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

[Stone]

THE SECOND SESSION
September 29 to December 4, 1963

OBSERVER-DELEGATES AND GUESTS

On September 8, 1868, fifteen months before the opening of the First Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX sent an Apostolic Letter to all patriarchs and bishops of the Orthodox Church, inviting them to end their state of separation. If they agreed, they were to have the same rights at the Council as all other bishops, since the Catholic Church considered them to be validly consecrated. If they did not, they were to have the opportunity of sitting on special Council commissions composed of Catholic bishops and theologians, to discuss Council affairs, as at the Council of Florence in 1439. But the wording of the letter was offensive to the patriarchs and bishops. And they were further annoyed by the fact that the entire text was published
in a Roman newspaper before they had received their personal copies. As a result, not a single Orthodox patriarch or bishop accepted the invitation.

Five days after writing the above letter, Pope Pius IX invited “all Protestants and other non-Catholics” to use the occasion of the Ecumenical Council “to return to the Catholic Church.” A careful examination, his letter stated, would prove that not one of their groups, or all of them together, “constitute and are in any way that one Catholic Church which Jesus Christ founded, constituted, and willed to be; nor can these groups in any way be called a member or a part of this Church, as long as they are visibly separated from Catholic unity.” He invited them “to strive to free themselves from that state in which they cannot be certain about their own salvation.”

This letter, too, proved offensive, and achieved very little.

The failures of the First Vatican Council in promoting Christian unity hung like an ominous cloud over the second. But Pope John XXIII, in his optimism, appeared to ignore them. When he informed the world of his intention to convoke an Ecumenical Council, he immediately spoke of “a renewed invitation to the faithful of the separated Churches to follow us in friendship in this search for unity and grace, desired by so many souls in all parts of the world.” And among the numerous commissions and secretariats that he established on June 5, i960, to take in hand the more immediate work of preparation for the Council, was the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Its purpose was to establish contact with the Orthodox, Old Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant Churches, and to invite them all to send official representatives to the Council.

The religious climate in the world of Pope John XXIII was very different from what it had been in the days of Pope Pius IX. In the intervening years, the ecumenical movement, for the promotion of Christian unity, had taken firm hold of Christian communities around the world.

Many factors had contributed to the development of this truly providential movement. One was Biblical research, which brought together Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, and Catholic scholars. This was the first area of fellowship among the Christian churches.

Next came the World Council of Churches, founded specifically to promote Christian fellowship in all possible fields, which in less than thirty years saw its membership grow to 214 full-member and eight associate-member churches of the Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, and Old Catholic communions. 

Another contributing factor was the neo-pagan threat of Nazism in Europe during World War II, which threw Catholics and Christians of all other denominations together in defense of religion. This explains why Catholic interest in the ecumenical movement was first apparent in Germany, France, and Holland. Among the most active leaders of Catholic ecumenism were members of the Jesuit and Dominican orders.

The initial successes in these three countries were given added impetus when the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued its lengthy “Instruction on the Ecumenical Movement” of December 20, 1949. This “Instruction” urged bishops throughout the world “not only to use diligence and care in watching over all these activities, but also to promote and direct them prudently, in order that those who are seeking for the truth and the true Church may be helped, and that the faithful may be shielded from the dangers which might so easily result from the activities of this movement.”

Pope John’s choice of Cardinal Bea—a German, a Jesuit, and a Biblical scholar—was therefore not surprising; the fact that the Cardinal was seventy-nine years old seemed to be negligible.

With thousands of separated Christian churches around the world, it was impossible for each of them to be represented at the Council. Cardinal Bea’s solution was to contact larger groups and invite them to send delegations which might represent all their affiliated churches. Thus invitations were sent to the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples of Christ), the Friends’ World Committee for Consultation, the International Congregational Council, the World Methodist Council, the International Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Freedom, die World Council of Churches, the Australian Council of Churches, and other groups.

Archbishop John C. Heenan, of Liverpool, a member of Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat, said in 1962: “It is not too much to say that the personality of the Pope has altered the outlook of non-Catholics in England to the Vatican. In the jargon of our day, we could say that Pope John has given a “new image” to die Catholic Church in the minds of Protestants . . . Dr. Fisher [former Archbishop of Canterbury] has told me that the attitude of Pope John inspired him to take the initiative of proposing a visit to the Vatican. This would have been unthinkable even so short a time ago as five years.”

Cardinal Bea invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to send a representative delegation on behalf of the Anglican Church. The invitation was accepted. He then approached the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, asking him to send a delegation representing the various branches of the Orthodox Church. But when the Patriarch approached the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), it showed no interest, maintaining that the Ecumenical Council was a private affair of the Catholic Church, which did not concern it. As international interest in the Council grew, however, so did that of the Russian Orthodox Church, and when Bishop Nikodim Rotow was asked at the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council of Churches, in November, 1961, whether the i Russian Orthodox Church would send delegates to the Second Vatican Council, he replied that this was an embarrassing question, since it had not been invited.

Technically this was true, since the Russian Orthodox Church had not been directly invited by Cardinal Bea, but through the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, who considered himself to have the right of initiative in proposing to the other patriarchs a common delegation. And when Monsignor Jan Willebrands, Secretary of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, visited the patriarchal sees of the Middle East to explain to the patriarchs and their synods the matters to be treated by the Council, he learned that they too were all averse to being invited through the Ecumenical Patriarch at Constantinople. To their way of thinking, no one patriarch was superior to another; they were all on the same level. Cardinal Bea therefore issued invitations directly to each group in the Orthodox Church.

When Bishop Nikodim met Monsignor Willebrands in Paris in August, 1962, he told him that his Church would react favorably to an invitation if Monsignor Willebrands would go to Moscow and invite Patriarch Alexius personally. This Monsignor Willebrands did, visiting Moscow from September 27 to October 2. He explained the items on the Council agenda to the Patriarch, and issued a verbal invitation. He received no immediate reply, however, because the written invitation had not yet arrived.

The matter of Communism did not come up directly at either the Paris or the Moscow meetings. No request was made by the Russian Orthodox Church that the subject should not be treated at the Council, and no assurance was given by Monsignor Willebrands that it would not. In explaining the Council agenda, Monsignor Willebrands simply stated that the problem was treated positively in the Council program. However, he made it clear that, once the Council had opened, the Council Fathers were free to alter the program and introduce any topic they wished.

Cardinal Bea’s written invitation arrived after Monsignor Willebrands’ departure. On October 10, the day before the Council opened, Patriarch Alexius and his Synod telegraphed acceptance of the invitation. On the same day, Patriarch Athenagoras, of Constantinople, informed Cardinal Bea that he had been unable to assemble a representative delegation of the Orthodox Church as a whole, and that he was reluctant to send a delegation representing only his Ecumenical Patriarchate. (Neither his patriarchate, nor the Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Alexandria, sent representatives to the Council until the third session, and the patriarchates of Antioch, Athens, and Jerusalem never sent representatives at all.) Of the Orthodox present at the first session, in addition to the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, were representatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia.

Eleven days after the opening of the Council, it was announced that Pope John had raised the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity to commission status. By refraining from publicizing this decision earlier, the Pope had in effect preserved intact the team of outstanding leaders in the ecumenical field whom Cardinal Bea had assembled in the previous two years. The Secretariat was the only “commission” which did not have sixteen elected members. Its new status meant that it was entitled to compose schemas, submit them to the general assembly, revise them where necessary, defend them, and perform all the other functions pertaining to Council commissions.

Before a month had passed, Cardinal Bea publicly expressed his great satisfaction with the reactions of the observer-delegates. It was “a true miracle,” he said, that so many non-Catholic Christian churches had asked their members to pray for the Council, as contrasted with the atmosphere prevailing at the time of the First Vatican Council.

Professor Oscar Cullmann, of the Universities of Basel and Paris, who was a guest of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, gave a lengthy press conference at the end of the first six weeks of the first session to explain his reactions and those of other guests and observers. He said that they had received all the Council texts, were able to attend all General Congregations, could make their views known at special weekly meetings of the Secretariat, and had personal contact with Council Fathers, periti, and other leading personalities in Rome. The activities of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, he said, “daily reveal to us how truly its existence serves to draw us closer together.”

Professor Cullmann pointed out that mistaken conclusions were being | drawn from the presence of observers and guests at the Council. He was receiving letters from both Catholics and Protestants who appeared to think that the purpose of the Council was to bring about union between the Catholic and other Christian churches. That, however, was not the immediate purpose of the Council, he said, and he feared that many such people would be disillusioned when, after the end of the Council, they found that the churches remained distinct.

Among the ecumenical achievements of the Council, Professor Cullmann mentioned in the very first place the existence of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. “If it continues to be full of respect for other churches, and to work in a sincere ecumenical spirit such as now characterizes all its actions and attitudes, one may justly consider its existence as of extreme importance for the future of ecumenism,” he said. Another achievement was the presence of observers and guests in the Council hall. “I am more and more amazed every morning at the way we really form a part of the Council,” he said.

In preparation for the General Congregations, the observers studied the schemas which had been distributed to them. “We make notes on them, compare them with the Bible, and check them with the writings of the Fathers of the Church and the decisions of previous Councils. Our reactions to the schemas which have been shown to us so far have obviously been very varied: some we like, others we don’t; some really encourage us, others we find disappointing.”

Professor Cullmann noted that any future historian of the Second Vatican Council must refer to the “ecumenical import” of the coffee shop installed for all members of the Council. “Not only does it refresh us, but it also enables us to meet bishops from all over the world in a way that would otherwise be impossible. . . . And if the dialogue is continued by both sides in the spirit which has animated it thus far, that in itself will be an element of unity capable of bearing still more fruit.”

The experiment worked so well during the first session that it continued throughout the duration of the Council. When Pope Paul, early in the second session, received the observers and guests in audience, Cardinal Bea was able to announce that their number had increased from forty-nine to sixty-six, and that the number of churches or communities which they represented had grown from seventeen to twenty-two.

The observer-delegate of the Lutheran World Federation, Dr. Kristen Skydsgaard, addressed the Pope in French on behalf of all the observers and guests present, and expressed their “deep gratitude for the renewal of the invitation to this second session of the Council.” All were reassured, he said, to learn that Pope Paul did not share the naively optimistic or superficial ecumenism based on the assumption “that the visible union of Christians can be quickly achieved.” He hoped that the light shed by a practical and historical theology, “that is, a theology nourished by the Bible and by the teaching of the Fathers, will shine more and more in the work of this Council.” He also spoke of a new ecumenical spirit which was becoming manifest in the Council. “We find ourselves meeting together at the beginning of a road whose end only God knows.”

In reply, Pope Paul spoke of “our desire to receive you not only on the threshold of our house, but in the very intimacy of our heart.” After thanking the observers and guests for accepting the invitation to attend the second session, he asked them to be assured “of our respect, of our esteem, and of our desire to have with you, in Our Lord, the best possible relations. Our attitude does not hide any snare, nor is it intended to minimize the difficulties that stand in the way of a complete and final understanding. We do not fear the delicate nature of the discussion nor the pain of waiting.” As for the history of separation, he preferred to focus his attention “not on what has been, but on what must be. We turn toward a new thing to be born, a dream to be realized.”

On the following day, October 8, Cardinal Bea gave a reception for the observers and guests. Addressing them in French, he invited their criticisms, reminding them of Pope Paul’s words to the Roman Curia only a few weeks earlier: “We must welcome criticism with humility, with reflection, and even with gratitude. Rome has no need to defend itself by turning a deaf ear to suggestions that come from honest voices, especially if the voices are those of friends and brothers.” Cardinal Bea assured the observers and guests that their positive criticism, suggestions, and wishes would be greatly esteemed.

Archpriest Vitaly Borovoy, the observer-delegate of the Russian Orthodox Church and of the Orthodox Church of Georgia in the Caucasus, replied in Russian on behalf of the assembled observers and guests. “The whole history of Christianity in our era,” he said, “is the history of the action of the Holy Spirit upon us and upon our churches, calling us to unity and helping us to understand the necessity and urgency of this task. ... We are always ready to help our Roman Catholic brothers in anything which may contribute to harmony and unity among all Christians, so that, with a single tongue and a single heart, we may together glorify the most Holy Spirit.”

Six weeks later he had an opportunity to prove how ready he was to contribute “to harmony and unity,” when via telephone he was notified by Moscow to leave Rome immediately in protest because of a special religious service announced by the Vatican to honor St. Josaphat. This Catholic Saint, martyred in the year 1623 at Vitebsk, Poland (today, Russia), was considered by the Russian Orthodox Church responsible for the martyrdom of Orthodox Saints, and Archpriest Borovoy was ordered to conduct a religious service in Geneva in their honor while the religious service was being held in Rome. Archpriest Borovoy explained, however, that the order placed him in a dilemma since that same Monday, November 25, Cardinal Spellman was to conduct a Requiem service in St. John Lateran basilica for the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

His going to Geneva before this date would not only make ecumenical relations worse instead of better, he said, but the press could also be expected to interpret his going as an excuse not to participate in the Requiem service. His church headquarters in Moscow then rescinded the order. The leader of the Anglican delegation, Bishop John Moorman, of Ripon, Britain, obligingly gave me a statement o£ his personal views on the primacy and collegiality. For 400 years, he said, the Anglican Church had lived in separation from the See of Rome, “and during that time the claims of the Pope have increased, especially with the decree of infallibility in 1870 ” However, if there was ever to be unity among Christians, “there will have to be a central head of the Church, and that head will certainly have to be the Bishop of Rome.” It was his belief that the Anglican Communion as a whole “would be prepared to accept the fact of the papacy, though they would find great difficulty in recognizing the basis on which the primacy rests,” since historically and exegetically “far too much has been made of the words of Our Lord to St. Peter.” The Roman Catholic Church would be greatly strengthened, he said, “if the principle of collegiality of bishops were accepted, and some method were provided whereby representative bishops of the whole world could form a permanent council with the Pope.” That, he said, would be an improvement on the present system of a largely Italian Curia.”

The observers and guests were particularly interested in the schema on ecumenism, which was taken up at the sixty-ninth General Congregation, on November 18. It comprised only three chapters, and it was presented to the assembly by Archbishop Joseph Martin of Rouen, France, a member of Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. He explained that the schema was intended as a pastoral document for the instruction of Catholics, to help them to understand the significance and purpose of the ecumenical movement and its providential role in the Church.

Archbishop Casimiro Morcillo Gonzalez, of Saragossa, Spain, said that (one of the admirable qualities of the schema was its “positive tone,” resulting from a reduction in the number of warnings and the complete disappearance of condemnations, such as had characterized previous documents on the subject. It would not be proper, he said, for the Catholic Church “to refuse to accept the collaboration now offered by our separated brethren in solving this very great question.”

Cardinal de Arriba y Castro of Spain said that to foster dialogue, as was the intention of the schema, could be very dangerous “to the faith of our Catholics, especially those of low estate, who often are not prepared to answer the arguments presented by experts of the various sects or confessions.” Endless proof existed, he said, that proselytizing by Protestants was on the increase. He therefore asked the Council Fathers “to include in the schema a request directed to the separated brethren that they abstain from all proselytism among Catholics, lest the faith of our people be obscured through confusion.”

Cardinal Bea admitted on the Council floor that indifferentism and doubts concerning the faith might arise if ecumenical questions were treated by those whose good faith was not matched by learning and caution. The remedy was not to avoid all ecumenical efforts, he said, but rather to have them carried out under the direction of the bishop concerned. “We hope to issue an ecumenical directory,” he explained, “but these rules and principles issued by the Holy See will have to be adapted to local conditions by the bishops themselves.” Cardinal Bea recalled that the “Instruction” issued by the Holy Office in 1949 required that those who engaged in dialogue should be well versed in theology and should follow the norms laid down by the Church.

Archbishop Heenan said that the hierarchy of England and Wales were prepared “to do anything outside of denying the faith” to obtain the union of Christians. “We desire fuller and more frequent dialogues with all Christian denominations,” he said.

Auxiliary Bishop Stephen Leven of San Antonio, Texas, told the assembly, on November 26, that “every day it becomes more clear that we need the dialogue, not only with Protestants, but also among us bishops.” There were some Council Fathers, he said, who “preach to us and chastize us as though we were against Peter and his successors, or as though we desired to steal away the faith of our flocks and to promote indifferentism.” Such bishops “prefer to blame non-Catholics, whom perhaps they have never seen, rather than instruct the children of their parishes. Otherwise, why are they so afraid that the effects of ecumenism would not be good? Why are their people not better instructed ? Why are their people not visited in their homes? Why is there not an active and working Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in their parishes?”

Bishop Leven concluded in most solemn tones, “I pray you, Venerable Conciliar Brothers, let us put an end to the scandal of mutual recrimination. Let us proceed in an orderly way with the examination and study of this providential movement called ecumenism, so that with patience and humility we may achieve that unity for which the Lord Christ prayed at the Last Supper.”

No voting took place during the eleven days of the discussion on the schema on ecumenism. But, on the basis of the numerous interventions made, a revision was to be prepared by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity; the revised text was to be presented to the Council at its third session.