Vatican II

Context

When John XXIII (formerly Angelo Roncalli) gave notice of the Second Vatican Council only a few months after his election to office (on October 28, 1958), few anticipated the momentous changes that would follow. But the new pope radiated a personal approachability far removed from his predecessor (Pius XII), and his incorporation of a plea to non-Catholic Christians to join with Rome in seeking organic Christian unity signaled a noteworthy departure from the Roman Catholic Church’s earlier emphasis on ecumenical reunion not through dialogue between churches but solely as a process of conversion by non-Catholics to a belief in the authenticity of Rome’s claims to primacy.

The seemingly revolutionary character of the council should not be overstated. A century earlier, the Church had considered itself in the forefront of resistance to a liberal revolution, marked not only by the political ascendancy of the bourgeoisie in much of western Europe but also by an emphasis on personal liberty in religious matters and on scientific approaches to biblical scholarship. The classic response was Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864), which condemned many—if not most—aspects of classical liberalism. By the early twentieth century, however, such defensiveness was giving way to a flowering of Catholic interest in modern biblical scholarship, liturgical renewal, and ministries undertaken and directed primarily by laypeople rather than clergy. Although the pace of change varied from nation to nation, after 1933 the threat posed by German National Socialism also forced the Church to abandon its earlier resolve to stand aloof from secular politics.

During World War II and in the years immediately following, further dramatic changes in the character of Western Catholicism took place. The Church’s willingness to negotiate concordats (agreements securing it privileged status from the state) with totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Spain during the 1920s and 1930s had compromised it in the eyes of many liberals who came to prominence in Europe’s postwar governments. As lay Catholics came to play an increasing role in the emerging Christian Democrat parties in France, Germany, and Italy, moreover, they increasingly voiced a language of religious pluralism that sat uncomfortably with the ethos prevailing in the corridors of the Vatican.

The new world of the 1950s brought other changes that did not sit comfortably with the earlier Catholic ethos. Suburbanization—particularly in countries with a long tradition of Catholic immigration—produced a new type of college-educated Catholic, increasingly resistant to notions of subordination to clerical authority and desirous of carving out a separate sphere of lay activity. Such Catholics were encouraged by a postwar generation of parish priests, many of whom were proponents of participatory liturgical worship and wanted the Church to a play more active role in the struggles against poverty, racism, and injustice.

As the pace of decolonization increased during the 1950s, moreover, the Church witnessed the emergence of new Catholic indigenous leadership in Africa and Asia. Without in any way calling into question the ultimate authority of the papacy, third-world bishops sought a degree of discretion in implementing the mission of the Church that took account of the unique gifts and problems of their particular region. Increasingly aware of the diversity of Catholicism, many bishops—not all of them from the third world—would use their time at the council to articulate a vision of episcopal collegiality (that is, the pope and the bishops acting together) that had not been seen in Western Catholicism for over a century. The final documents promulgated were the product of the bishops assembled in council expressing approval (or disapproval) of what had been presented to them, a far more participatory process than had been the case at the First Vatican Council.