Most of my parish presentations on the Second Vatican Council II (1962-1965) begin with two images. The first image is from an event that happened 40 years ago this past week, in December 1965, when Pope Paul VI rose to announce the end of the council before 2000 bishops in St. Peter’s Basilica. His speech is especially significant 40 years later, after so much conflict and debate about Vatican II’s legacy.
For Pope Paul, the key question was, “What is the religious value of this Council?”—and in his mind, the answer was very clear:Never before, perhaps, so much as on this occasion, has the Church felt the need to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives; and to get to grips with it, almost to run after it, in its rapid and continuous change.
I have always felt that, aside from all the documents produced by the council, and all the literature of all those documents, and all the arguments about that literature, the public pronouncements of two men set the gold standard for understanding the council: John XXIII (whose personal vision the council was) and Paul VI (who brought that vision to life).
How can anyone claim to discover the “true meaning” of the council if that meaning conflicts with the stated intentions of the council’s founder and chief architect? Neither the concrete texts of the council documents nor any elusive “spirit” behind the council can be invoked to justify an interpretation that conflicts with the stated intentions of John and Paul.
Those intentions were clear at the opening of the council in October of 1962, when John XXIII referred to the council fathers meeting “as if in a new Cenacle.” The Cenacle, of course, was the upper room where the Church was born on Pentecost. On another occasion, John made his point even more explicit, calling the council “a second Pentecost.”
Three months later, as the Council’s first session ended, the Pope concluded by imagining what the Council’s outcome would be, and he repeated his opening day imagery:
“It will be a new Pentecost indeed, which will cause the Church to renew her interior riches and to extend her material care in every sphere of human activity.”
What did this mean?
It meant that both men saw the council coming in a moment in history that required nothing less than the rebirth of the church. Though there had been 20 ecumenical councils in the 20 proceedings entries, they did not refer simply to “another Pentecost,” let alone “a 20th Pentecost.” This, for them, was to be the Second Birth of the Church. In my mind, there can be no doubt about what this means.
First, it means that Vatican Council II must rank among the very most important events in the entire 20 centuries of Catholic history. I would personally rank it as one of the two or three greatest of all Church councils and would also rank it among the half dozen most important events in Church history.
Second, the notion that the Church in 1962 needed to be reborn begs the question “Why?”
Why, after 20 centuries of living off the legacy of the First Pentecost, was it now necessary to have a Second? What challenge was the Church facing that it had not faced over those 20 centuries? And how was the council supposed to meet that challenge? No explanation of Vatican II is credible unless it answers these questions.
Third, Paul VI picked up the baton dropped by John XXIII with the same visionary zeal that John himself had shown. In particular Paul expressed the same optimism about the council’s work and legacy. Neither man succumbed to fear, hostility, or pessimism in looking at the Church’s challenge and future—and this optimism extended beyond the Church to the world outside.
The Second Image I use actually comes from 1963, just after Paul VI had assumed the reins of Vatican II:
The little boy, bare-headed in his winter coat and short pants, stands saluting his fallen father. Next to him stands his widowed mother, the grief engraved on her face just barely visible behind the black veil. A nation and world watches as his father’s casket passes by.For any American born before 1960, the classic image is as close as our memories. For younger readers, it is an icon emblazoned on our culture. One need look no farther to see the great gap separating not only today’s Catholics from the Catholicism of the past, but also a “generation gap” among today’s Catholics.
Kennedy’s funeral was the first globally televised event in world history—and the most widely viewed Latin Mass in history. Countless millions watched the procession of black-clad figures rising in Washington’s Saint Matthew’s Cathedral as Richard Cardinal Cushing intoned the first Latin phrases of the Requiem Mass for the Dead. It was a ceremony full of long solemn silences between the woeful singing of the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) and the deathly echoes of chanted Latin lifting into the church’s incense-filled arches—with Walter Cronkite and other TV commentators explaining what was happening as the aging Boston cardinal recited the Latin with his back turned to us all.
For many, the Kennedy funeral remains an archetypal image, but for me the telling image is the little boy himself. For some of us, JFK Jr. is the little boy we saw saluting live on TV. But for others, that little boy is but a photograph in a history book. For them, the real JFK Jr. is the most eligible bachelor of his generation, himself the victim of a tragic and early death.
Why does this matter? Because those who saw the boy live can remember Vatican II, and those who did not, cannot.
That boy’s father, in his 1960 inaugural address, spoke of the torch being passed to a new generation. He meant it was time for the nation’s fate to become the responsibility of those born after 1900.
The same is true of Vatican II. After 40 years, the time has come: the council’s fate, its legacy, must become the responsibility of those born after 1965. Anyone who believes the work of Vatican II is complete is dead wrong. But if a new generation cannot be persuaded to take up the cause of Renewal, the council’s promise may be dead too.
If Vatican II is to live on, then its life must begin now, at 40 years into its history. But I fear the challenge will not be met, not because it is insurmountable, but because it has gone unrecognized until now. Is it too late, after 40 years, to breathe new life into Vatican II?
Next week: Why Vatican II needs a second wind, and how to get it.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2005
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