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In the Year of St. Paul: the fiftieth anniversary of the call of Vatican ii

    By Very Rev. John T. Myler, STD

“The Church both before the Council and after the Council is the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, journeying through time.” Pope Benedict XVI.

Fifty years ago … On Jan. 25, 1959, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Pope John XXIII announced the calling of a Council for the whole Church. He had been Pope for less than 100 days! Seventeen cardinals from the Curia were gathered with the Holy Father in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Pope John was trembling with emotion as he resolutely announced a general Council for the universal church. And the immediate reaction was — silence.

The pope said that he had expected the cardinals to run to him with excitement and enthusiasm, but — there was silence. Good Pope John later remarked that the silent reaction of the cardinals must have been due to “a joy too surprised for words.” But other cardinals throughout the world did speak. Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna said it was “a rash and impulsive decision.” Cardinal Spellman of New York, who had been close to Pius XII, called the idea for a Council “premature, senseless, and doomed in advance to failure.” Even Cardinal Montini of Milan exclaimed, “What a hornet’s nest!”

There were three years of preparation between the 1959 announcement and 1962 opening of the Council — but now, on Jan. 25, 2009, during this “Year of Saint Paul” we observe the 50th anniversary of Pope John’s call for a Council.

A council had been considered three decades before by Pius XI and again by Pius XII in the early 1950s. When this Council was announced in 1959, the question which worried some theologians was: “Would the Council be a continuation of Vatican I (held one hundred years earlier) or not?” The Dominican Yves Congar was confident that it would be a new Council and not a continuation of Vatican I. He wrote, “I saw in the Council an opportunity for the recovery of the true meaning of the episcopacy and of ecclesiology. This would be a pastoral Council!”

Since the Council was called by the Holy Father, it was certainly a “Petrine” event and since the Council was the inspiration of John XXIII, it was certainly a “Johannine” event. If the council had been a continuation of Vatican I — the Council of papal infallibity — it might have been a singularly “Petrine” Council. If Blessed John XXIII had lived, it might have been a uniquely “Johannine” Council.

However, it is more rightly considered a “Pauline” Council — for a number of reasons. First, John XXIII died after only one session of the Council. His successor, Cardinal Montini, who took the long-dormant papal name of Paul VI, presided over three of the Council’s four sessions.

Secondly, a careful reading of the Council’s 16 decrees reveals a theology imbued with many themes found in St. Paul’s writings. The biblical theology and the theology of the Church’s self-understanding have strong Pauline influences. Indeed, the Council’s liturgical theology and the subsequent new order of Mass have significant Pauline sources. (“I received from the Lord what I handed on to you” I Cor. 11, 23). The cycles of Scripture readings at Mass today are heavily composed of the epistles of St. Paul.

And, finally, who is quoted most frequently in the decrees of the Council? Not one of the popes, not even Pius XII, who is the most frequently quoted pontiff, not Vatican I or the Council of Trent, not St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Augustine of Hippo. The person quoted most often was Paul of Tarsus!

Nineteen hundred and fifty years ago … In the early days of the Church, St. Paul himself took part in an epochal event, which is recorded in sacred Scripture, in both Galatians 2:1-10 and Acts 15: 1-22. Scholars generally agree that the two accounts refer to the same event, which we call the Council of Jerusalem.

Like Vatican II, the Council of Jerusalem dealt with challenging pastoral questions. Paul and Titus, with Barnabas and a few others went up to Jerusalem to meet with

Peter, James, and other leaders of the apostolic Church. In this famous meeting we see the very different charisms or gifts of St. Peter and St. Paul, gifts different but complementary for the good of the Church.

In his epistles Paul presents himself as taking the initiative at the Council, laying out his interpretation of the pastoral questions, overcoming spies and provocateurs, and finally winning the approval of all for his mission to the growing communities of disciples who were not Jewish — the Gentiles. However, St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles does not present the Council as Paul’s initiative. He makes Peter the primary apostle. Peter gives his speech first and the role of Paul is less prominent; no opposition between them in mentioned.

In a sense, Luke’s account paints a picture of the young Church as “always the same,” whereas Paul pictures a Church that is “reformed and always reforming.” St. Luke in Acts presents the Council as an historic occasion in which great decisions were amicably made, while St. Paul writes with the passion of one for whom the battle is not yet over: “I opposed Peter to his face.” This Council of Jerusalem is an early example of the very real interrelationship between the human and the divine in Christ’s Church, at the first Council in Jerusalem, and 19 centuries later, at Vatican II.

Now and during the next 50 years … With wisdom, we look to the past as well as to the future. As the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Council begins, we can recall that John Henry Cardinal Newman, writing in the era of the First Vatican Council, had the prophetic insight that there is always a lack of historical perspective after a Council concludes.

“It is rare,” he wrote, “for a Council not to be followed by great confusion … . The century following each Council has ever been a time of great trial … and this seems likely to be no exception.”

This “lack of historical perspective” after the Second Vatican Council has led some observers to inaccurately suggest that the Council of John XXIII and Paul VI rejected the historical consciousness of the Church in order to meet the needs of our contemporary world, turning its back on history and tradition. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of this as a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” whereby Vatican II is treated as an end of tradition, a new start from zero, a history and a theology based on a false distinction between a “pre-Conciliar Church” and a “post-Conciliar Church.”

Our faith teaches us that the Holy Spirit was guiding the Church through all the centuries before John XXIII’s inspiration to convoke a Council. The Holy Spirit was with the Holy Father and the bishops of the world during the Council. The Holy Spirit has been with the Church during the past 50 years as we gradually incorporated the Council’s teachings. And the Holy Spirit will be with the Church during the next 50 years as well. St. Paul makes this clear in his writings. Losing sight of this, we fall into confusion thinking that the Holy Spirit would abandon Christ’s Church; the Spirit like Christ himself is with us always.

Pope Benedict XVI wisely teaches that the so-called “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” should be replaced by an authentic “hermeneutic of continuity and reform.” “Continuity and reform” provide the map for the study and implementation of Vatican II.

Blessed John XXIII taught us in these words: “This Council wishes to transmit doctrine pure and whole without attenuating it or falsifying it, but not watching over this precious treasure as if we were concerned only with antiquity. We wish to present the sure and immutable doctrine in a way that answers the needs of our time. The deposit of faith and our venerated doctrines are one thing; the way they are announced is another thing.” In other words, John called for the Council to be a synthesis of faithfulness and dynamism. Perhaps we could speak of the faithfulness of St. Peter — and the dynamism of St. Paul.

As noted, Cardinal Newman wisely taught that it takes a century to fully integrate the wisdom of an ecumenical council and Pope John noted at the beginning of the Council that “It is now only dawn … .” Today, 50 years later, may be the “noon-time” in our consideration of the Second Vatican Council. The historic council produced 16 important decrees, approved by 2,500 Council Fathers, who cast a total of 1.2 million ballots, after 1,000 speeches, and over 6,000 written interventions.

The historic 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council is an invitation for each of us to be refreshed and renewed by rereading (or reading for the first time) the teachings of the Council. These documents themselves reveal a Church ever faithful, a divine gift built on the rock of the Petrine ministry and a Church ever dynamic, a grace from that very first Council of the Church.

Both “continuity and reform” are the call of Vatican II, the great Pauline Council that still has the power to draw us closer to Jesus Christ and to each other.
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This article is based on an address originally delivered by Father Myler at the Aquinas Institute: Symposium on St. Paul, Fall 2008, St. Louis Mo.