The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reminds us that how we interpret the past also guides us into the future—but his method is less helpful for the Church’s future.
Any official document that guides a people must be interpreted, so that people know what it means. And once the authors die, the task of interpreting falls to others. That is why we have the U.S. Supreme Court: to interpret the charter we call the U.S. Constitution. And the tributes following the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia make it clear that, for his contribution to how the Supreme Court functions, Scalia can arguably be ranked the most important Italian-Catholic in American history (with all due respect to Columbus and Frank Sinatra).
Scalia’s famous method for interpreting the Constitution was labeled either “originalism” or “textualism.” Either way, the strategy was to detect the true meaning of the Constitution in the words of the text itself, the legislation, without the “legislative history” (ideas, influences, sources, historical conditions or developments).
This strategy grew from Scalia‘s broader convictions. Son of an academic, graduate of a Jesuit high school and college, trained in philosophy and theology and classical western culture, he developed deep respect for the rule of law, and a healthy suspicion that human nature often seeks to avoid or rationalize the demands of law into something more to our liking.
For Scalia, law reflects the agreements people reach to achieve a consensus about the basic question “How shall we live together?” Laws answer the question with standards of conduct, rules for proper procedure, and boundaries of what was acceptable behavior. The law is thus a kind of fundamental social compact: it embodies agreement in the text--the very words--of any law. Respect for such law, for such texts, is thus the foundation for the social solidarity of a people, guiding our unity against the whims and prejudices and disputes of the moment. And thus the “rule of law” is superior to the “rule of man.”
Scalia knew that, in American Life, such rule is even more fundamental. Our social solidarity does not come naturally to Americans. We trace our roots to too many places; we emerge from too different cultures; we belong to too diverse races; we speak too many languages. Even our shared national memories go back only a few generations. Our nation of immigrants must find unity elsewhere then culture, or language, or race, or history. And so we find it in the law, in the Constitution, which unites us by establishing the principals, the institutions, and the rights that we all share. It is the Constitution which provides the unifying force that trumps (you should pardon the expression) all our differences.
This unifying function, Scalia knew, makes the Constitution our most sacred text--our “American scriptures.” And that makes interpreting it a solemn responsibility. In his view, that responsibility required a method of interpretation focused above all--or even only--on the text itself. The aim was to determine “what did this text’s authors mean?” Any other meanings were either secondary or irrelevant.
But of course the practical result of this approach was to make Scalia one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices. And it strikes me that many conservative Catholics find his approach equally attractive for interpreting things in Catholic life as well as American Life. They prefer to stick to the texts of things, often taking them quite literally without reference to outside sources.
This is especially true when it comes to the documents of Vatican Council II (1962-1965). Once the Council’s 16 documents were published in 1966, Catholics at all levels devoted untold hours to examining their texts. And the impact of the Council has generally been determined by how the documents have been interpreted and explained.
Naturally those interpretations vary, and for 50 years three generations of Catholics have read the documents and come away with different meanings. No wonder! Compared to the U.S. Constitution, the documents of Vatican II are a dramatically more difficult interpretive challenge. They cover hundreds of pages, they are translated from Latin originals into hundreds of languages, they draw on 20 centuries of thinking and practical experience, and they address not only constitutional workings of the world’s largest organization, but also its historical development, political system, practical procedures, and its priorities for the future.
This textual complexity was unavoidable, even necessary--but the results have been troubling. Even 50 years later, no interpretation enjoys consensus. Some Catholics view Vatican II calling for revolutionary change, while others see it affirming tradition. Some find warrant for wide experimenting in liturgy, but others find a call to preserve Latin. Some see justification for every for new moral teachings, but others find only permission to employ new wording for the old teachings. Some see a historical watershed, others detect a call for continuity.
In most of these debates, all sides have invoked the Council’s texts to prove their case. But this has not led to consensus, for the Council’s documents are so vast they provide--like the Bible itself--fuel for almost any position.
Personally, I have long believed that we cannot fully understand the work of Vatican II by focusing solely on the documents themselves. And Scalia’s death has forced me to clarify why.
Let’s began with an analogy: Vatican II is to its 16 documents as the Constitutional Convention is to the Constitution.
In both cases, the texts we need to interpret are the products of a deliberative body--they were both “composed by committee” and then voted on. Scalia argued that, once the members of the Constitutional Convention had committed their intentions to paper, our interpretation must be limited to what the text says. Whether we agree or not, it is a reasonable position--and it has proven influential. Even liberal justices have said of Scalia’s impact, “We are all textualists now.”
But this analogy limps, because the two cases are not exactly alike. Here is the difference: for 50 years, Catholics have not quit talking (and debating) about “Vatican II”--meaning Vatican Council II. But what is the last time you heard any one debate about the Constitutional Convention? You see, Americans have always focused on the document, not the event that produced it. But Catholics have always focused on the event, even if they never read the documents.
There are two reasons for this. One is common sense: the Council was the biggest meeting in history: 2000 men gathering for four years in the glare of constant global publicity. The second reason is more complicated, and has to do with how authority works in the Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical structure, with fairly centralized authority under the pope and Bishops. But for Catholics, this authority is not supposed to be blind or arbitrary, for we believe that it enjoys the inspiring guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Church’s authority always depends on the greater authority behind it: the will of God.
Now the highest ranking office is the pope, but even the pope’s authority is not as great as a general council, where the pope presides over the world’s bishops and they act together. There have only been 21 such councils in Catholicism’s 20 centuries. By definition they are extraordinary events—events where, Catholics believe, the Spirit’s guidance is especially powerful.
For Catholics, what is sacred about Vatican II is not the documents themselves, but rather the Spirit’s presence, guiding the Church at that precise moment in history. In other words, it is in Vatican II as an event that we expect to find the Spirit working. And this event was much greater than the documents it produced. It began the moment Pope John XXIII conceived the idea of the Council within weeks of his election in 1958. It continued through several years of preparations before the Council convened in October 1962. It includes what John said about his intentions for the Council in speeches, interviews, and letters. It includes the work of many commissions, the hundreds of speeches by the Council Fathers, the decision after John’s death to elect Paul VI, the working relationship between John and Paul, and Paul’s own statements during and after the council.
In short, we cannot interpret Vatican II’s meaning by looking only at its official texts. To discern the divine guidance of the Spirit--to discover the sacred truth of the Council expressing the will of God--we must consider the entire event. Such consideration, far from complicating our interpretations, can actually clarify and simplify.
For example, John XXIII more than once (including his speech opening the Council) called Vatican II “A New Pentecost” or even “A Second Pentecost.” Moreover, when John died and Paul VI was elected, he opened the Council’s next session (in October 1963) by quoting John about “The New Pentecost”! Since Pentecost marked the birth of the Church, John (and Paul) clearly intended Vatican II to bring about the rebirth of the Church.
This was a lofty, historic, even heroic expectation--and no interpretation of Vatican II can leave it out. John’s vision, clearly grasped and embraced by his successor, must frame every interpretation of every text the Council produced.
If the Catholic Church has not been “Reborn” in the last 50 years, then either we have failed to achieve the Council’s purpose, or we have never really understood (or accepted) it.
In sum, Antonin Scalia’s “textualism” is a plausible theory for interpreting the U.S. Constitution, for that document grounds our national unity even though we may not believe the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired. But when Catholics interpret Vatican II, we affirm that the Council Fathers were divinely inspired, and so all their work--and not just the Texts they produced--demand our attention.
Thus we may say “Long Live the Constitution!” (meaning the text) but we also say “Long Live Vatican II” (meaning the event). In secular terms, we must honor not just the Council’s “legislation” but also its “legislative history.” After all, America is a nation of laws, but Catholics worship the God of history.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015
