Vatican II at 40

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 12/08/05)

Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, brings with it this year the 40th anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council. According to reports, it may also bring publication of Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical. It would be surprising if that document doesn't take note of the great ecumenical council that ran from 1962 to 1965.

In his first address last April to the cardinals who'd elected him pope, Benedict XVI made it a point to speak of Vatican II. He pledged that its continued carrying-out would be central to his pontificate.

But what does that event four decades ago mean to Catholics today? To some, it's as if it had been held last week — the debates of those heady days still resound in their ears. To others, the council produced a limited number of positive changes — a reformed liturgy, improved relations with Protestants and Jews — but not much else. And, to a few at least, it was all a terrible mistake that shattered precious traditions.

There's another group — probably numerous — for whom the Second Vatican Council signifies almost nothing at all. A dim memory perhaps. Words on a page. A far-off meeting of bishops that took place many years ago. The council may have mattered once but has no relevance now.

Earlier this fall, I had the invigorating experience of conducting an online seminar on Vatican II under the auspices of the Catholic Distance University. For three weeks, 55 or 60 spirited Catholic lay women and men studied the council and dialogued online with one another and with me in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of what the council was all about.

These were Catholic adults of various ages and backgrounds whose participation in the seminar was itself evidence of more than ordinary interest in the Church. Yet many, possibly most, admitted to knowing very little about Vatican II when the seminar began.

"I have learned more about the council in the last three weeks than I had in the last 40 years," one man remarked in his evaluation. A woman who'd attended Catholic elementary and secondary school and two Catholics universities said she was "stunned" at learning out how little she knew about what the council had done.

Reactions like these might not matter if the Second Vatican Council were only a historical event that happened 40 years ago and now can be forgotten. But as Pope Benedict points out, Vatican II continues to be the "today" of the Church. To a great extent, its continued implementation in many areas — the role of the laity, the universal call to holiness, authentic liturgical reform, collegiality, ecumenism — is still the Church's agenda.

Seminar participants, their interest roused, urged Church pastors, from the pope on down, to launch new programs to educate Catholics about the council.

No doubt they should. The first and most important step is something individuals can and should take for themselves: read the 16 documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Yes, I know — they're written in hard-to-understand ecclesiastical prose. But taken a little at a time, together with a reliable guide (I recommend Father Ralph Wiltgen's The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, published by Tan Books), their relevance will emerge.

With the seminar's encouragement, one of my students related, she'd read the council documents for the first time and found "a wealth of inspired guidance that I hope to explore further." As Vatican II turns 40, here's hoping others do the same.

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