Based on a talk given to the Wimbledon Circle in November 2018, exploring the history of Church renewal from Vatican II to Pope Francis, and the tensions between tradition and reform.
This article is based on a talk given to the Wimbledon Circle in November 2018.
In 1206 in the church of San Damiano in Assisi St Francis seemed to hear the Lord speaking to him from the crucifix: "Go, repair my church". What at first seemed like a command to repair that dilapidated building came to be heard as indeed a command to renew the Church. It seems right to reflect on what that renewal means for the Church today, when there are clashes and tensions, and in particular significant criticisms of Pope Francis.
How did we get to this state of affairs? As the 19th century began, the French Revolution had taken place and there was to be further political turbulence for many decades. Remember 1848, the year of revolutions, and the drive for the unification of both Germany and Italy as well. Then there were far-ranging intellectual developments. This was the age of enlightenment, of developments in science, of an awareness of history. It was a time of change.
And the Church reacted, resisting the pressures of those movements. There was a surge in Ultramontanism, a rallying of Catholics around the Pope and resistance to this enthusiasm for change. In 1870 papal infallibility was defined and that definition ushered in an era unlike any other in the Church's history. From 1870 to 1960, for those ninety years, what had been proclaimed at the Council of Trent reached its climax, a vision of the Roman Church as a fortress, the perfect society, secure, exclusive ("We are the one, true Church"), and unchanging. For those born during that time, of course, this exceptional period seemed the norm.
The Second Vatican Council sought, however, to renew the Church which seemed to have become paralytically static. And if there was to be renewal, then by definition there would be change. The change did not emerge from nowhere. The path for the Council's major documents on the liturgy, on revelation, on the Church, and on the Church in the Modern World, had been prepared to a degree by the encyclicals and allocutions of Pope Pius XII.
The drafts of the documents presented to the Council Fathers at Vatican II were, of course, largely rejected and rewritten. But the one document that was accepted from the first was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Its significance cannot be underestimated: "lex orandi lex credendi – the law of how we should pray is the law of how we should believe". The Tridentine liturgy, appropriate for those challenging times, following the Reformation, defended the Church as a hierarchical, clerical system, undergirded by the use of Latin. It was a vision of the Church as perfected, secure, static, exclusive, unchanging. Sacrosanctum Concilium, on the other hand, while affirming plainly the essential importance of communion with Rome, was inclusive, ecumenical, scriptural, catechetical, collegial, and missionary in its outlook.
A threat to the Council's vision
When Pope St Paul VI was asked by his friend, Jean Guitton, whether he would allow the missal of 1962 to Archbishop Lefèbvre and his followers, he replied, "never". Why? "Lex orandi lex credendi". Where there was pastoral need, permission for the former rite was available, but to offer the Tridentine rite as an alternative to what the Council Fathers had agreed at Vatican II would have undermined the vision of the Church that the Council proclaimed. Paul VI would never have issued Summorum Pontificum, the apostolic letter by Pope Benedict in 2007 which allowed traditional Catholics in some circumstances to revive the Tridentine Mass. Pope Paul would have recognised it as a retrograde step.
John O'Malley, the distinguished Jesuit historian, has in a way captured the essence of the Second Vatican Council by describing it as a language event. Language is the key. He contrasts two visions of Catholicism. Is it, for example, a matter of command or invitation, of definition or mystery, of threat or persuasion, of hostility or friendship? Pope Francis is trying to make real a vision of invitation, mystery, persuasion, and friendship. Those who are critical of him are looking for the comfort of the more secure alternative, command, definition, threat, and hostility.
So where do we stand?
A vigorous and valuable discussion followed on renewing the Church in the light of the scandals that are receiving so much public attention. What can we do? How can we do it? It is essential to rebuild trust and that is a slow and painful exercise. But we must not lose hope.