In a June post at the website Where Peter Is, author Steven Millies, having ritually denounced the “senseless [Catholic] culture war quarrel” and taken another tiresome sideswipe at Bishop Robert Barron’s criticism of “beige Catholicism,” informed us that we must recover Vatican II vision of “a Church determined to meet the modern world.”
Yet as I thought I had demonstrated in two books (The Irony of Modern Catholic History and To Sanctify The World), Vatican II did not call the Church to just “meet the modern world.” The Council called the Church to convert the modern world. How? By offering Jesus Christ as the icon of a genuine humanism and the sacramental Church as the icon of authentic human community.
That this was Pope John XXIII’s intention in summoning Vatican II is quite clear from the radio address he delivered on September 11, 1962, a month before the Council opened.
Preparatory work for Vatican II had been underway for years. The bishops had submitted agenda items for conciliar discussion. Draft documents for the council fathers to consider had been prepared. St. Peter’s had been transformed into a giant conference hall, with fifteen rows of upholstered bleachers occupying the basilica’s vast nave, from the red porphyry disk on which Pope Leo III had crowned Charlemagne “Holy Roman Emperor” in 800 to Bernini’s massive bronze baldacchino over the papal high altar. (There were even coffee bars built so that the successors of the apostles could refresh themselves; they were quickly dubbed “Bar-Jonah” and “Bar-Abbas.”)
John XXIII had read the draft conciliar documents that would be debated and saw that they were largely written in an abstract vocabulary, devoid of much grounding in Scripture or the Fathers of the Church. A patient man, he was content to let the Council find its own “voice.” But as the Council found that voice, he wanted to lay down a marker: Vatican II would not repeat settled Catholic truths for the sake of repeating them; the Council would link settled truths to evangelical mission.
To drive that point home, the elderly pope, who knew that he had terminal cancer, spent considerable time crafting an address in which he would underscore just why 2,500 bishops were coming to Rome — and he may well have hoped to offer a critical interpretive lens through which to read those pre-prepared documents the bishops would consider.
John XXIII’s September 1962 radio address was the most explicitly evangelical and Christocentric pre-conciliar statement of his intentions for Vatican II, laying down themes he would develop in his epic opening address to the Council. Yes, the Church must “meet” the “modern world,” as it had once “met” the medieval world and the classical world. But with what would the Church “meet” modernity?
The Church would meet the modern world with the proclamation made by Christ himself: “The Kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). And that, John XXIII said in his radio address, must be the message of the Council: “This phrase, ‘Kingdom of God,’ expresses fully and precisely the work of the Council. ‘Kingdom of God’ means and is in reality the Church of Christ, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, the one which Jesus, the Word of God made man, founded and which for twenty centuries he has preserved, just as still today he gives her life by his presence and grace.”
To foster that encounter with the incarnate Word of God had been the purpose of every previous ecumenical council: “What in fact has an ecumenical council ever been but the renewing of this encounter with the face of the risen Jesus, glorious and immortal king, shining upon the whole Church for the salvation, joy, and splendor of the human race?”
Then John XXIII defined with precision the reason for Vatican II: “Of fundamental importance is what is said about the very reason for the Council’s being held: at issue is the response of the whole world to the testament of the Lord which he left us when he said, ‘Go, teach all nations…’ The purpose of the Council is, therefore, evangelization” [emphasis added].
In proclaiming Jesus Christ as the answer to the question that is every human life, and in witnessing through the sacraments and the works of charity that the Kingdom of God is among us, Catholicism is, was, and always will be a culture-reforming counterculture, challenging every culture in which it finds itself to realize its noblest aspirations through friendship with the incarnate Son of God.
That inevitably causes friction, which is sometimes severe. To live in that friction is not, pace Dr. Millies, “senseless.” It’s inevitable. Recognizing that is what Lutheran pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the “cost of discipleship.”
(George Weigel’s column ‘The Catholic Difference’ is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.)
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This article reminds me of the now seldom-mentioned Jimmy Lai. He refused to run from the “friction” he caused. If only, in our sphere of influence, there were more of us like him.
One of the Council’s four constitutions dealt with the nature of the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium) and how to clearly word the collegial relationship between the papacy (as the successor of St. Peter) and the other bishops (as successors of the other apostles).
About which, this episode:
“Then one of the extreme liberals made the mistake of referring, in writing, to some of these ambiguous passages, and indicating how they would be interpreted after the Council. This paper fell into the hands of the aforesaid group of cardinals and superiors general, whose representative took it to the pope. Pope Paul, realizing finally that he had been deceived [!], broke down and wept.
“What was the remedy? Since the text of the schema did not positively make any false assertion, but merely used ambiguous terms, the ambiguity could be clarified by joining to the text a carefully phrased explanation. This was the origin of the Preliminary Explanatory Note appended to the schema [but published unnoticed at the very end of the final constitution, rather than as intended at the front of the affected Chapter 3].”
(Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen, SVD, “The Rhine Flows into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II,” 1967, p. 232; during the Council this well-connected historian published a daily news service, in six different languages, circulated to 3,000 subscribers in 108 countries. He received documentation from many groups and interviewed two Council Fathers each day during the 281 days that the Council was in session.)
And, yet, today from the land of the Rhine, the fluid der Synodal Weg… plus the ambiguous “time is greater than space.”
I thought Steven Millies article was very good. It was this article here that I find a bit problematic–why do some people feel they have to write articles when they really have nothing to say? The first line of the second paragraph was rather funny: “Yet as I thought I had demonstrated in two books…” Yes, how could we have overlooked that? For we all read George Weigel’s books, everyone of us–or so we are expected to, so shame on you Millies for falling short on this.
The problem with the “culture war” mentality is that it confuses apologetics with evangelization. The latter is far more demanding. We proclaim the good news by our life, by witnessing to the risen life of Christ. That’s not primarily about winning an argument. I don’t think anyone can deny that Catholicism became quite beige at a certain point after the Council, at least in certain parts of the world, but speaking of “tired”, culture warrior Catholicism is extremely so. What this article does not capture well is the mind of John XXIII. Weigel writes: “Yes, the Church must “meet” the “modern world,” as it had once “met” the medieval world and the classical world”. Well, yes and no. The Church must meet the modern world differently, very differently, than the Church in the past, that is, without the air of a Roman Senate delivering anathemas, for one. Yes, proclaim the kingdom of God, but let’s not turn John XXIII into a culture warrior, with all the “answers”, as though he believed the Church could learn nothing from the modern world (he understood the importance of dialogue, unlike some of the Cardinals of the Council). Of course the Church in the world will always be a “culture-reforming counterculture”. No one is denying that. It’s the means employed to achieve that end is the issue. Culture warrior apologetics only goes so far. Catholicism is not about “being right”, having all the answers to everyone’s questions. It is about the Person of Christ who is always larger than us. More often than not, our efforts to “convert” others do more to drive others from the Church than draw them in. We should probably be paying more attention to our own deficiencies, that we may decrease so that Christ may increase. Such people are far more effective than culture warriors who obsess over LGBTQ and exhibit what Millies refers to as an inconsistent life ethic.
Poster embed this comment “why do some people feel they have to write articles when they really have nothing to say?” in meandering 410 word response.
Let’s all file this under irony.
Yes: “counterculture “ is the key word!
Thomas James, to spread blasphemous images of the BVM as an LGBTQ over Internet, is to exhibit an inconsistant life ethic for a Catholic prelate. That prelate was rewarded bh Bergoglio with a job in Vatican Communications. Pure evil.
If you want to live in Christ you MUST live in the truth. Not the truth that the world contrives, not the truth we attempt to concoct. But the TRUTH as Christ Himself has revealed. Not the partial TRUTH but the FULLNESS of TRUTH. And once we are convicted of the fullness of the Truth, then we live it and proclaim it unabashedly. So, the question all of us Catholics should be asking ourselves is: “Am I living the fullness of the Truth?” We either are or we are not.
A refreshing validation of Roman pontiff John XXIII, incessantly pilloried by the tunnel visioned hard right, whose primary purpose in calling the Council was to present the Kingdom of God to a world in need of redemption.
Providential was containment of the pending avalanche of equally tunnel visioned Leftist clergy and laity who came out in the open. That deception and mischief occurred, it nevertheless remained within the Church and eventually corrected, rather than a worse than Protestant Reformation from outside of Ecclesial jurisdiction. Today we’re at a crossroad of direction toward Apostolic continuity or a nouveau protestantism.
A summary of pre-conciliar and preliminary Vatican II statements.
How does Weigel think that it all worked out – in measurable terms?