#396: The Providential Summer of ‘63

Fifty summers ago, dramatic events brought one of those tectonic shifts that alters the landscape for generations...

This summer brings many significant 50^th anniversaries, since the summer of 1963 brought so many significant events. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated; Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in a doorway to block access by blacks to the University of Alabama; President John Kennedy delivered three important speeches: on civil rights (to mark the centennial of the Battle of Gettysburg), on freedom for the Soviet bloc, and—on June 26—he stood before the Berlin wall and delivered the famous lines “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

For Catholics, June 1963 and the weeks that followed were particularly dramatic.  And 50 years later, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the drama unfolding that summer was no doubt of divine inspiration.

It all began with the death of Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli), who will soon become Saint John XXIII.  

John XXIII lying in state, June 1963

 John had opened Vatican Council II in October 1962, had publicly intervened to help resolve the Cuban missile crisis that same month, and was made Time Magazine’s man of the year in January 1963.  But even then, he knew he was dying.  At his death

on June 3, the world mourned the loss of the most beloved pope in memory.  Because of his achievements, Catholics do not observe his feast day on his death date (as is standard for saints and venerated people of the Church) but on October 11, the opening date of Vatican II.

But June 3 brought crisis, for John’s death created an immediate vacuum that threatened chaos.

When Vatican II began as the largest meeting in history and the first general council since 1871, the conservatives hoped (and many more expected) that it would adjourn quickly after rubber-stamping Catholicism’s status quo.

Instead, the world’s bishops rejected the boilerplate drafts offered by Vatican officials and committed the Council to a full-scale reflection on the nature of Catholicism in its place in the modern world.  This commitment would transform Vatican II into the most important religious event of the 20th century--and one of the three or four most important watersheds in Catholic history.  But it also meant that, by the end of the Council’s first session in December 1962, almost nothing had been finished yet. 

John’s death suspended all plans for a second session, expected in fall 1963.  The next pope’s name was unknown until an election could be held.  Whoever he was, he would be under no obligation to reconvene the council, or--if he did--to continue with John’s (and now the bishops’) agenda. 

So questions abounded: Who will be pope?  Will he continue the Council?  What will he have the Council do?  In a word, all bets were off.

It all ended well.  The next pope, Paul VI (G.B. Montini),

Pope Paul VI

decided to reconvene the Council, and in his opening address he quoted John’s 1962 opening address to confirm that Vatican II was to be nothing less than a “new Pentecost”—a rebirth—of the Catholic Church. Thus the summer of ’63 included serious preparations of the new, more substantive drafts that would ultimately become known as “The Documents of Vatican II.”

But hindsight tells us that none of this happy outcome, none of this surprisingly smooth transition from pope to pope (and from first Council session to second session) was really an accident, or a matter of good fortune.  Looking back upon facts that have emerged over the last 50 years, we can now say that the events of summer 1963 appear to be the result of a plan--a plan not of human design.  In other words, summer 1963 witnessed an act of divine Providence.

The providential pattern leading to the successful continuation of Vatican II was composed of three main elements:

The young Roncalli

A Long Friendship.  As far back as the 1920s, Angelo Roncalli (later John XXIII) and Giovanni Montini (later Paul VI) were friends.  In 1925 Pope Pius XI appointed Roncalli apostolic visitor to Bulgaria.  Roncalli was devastated to be sent out of Italy. But Montini (who worked at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State) encouraged him, saying he would now have opportunities to encounter the Orthodox churches of the east and the Muslim tradition.  This mattered to both men, since both wanted to promote a reconciliation with other faiths.

The young Montini

When, after later serving as Vatican apostolic delegate to Turkey and Greece, Roncalli was made papal nuncio to France in 1945, it was Montini who signed the letter of his appointment. 

Roncalli in France

 Later, it was Montini who also asked him if he were willing to become patriarch of Venice. They corresponded frequently over the years, well beyond the demands of protocol, and one biographer says that Montini became Roncalli’s “Roman confidant.”

When John XXIII observed his 80^th birthday in 1961, it was Montini who celebrated the Mass.  And when John lay dying in June 1963, it was Montini who arranged to fly in his family from Milan to be at his old friend’s bedside.

A Close Partnership. When Pope Pius XII died in 1958,

Pius XII

Montini (now Archbishop of Milan) was a favorite to succeed him--but he was not yet a cardinal and was thought a bit young. Since Pius had ruled for 19 years, the College of Cardinals preferred a shorter interim papacy, and thus an older man.  So they elected 76-year-old Roncalli to be a caretaker of the papal seat.  They expected a brief, uneventful papacy.

When John XXIII shattered expectations by calling for the first council of bishops in a century, even Montini was surprised.  “This holy old boy,” he said, “doesn’t seem to realize what a hornet’s nest he is stirring up.”

Nonetheless Montini began advising John as early as 1961 on the best approach to a successful Council.  And he offered public support in a pastoral letter to the people of Milan in which he said “It is the whole Church that expresses itself in the Council…And we are the Church.”

Montini as Archbishop of Milan

In June 1962, only weeks before the opening of the council, John sent Montini to the final meeting of the central committee preparing for the Council.  Montini delivered the pope’s message: the Council was not to concentrate on condemnations and anathemas (like many previous councils), but was to emphasize mercy and love.  Cardinal Ottaviani, the Grand Inquisitor, spoke for many of the “intransigenti” (church officials opposed to reform) when he said, “I pray God that I may die before the Council’s end.  That way I can die a Catholic”!

We now know that that during Vatican II’s first session in the fall of 1962, John invited his friend Montini (and no one else) to reside in the papal apartments.  John did not attend council meetings himself, so he relied on Montini to keep him abreast of the mood among the bishops.  We also know that Montini led the progressive bishops in overcoming the resistance of the intransigenti.  This ensured that the council would not be brief and unproductive, but would last four years and transform Catholicism.

When John was made pope, the first man he chose to become a new cardinal was Montini.  And after the dying John receive the last rites on June 1, 1963, he told those around him that he guessed Montini would be his successor.  Three weeks later, his prediction came true, and his close partner and old friend) took over the reins of Vatican Council II.

Thus, when the College of Cardinals elected Montini himself as John’s successor 50 years ago on June 21, 1963, the cardinals were uniting two friends in one office.

A Shared Vision.  As preparations for the second session of the Council proceeded during the summer of 1963, the partnership these two friends had forged began to bear fruit in an inspired vision of how the Council could renew the Church and its mission in the world

Both men were francophiles influenced by the “new theology” of Jesuits Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou and Dominicans like Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu.  Both shared an optimistic view of modern life and a critical view of clerical church customs and structures.  Both believed that the wisdom of Catholicism was a key to steering the power of modern technology, science, and culture toward good rather than the evil--and they were both convinced that only a transformed Church could accomplish this. Both saw this transformation as the Council’s purpose and agenda.

When John addressed the Council’s opening session on October 11 1962 he called for a “New Pentecost.”  And when Montini became Pope Paul VI in the summer of 1963, he made that rebirth his own top priority.  As summer ended and the Council reconvened, Paul repeated John’s call for a “new Pentecost” and made it clear that John’s vision of a renewed and updated Church was now in the capable hands of his former friend and partner.

Two years later Paul addressed the United Nations just as the Council was finishing its work.  Here is how he described himself and the Church he represented:

Like a messenger who, after a long journey, finally succeeds in delivering the letter which has been entrusted to him, so we appreciate the good fortune of this moment, however brief, which fulfills a desire nourished in the heart for nearly twenty centuries. For, as you well remember, we are very ancient; we here represent a long history; we here celebrate the epilogue of a weary pilgrimage in search of a conversation with the entire world, ever since the command was given to us: Go and bring the good news to all peoples.

Paul VI addressing the UN General Assembly

And here is how he described the historic, even heroic vision that had inspired both him and John:

The hour has struck for our "conversion," for personal transformation, for interior renewal. We must get used to thinking of humanity in a new way...With a new manner, too, of conceiving the paths of history and the destiny of the world...The edifice of modern civilization must be built upon spiritual principles which alone can, not only support it, but even illuminate and animate it.

Looking back, we can only marvel.  The troubling questions that were provoked by John’s death in June 1963 were answered by summer’s end--but only later have we realized that the answers were engraved by the wisdom of divine Providence in the hearts of two men whose paths had converged 40 years earlier and whose shared accomplishment still touches us deeply, 50 summers later.

  © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2013

#386: "Habemus Papam": Back to a Relevant Church?

White Smoke = "Habemus Papam"-- But Who?

 As the media continues to analyze the election of Pope Francis I, I am offering some historical perspective:

It took less than 10 minutes for Pope Francis to win over the hearts of millions watching his first appearance on the balconies Saint Peter’s Basilica.  He greeted the crowd with “Buona sera,” invited them to join him in prayer for Benedict XVI, joked about arriving as pope from “the end of the world,” and asked the crowd the favor of praying for him in silence before he blessed them.

Pope Francis I Bows after asking the people to bless him.

 He left smiling, only to come back, and grabbed the microphone again to thank the crowd for coming, and bid them to go home and get some rest, promising he would see them again soon.

We realize how difficult the current moment is for the Catholic Church when we see the way such simple gestures triggered wild and enthusiastic optimism that Francis would bring genuine reform to Catholicism and new hope to the world.

The Argentines unfurled their flag and led the cheers

 Given the crises and divisions within the Catholic world, and the deeper challenges this pope faces (see CrossCurrents #385, The New Pope’s Challenges) it is remarkable yet perhaps also understandable how little it takes to create a sense that this is a turning point.  That is probably because, in matters of faith, style can be just as important as substance.  And this pope has already demonstrated a different style of papacy from his immediate predecessors.

Yes, this pope is a conservative (like virtually all the other cardinals in the conclave.)  But that simply means he is not interested in rewriting or revising church doctrines.  It does not mean that nothing will change.

After all, Blessed Pope John XXIII, perhaps the most beloved pope of the last 100 years, was also doctrinal conservative.  And the council he called, Vatican II, did not even have doctrine on its agenda.  It was a resolutely “pastoral council,” meaning it was more concerned with the way the Church operated in the world, and how it expressed its message, then in any corrections or developments of the message itself.

John was beloved not because he changed church teachings but because he combined a vision for how the Catholic Church could thrive in the modern world with a personal style that made his vision credible, persuasive, attractive, and thus relevant to millions of people around the world.

It is no accident, I think, that three commentators on the PBS coverage following the election of Pope Francis, when asked to compare him to another pope, immediately chose, not Benedict, not John-Paul II, not Paul VI, but John XXIII.

Like John, Francis has been elected at an advanced age, and presumably will serve as a “transition pope” who offers not a long papacy but rather the possibility of a significant shift.  Like John, his bearing is strikingly different from his predecessors, and he already shows an uncanny gift for establishing rapport with ordinary people.

Immediately after his first appearance, media reports had him declining the private car back to his hotel to join the other cardinals on the shuttle bus, and packing his bags and paying his bills by himself “to set a good example.”

My betting is there are many more good examples to come.  And they will not go unnoticed, especially by young people.

Even this early, it does not appear that the shift in style is unintentional.  As many commentators have noted, by choosing to be the first pope called “Francis” this man aligns himself with the popular “grassroots” saints of the Church’s history rather than with its towering hierarchical powers.  Everything we know about his lifestyle and his work with the poor suggests that the conclave chose this Jesuit as pope knowing full well that this would shift the focus of Catholic life almost overnight.

My daughter once told me “Dad, when you say ‘Catholic’ you mean social justice; that’s not what ‘Catholic’ means to most people.” I suspect my two sons would agree with her, and they would all be right on both counts.  I do mean social justice when I say “Catholic,” and I have found, in more than 40 years of parish work, that social justice still remains on the margins of most people’s Catholic identity.  For most, it has yet to become a core element in their faith.

But my three kids are all graduates of Jesuit institutions, and from the beginning to the end of their days in those schools they repeatedly heard the phrase “educating men and women for others,” and they also heard about the “preferential option for the poor.” They knew that, in theory at least, the Jesuits and the institutions they ran stood for a tradition of public and social service designed to build the solidarity of the human family and even peace in the world.

None of this represents anything new in Catholic doctrine.  But with this Jesuit pope it could represent something new in the way the Catholic Church styles itself before the rest of the world.

CrossCurrents readers are familiar with two themes in my recent work.  First: the papacy itself has been in transition ever since the election of John XXIII.  Second: too often in recent years the hierarchy has created the public impression of being obsessed with matters sexual.

Pope Francis can act on both these fronts to dramatic effect.  His personal behavior, manner, and style can further transform the papacy from the stern imperial monarchy of the early 20^th century to the new mold of the public servant of all peoples everywhere—a people’s papacy. 

And his actions and teachings can shift our focus away from a preoccupation with sex to a focus on the true joys and sorrows of a world struggling to overcome injustice and groping blindly for peace.

Liberal Catholics remember with great fondness the euphoria about Catholic renewal that followed Vatican II in 1965, but they often forget that this had nothing to do with dramatic changes in official teachings.  It had to do with (1) the retrieval of many ancient values and concepts that had been lost along the way, and with (2) the suddenly extroverted style of a papacy and a Church that for too long had been closeted behind the Vatican walls.  These two shifts--a mining of ancient resources and an opening of church windows to modern life--enabled the Church to begin a new kind of dialogue with contemporary life and build bridges to people well beyond the boundaries of the Catholic population.

That began again last night when the pope stressed that his blessing was not just for the people in Saint Peter’s Square and not even only for the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics; instead he offered his blessing to “All people of goodwill everywhere.”

It may be too early to predict, yet it is high time for the hope, that this pope will complete the transformations begun by John XXIII, put a renewed partnership of Church and world back on the map of Catholic action, and show the way for our Church to reach out to all people of goodwill and once again make the Catholic Church what its mission calls it to be: a global force for good in the world.

If that happens, Pope Francis may take us back to the future that we believed in, once upon a time, a time when the Church was still relevant.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#384: The Pope, the Bible, and the Drones

As we wait for the conclave to begin the election of a new pope, three small random observations:

RECUSED: Cardinal O’Brien of Scotland has recused himself from the conclave after allegations of personal sexual misconduct surfaced last month. But Los Angeles’ Cardinal Roger Mahony is in Rome, still determined to participate in the voting despite revelations of (and his apologies for) covering up priestly sexual abuse during his time as Archbishop of LA. This has sparked widespread protests by Catholics who regard his participation as scandalous. But Mahoney’s participation pales next to the truly horrific irony from the last conclave, which elected Benedict XVI. At the time (2005), Sean O’Malley had become Archbishop of Boston but was not yet made a cardinal. Meanwhile Bernard Law, despite his resignation in disgrace from Boston (epicenter of the sex abuse crisis) in 2002, retained his red hat and resided in Rome. So it was that Bernard Law, despite being the scandal's cover-up poster boy, participated and voted in the 2005 conclave--but Boston (the #4 Diocese in the US) had NO VOTE OR VOICE in choosing the next pope! At least this time that is rectified: Law is too old to vote this time, and Cardinal O'Malley will able cast his vote in Boston’s behalf.

BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS: The History Channel has been running a multi-part Lenten series on the Bible, but it took only 5 minutes (on the destruction of Sodom and the fate of Lot’s wife) to form my reaction. Aside from the arch acting style and the surfeit of special effects, the movie most resembles the sand-and-sandal sagas from 1950s Hollywood (see Cecil B. DeMille's “The Ten Commandments”) in portraying Bible narratives as literal events—as “history.” This plays neatly into the rising dominance of evangelical Christianity’s belief in literal interpretation of the bible. Unfortunately, surveys show that the majority of Catholics (and an even larger percentage of regular Mass-goers)  go right along with biblical literalism, even though Catholic teaching has made plain since at least the 5^th century that, with much of the bible, interpreting literally yields distortion of the text and its meaning. Let’s hope most Catholics skip this sort of fundamentalist propaganda.

ANTI-WAR GOP? With Sen.  Rand Paul's filibuster against the use of drones to kill US Citizens, the GOP may have begun re-branding itself on foreign and military policy. Instead of being merely the party that never met a war it didn’t like, growing numbers of party leaders see the risks militarism is posing to both human rights and the constitutional balance of power. For Catholics, this can only be welcome: since most drone use is almost certainly a violation of the Catholic Just War Theory, and since the Obama administration is, if anything, even more aggressive in promoting the use of drones to kill, opposition from the other side of the aisle may compensate for the fact that Democrats, even of the “left,” have been largely silent about the possible breach of international law, violations of humans rights, and even constitutional abuse of presidential power.

©Bernard F. Swain 2013