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

[Stone]

APPENDIX

The total cost to the Vatican for the Council and its preparatory work was $7,250,000. Since 2860 Council Fathers attended all or part of the four sessions, which stretched over 281 days, the average outlay was $2530 per Council Father, or $9 per day. These costs, however, did not include the expenses borne by the Council Fathers themselves; sixty-seven per cent of them paid their own transportation costs, and fifty-three per cent paid for their own lodging. Of the total spent by the Vatican, thirty-three per cent was used for lodging; thirty per cent for transportation; nine per cent for furnishing the Council hall, eight per cent for the electronic computer, Council Press Office, printing jobs and telephone installations, and twenty per cent for other costs.

Sickness, old age, or restrictions imposed by governments prevented 274 Council Fathers from attending. Between the opening and closing dates, 253 Council Fathers died, and 296 new ones were added. Of the 98 cardinals who took part, eleven died before the Council was over; the only cardinal not in attendance was Josef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary. The average age of the Council Fathers was sixty. Two thirds belonged to the secular clergy, and the rest were members of religious orders.

The General Secretariat, praised by Pope Paul as a “model” to be imitated in perfecting the services of the Roman Curia, has made use of the most modern techniques to preserve for posterity a complete theological, organizational, and administrative record of the Council. Two hundred large volumes contain alphabetical lists of Council Fathers, indicating how each one voted on all 544 ballots. Through a photo-copying process the complete archive has been reproduced a number of times, so that it may be used for study at various locations. It may be a generation or more before the archive will be thrown open to the public.

In addition to having all documents on file, the archive contains a complete magnetic tape recording of all 168 General Congregations, filling 712 reels, each 1300 feet long, which run for 542 hours. Making transcriptions of these recordings, and translating all Council documents into fourteen languages, were two of the most time-consuming tasks supervised by Monsignor Emilio Governatori, the archivist of Vatican II.

On January 3, 1966, Pope Paul by an Apostolic Letter created five Post Conciliar Commissions. Such commissions had originally been suggested to him by the European and world alliances, because they feared that progressive measures adopted by the Council might be blocked by conservative forces near the Pope once the Council Fathers had all returned home. The task of the new Post-Conciliar Commissions—on Religious,Missions, Christian Education, Apostolate of the Laity, and Bishops and the Government of Dioceses—was to prepare an “Instruction” which would indicate, concretely, how the Council documents were to be implemented.

These bodies were to have no legislative authority, but merely interpretive powers, and in preparing their “Instruction” were to adhere closely to the tenor of the solemnly approved and promulgated documents. Upon publication of their norms, the Post-Conciliar Commissions were to be automatically dissolved.