Today marks both the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second
Vatican Council and the beginning of the Year of Faith, two events that have
inspired a flurry of commentary on the Council’s legacy as well as initiatives
aimed at enhancing understanding of the Catholic faith (see, for example, this “Read
the Catechism in a Year” project).
Amid all the op-eds on and analysis of the Council appearing
across the Web today—and the first of the Year of Faith-related reflections that
will no doubt be a fixture of Catholic corners of the Internet for the next 13
months—make sure to read these two important pieces from Pope Benedict XVI, the
first an essay published in L’Osservatore Romano today and the second his homily from the Mass at St. Peter’s
officially kicking off the Year of Faith. Below are some excerpts from these
two must-reads.
Pope John XXIII leads the opening session of the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 11, 1962. (CNS photo)
The Holy Father’s article in
L’Osservatore
Romano—which is the introduction to a collection of his writings on the
Council, to be published in German next month—includes personal recollections
of his time at the Council as well as reflections on (and critiques of) several
of the documents that would come out of Vatican II and shape the Church for
decades to come:
It was a moment of
extraordinary expectation. Great things were about to happen. The previous
Councils had almost always been convoked for a precise question to which they
were to provide an answer. This time there was no specific problem to resolve.
But precisely because of this, a general sense of expectation hovered in the
air: Christianity, which had built and formed the Western world, seemed more
and more to be losing its power to shape society. It appeared weary and it
looked as if the future would be determined by other spiritual forces. …
Christianity must be in the present if it is to be able to form the future. …
The Church, which during the
Baroque era was still, in a broad sense, shaping the world, had from the
nineteenth century onwards visibly entered into a negative relationship with
the modern era, which had only then properly begun. Did it have to remain so?
Could the Church not take a positive step into the new era? Behind the vague
expression “today’s world” lies the question of the relationship with the
modern era. To clarify this, it would have been necessary to define more
clearly the essential features that constitute the modern era. “Schema XIII”
did not succeed in doing this. Although the Pastoral Constitution [Gaudium et Spes] expressed many
important elements for an understanding of the “world” and made significant
contributions to the question of Christian ethics, it failed to offer
substantial clarification on this point.
Unexpectedly, the encounter
with the great themes of the modern epoch did not happen in the great Pastoral
Constitution, but instead in two minor documents, whose importance has only
gradually come to light in the context of the reception of the Council. First,
there is the Declaration on Religious Liberty [Dignitatis Humanae], which was urgently requested, and also drafted, by the
American Bishops in particular. With developments in philosophical
thought and in ways of understanding the modern State, the doctrine of
tolerance, as worked out in detail by Pius XII, no longer seemed sufficient. At
stake was the freedom to choose and practice religion and the freedom to change
it, as fundamental human rights and freedoms. Given its inner foundation, such
a concept could not be foreign to the Christian faith, which had come into
being claiming that the State could neither decide on the truth nor prescribe
any kind of worship. The Christian faith demanded freedom of religious belief
and freedom of religious practice in worship, without thereby violating the law
of the State in its internal ordering; Christians prayed for the emperor, but
did not worship him. To this extent, it can be said that Christianity, at its
birth, brought the principle of religious freedom into the world. ...
The second document that was
to prove important for the Church’s encounter with the modern age came into
being almost by chance and it developed in various phases. I am referring to the
Declaration “Nostra Aetate” on the
Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. At
the outset the intention was to draft a declaration on relations between the
Church and Judaism, a text that had become intrinsically necessary after the
horrors of the Shoah. The Council Fathers from Arab countries were not opposed
to such a text, but they explained that if there were an intention to speak of
Judaism, then there should also be some words on Islam. How right they were, we
in the West have only gradually come to understand. Lastly the realization grew
that it was also right to speak of two other great religions – Hinduism and
Buddhism – as well as the theme of religion in general. Then, following
naturally, came a brief indication regarding dialogue and collaboration with
the religions, whose spiritual, moral, and socio-cultural values were to be
respected, protected and encouraged (ibid., 2). Thus, in a
precise and extraordinarily dense document, a theme is opened up whose
importance could not be foreseen at the time. …
The bishops considered
themselves apprentices at the school of the Holy Spirit and at the school of
reciprocal collaboration, but at the same time servants of the word of God who
were living and working in faith. The Council Fathers neither could nor wished
to create a new or different Church. They had neither the authority nor the
mandate to do so. … This is why a hermeneutic of rupture is absurd and is
contrary to the spirit and the will of the Council Fathers.
Prelates from around the world arrive in procession Oct. 11 for a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican's St. Peter's Square to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The Holy Father’s homily for the opening Mass for
the Year of Faith—attended by representatives from several Orthodox Churches as
well as Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury—considers in particular how
the documents of Vatican II should inform observance of the Year of Faith:
The Year of Faith which we
launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last
fifty years … The Second Vatican Council did not wish to deal with the theme of
faith in one specific document. It was, however, animated by a desire, as it
were, to immerse itself anew in the Christian mystery so as to re-propose it
fruitfully to contemporary man. The Servant of God Paul VI, two years after the
end of the Council session, expressed it in this way: “Even if the Council does
not deal expressly with the faith, it talks about it on every page, it
recognizes its vital and supernatural character, it assumes it to be whole and
strong, and it builds upon its teachings. We need only recall some of the
Council’s statements in order to realize the essential importance that the
Council, consistent with the doctrinal tradition of the Church, attributes to
the faith, the true faith, which has Christ for its source and the Church’s
Magisterium for its channel”…
…during the Council there was
an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty
of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of
the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God
resounds in the faith, transcending time, yet it can only be welcomed by us in
our own unrepeatable today. Therefore I believe that the most important thing,
especially on such a significant occasion as this, is to revive in the whole
Church that positive tension, that yearning to announce Christ again to
contemporary man. But, so that this interior thrust towards the new
evangelization neither remain just an idea nor be lost in confusion, it needs
to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of
the Second Vatican Council, the place where it found expression. This is why I
have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the
Council – that is to its texts – also to draw from them its authentic spirit,
and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in
them. Reference to the documents saves us from extremes of anachronistic
nostalgia and running too far ahead, and allows what is new to be welcomed in a
context of continuity. The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of
faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself
with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day,
that it might remain a living faith in a world of change.
… The Council Fathers wished to
present the faith in a meaningful way; and if they opened themselves trustingly
to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their
faith, of the solid rock on which they stood. In the years following, however,
many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very
foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to
accept as truths.
If today the Church proposes a new Year of Faith and a new
evangelization, it is not to honor an anniversary, but because there is more
need of it, even more than there was fifty years ago!
…
Recent decades have seen the advance of a
spiritual “desertification”. In the Council’s time it was already possible from
a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked
like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is in
starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again
discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In
the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in
today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or
negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life.
… This, then, is
how we can picture the Year of Faith: a pilgrimage in the deserts of today’s
world, taking with us only what is necessary: neither staff, nor bag, nor
bread, nor money, nor two tunics – as the Lord said to those he was sending out
on mission (cf. Lk 9:3), but the Gospel and the faith of the Church, of which
the Council documents are a luminous expression, as is the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, published twenty years ago.
Full texts:
"It
was a splendid day": Pope pens rare article on his inside view of Vatican
II