Interpretations of Vatican II: CommentsA community of one heart and one mind The difficult question arises; how has our ecclesial self-understanding borne witness to this vision of communion to our world which Gaudium et Spes so richly speaks of ? Could it be that the problems we experience and the inability for the churches, administrative Church of Rome and the local churches, to concretize this vision originates from the grand sociological crisis of our world where domination of the other, categorizing of people as less civilized, operating a caste society, racially discriminating against others, and creating and validating structures of marginalization have become the modus operandi and modus vivendi of our world? Wwe may be quick to argue that the church is not of this world. I do not deny this. However, sociological studies continue to show that the members of the church embody the problems that face our societies. For examples; greed in the world equals to greed in our church. Racism in the world equals to racism in our church. Violence in the world equals to violence in our church. The difficult task before us then may not just only be to reclaim the vision of koinonia for the church but to embody in our ecclesial beings a double witness that calls for the prophetic vocation to the church and to the world. Koinonia that focuses only on the self-understanding of the church will not succeed. Koinonia that focuses only on the world will also not succeed. The koinonia that the psalmist speaks of and that which was the marker of the ecclesial community in Acts of the Apostle was one that had a double witness – to the world and to the church. Vatican II as “new-within-old” For example, the emphasis on the exclusive, community-confirmed institution of James Fowler’s synthetic-conventional stage leans toward its critical analysis in the subsequent individuative-reflective stage. The predominantly rational emphasis of that stage gives way to a reintegration of symbolic myth and intellectual concept in the subsequent post-conventional conjunctive stage. This stage’s acceptance of the equality of the other and her beliefs ultimately expands in Fowler's universalizing stage as a fully engaged embrace of the value of their sometimes profound differences. Situated in their time of great mid-twentieth century transition, Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes hold a prophetic, developmental tension: the Church remains solidly planted in all she was while simultaneously becoming entirely new. Like human development, neither of these documents eschews the tradition that birthed them, somehow upholding the past while quite boldly venturing into their entirely new, emerging moments. This paradoxical, experiential balance appears to surpass even the Pauline conception of the “new creation” (2 Co 5:17) since in the birthing of the new, the former is not entirely passed away and discarded! The old passes into the new. Catholicism and other churches With non-Christian friends and non-believers, we all share a common humanity and a common God or higher power. However, we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is our Christ, our anointed one, our Lord and Savior. Unlike our fellow Christians who have shared a common Christian heritage until a few centuries ago, these other non-Christian religions have a hard time understanding our insistence on Jesus Christ. Now we do share a common Jewish heritage, since 2/3rd of our Sacred Scripture Bible, the so-called Old Testament, was not written by followers of Christ. There will always be a structure, but the theologian is not an administrator. All academics know the difference between the professor, the department chair, and the dean. The professor teaches and suggests things. The department chair and the dean make decisions and act on them. So it is with the Church. The pastor, the bishop, and the pope make decisions and act on them; the theologian teaches and makes suggestions. "We, The People, need to be a Church open to trustful communication" In their wisdom, people of good faith resist being clotured in divisive parochialism; rather, they quest eco-logical commonality that conscionable identifies with eco-social sensitivity. The future is ours to choose, whether dissonant or consonant with the communal resonance of faith/ hope/ love. We, The People, need to be a Church open to trustful communication, informed consciousness and committed conscience. The Rhine waters of the two papacies previous to that of Pope Francis have added considerably to the murkiness of the Tiber“ The ineffectiveness of somecouncils The council of Constance requested a general council every ten years; they never materialized; the council of Florence ended the Great Schism in 1439 but its East-West agreement was dead one year later. The Fifth Lateran council adopted badly needed reforms but they were not enforced; the Reformation started just a few years later. When conciliar decisions are not quickly enacted they become outdated. When the circumstances change a new spirit of renewal is needed, one that is based on the changed needs of the time. I think Sylvester is close to the needs of today in his description of the church. The need to open the widnows In the light of what I have seen and known, what strikes me most about the discussions I have followed on this web site is how much of it feels like something going on in a hermetically sealed room. There does not seem to be a lot of air in there, it is so very self referential. But one of the motive phrases of Vatican II was aggiornamento, opening the windows and letting some air in; it is much like what Pope Francis has said; that he feels as if Jesus is at the door of the church, wanting to get out. I can understand the seductive comfort of working within the familiar, staying in that closed room. But is it not time to engage the world, the entire world with all its good and bad, in an open and joyful and committed way? Not the pre-Vatican II fortress anymore However, let me say that if you find this to be somewhat suffocating trend among Catholics, imagine what the Pre-Vatican II halls sounded like! In the seminary of the 1950s we weren't allowed newspapers or reading other than approved Catholic theology. In the silence of the library, in what I called the "polemics room" I read my way through volumes of anti-Catholic tirades, and searched the shelves (successfully sometimes) for the theology writings of Barth, Bultmann and Brunner, and later in my life the works of American atheists and neo-evangelicals. I actually found books by D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley on this same shelves, much to my surprise. All of these people had a decisive if surreptitious influence on me. What you suggest is to me an ideal never to be realized. In general, Catholics can and do these days wander the fields of culture, doing what you suggest. For all the evidence to the contrary, the RCC is a church turned toward the "world" rather than a fortress built to keep it out. Vatican II accomplished that, and Vatican II will not be quieted.
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