A Moment of Reconciliation for Catholics
Two popes who differed on the Second Vatican Council become
saints a half century later.
By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
April 17, 2014 6:48 p.m. ET
If Pope Francis follows tradition, he will not deliver a
homily when he celebrates Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square on Sunday. Rather,
after Mass has ended he will read a message "Urbi et Orbi"—to the
city of Rome and to the world—to commemorate Christ's resurrection by calling
for peace and reconciliation around the globe. The address is typically among
the pope's most quoted speeches of the year.
But this time, the most important day of the Catholic
Church's liturgical calendar may feel like a prelude to an even more
spectacular celebration the following Sunday. On April 27, Pope Francis will
add Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II to the church's canon of saints. The
event presents an opportunity to send a message of peace and reconciliation not
only to the nations of the world, but also to a church still recovering from
decades of discord.
More than a million pilgrims will travel to Rome to attend
the canonization ceremonies in St. Peter's Square. Hundreds of millions will
watch at home or in movie theaters around the world, and the Vatican is
broadcasting the images in 3-D. Francis' predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, is
expected to make a rare public appearance.
The canonization comes at an important moment in church
history, the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, a series of
meetings held by the church's bishops in Rome between 1962-65. The double
induction will inevitably remind Catholics of that epochal event, which was
essential to the pontificates of both men, though in markedly different ways.
Pope John called Vatican II in 1959 because he had come to
the "conviction that something ought to be done in order to make the
church more responsive to this modern world, in order to make the modern world
more responsive to the church," according to Jesuit Father Ladislas Orsy,
one of the council's official theologians. Or, as Pope John famously put it, he
wanted to open the church's windows and let in some fresh air. Initiating
Vatican II was by far the most consequential action of his pontificate, though
he died in 1963 after the first of the council's four sessions.
Pope John Paul attended the entire council as a young
bishop, making major contributions to the 1965 document "Gaudium Et
Spes," which dealt with the church in the modern world. He argued that
Catholics could better engage secular culture if they approached it more
sympathetically. He was also a supporter of the council's declaration on
religious freedom, and he furthered the council's aim of world-wide evangelical
outreach by traveling to 129 countries during his pontificate. But he also made
it his job to correct what he viewed as deviations from the council—including
dissent in religious orders—that some had justified by appealing to an
expansive spirit of Vatican II.
Catholic life looked and felt dramatically different in the
years after the council. Mass was now held in modern languages rather than
Latin, many nuns moved from convents to apartments and traded habits for
ordinary clothes, and lay people took on expanded roles in parish life. Some
issues that the council did not address—contraception, sexuality, celibacy,
among others—have since grown more controversial.
Most Catholics now feel at home in the post-conciliar
church, but vocal minorities continue to debate the legacy of Vatican II, and
these arguments color how they view the soon-to-be sainted popes. Some
conservative Catholics think Pope John acted with good intentions but ushered
in an era of confusion that lingers today. Not a few progressives, on the other
hand, regard the pontificates of John Paul and Benedict as a 35-year campaign
to roll back the council's reforms.
Pope Benedict, who served as a theological adviser during
the council and later as John Paul's top doctrinal official, stressed the
continuity of the council's innovations with the church's traditions. At an
October 2012 Mass marking the golden anniversary of the council's opening, Pope
Benedict said Vatican II had aimed to present "certain and immutable"
church teachings in the language of modern culture. This aim, he said, had gone
largely unfulfilled amid the "spiritual desertification" of the half
century that followed, when many Catholics instead "embraced uncritically
the dominant mentality" of secularism.
Pope Francis is likely to offer a more cheerful assessment
of Vatican II when he canonizes Popes John and John Paul. More important, he
may take the occasion to encourage reconciliation among Catholics divided by
their views of the council. But he will not need to address the subject
explicitly to send such a message, particularly if Pope Benedict joins him. The
church communicates visually as often as verbally, and the sight of a
"conservative" pope joining a "progressive" pope to honor
two predecessors with such contrasting reputations would be a stirring image of
harmony and hope.
Mr. Rocca is Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service and
director of a forthcoming documentary film, "Voices of Vatican II: Council
Participants Remember."
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