Vatican II: What Do I Think of It?

“What do you think of Vatican II?”

This question was posed to me just recently by my niece. We were on our way back from a family function in New Hampshire. My sister-in-law was driving while I held them both as a captive audience while pontificating about religion, spirituality, and such. I was a little taken aback because I honestly hadn’t thought much about Vatican II for many years. Even though I have lived as a Roman Catholic under Vatican II’s aegis and its impact for some 50 plus years. I needed a refresher on issues to give my perspective on them. So here goes:

Was There a Need?

Evidently, in 1962, Pope St. John XXIII felt there was a need.  He called Vatican II an “aggiornamento,” bringing up to date Church teachings and practices.  Fifty plus years later, there is much discussion among the clergy and laity of problems that have arisen.  There is a call for further evaluation and possible correction among Vatican II Council’s documents.

It had been about 100 years since the Catholic Church had its last Ecumenical Council, and indeed times had changed. We needed a doctrine and practices refresher between the Church and the world.

Significantly, the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestant churches of the world. The Vatican II worldwide Ecumenical Council was only the third since the Council of Trent back in the mid-1500s. The Protestant Reformation, with the writings and preaching of Luther, Calvin, and their followers triggered the Council of Trent. It was during Trent that the great rift between Catholicism and Protestantism occurred. No doubt, there was a tremendous need to update Catholicism in the 1900s. Vatican II seemed to fulfill that need to a degree.

Shrinking the Great Divide

Trying to close the schism between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy is, I believe, a good thing. As is closing the rift between Anglican and other Protestant religions is also a good thing. The Catholic Church no longer forbids Catholics from attending a Protestant service or reading a Protestant Bible.

Still, Catholics cannot and should not receive Communion or any Catholic sacrament in a non-Catholic church. Catholics cannot substitute a Protestant service for a Catholic Mass unless there is no Mass available. Actually, with the advent of technology, live streaming Masses are provided. All Catholic sacraments are the purview of only the Catholic Church and, under certain circumstances, the Eastern Christian Orthodox Churches. Receiving Communion in a Protestant church is not a substitute for Communion in a Catholic Church. That hasn’t changed, nor do I think that it should.

However, as I write this, I’m reminded of other Vatican II changes in the Catholic Church regarding the admitting of married Anglican male ministers into the Catholic Church’s priesthood.  I think that’s a good thing for the Catholic as well as the Anglican communities.  Whether that somehow signifies a breach in the Catholic Church’s position on married priests, I’m not sure.  I would go to Mass and receive Communion from a married Catholic priest as quickly as I would from a celibate Catholic priest.  However, many traditional Catholics take umbrage with that idea.

Speaking of tradition, it seems that the whole discussion about Vatican II stems from disagreements between Church Traditionalists vs. Church Progressives. I think the goal of Vatican II was to make things easier for non-Catholics to become Catholics. All of these kinds of changes occurred due to Vatican II, and I think that’s all good. I honestly do not believe that Jesus had in mind that there would be hundreds of denominations of Christian followers. He built His Church with His apostles.  I think his idea was “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”

Jewish Blame

Vatican II addressed several other issues that needed to be brought out and put to rest.  People cannot charge the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus in His day against all the Jews of His day, nor can they be assigned to today’s Jews. That is ludicrous. It wasn’t all the Jews who wanted Jesus crucified; it was the high priests and some of their crowd plants that shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him.” That is like saying that all Germans past and present are guilty of the Holocaust. That’s nonsense! We are not responsible for someone else’s wrongdoing, mostly if that wrongdoing was ancestral. If that were the case, every American who had a European ancestor would be accountable for the genocide of native American Indians! Every white American today would be responsible for black slavery of yesterday.

Women’s Roles and Activist Clergy

Women’s roles in the Catholic Church include singing, reading, lecturing, Eucharistic ministers, and altar servers.  Nuns were able to shed their habits and clothe themselves in a similar way to the people they were serving.

When nuns (and male clergy) have the freedom to shed their habits, they shed their religious born inhibitions and become civil rights and anti-war activists. Today nuns are an active force in dealing with pro-life issues, women’s rights, and other social causes. As far as the Catholic Church was concerned, this shift was nothing short of revolutionary. I’m not sure if we will ever see a female Roman Catholic priest, but anything is possible. These changes came out of a progressive-leaning Vatican II, and I think for good! Remember, we are talking of the 1960s, which was an era of social and political activism!

The Mass

Saying the Mass in the people’s language, and not only in Latin, was a tremendous shift in the Catholic Church. The Mass is not expressed by a priest whose back is always to you and whose words no one could understand. Now the priest faces you and welcomes you to celebrate the Liturgy with him in your language and with your full participation.

That simple shift has made millions of the faithful a more participatory worshiper at Mass. We should not be robots at Mass. We need to be actively involved in the Liturgy of the Mass. Vatican II sought to engage people in the Mass and not make it so confusing that it became a tedious, meaningless exercise. Mass should never be boring nor pointless! Good grief! We worship a living, vibrant Jesus, not a 2000-year-old dust-covered myth!

That vernacular shift did not go without some disagreement amongst the voting clergy who participated in Vatican II; many wanted Latin to remain the language of the Mass. I think keeping the Latin Mass is part of traditional Catholicism and should never be discarded. It should be maintained, added to parishes’ liturgical Mass schedules. Why not have a particular Mass on a Sunday morning be said in Latin? I for one would welcome such a tradition at my parish. Who knows how many Catholics yearn for traditional Latin Masses?

As I mentioned earlier, Pope John XXIII heralded the proposed program for Vatican II as an “aggiornamento.”   Some church leaders in attendance found “aggiornamento” too progressive and called for a move back to pre-Council of Trent ways. The rival term used was “ressourcement,” which meant returning to earlier sources, traditions, and first Church symbols. The Second Vatican Council did encourage a back-to-basics movement that included a renewal of the scriptural reading of the Bible rather than relying solely on devotional writings, booklets, and the Catholic saints’ lives. Why not have both “aggiornamento” and “ressourcement”?

Priestly Training

A firm emphasis on priestly training was encouraged by Vatican II participants. They wrote in the document Optatam Totius that the Catholic Church’s renewal was dependent upon the ministry of priests. Thus, priests’ training is of paramount importance, and that each country should establish programs for such activity that would be sanctioned by the Holy See. They called for an increase in spiritual vocations with the setting up of major seminaries. After careful screening of religious candidates, rigorous spiritual training should follow. Training should not end with ordination. It should continue through local and country conferences, meetings, retreats, and worldwide synods.

The Holy Eucharist

Vatican II describes the Holy Eucharist as an essential part of our relationship with Jesus Christ.  The Council’s document Sacrosanctum Concilium says that Holy Communion is how we, as Catholics, receive the body and blood of Christ; it is our spiritual nourishment, and as such, it is the foundation of our Holy Church. There seems to be much debate in how a Catholic receives Holy Communion. Traditionalists feel the priest should give it on the tongue; progressives think the priest should give it in the recipient’s hand. I think the only thing that matters is receiving the Body and Blood of Christ as often as you can and in any way you can.

A Most Important Document: The Catechism of the Catholic Church

One of the most significant results of Vatican II, if not the most influential, was the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992. Twenty-plus years after Vatican II, Pope John Paul II convened a commission of 12 headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to prepare a draft of the Catechism. This publication was deemed needed during Vatican II and frequently mentioned in the many synods since Vatican II. The commission worked on it for about ten years. On 11 October 1992, the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, in the fourteenth year of his Pontificate, Pope St. John Paul II presented its completion. After the presentation, he added:

The principal task entrusted to the Council by Pope John XXIII was to guard and present better the precious deposit of Christian doctrine, in order to make it more accessible to the Christian faithful and to all people of good will. (St John Paul II, Fidei Depositum, 11 October 1992, Introduction)

What Next?

Writing in the RI Catholic, Father John A. Kiley’s Opinion calls for revisiting documents of Vatican II.  “The upheaval (yes, upheaval) that followed Vatican II came from paying too much attention to contemporary secular trends and social movements—thus allowing the profane world to set the Church’s schedule. They gave too little attention to re-discovering and re-appreciating the divine direction implanted within the Church from its apostolic start.

“Half a century after Vatican II, the challenge is not to return to Trent but rather to return to the documents of Vatican II themselves to ponder what they truly said and enact what they taught. The contemporary Catholic world does not need another Congress of Vienna nor another Council of Trent.”

Final Comment

There’s much more to Vatican II, and if you want to read all 16 Documents, you can find them here. I agree with Father Kiley. We, as Catholics, don’t need another Vatican II gathering.  We need to spend more time on each document’s essence and how each document impacts everyday people. I believe a revisiting of Vatican II documents will positively affect clergy and laity; the effect will be a more knowledgeable and understanding Catholic Christian community.

But there is another pressing need. Roman Catholicism is hemorrhaging with people leaving the Church, closing down schools and churches, struggling with the dwindling number of participants in the faith, and dealing with the “nones.”  If the phenomena of shrinking followers were not enough of an evangelizing dilemma, then the public split within the Catholic Church by conservative and progressive elements has added more confusion. Is it not possible to foster “aggiornamento” and “ressourcement”?

Is the Christian doctrine that came out of the Councils of Vatican II and written in our Catechism precious enough to instill in us a desire to evangelize it and make it more accessible to the faithful?  Or, should it be thrown out the window in its entirety because, as Archbishop Vigano calls it, it was a “devil council”?

What do you think of Vatican II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church?