The Church Before and After Vatican II - Class 1

The Council of Trent (16th century) is considered to be one of the most important councils of the Church. It enacted pastoral reform to care for people, improved the education of Priests, and reformed the hierarchy the Church. It's precepts continued up until Vatican II, and everything was seen "in the light of Trent". What happened in the 19th century flowed into the 20th and 21st century church.

Ultra Montane means "beyond the mountains", and Pope Pius IX was the first Pope with a worldwide influence. In the time of Pius IX, it would have been impossible to separate political and theological responsibility within the church. He was a Marian Pope who promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which helped to re-establish his political power by re-establishing his religious power.

The Syllabus of Errors was a document issued by the Holy See under Pius IX, which was made up of phrases from earlier papal documents and was presented as a list of "condemned propositions". Not intended to be a public document, it was divided into ten sections which condemned as false various statements relating to various topics. Basically, it condemned everything secular, and was met with mixed reception among Catholics and Protestants alike.

Pope Pius IX was the last pope who was also a secular ruler as monarch of the Papal States. As sovereign-ruler of the Papal States, he ruled over 3 million people and conducted diplomatic relations with other states, the most important of which was Italy, which in 1870 ended the independent Papal States and reduced the papacy to a spiritual force. This radically influenced how the Church saw itself and how it related to society.

Between 1870 and 1920 very little theology was being done in the Catholic Church because Catholics believed they already had the answers. During this time Catholic scholars would begin with an eternal truth and then search for texts to support that truth. Nevertheless how theology was being done was beginning to change, and various authors were writing books that expanded theological study. In the early 1900s Pope Pius X declared Modernism to be a heresy. The primary criticism of Modernism was that it prohibited the use of experience in theology. Another idea that had led to misunderstanding was Neo-Scholasticism, which suggested that "priori eternal truths" could be applied to any study or belief.

Odo Casel was a Monk who spent the greater part of his monastic life as a Chaplain to a community of Benedictine nuns. Yet from this obscure monk issued what Cardinal Ratzinger called, "perhaps the most fruitful theological idea of our century". Casel is credited with giving the strongest impulse of anyone to the sacramental theology of the 20th century, when he said, "When you participate in the breaking of the bread you participate in the death and resurrection of Christ". Although a common understanding today, it was shocking at the time.

Prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965) theological and biblical studies of the Catholic Church had begun to sway away from the Neo-Scholasticism and biblical literalism that the reaction to Modernism had enforced. This shift could be seen in theologians who looked to integrate modern human experience with church principles based on Jesus Christ. Other theologians promoted an accurate understanding of scripture and the early Church Fathers as a source of renewal. Theology is within us because it begins with the experience of grace.

The # 1 change of the 20th century was in understanding the real meaning of history. In the West we see time as linear; we believe that God speaks to man within and through history. However, before Vatican II there was an idea that the Church was above man's time line, and not affected by time. It described itself as "the perfect society". After WWI Bible scholars began to re-evaluate this understanding and came to realize that the Church (and theology) was in fact integral to the experience of history itself. The experience of WWI forced theology to change, and the # 1 change was a realization that theology had always been historical in nature. We began to understand that you can't just look at the world around you; you must look at the lens through which you see the world.

In the 16th century the Church was defensive, and by the 19th and 20th centuries the Church was radically reformed. When the Church Fathers gathered for Vatican II they had been reading the books of authors such as Karl Rahner, Schillebechx, and Semmelroth, and others such as Emile Mersch, Yves Congar, and Heuri de Labac. With this dramatic shift in background, Vatican II was presented with a radically different perspective. It reversed the earlier misunderstandings and changed everything. Three of the areas that changed were: 1) Biblical scholarship, 2) Fathers of the Church, and 3) Liturgy.

Before Vatican II true Biblical scholarship was being led by Protestants, and after Vatican II Catholics quickly caught up. They also rediscovered the Fathers of the Church, and pastoral renewal of the Liturgy improved with lay involvement and participation. After Vatican II, tradition was no longer seen in the light of Trent; Trent was now seen in the light of Tradition, and Tradition itself was no longer seen as unchangeable.

Before Vatican II, Pope Pius XII published an encyclical titled "Mystic Corporis Christi" (On the Mystical Body of Christ) which began, "The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, was first taught us by the Redeemer Himself". Although rejected at the time, after Vatican II the Church no longer described itself as the perfect society, but now identified itself as the Body of Christ.

It only took 500 years to write a document on the nature of Christ, and it took another 1500 years to write a document on the nature of the Church.