The Church and the world prior to Vatican II

Author’s Note: Hello all. I’m about to take a deep dive into Vatican II, what led up to it, and how the Church changed in its aftermath. Why put this much emphasis on an event that happened 60 years ago? Because as much as we think of the Church as eternal and unchanging, it has changed before.

In my mind, Vatican II was a hinge event that swung the Church from one way of being church to another - from a top down, “command and control” model to a more distributed model. Sixty years after the fact, the changes made at Vatican II are still being understood, implemented, and maybe even reconsidered. 

Will the Church continue along the path it set forth at Vatican II?  Or will it rethink, and course correct, or even reverse course? The Synod on Synodality is very much a continuation of that Vatican II story. 

By the way - one of my most faithful readers (who happens to be an editor and author herself) cautions me that this episode and the one that follows may be too deep a dive into Vatican II for my average reader. If that is true, feel free to skip ahead a week.

(I won’t be offended. But I do hope you’ll come along!)

Let us begin.  As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council. Was Vatican II something that was good for the Church, for the people of God?  Or was it a disaster?  The Catholic Church tends to think of itself in terms of centuries if not millennia, so in that sense, it isn’t surprising that it is still trying to figure things out 60 years after the fact. After reading two books about the Second Vatican Council and biographies of the two presiding popes - John XXIII and Paul VI - I started to understand the back story, and the impact of this momentous event.

Where I would start the story is about 100 years before Vatican II.  The Pope at that time was Pius IX, who was battling "modernity" - a kind of catch-all word for change. So much so that in 1864, Pius IX issued a “Syllabus of Errors,” a document that listed, in no uncertain terms, all the errors that the Church saw in modernity - in science, in politics, in industry, in society, in basically . . . everything and anything that was new! The “Syllabus of Errors” firmly rejected the idea that "the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”

The papacy of that time was large and in charge.  (And I thought “culture wars” was a new thing! It turns out that what we are going through presently has been simmering below the surface, in the Church at least, for over 150 years, with occasional eruptions.)   

One of Pius IX’s more famous statements was "I, I am the tradition; I am the Church." In 1854, Pius IX, this Pope who thought he was the Church, declared Mary's conception "immaculate" with little notice or consultation.  He also set up national seminaries in Rome - Latin American, North American, French, German, and Polish - to ensure Roman training for key clergy.  The Church was at its hierarchical and centralist height.  

In 1869, to secure these, in his mind, necessary changes, Pius IX called the First Vatican Council.   Unlike other synods or church gatherings, no heads of state or theologians (aka lay people) were invited.  Only bishops. This version of the Church seemed to be gazing solely upon itself.  Motivated by equal parts fear and self-interest, this Church turned decisively away from the modern world. It also introduced and endorsed the controversial and questionable idea of "papal infallibility."  

This was a church moving away from a synodal, bishop-led, early church to a church led by a supreme pontiff and the bureaucracy (the Curia) he invested his power in.  Although this trend and its momentum was undeniable, it is also undeniable that not all were in favor of this papal consolidation of power.

And so we come to Pope John XXIII, that elderly, good-natured Pope who had lived through two world wars and the rise of Communism.  Even as the Council began in October of 1962, the world held its breath over the nuclear face-off between the USSR and the US at the Bay of Pigs, Cuba.  Pope John felt something new was necessary.  In order to discern what was needed, he called the Church to a Second Vatican Council.  

Perhaps as much as he feared for the sake of humanity, he also saw that all too often the Church had withdrawn from the world.  He believed what was needed now, in this confusing and dangerous world, was the Church's witness to Christ's love and wisdom.  

However it came about - and I can't disregard the direct influence of the Holy Spirit - something new was about to happen.  The Church was going to do an "examination of conscience" as it were, and penances and new resolutions were about to be undertaken.  The Second Vatican Council, the first Council in the Church in nearly 100 years, was put into motion.