Rev. Ralph Wiltgen: The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II

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THE SECOND SESSION

September 29 to December 4, 1963

OPENING THE SECOND SESSION

In his opening address, on September 29, 1963, Pope Paul VI enumerated four specific objectives of the Second Vatican Council: greater self-awareness by the Church, and understanding of its own nature; renewal within the Church; promotion of Christian unity; and promotion of dialogue with modern man.

The Pope then addressed the observer delegates directly: “We speak now to the representatives of the Christian denominations separated from the Catholic Church, who have nevertheless been invited to take part as observers in this solemn assembly. We greet them from our heart. We thank them for their participation. We transmit through them our message —as a father and a brother—to die venerable Christian communities which they represent.

“Our voice trembles and our heart beats the faster, both because of the inexpressible consolation and reasonable hope that their presence stirs up within us, as well as because of the deep sadness we feel at their prolonged separation.”

Pope Paul also spoke out against religious persecution and political, racial and religious intolerance. Instead of uttering bitter words, however, he preferred “a frank and human exhortation to all who may be responsible for these evils to put aside with a noble heart their unjustified hostility toward the Catholic religion.” He said that Catholics “ought to be considered neither as enemies nor as disloyal citizens, but rather as upright and hard-working members of that civil society to which they belong.” At the same time, he lamented that “atheism is pervading a part of the human race and is bringing in its wake the derangement of the intellectual, moral and social order.”

He also had some words for die great non-Christian religions of the world. “From the window of the Council, opened wide to the world,” the Church looks “beyond its own sphere and sees those other religions which preserve the sense and notion of the one, supreme, transcendent God, Creator and Sustainer, and which worship him with acts of sincere piety and base their moral and social life on their beliefs and religious practices.

It is true that the Catholic Church sees in such religions omissions, insufficiencies and errors which cause it sadness. Yet it cannot exclude them from its thoughts, and would have them know that it esteems the truth and goodness and humanity which they contain.”

Fhe principal concern of the second session, said Pope Paul, was “to examine the intimate nature of the Church and to express in human language, so far as that is possible, a definition which will best reveal the Church s really fundamental constitution and explain its manifold mission of salvation.” It should not come as a surprise, he said, that after twenty centuries there should still be need for the Catholic Church to enunciate a more precise definition of its true, profound and complete nature. Since the Church is “a mystery,” “a reality imbued with the Divine Presence,” it is “ever susceptible of new and deeper investigation.”

The notion of collegiality was the most important aspect of the Church before the Council, said the Pope. He looked forward “with great expectations and confidence to this discussion which, taking for granted the dogmatic declarations of the First Vatican Council regarding the Roman Pontiff, will go on to develop the doctrine regarding the episcopate, its function, and its relationship with Peter.” For him personally, this study, and the conclusions to be drawn from it, would “provide doctrinal and practical standards by which our Apostolic office, endowed though it is by Christ with the fullness and sufficiency of power, may receive more help and support, in ways to be determined, from a more effective and responsible collaboration with our beloved and venerable brothers in the episcopate.”

The thirty-seventh General Congregation—the first business meeting or the second session—opened on the following day, September 30. The first schema before it was the schema on the Church.

At the end of the first session, when that schema had been referred back to the Theological Commission, it had consisted of eleven chapters. Now it consisted of four, headed as follows: “The Mystery of the Church, the Hierarchic Constitution of the Church, with Special Reference to the Episcopate,” “The People of God and the Laity,” and “The Vocation to Sanctity in the Church.”

One of the first items to come up for discussion was the notion of episcopal collegiality, or government of the Universal Church by the Pope in conjunction with the bishops of the world. This was really the core of the entire Second Vatican Council, which was intended to complement the First Vatican Council, in which the primacy of the Pope had been studied in detail and solemnly defined.

In defining the notion of episcopal collegiality, the Council Fathers had to decide: first, whether Christ had intended that, alongside the universal teaching and governing authority of the Pope, there should exist in the Church another body endowed with universal teaching and governing authority—namely, the body of bishops—as successors of the Apostles, according to the constant teaching of the Church; second, if the answer was “yes,” whether all bishops constituted this collegial authority, or only those with dioceses of their own; third, the conditions under which such collegial authority functioned; fourth, the relation between the collegial authority of the bishops and the personal authority proper to the Roman Pontiff.

A problem so complex and many-faceted was bound to elicit various reactions on the Council floor.

Cardinal Siri of Genoa, for instance, maintained that the bishops, “under certain conditions,” certainly constituted a college together with the Roman Pontiff; that was evident from Sacred Scripture and tradition. However, the concept of a college was “strictly juridical” and therefore much more complex than that of a simple association. It implied, in fact, “a juridical solidarity both in being and in action.” Cardinal Siri felt that the wording of the schema should be clearer and better organized, and should be harmonized with what the First Vatican Council had already defined on the papal primacy.

Albert Cardinal Meyer of Chicago supported the statement in the schema that Christ had entrusted his Church to the twelve Apostles as a college, or group. In his view, the text should also state that the office of the Apostles was a permanent one, because of Christ’s, words “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world” (Mt. 28:20), and . . the Father . . . will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever” (Jn. 14:16). The Cardinal cited numerous scriptural texts to show that episcopal collegiality was as clearly stated in the New Testament as was the foundation of the Church on Peter.

Cardinal Leger of Montreal told the assembly that the concept of episcopal collegiality did not weaken the doctrine of the primacy of Peter, since collegiate action required a head, for the sake of unity. He called for a statement in the text that membership in the episcopal college flowed from episcopal consecration; all bishops, whether residential or only titular, belonged to the episcopal college.

Bishop De Smedt, of Bruges, said that episcopal collegiality “had always existed in the Church” and should be emphasized more than ever today in order that “Peter”—the Pope—-might more effectively carry out his function of strengthening his brethren. Former barriers to rapid communication had been removed by scientific progress, he said, and it was therefore desirable and even imperative that the Holy Father, “in matters of graver importance,” should communicate with the other bishops and with episcopal conferences.

Archbishop Staffa, of the Roman Curia, addressed the assembly on the “full and supreme power of the episcopal college.” The question at issue, he said, was whether this power belonged to only one person, or to the entire college. The reply to the question had already been given, he pointed out, by the First Vatican Council, which had defined that only Peter had supreme jurisdiction over the whole Church. He recalled, in that connection, that the relator at Vatican I had said, in explanation of the text on the primacy, that the power of the Pope over the bishops was at all times supreme, immediate, and complete, and that the Pope had that power independently of the bishops. Archbishop Staffa also pointed out that the relator had rejected proposals which would have limited the Pope’s power by placing supreme power in the episcopal college, which included the Pope. The monarchic structure of the Church would thereby have been replaced by an aristocratic structure. As long ago as the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) had written to the Patriarch of Constantinople, saying that Christ had given power in the Church not to others without Peter, but to Peter without others.

At the forty-fourth General Congregation, on October 9, Archbishop Sigaud, of Diamantina, Brazil, called for special caution in the phrasing of episcopal collegiality. The Archbishop, who called himself a traditionalist, said that a comparison of Articles 12, 13, and 16 of the schema made it appear that “some new doctrine” was being taught—namely, that the twelve Apostles, with Peter as head, constituted together a true and permanent college strictly so called, and “even by divine institution.”

The Archbishop feared that most serious consequences would flow from this doctrine. “If by divine institution the bishops and the Pope constitute a true and permanent college, strictly so called, then the Church must habitually and ordinarily (not extraordinarily) be ruled by the Pope with the college of bishops. In other words, the government of the Church, by divine institution, is not monarchical or personal, but collegial.” But the exercise of collegial authority by bishops, as in ecumenical councils, was a rare event in the history of the Church, and must therefore be regarded as an extraordinary—not an ordinary—manner of governing the Universal Church.

The traditional Catholic teaching in the matter, he said, was that every bishop, on his appointment to office by the Pope, “receives the duty and, consequently, the authority of exercising the episcopal office among the faithful committed to him, within the territorial limits indicated to him by the competent authority.” There was a distinction, he pointed out, between acts performed by bishops collectively, and those performed collegially. An example of collective action was the gathering of many bishops of one ecclesiastical province or nation, the efficacy of which was not derived from divine institution and could not be said to have been collegially produced. The decisions of such gatherings had only “a juridical efficacy, that is, they oblige within a diocese only if the Roman Pontiff approves of such decisions as binding by virtue of his own full and universal power; or if the bishop of the diocese concerned, by virtue of his own jurisdiction, approves such decisions as binding for his own diocese.

Two “very dangerous precipices” must be avoided, said Archbishop Sigaud. In the first place, “we must avoid the establishment of some world institution which would be like a permanent ecumenical council, to which some bishops would be elected or delegated by others, and who would carry out the duties of the entire episcopal college. In this way, together with the Roman Pontiff, they would perform acts which were truly collegial, in a habitual and ordinary manner, and their efficacy would be extended by divine institution to the Universal Church.” Such an organism, said the Archbishop, would be a kind of “world parliament” within the Church. But, he pointed out, Christ had most certainly not established such an organism, because for twenty centuries the Roman Pontiffs and bishops had been wholly unaware of it. “On the contrary, it is clear to all that Christ the Lord conferred the supreme government of his Church upon the person of Peter, to be personally exercised, first, indeed, by Peter himself, and then by Peter’s successors.”

Another form of organism was also to be avoided, namely, “some kind of permanent national or regional council, in which a number of bishops of one nation or region would make juridical or doctrinal decisions. The Roman Pontiff would be unable, in practice, to deny assent to these judgments, and thus all bishops of the same nation or region would be bound.” It was clear that “such bodies would present very serious impediments . . . to the exercise of the supreme ordinary power by the Holy Father, and also to that of ordinary power by the individual bishop.”

Archbishop Sigaud had scarcely returned to his place in the Council hall when he received a message from Bishop Carli, of Segni, congratulating him on his address. This was the beginning of a firm friendship between the two prelates. Archbishop Sigaud subsequently introduced Bishop Carli to French-born Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers. The two archbishops had met in the first week of the first session and had formed a piccolo comitato (small committee) aimed at opposing certain ideas which they considered extreme, and which, they felt, were being forced upon many of the Council Fathers by the strong episcopal conferences, especially those of the European alliance. They now invited Bishop Carli to join their midget alliance; the bishop accepted the invitation. Cardinal Dopfner later admitted that there was no bishop at the Council whom he feared more.

In an exclusive interview, Archbishop Lefebvre told me that he saw no threat to the papacy in powerful episcopal conferences, but that he did regard them as a threat to the teaching authority and pastoral responsibility of individual bishops. He could speak on the matter with authority, having founded the national episcopal conferences of Madagascar, Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroun, and French West Africa while serving as Apostolic Delegate for French-Speaking Africa from 1948 to 1959.

It was easy to conceive, said the Archbishop, that “three, four, or five bishops in a national episcopal conference will have more influence than the rest and will take over leadership." This he called “a danger to the teaching and pastoral authority of the individual bishop, who is the divinely constituted teacher and pastor of his flock.” Referring specifically to the conference of archbishops of France, he said that at times this conference would issue a joint statement on social or pastoral questions. “It is then very difficult for an individual bishop to disagree with the public stand that has been taken, and he is simply reduced to silence.” Archbishop Lefebvre called this “a new and undesirable power over the diocesan bishop.”

He went further, saying that it was “a new kind of collectivism invading the Church.” The present tendency in the Council hall, he said, was to make national episcopal conferences so strong that “individual bishops would be so restricted in the government of their dioceses as to lose their initiative.” An individual bishop might contradict a national episcopal conference, “but then his clergy and laity would be in a quandary, not knowing whether to follow their own bishop or the conference.”

A restrictive influence was already at work in the Council, the Archbishop maintained, “because minority groups in various nations are not speaking out as they should, but are silently going along with their national episcopal conferences.” What was needed, he said, “at this Catholic Council,” was not a grouping of Council Fathers on national or linguistic lines, as hitherto, “but a grouping ... on international lines, by schools of thought and special tendencies.” In that way, it would be possible to see what the bishops thought, rather than what the nations thought. “For it is the bishops, not the nations, that make up the Council.”

The outstanding French theologian Father Yves Congar, O.P., agreed that episcopal conferences raised a difficult problem affecting the Church in very vital areas. Such conferences, he maintained, must not obliterate the personal responsibility of bishops by imposing on them the dictates of an organization, nor must they even remotely threaten Catholic unity.

Once more, the Council was headed for conflict.