinarily soul. The Bishop thought anyone observing the conversation would think he was the person doing the interviewing, not this kindly, little old Italian peasant. They could have been two old chums enjoying a cappuccino at a Roman piazza. The Bishop imagined that John’s focus on his guest must in some way be as he imagined that of Christ. Bishop Weldon impressed upon our little Society that the Church was in the hands of a unique human being of heroic pastoral spirit. And I for one, took that anecdotal account of Bishop Weldon into my heart. To this day, I remember how I felt a little closer to understanding the nature of Jesus, and the love God, through this lovable Pope. Bishop Weldon’s account of his encounter with Pope John XXIII became a touchstone of my faith–and remains alive in me to this day. Thanks for the memory, Jack.
Many thanks Patrick! What great history. I remember Bishop Weldon. He was a good friend of the rector of the American College in Louvain, Paul Riedl.