The decisions taken during and after the 60s Synod are so stupid they defy belief

 

Chapter 4

The Course of The Council

38. The opening address. Antagonism with the world. Freedom of the Church.

The opening speech of the council, made by John XXIII on 11 October 1962, is a complex document, and there is evidence that this is partly because the Pope’s thought is given in a version influenced by someone else. Even the establishment of the precise text gives rise to canonical and philological problems. To give the gist of it, we will present the substance of what it says under a few headings.

In the first place, the speech begins with an energetic reaffirmation of the aut aut¹ presented to men by the Catholic Church which, by ordering the things of time to an eternal destiny, rejects neutrality or ambivalence as between the world and the life of heaven. As well as citing the prophetic text of Luke 2:34 which says that Christ will be a sign of contradiction, for the rise and fall of many, the Pope also cites the even more decisive text of Luke 11:23: Qui non est mecum, contra me est.² These texts were never again cited in conciliar documents, because the council proceeded to seek out those aspects of life upon which the world and the Church can meet and unite their efforts, rather than those upon which they are opposed and clash. The perfect conformity of this part of the opening address with Catholic thinking is also apparent when the Pope asserts “that men have the duty to move toward the acquisition of heavenly goods, whether taken individually, or socially united”: this is the traditional concept of the absolute lordship of God, which not only affects human affairs at the individual level, but at the level of societies, and which creates the religious obligations of the state.

The second outstanding point in the speech is the condemnation of the pessimism of those who “see only ruin and calamity in modern times.” The Pope admits there is a general alienation from concern for spiritual things discernible in the behavior of the modern world, but believes it to be counterbalanced by the advantage that “the conditions of modern life have removed those innumerable obstacles by which the children of the world once impeded the free action of the Church.” The historical reference could have two meanings, and it is unclear whether, on the one hand, the Pope was thinking of the improper interference which the Empire and the absolute monarchies used to exert in the Church when everything ultimately depended on religion, or whether, on the other, he was thinking of the harassment the Church has been subjected to by liberal states since the eighteenth century, in an age in which the exclusion of religion from the civil sphere has brought society to its present condition. It would seem he had the former in mind rather than the latter, but it should be remembered that the Church continually struggled, both theoretically and practically, against subordination to the civil power, particularly in the matter of the appointment of bishops and investiture of ecclesiastical property. One need only remember how much these things were deplored by Rosmini.

Even the so-called right of veto in papal elections was only a pragmatic concession and was treated as null and void on several occasions, as at the conclaves which elected Julius III (1550), Marcellus II (1555), Innocent X (1644), and was abolished after the one which elected St. Pius X (1903); that is, whenever courage prevailed over political considerations.

The Popes optimistic assessment of the Church’s present freedom is certainly in accordance with facts where the Roman Church itself is concerned, freed as it is from the yoke of its temporal rule, but is cruelly contradicted by the reality of the Church’s circumstances in many countries, where it is today in chains. Indeed, the striking absence of whole episcopates, prevented by their governments from coming to the council was something the Pope could not but deplore; he confessed he “felt a very real sorrow at the absence we note here today of many bishops, imprisoned for their faithfulness to Christ.” One should also remember that the unfortunate servitude which sometimes arose in past centuries was an aspect of the mutual compenetration of religion and society, and resulted from an insufficiently clear mutual ordering of religious and civil values, which were treated as an indivisible whole, structured by religion. The present freedom proceeds, on the contrary, from a delegitimization of the Church’s authority in the minds of the men of the age, overcome as they are by their quest for well-being, and by doctrinal indifference.

When one is talking about the liberty of the council, the salient and half secret point that should be noted is the restriction on the councils liberty to which John XXIII had agreed a few months earlier, in making an accord with the Orthodox Church by which the patriarchate of Moscow accepted the papal invitation to send observers to the council, while the Pope for his part guaranteed the council would refrain from condemning communism. The negotiations took place at Metz in August 1962, and all the details of time and place were given at a press conference by Mgr Schmitt, the bishop of that diocese.³ The negotiations ended in an agreement signed by Metropolitan Nikodim for the Orthodox Church and Cardinal Tisserant, the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, for the Holy See. News of the agreement was given in France Nouvelle, the central bulletin of the French communist party, in the edition of 16-22 January 1963 in these terms: Parce que le système socialiste mondial manifeste d’une façon incontéstable sa superiorite et qu’il est fort de l’approbation de centaines et centaines de millions d^’hommes, l’Eglise ne peut plus se satisfaire de l’anticommunisme grossier. Elle a même pris l‘engagement à l’occasion de son dialogue avec l’Eglise orthodoxe russe, qu’il n’y aurait pas dans le Concile d’attaque directe contre le régime communiste.⁴On the Catholic side, the daily La Croix of 15 February 1963 gave notice of the agreement, concluding: A la suite de cet entretien Mgr Nicodème accepta que quelquun se rende a Moscou pour porter une invitation, à condition que soient données des garanties en ce qui concerne Vattitude apolitique du Concile.⁵

Moscow’s condition, namely that the council should say nothing about communism, was not therefore a secret, but the isolated publication of it made no impression on general opinion, as it was not taken up by the press at large and circulated; either because of the apathetic and anaesthetized attitude to communism common in clerical circles, or because the Pope took action to impose silence in the matter. Nonetheless the agreement had a powerful, albeit silent, effect on the course of the council when requests for a renewal of the condemnation of communism were rejected in order to observe this agreement to say nothing about it.

The truth about the Metz agreements was impressively confirmed recently in a letter from Mgr Georges Roche, who was Cardinal Tisserant’s secretary for thirty years. This Roman prelate spoke publicly on the matter in order to vindicate Cardinal Tisserant of the charges made against him by Jean Madiran, and he entirely confirmed the existence of the agreement between Rome and Moscow, adding that the initiative for the talks was taken by John XXIII personally, at the suggestion of Cardinal Montini, and that Tisserant a reçu des ordres formels, tant pour signer I’accord que pour en surveiller pendant le Concile Vexacte execution.⁶

So it was that the council refrained from condemning communism, and in its Acta the very word, which had been so frequent in papal documents up to that moment, does not occur. The great gathering made specific statements about totalitarianism, capitalism and colonialism, but hid its opinion on communism inside its generic judgment on totalitarian ideologies.

The weakening of the logical sense, which is characteristic of the spirit of the age, has taken from the Church too its repugnance to mutually contradictory assertions. The opening speech of the council lauds the freedom of the contemporary Church at a time when, as the speech itself recognizes, many bishops are in prison for their faithfulness to Christ and when, thanks to an agreement sought by the Pope the council finds itself bound by a commitment not to condemn communism. This contradiction, although important, remains nonetheless secondary in comparison to that fundamental contradiction by which the renewal of the Church is based on an opening to the world, while the most important, essential and decisive of the world’s problems, namely communism, is left out of account.

1.“Either or.”
2. “Whoever is not with Me is against Me.”
3. See the newspaper Le Lorrain, 9 February 1963.
4. “Because the world socialist system is showing its superiority in an uncontestable fashion, and is strong through the support of hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer be content with crude anti-communism. As part of its dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, it has even promised there will be no direct attack on the communist system at the council”
5. “Following on this conversation, Mgr Nikodim agreed that someone should go to Moscow carrying an invitation, on condition that guarantees were given concerning the apolitical attitude of the council”
6. Mgr Roche’s letter in Itineraires, No.285, p. 153. “Received explicit orders, both as to the signing of the accord and to ensuring that it was fully observed during the council.”
7See the cited Concordantiae, where the word communism never appears.

39. The opening speech. Ambiguities of text and meaning.

The third subject in the Pope’s speech concerns the very hinge on which the council turns: how Catholic truth can be communicated to the modern world “pure and whole, without attenuations or alterations, but at the same time in such a way that the minds of our contemporaries are aided in their duty of assenting to it.”

Anyone studying the matter is confronted at this point with an unexpected obstacle. When it comes to a Pope’s words, the official text which has the status of expressing his thoughts is as a rule the Latin alone. No translation has this authority unless it has been recognized as official. That is why the OsservatoreRomano always states that a private translation is being given when it prints its Italian translation after the Latin text. Given the fact, however, that the Latin text is the work of a group of translators working on a text originally drawn up by the Pope in Italian, it would seem legitimate to appeal to the original wording, where that is known, and to take that as a criterion for interpreting the Latin. One would thus reverse the authority of the two texts, giving preference to the Italian version, which is in fact the original, rather than to the official Latin, which is in fact a translation. Philologically this reversal is legitimate, but canonically it is not, because it is the policy of the Apostolic See that its thought is contained in the Latin wording alone.

Now, the discrepancies between the Latin text of the opening speech and its Italian version are such as to change its meaning. It also happens that in subsequent theological writing the Italian, rathet than the official Latin, has been followed. The discrepancy is so great that we seem to be presented with a paraphrase rather than a translation. The original says the following: Oportet ut haec doctrina certa et immutabilis cui fidele obsequium est praestandum, ea ratione pervestigetur et exponatur quam tempora postulant.⁸The Italian translation carried by the Osservatore Romano of 12 October 1962, and subsequently reproduced in all the Italian editions of the council texts, reads: Anche questa però studiata ed esposta attraverso le forme dell’indagine e delta formulazione letteraria delpensiero moderno.⁹The French version likewise says: La doctrine doit etre etudiee et exposée suivant les méthodes de recherche et de presentation dont use la pensée moderne.¹⁰

The differences between the original and the translations are inescapable. It is one thing to say that a new consideration and exposition of perennial Catholic doctrine should be carried out in a manner appropriate to the times (a broad and all embracing idea); and quite another that it should be carried out following contemporary methods of thought, that is contemporary philosophy. For example: it is one thing to present Catholic doctrine in a manner appropriate to the citeriorità (Diesseitigkeit)¹¹ peculiar to the contemporary state of mind, and quite another that it should be considered and expounded following that same mentality. For the approach to the modern mentality to be made correcdy, one should not adopt the methods, let us say, of marxist analysis or existentialist phenomenology, but rather, formulate the Catholic opposition to the modern mentality in the most effective manner.

In short, the question here is the one the Pope passes to in the following section, “how to repress error.” We will discuss this in the following section. But not without first making some remarks in passing. First, the difference of meaning arising from the discrepancy in the translations witnesses to the loss of that accuracy which used to characterize the Curia in the drawing up of its documents. Second, the difference in meaning resurfaced in the Pope’s subsequent addresses, as he quoted his words of 11 October sometimes in Latin and sometimes in translation.¹² Third, the variant contained in the translations, which was soon spread about to the detriment of the Latin version and made the basis of discussion on the subject, contradicts the original, whereas the translations agree among themselves. This agreement gives ground for speculating that there may have been an attempt, whether spontaneous or organized, to give the speech a modernizing meaning which may not have been in the Pope’s mind.

8. “It is appropriate that this certain and unchangeable doctrine, to which faithful loyalty must be shown, should be examined and expounded in the manner which the times demand.”
9. “But this too should be studied and expounded through the forms of enquiry and of literary expression belonging to modern thought.”
10. This doctrine ought to be studied and expounded following the methods of research and presentation which modern thought uses.”
11. “Hitherness, this-sidedness,” i.e., immanence or this-worldliness. [Translator’s note.]
12. Mgr Villot, auxiliary bishop of Lyons, confirms in Echo-Liberté of 13 January 1963 that the Pope quoted himself in the Italian version in his Christmas address to the cardinals.

40. The opening speech. A new attitude towards error.

The passage in the speech which distinguishes between the unchangeable substance of Catholic teaching and the changeability of its expressions, gives rise to the same uncertainty. The official text reads as follows: Est enim aliud ipsum depositum fidei, seu veritates, quae veneranda doctrina nostra continentur, aliud modus quo eaedem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eadem-que sententia. Huic quippe modo plurimum tribuendum est, et patientia si opus fuerit, in eo elaborandum, scilicet eae inducendae erunt rationes res exponendo, quae cum magisterio, cuius indoles praesertim pastoralis est, magis congruant.¹³The Italian translation reads: Altra è la sostanza dell’antica dottrina del “depositum fidei” e altra è la formulazione del suo rivestimento, ed è di questo che devesi con pazienza tener gran conto, tutto misurando nella forma e proporzione di un magistero a carattereprevalentemente pastorale.¹⁴

The divergence is so great as to admit of only two hypotheses: either the Italian translator was attempting a paraphrase, or the translation is in fact the original text. If the Italian is the original, it must have appeared convoluted and imprecise (what in fact is “the formulation of its clothing”?) so that the Latin translator tried to gather its general sense and, being dominated by traditional ideas, failed to notice how great a novelty the original version contained. What is very noticeable is the omission of the words eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia which are an implicit quotation of a classic text of St. Vincent of Lerins, and which are bound up with the Catholic understanding of the relation between the truth to be believed and the formula in which it is expressed.

In the Latin text John XXIII is simply reaffirming that dogmatic truth admits of a variety of forms of expression, but that the variety concerns the act of communication, and never the truth communicated. The Pope’s thinking, as he specifically asserts, is a continuation of the teaching that “shines forth in the conciliar decrees of Trent and Vatican I.”

The attitude to be adopted in regard to error is on the other hand a definite novelty, and is openly announced as being a new departure for the Church. The Church, so the Pope says, is not to set aside or weaken its opposition to error, but “she prefers today to make use of the medicine of mercy, rather than of the arms of severity.”¹⁵ She resists error “by showing the validity of her teaching, rather than by issuing condemnations.” This setting up of the principle of mercy as opposed to severity ignores the fact that in the mind of the Church the condemnation of error is itself a work of mercy, since by pinning down error those laboring under it are corrected and others are preserved from falling into it. Furthermore, mercy and severity cannot exist, properly speaking, in regard to error, because they are moral virtues which have persons as their object, while the intellect recoils from error by the logical act that opposes a false conclusion. Since mercy is sorrow at another’s misfortune accompanied by a desire to help him,¹⁶ the methods of mercy can only be applied to the person in error, whom one helps by confuting his error and presenting him with the truth; and can never be applied to his error itself, which is a logical entity that cannot experience misfortune. Moreover, the Pope reduces by half the amount of help that can be offered, since he restricts the whole duty of the Church regarding the person in error to the mere presentation of the truth: this is alleged to be enough in itself to undo the error, without directly opposing it. The logical work of confutation is to be omitted to make way for a mere didas-calia¹⁷ on the truth, trusting that it will be sufficient to destroy error and procure assent.

This papal teaching constitutes an important change in the Catholic Church, and is based on a peculiar view of the intellectual state of modern man. The Pope makes the paradoxical assertion that men today are so profoundly affected by false and harmful ideas in moral matters that “at last it seems men of themselves,” that is without refutations and condemnations, “are disposed to condemn them; in particular those ways of behaving which despise God and His law.” One can indeed maintain that a purely theoretical error will cure itself, since it arises from purely logical causes; but it is difficult to understand the proposition that a practical error about life’s activities will cure itself, since that sort of error arises from judgments in which the non-necessary elements of thought are involved. This optimistic interpretation of events, asserting that at last error is about to recognize and correct itself, is difficult enough to accept in theory; but it is also bluntly refuted by facts. Events were still maturing at the time the Pope spoke, but in the following decade they came to full fruition. Men did not change their minds regarding their errors, but became entrenched in them instead, and gave them the force of law. The public and universal acceptance of these errors became obvious with the adoption of divorce and abortion. The behavior of Christian peoples was entirely altered thereby and their civil legislation, until recently modeled on canon law, was changed into something completely profane no longer having a shade of the sacred about it. On this point, papal foresight indisputably failed.¹⁸

13. “The deposit of faith itself, or the truths which are contained in our venerable doctrine, are one thing; the manner in which they are set forth, though with the same sense and the same meaning, is another. Much attention must be given to this matter, and patience if needed be in elaborating it; that is, in the exposition of the subject, those considerations which are most in accordance with the predominantly pastoral character of the magisterium should be given prominence.”
14. “The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, the formulation of its clothing is another, and much attention must be patiently given to this fact, everything being measured in accordance with the predominantly pastoral character of the Church’s teaching office.”
15. During the preparation of the Roman synod, which maintained the Church’s traditional teaching methods, the Pope had already accepted the suggestion that some norms should be relaxed, and had said to Mgr Felici (who recounts the event in O.R. of 25 April 1981): “The imposition of rules is not liked these days.” He does not say “is of no use,” but “is not liked.”
16. Summa Theologica, II,II,q.30,a.l.
17. “Direct instruction.”
18. This change entirely escaped the attention of the O.R. of 21 November 1981, in its article Puntifermiper camminare con la storia which, analyzing Italian legislation during the previous thirty years, notices only “the wonderful evolutionary and adaptive capacity” of the legislation itself.

41. Rejection of the council preparations. The breaking of the council rules.

As we have said, a distinctive feature of Vatican II is its paradoxical outcome, by which all the preparatory work that usually directs the debates, marks the outlook and foreshadows the results of a council, was nullified and rejected from the first session onward, as successive spirits and tendencies followed one upon another. This departure from the original plan did not happen as a result of a decision made by the council itself, operating within its duly established rules, but by an act breaking the council’s legal framework, which although not prominent in accounts given of these events, is now certain in its main outlines.¹⁹

When the schema on the sources of revelation which the preparatory commission had drawn up came under discussion at the thirty-third session, the doctrine it propounded aroused a lively difference of opinion, although it had already been sifted by numerous meetings of bishops and experts. Those Fathers who were more attached to the Tridentine formula stating that revelation is contained in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus,²⁰  taken as two sources, found themselves at odds with those who were keen to reaffirm Catholic doctrine in terms less unpalatable to those separated brethren who reject tradition. The very lively disagreement between the two groups led to a proposal on 21 November that discussion should be discontinued and the schema entirely redrafted.²¹ When the votes had been collected, it was discovered that the move to suspend discussion did not have the two-thirds majority that the council’s rules required on all procedural questions. The secretary general therefore reported that: “The results of the voting mean that the examination of individual chapters of the schema under discussion will be continued in the coming days.” However, at the opening of the thirty-fourth session on the following day, it was announced in four languages as well as Latin that, in view of the prolonged and laborious debate which might be expected, the Holy Father had decided to have the schema recast by a new commission, in order to shorten it and to make the general principles defined by Trent and Vatican I stand out better.

This intervention, which at one blow reversed the council’s decision and departed from the regulations governing the gathering, certainly constituted a breaking of the legal framework and a move from a collegial to a monarchical method of proceeding. I do not go so far as to say this breaking of procedure marked the beginning of a new doctrine, but it did signify the beginning of a new doctrinal orientation. The behind the scenes activity which led to this sudden change in papal policy is today public knowledge,²² but it is considerably less important than the exercise of power superimposing itself on the due legal structure of the council. The result of the vote could have been challenged by the Pope if there had been a fault in procedure, or if a change in the rules had been introduced, as in fact happened under Paul VI, who decreed a simply majority would do. In the circumstances in which it happened, however, this intervention constituted a classic case of a Pope imposing his authority on a council, and is all the more remarkable in that the Pope was at that time portrayed as a protector of the council’s freedom. The exercise of authority was not, however, something the Pope did on his own initiative, but the result of complaints and demands by those who treated the two-thirds majority required by the council rules as a “legal fiction” and ignored it in order to get the Pope to accept the rule of a bare majority.

19. This salient fact about Vatican II is always passed over in silence. M. Giusti, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archive, makes no mention of it, writing on the twentieth anniversary of the work of the preparatory commission.
20.“In written books and in unwritten traditions.” Session IV of the Council of Trent.
21. One must admit that the official account given in the O.R. has a comical flavor to it: “all the Fathers recognize the schema has been studied with the greatest care, being the fruit of the work of theologians and bishops from a great variety of nations.” How then could it be decided that it was unfit to be advanced?
22. It is clear from the very objective account of this episode given by Phillipe Delhaye in the Ami du Clerge, 1964, pp.534-5, that that night, towards ten o’clock, Pope John received Cardinal Leger and the Canadian bishops, and that there were discussions between Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Bea, spokesmen for the two conflicting schools of thought.  

42. The breaking of the Council’s legal framework, continued.

The predominantly modernizing tendency of the council, which was responsible for the rejection of three years’ preparatory work carried out under Pope John’s aegis, was apparent even in the very first meeting on 13 October. That day, the council was due to elect its members (sixteen out of twenty-four) on the ten commissions which were to examine the draft documents drawn up by the preparatory commission. The council secretariat had distributed copies of the ten requisite forms, each having blank spaces in which to write the names chosen. It had also published the list of the members of the preconciliar commissions from whom the drafts had come. This procedure was obviously designed to favor an organic continuity between the drafting stage and the formulation of the final documents. This is in accordance with traditional practice. It also answers a very urgent need, since nobody can better present a document than those who have studied, refined and finally drafted it. Nor did it prejudice the electors’ freedom, since they remained completely at liberty to set aside the members of the preconciliar commissions when choosing those who were to form the conciliar ones. The only objection which could be made was that since the council had opened only three days earlier, an election might appear to be unduly hasty and insufficiently considered, given that the members of the vast and heterogeneous gathering knew each other so little.

To a good number of Fathers, this procedural step seemed to amount to an attempt to force the issue, and was resented in consequence. Cardinal Achille Liénart, one of the nine presidents of the council, voiced their point of view at the opening of the session. When he had asked the president of the session, Cardinal Tisserant, for permission to speak, and had been refused in accordance with the rules on the grounds that the session had been called in order to proceed to a vote, not in order to debate as to whether a vote should be held, Cardinal Liénart seized the microphone, thus violating due legal process, and read a declaration amidst the applause of many of those present: it was impossible to proceed to a vote without first having information about those to be selected and without there first being consultations among the electors and the national conferences of bishops. The vote did not take place, the session was adjourned, and the commissions subsequently formed contained large numbers of men who had had nothing to do with the preconciliar work.

Cardinal Liénart’s action was regarded by the press as a coup by which the Bishop of Lille inflechissait la marche du Concile et entrait dans l’histoire.²³ All observers recognize his action as a genuinely decisive point in the course of the ecumenical council; one of those points at which history is concentrated for a moment, and whence great consequences flow. Liénart himself interprets the event in his memoirs as a charismatic inspiration, conscious (at least a posteriori) of the effects of his intervention, and keen to exclude the idea that it might have been premeditated or prearranged: Je n’ai parlé que parce que je me suis trouvé contraint de le faire par une force superieure en laquelle je doit reconnaître celle de l’sprit Saint.²⁴ Thus, according to John XXIII, the council was called by command of the Holy Spirit, and the council which John prepared was then promptly turned on its head by the same Holy Spirit, working through a French cardinal. We now have an open confession of this repudiation of the council as originally conceived, from Fr. Chenu, one of the spokesmen of the modernizing school.²⁵ The eminent Dominican, and his brother in the order Fr. Congar, were upset by their reading of the preparatory commissions’ texts, which appeared to them to be abstract, antiquated and foreign to the inspirations of contemporary humanity, and they took action to get the council to go beyond this restricted compass, and to open itself to the world’s requirements, by persuading it to proclaim a new orientation in a message addressed to humanity at large. Fr. Chenu says the message impliquait une critique sévère du contenu et de l’esprit du travail de la Commission officielle préparatoire.²⁶ The text to be put forward in council was approved by John XXIII, and by Cardinals Liénart, Garrone, Frings, Dopfner, Alfrink, Montini and Léger. It emphasized the following points: that the modern world desires the Gospel, that all civilizations contain a hidden urge towards Christ, that the human race constitutes a single fraternal whole beyond the bounds of frontiers, governments and religions, and that the Church struggles for peace, development and human dignity. The text, which was entrusted to Cardinal Lienart, was subsequently altered in some parts, without relieving it of its original anthropocentric and worldly character, but the alterations were not liked by those who had promoted the document in the first place. It was passed by two thousand five hundred Fathers on 20 October. Fr. Chenu’s statement about the effect of the document is significant: Le message saisit efficacement l’opinion publique par son existence même. Les pistes ouvertes furent presque toujours suivies par les délibérations et les orientations du Concile.²⁷

23. “Deflected the course of the council and made history.” Figaro, 9 December 1976. The account of events we have given is based on Lienart’s own memoirs, published posthumously in 1976 under the title Vatican II, by the faculty of theology at Lille. It agrees with the account given by Fr. Wiltgen S.V.D., in The Rhine flows into the Tiber, Paris 1975 (translation of the American edition of 1966), p. 17, which however says nothing about the illegality of the Frenchman’s action.
24. “I only spoke because I felt constrained to do so by a higher force, in which I feel obliged to recognize that of the Holy Spirit.”
25. LCI., No.577, 15 August 1982, p.41. 26 “Implied a severe criticism of the content and the spirit of the work of the official preparatory commission.”
27. “The message managed to seize public attention by its very existence. The paths opened up were almost always followed in the deliberations and orientations of the council.”

43. Consequences of breaking the legal framework. Whether there was a conspiracy.

The consequences which flowed from the events of 13 October and 22 November were very important: a reshaping of the ten conciliar commissions, and the elimination of the whole of the preparatory work, so that of the twenty original schemas, only the one on the liturgy remained. The general spirit of the texts was changed, as was their style, in that they abandoned the classical structure in which disciplinary decrees followed upon a doctrinal section. To a certain extent, the council was self-created, atypical and unforeseen.

At this point, anyone studying the council must ask himself whether the unexpected change in its course was due to a concerted plan made before the council, and outside it, or whether it was an effect of the natural dynamism of the council itself. The former opinion is held by adherents of the traditional, curial school of thought. They go so far as to recall the instance of the latrocinium²⁸ at Ephesus: the holding of a council after its preparations had been destroyed seems to them to be explicable only by concerted action, well organized by a group of very determined men. A conspiracy also seems to be proved by what the French Academician, Jean Guitton, relates of something told him by Cardinal Tisserant.²⁹ When showing Guitton a painting made from a photograph, which depicted Tisserant himself and six other cardinals, the Dean of the Sacred College said: Ce tableau est historique ou plutôt il est symbolique. II represente la réunion que nous avions eu avant l’ouverture du Concile où nous avons décidé de bloquer la première séance en refusant des règles tyranniques établies par Jean XXIII.³⁰ The chief instrument used by the modernizing conspirators, mainly French, German and Canadian, was the working alliance of the bishops from those areas; while the opposing group was the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, dominated by bishops from the Latin world.

One must nevertheless ask whether a conspiracy, in the political sense, is here being confused with the common action natural to members of an assembly who find themselves drawn together by their common opinions and interpretations of history, and thus by a common set of intentions. It is undeniable that any body of individuals which comes together for a particular reason to fulfill some social function, is subject to some influences of some sort or another. Without them, it cannot constitute itself as a true working body, and move from being a multitude of atoms to being an organic group. Influences of this sort have been felt at every council, as part of its structure not as something extraneous, and they do not constitute a defect. Whether all relevant influences arose within the councils themselves in this way, or whether some of them came from outside political interference need not be determined here.

It is well known how great the sway of the Emperor and other sovereigns was at the Council of Trent, and how important papal intervention was too, leading Sarpi to remark with bitter mockery that “the Holy Spirit arrived from Rome in a saddle bag.” At Vatican I Pius IX played a major role, as was appropriate, given that as head of the Church he was also head of the council.

It is the very concept of an assembly, of whatever kind, which implies not only the legitimacy but the necessity of influences of this sort. The existence of an assembly, as such, is the result of a collection of individuals establishing themselves as a unity. What brings about this fusion if not the working of such influences? Violent influences have indeed played their part in history, and according to one school of thought, which we do not accept, it is precisely the violent events, the ruptures rather than the influences properly so-called, which alter the course of what happens. Whatever the answer to that question may be, it is certain that a group of men met together in an assembly can only get beyond the atomistic stage and be shaped by a common thought as a result of a conspiring together of minds. A council, which is a group of men of some standing, in virtue of their merits, learning and disinterestedness, does indeed have a different sort of dynamism from that of the crowd, which Manzoni called a vile body, entered successively by contrary spirits which drive it either towards atrocious injustice and bloodshed, or towards justice and right behavior. It seems to be true, both psychologically and historically, that any gathering becomes an organic whole only if there is a conspiration of minds, giving character and organization to the mass. The truth is so obvious that the Second Vatican Council’s rules recommended, in paragraph No.3 of article No.57, that Fathers of like minds in their theological and pastoral views should form groups to uphold their opinions in council, or have them upheld by their spokesmen.

That there can be unique and privileged moments which determine an entire series of events, and which shape the course of the future, such as were Cardinal Lienart’s action on 13 October and the breaking of the rules on 22 November 1962, is historically and providentially true, as can be seen in our article relating this truth to a famous historical event.³¹

28. “Robbers’council,” of A.D.449.
29. J. Guitton, Paul VI secret, Paris 1979, p. 123.
30. “This picture is historic, or rather, symbolic. It shows the meeting we had before the opening of the council, when we decided to block the first session by refusing to accept the tyrannical rules laid down by John XXIII.”
31. Bollettino Storico della Svizzera italiana, I, 1978, II luganese Carlo Francesco Caselli negoziatore del Concordato napoleonico. Especially the note to p.68.

44. Papal action at Vatican II. The Notapraevia.

John XXIII used his authority to renounce the council that had been prepared, to unleash the radical effects that flowed from that action, and to comply with the direction which the council wanted to take once continuity with its preparatory stages had been broken. Some individual decisions which John XXIII took, without involving the council in them, were of an unusual sort. One such was the inclusion of the name of St. Joseph in the canon of the Mass, to which no changes had been made since the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great. Its addition was promptly and sharply criticized, either on the grounds of its probable anti-ecumenical effect, or because it seemed merely to be satisfying a personal wish of the Pope’s, despite the fact that it had been desired for some time by a good many people in the Church. In practice,³² St. Josephs name was not mentioned for long, and disappeared into the Erebus of oblivion, together with those other of Pope John’s doings that did not find favor with the conciliar consensus.

Although Paul VI generally supported the modernizing tendency in the council, which had made its first appearance in the opening speech, he felt obliged to part company with it and to use his own papal authority at some points in the debate.

The first of these points concerned the principle of collegiality, until then implicit in Catholic ecclesiology, but which the Pope thought should be drawn out explicitly, and which subsequently became one of the chief criteria for reforming the Church. The council’s proposed text on the subject was defective, whether because of the novelty of the subject, or because of the unforeseen nature of the discussion on a matter of which the preparatory commission had said nothing, or because of the delicacy of the relationship between the primacy of Peter and the collegiality of the whole episcopal body. Paul VI decided that the council’s theological commission should issue a Nota praevia which would clarify and formulate what the constitution Lumen Gentium had said about collegiality. The terms of this clarification were such as to put beyond question the Catholic doctrine about the Pope’s primacy over the whole Church and over each of its members individually, in both government and teaching. As the First Vatican Council had said, papal definitions in matters of faith and morals are irreformable ex sese et non ex consensu Ecclesiae³³ and therefore not by consent of the bishops as a college.

The Nota praevia rejects the familiar notion of collegiality, according to which the Pope alone is the subject of supreme authority in the Church, sharing his authority as he wills with the whole body of bishops summoned by him to a council. In this view, supreme authority is collegial only through being communicated at the discretion of the Pope. But the Nota praevia also rejects the novel theory that supreme authority in the Church is lodged in the college together with the Pope, and never without the Pope, who is its head, but in such a way that when the Pope exercises supreme power, even alone, he exercises it precisely as head of the college, and therefore as a representative of the college, which he is obliged to consult in order to express its opinion. This view is influenced by the theory that authority derives from the multitude, and is hard to reconcile with the divine constitution of the Church. Rejecting both of these theories, the Nota praevia holds firmly to the view that supreme authority does indeed reside in the college of bishops united to their head, but that the head can exercise it independently of the college, while the college cannot exercise it independently of the head.

It is difficult to say whether Vatican II’s tendency to release itself from any strict continuity with tradition, and to create for itself atypical forms, customs and procedures, should be attributed to the modernizing spirit which enveloped and directed it, or to the mind and character of Paul VI. Probably each should be attributed its proportionate part in the process. The result was a renewal, or rather an innovation in the Church’s being, which affected structures, rites, language, discipline, attitudes and aspirations, in short the whole face which the Church was to present to the new world. In this regard one should note the peculiar character of the Nota praevia, even as regards its form. In the first place, in the whole history of the Church’s councils, there is no other example of a gloss of this sort being added and organically joined to a dogmatic constitution such as Lumen Gentium. Secondly, it seems inexplicable, after so many consultations, corrections and revisions and the acceptance and rejection of so many amendments, that the council should issue a doctrinal document so imperfect as to require an explanatory note at the very moment of its promulgation. A final curiosity of the Nota praevia is that although it is meant to be read previous to the constitution to which it is attached, it is printed after it.

32. That is, because the Roman Canon is now so rarely used. [Translator’s note.]
33. “Of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church.”

45. Further papal action at Vatican II. Interventions on mariological doctrine. On missions. On the moral law of marriage.

The second papal intervention concerned devotion to Our Lady. The dominant view was that, as something peculiar to the Catholic religion, devotion to Our Lady should be only briefly treated at a council which had given pride of place to the causa unionis. It was thought a single chapter on Our Lady ought to be enough, and the separate schema envisaged by the preparatory commission was not necessary. From its beginning, the council was in fact under the influence of German theological schools, themselves influenced by a Protestant mariology which it was thought undesirable to contradict. Protestantism, like Islam, accords merely a certain reverence to Our Lady, but rejects that full and unique veneration which the Church accords in a very special way to the Mother of Jesus. Among the many titles with which Catholic devotion has surrounded the Virgin some, even most, are the fruit of the poetic imagination and vivid affectionate feelings of Christian peoples, while others presuppose or generate a theological proposition. The Coronation of the Virgin has, for example, been the subject of magnificent works of art, but has not figured in theology; while the Assumption has figured in both art and theology and was finally given dogmatic status by Pius XII in 1950. The grounds for the dogma of the Assumption lie in the profound ontological connections between the unique character of the God-Man and the person of His Mother.

Paul VI wanted one of these many titles, Mother of the Church, to be officially approved in the schema on the Blessed Virgin, or rather in the chapter of the schema on the Church to which the former schema had been reduced. The council wished otherwise. The title is based on both theological and anthropological considerations: since Mary is truly the Mother of Christ, and since Christ is head of the Church and in a sense the “contracted” Church (just as the Church, to use Nicholas of Cusas phrase, is the “expanded Christ”) the step from Mother of Christ to Mother of the Church is beyond criticism. But the majority of the council objected to the proposed proclamation, on the grounds that the title was of the same kind as those that range from the poetic to the speculative, are of uncertain meaning, lack a theological basis, and obstruct the way to Christian unity. Acting on his own authority, the Holy Father proceeded to make the solemn proclamation in his speech closing the third session of the council on 21 November 1964, and was received in silence by an assembly usually quick to applaud.

The Pope’s act gave rise to strong complaints since the title had been struck out of the schema by the theological commission (despite an impressive number of votes in its favor) and the Bishop of Cuernavaca had actually criticized it on the council floor. The incident illustrates the internal dissensions in the council and the anti-papal spirit of the modernizing party. In the face of these facts, one cannot accept an assertion made by Cardinal Bea. He was right when he said that since there had been no specific vote by the council on whether to accord the title to the Virgin or not, it was not fair to oppose the unstated desire of the council to the authoritatively expressed will of the Pope. The Cardinal went beyond the bounds of logic however when he tried to prove the Pope and council were in agreement, by arguing that the title Mater Ecclesiae was implicitly contained in the whole mariological teaching expounded in the constitution. An implicit teaching is, however, a teaching in potentia, and somebody who refuses to make it explicit, that is to teach it in actu, is certainly at odds with somebody who does want it made thus explicit. The statement made by Cardinal Bea, who was one of the opponents, is merely a sign of respect or reparation directed at the Pope. It rests on a sophistical line of argument which would equate the implicit with the explicit, and is designed to rob the incident of its significance. Someone who refuses to make an implicit proposition explicit is not of the same mind as someone who wants it made explicit, because by not wanting it made explicit, the latter does not really want it at all.

The Popes intervention on 6 November 1964, requesting the speedy acceptance of the document on missions, which was principally opposed by bishops from Africa and heads of missionary orders, also revealed the difference of view between the body of the council and its head. The schema was rejected, rewritten and re-presented during the fourth session of the council.

Paul VI’s intervention concerning the doctrine of marriage was both more definite and more serious. Since new theories had been bruited about on the floor of the council, even by cardinals such as Léger and Suenens, which reduced the importance of the procreative purpose of marriage and opened the way to its frustration by elevating its unitive end and the gift of self to an equal or higher level, Paul VI sent the commission four amendments, with orders to insert them in the schema. The illicitness of artificial contraceptives was to be explicitly taught. It was also to be declared that procreation is not an incidental or parallel end of marriage when compared to the expressing of conjugal love, but rather something necessary and primary. All of the amendments were supported by texts from Pius XI’s Casti Connubii, which were also to be inserted. The amendments were accepted but the texts of Pius XI were not.

The question of contraceptives was meanwhile referred to a papal commission and subsequently decided by the encyclical Humanae Vitae of 1968, which we will treat later.³⁴ Thus the conciliar commission excluded the texts of Pius XI, but Paul VI in the end insisted on their being added to the schema that the council approved during its fourth session.

34. See paragraphs 62 and 63.

46. Synthesis of the council in the closing speech of the fourth session. Comparison with St. Pius X. Church and world.

The closing speech of the whole council is in effect the one made by Paul VI on 7 December at the end of the fourth session, since the one he made on 8 December³⁵ is merely salutary and ceremonial. The dominant spirit appears more clearly than it does in the individual interventions which the Pope had made during the course of events. The speech gives a better idea of what was in Pope Paul’s mind than the conciliar texts themselves. The speech has an optimistic air which links it to Pope John’s opening address: the agreement between the Fathers is “marvelous,” the closing session is “stupendous.” The individual parts of the Pope’s summing up are all merged in what might be called the optimistic coloring of the whole; the council is “deliberately very optimistic.” The somber elements, which the Pope cannot but notice, and which he does not fail to mention, are bathed in the glow of an optimistic outlook. Thus the diagnosis of the present state of the world turns out to be ultimately and openly positive. The Pope admits that the Catholic conception of life has been generally dislodged and sees “in the great religions of the peoples of the world too, disturbance and decline of a sort not experienced before.” An exception should perhaps have been made here at least so far as concerns Islam, which has experienced new growth and an increase in morale during the course of this century. The Pope clearly recognizes in the speech that there is a general tendency among modern men towards immanence (Diesseitigkeit) and a growing boredom with any kind of ulteriority or transcendence (Jenseitigkeit). But having made this precise diagnosis of the wavering of the modern spirit, the Pope leaves it all within the realm of mere description, and fails to see in the crisis a fundamental opposition in principle to Catholic axiology, which is fundamentally transcendent.

St. Pius X in his encyclical Supremi Pontificatus had made the same diagnosis as Paul VI, and had also recognized that the spirit of modern man is a spirit of independence which directs the whole of creation towards man himself and aims at man’s own deification. But St. Pius X had also recognized that this-worldliness had the character of a fundamental principle, and had therefore bluntly drawn attention to the antagonism which objectively means that, quite apart from personal illusions or wishes, worldliness will necessarily clash with Catholic principle: the latter sees reality as from God and for God, while the former sees it from man and for man. The two Popes therefore agree in their diagnosis of the state of the world, but differ in the value judgment they make on it. Just as St. Pius X, citing St. Paul³⁶ saw modern man making himself a god and claiming adoration, so Paul VI explicitly says that “the religion of the God Who made Himself man, has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God.” Pope Paul however, ignoring the fact that the confrontation involves rival principles, thinks that thanks to the council the confrontation has not produced a clash, or a struggle, or an anathema, but an immense sympathy and a new attention to the needs of man on the part of the Church. Going on to meet the objection that by bending in the direction of the world, indeed almost running after it, the Church is being deflected from its own theocentric course and moving in an anthropocentric direction, the Pope replies that in so doing the Church is not deviating towards the world but turning towards it. 

At this point one asks oneself: turning towards the world in order to join it, or in order to attract it to the Church? The Church’s duty of proclaiming the truth does indeed derive from her duty of exercising charity towards the human race. The harshness with which doctrinal correction has at times been exercised becomes monstrous if it becomes separated from charity, and if one forgets that there is a caritas severitatis³⁷ as well as a caritas suavitatis. The challenge is to avoid misrepresenting the truth for the sake of charity and to approach modern man in his anthropocentric orbit; but in order to invert his movement, not to reinforce it. There are not two centers of reality, there is a single center and there are epicycles. And I am not sure that Paul VI made it clear enough in his speech that Christian humanism can only serve an instrumental purpose, given that charity cannot accept, even momentarily, as the ultimate goal, what the anthropocentric view holds indeed to be ultimate: the triumph and divinization of man.

The imprecision of the speech is also apparent in its adoption of two contradictory formulas, that is, that “in order to know man, one must know God.” According to Catholic doctrine there is a knowledge of God by natural means which is possible for all men, and a knowledge of God which is revealed only supernaturally. There are likewise two corresponding sorts of knowledge about man. But to assert, without drawing these distinctions, that to know man one must know God and that to know God one must know man, does not establish the well grounded interrelation between the two sorts of knowledge which can be recognized in the Catholic formulation of the matter; it establishes instead a vicious circle in which the mind would find no valid point of departure either for knowing man or for knowing God. This whole line of argument regarding man and God can be extended to the field of loving as well as knowing. In fact the Pope says that in order to love God one must love man, but he is silent about the fact that it is God who makes man lovable and that the reason one is duty bound to love man is that one is similarly bound to love God. 

To sum up, the heart of the final speech lies in the new relation of the Church to the world. In this regard, the closing speech of the council is an extremely important document for anyone wishing to investigate the conciliar changes and the nature of those tendencies underlying the council which post-conciliar developments would accentuate and reveal. These developments are mixed with others deriving from the coexisting but contrasting tendencies which were at work during the council. We will now trace their course in the complex, disturbed and ambiguous tangle of the post-conciliar Church.

35. The last day of the council. [Translator’s note.]
36. II Thessalonians, 2:4.
37. “Severe charity, as well as gentle charity.”