Do We Need a Vatican III?

Arnulfo di Cambio's statue of

Saint Peter in the Vatican Basilica

dressed in papal vestments

Yet another reason why the Church today stands in need of a contemporary Reformation is to clarify the role the Church has in the world.  Vatican II has not been a failure; what has been a failure is in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, a loss of courage as certain individuals have seen the implementation of the vision of the Council would be a threat to their position, their influence, or their personal faith.  Over these years since the Council we have heard many Catholics of weak faith or strong prejudice sound the lament of the Children of Israel for the fleshpots of Egypt.  “We had vocations before the Council.”  “There was reverence for the Eucharist before the Council.” “Churches were full before the Council.”  “We need to go back to the fleshpots of nuns in veils and fish on Fridays and mumbled masses in an arcane language that offer us a sense of ‘mystery’.”  Well, I wish the answers were that simple, but no only do I not want to go back to the slavery of a “faith” in which others will do the thinking for you, but I believe that if we had stood faithful the vision of the Second Vatican Council, the Church would be more vibrantly engaged in its divine mission than ever.  This is precisely the problem.  I obviously am a person who has a positive understanding of the Council and its vision as it was articulated in the papacy of Paul VI.  There are others who see the Council in need of the reinterpretation offered in the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI or who reject Vatican II completely with a return to the doctrine and practice of the pre-conciliar Church.   We have a bifurcated Church, with one branch looking backwards to a world of power and pomp and another looking forward into a new world and a new role for the church in the world.  We need a Reformation that can reestablish a consensus on the Church’s identity and mission.   First, I must say that I am not sure that such a consensus can be restablished, even by a “Vatican III.”  Just as in the years after the Council, let us say from 1965-1982, admittedly a somewhat arbitrary date, there was a small but firm group of Catholics who rejected all or many of the liturgical and canonical changes and the doctrinal developments of the Council;  now, in this period when those very fruits of the Council are being reevaluated, reinterpreted, and in some cases rescinded, there is a group of progressive Catholics, equally firm who cling to the changes and developments of that initial phase with an equal tenacity and are unwilling for any compromise that would turn back the clock one second.  I am not sure whether a reconciliation of these two extreme wings would ever be possible, but I know that we have to try.  We do not need uniformity in order to have unity.  Indeed, wide discretionary differences in non essentials is always a wise policy—though exactly what is discretionary and what is essential is itself a divisive issue.  Perhaps a recovery and a refocusing on spirituality—genuine spirituality not merely a souped-up piety—is the common ground on which we can begin.  Any renewal that is not constructed on a firm scriptural spiritual renewal is pointless and in fact will not succede in the much needed true renewal and reform of the Church.  
      The current situation is tragically reminiscent of the Church’s fateful mistake after the Fifth Lateran Council which was held in Rome from 1512-1517.     This Council, admittedly convoked with reluctance by Julius II—not one of the most holy men to sit on the Throne of Peter—and concluded under his successor, the no better Leo X Medici, passed a substantial corpus of much needed reform legislation.  Given that it concluded in March of 1517 and Luther issued his opening challenge on the last day of October that same year, it probably was too late to have prevented Luther’s Reformation, but had Lateran V been taken seriously and implemented, the doctrines of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, the Anabaptists, Zwingli and others may well not have found Europe a tinder-box and  spread like wildfire.  In fact, the reforms of the Council were never implemented.  Curial prelates and residential bishops alike saw that the mandated reforms undermined their power, their influence, and their wealth.  The price of reform was more than those with an invested interest in the institutional structures of the church were willing to pay.  Bishops, abbots, monks and priests, individuals, religious orders, cathedral chapters, and theological faculties, were granted exemptions, dispensations, and leaves permitting them to escape the onerous burdens of reform mandated by the Council.  All for fees and favors, of course.  As the inn-keeper Thernadier was inclined to sing:
"Doesn't cost me to be nice
But nothing gets you nothing
Everything has got a little price!"   
And so after much fanfare, the Council did not fulfill its dream.  There was a Reform, of course—a whole series of reforms— but reforms and reformers that fractured the unity of the Church in an attempt to restore its purity.  Sometimes today when I am lunching at Da Roberto in the Borgo Pio and I see a Cardinal hosting an Argentine bishop or a Curial Monsignor dining with some wealthy Americans and I note the envelope being passed from supplicant to curial benefactor, I can only think of Luther’s lament: “Everything is for sale in Rome” and reflect that the greatest failure of the Second Vatican Council was its inability to Reform the Curia Romana.    The Curia had never wanted a Council in the first place.  John XXIII sprung it on them without warning.  They protested that an infallible pope had no need of a Council; he could govern by decree.  John knew better, of course, but it did not stop the Curial party from an attempt to seize the Council by drawing up a series of rather pallid and vague decrees that were mostly rhetoric and very little substance.  Their thought was the bishops will come, vote approving our schema, and go home.  The bishops did anything but.  By the end of the first session—what the curial party had thought would be the only session —the bishops had persuaded the pope to restructure the entire Council and its processes to give the bishops full and active participation in both drawing up the decrees to be voted on and then actually voting.  The Council marked a tremendous about face for the Church on any number of issues from ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions to a total revision of the Mass and Sacramental Rites of the Church to articulating an active role for the laity and shared responsibility of the bishops with the Pope in the governance of the Church.  The Curia was alarmed.  They shared responsibility with the Pope for governing the Church.  Who were these bishops to usurp their place?  They were in  panic.  The bishops, or at least a select number of them, would be returning  to Rome on a regular basis for “synods” to advise the pope. But that was their job as the Curia.  They need not have worried.  Bishops go home, curial officials whether mighty Cardinals or merely pezzi-grossi monsignors stay.  Like cockroaches they stay.  They took over preparing the agenda for the synods.  They drafted the interpretation of the Conciliar decrees.  They had 24/7 access to the pope 365 days a years. It took time, but the Curia Romana emerged stronger than ever.  The Bishops gradually lost the power and authority given to them under the Conciliar Decree, Christus Dominus (which I sincerely doubt many bishops even bother to read anymore).  These days the bishops parade to Rome for their ad liminas to be scolded by a series of Monsignors brandishing letters from disgruntled faithful who accuse the bishops of tolerating dissent or being themselves dissenters.  When a synod is convoked, its agenda is prepared in advance by the Curia, speeches are vetted, and a dish of good Roman carbonara is enjoyed by all with a glass of crisp Trebbiano.   I don’t begrudge the pasta and wine, but the need is far more urgent to set a vision which will bring the Church together in mission, the mission of Christ.  Without vision the people perish.  (Proverbs 29:18)