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... NS The Catholic Church emerged with 16 decrees, constitutions and declarations from the Vatican II council. Three had the most lasting and immediate effect on the Church and its members. I will now discuss them individually.
One of the main priorities of their work was to make the church more accessible to the laity, or common man. They had come to realize Christians will not be Christians by custom and tradition, but only by a personal faith attained in a difficult struggle and perpetually renewed (Sacrosanctum Concilium). In compliance with that avowal the Council went about changing both the form of the Mass and the language in which it should be delivered. It was one of the first platforms approved by the Council and to many Catholics the program that most changed their Christian Experience. Up to that point all the Catholic Churches in the world that fell under the Popes authority delivered the rites, sermons and gospel in Latin, a language understood only by a small minority of educated Church members. It had become popular opinion among most Church leaders that if the Mass is to reach out to and involve the people it must be expressed in a language the people can understand.
The Council came to a consensus on the issue and decreed that while retaining Latin as the official language of the Church they would allow and encourage Priests to use the vernacular in the rites and mass. Since the founding of the Church in the 3 rd century and the development of Mass in medieval times Latin had been the language used for all ceremonies and worship. This step by the Council to convert to the living languages set aside hundreds of years of tradition and altered the Church in a way to make it more within reach of the common man. Beyond just the adoption of the vernacular the Council also took steps to change the format of the Mass. Prior to the reforms of the Vatican Council there was a very obvious barrier between layman and priest during all Church services. The priests faced away from the pews and toward the alter during the service, turning his back on the congregation.
Also during the ritual of Holy Communion only the priest was aloud to drink from the chalice holding the wine representing the Christs blood, the laypeople were only aloud to eat the bread. The Council, in an effort to bring the people and the priests closer together, began encouraged priests to face the congregation while speaking. Also they began allowing the congregation to partake in the drinking of the communal wine on special occasions such as weddings. While some opposed these decisions, claiming that the Council was bringing about the Protestantization of the Catholic Church, they were in a very small minority. These liturgy reforms were the key reform in the Church's efforts of aggiornamento, which translates to bringing the church up to date.
They were so because more than any other reform this symbolized a shifted emphasis, the people had become the most important member of the Church. At this point in history the Church was grappling with a number of questions away from exclusively dogmatic or theological issues. The most controversial issue of that nature was certainly the Church's stance on Jews, Non-Catholic Christians and members of the worlds other great religions. There was a great deal of prejudice against non-Catholics that had been institutionalized by the Church since its creation. The most shocking of which was the labeling of all Jews past and present as deicide's, which means killers of God. In reality the Scripture only points to several Jews thousands of years ago who were responsible for Jesus death.
When the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, which was established by Pope John XIII and headed by Cardinal Bea, submitted a proposal to the Council that demolished the claim of Jews as deicide's it was met with strong opposition. Many of the conservative Fathers saw Anti-Semitism as any good Catholics right and duty. Their defense, as with most issues at the Council, was that tradition was on their side. That is a familiar pattern in the Catholic Church, where tradition is often placed above scripture and even more tragically placed before reason. Unfortunately, Cardinal Bea's proposal was unable to pass a vote without alterations. To garner a majority vote the document had to be changed.
The passage absolving Jews from deicide was replaced by a command forbidding Catholics from portraying them as guilty of such a crime. It did not address the question of if they actually were guilty or not. That back handed shift of words was indeed what allowed the bill to pass, but at what cost? Even after that small victory in rewording the statement, the conservative minority was not satisfied. They removed from the document from the docket of promulgation without authorization; there by delaying its instatement. Moreover, the Councils valuable time had to be wasted in sorting out when the promulgation was to take place.
Finally, on September 30, 1965 the pope promulgated the statement without the crucial word deicide but still condemning all displays of Anti-Semitism. The Church had taken a very positive step in the right direction but it was still unable to make all the most positive reforms. Also passed with the decree on Anti-Semitism were similar decrees covering the Church's position on other non-Catholics. Since the reformation the Church had maintained a hostile and almost competitive relationship with Protestant faiths. The Council tried to reverse this position by acknowledging the existence of other valid Christian faiths and eluding that in the future the goal was an inevitable rebirth of a unified Christian faith. Furthermore, the Council for the first time recognized the goodness inherent in the other great religions of the world.
This show of respect toward believers in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the other major religions was unexpected before the proceedings in Rome but received massive support when introduced to the Council at-large. Another very vital document passed by the Council was the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Prior to this document the Church had, as I mentioned earlier, placed tradition on equal ground as scripture. This Constitution instead attempts to officially relate Scripture and tradition, which can be defined as all post biblical teachings of the Church.
It asserts the greater value of Scripture towards the eternal salvation of men but also leaves the door open for contemporary study and interpretation of the Bible. This Constitution helped to establish a more modern environment where Catholics could openly study, question or confirm Catholic teachings without fear and also restores the dominance of the Bibles teaches over that of non-Scripture. When the Council had closed many Church members would proclaim it as the salvation of the Church and prime example of divine inspiration. While in truth it probably did little more than grant official consent to the beliefs that were already present by that time in the minds of the majority of Fathers. It still was a necessary step and required a lot of bravery on the part of those involved. Without it the Church may well have become a trivial antiquity too stuck in its old ways to be in any way relevant to the modern world.
Works Cited Basset, Bernard. Press in the piazza. Goal line tribute to a council, with illustrations by Penelope Harter. Fresno: Academy Guild Press, 1963. Berkouwer, G. C.
The Second Vatican Council and the new Catholicism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965 Caporale, Rock. Vatican II: Last of the councils. Baltimore: Helicon, 1964.
Catholic Church: Pope John XXIII. Apostolic letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II: on the 25 anniversary of the promulgation of the conciliar Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy. Washington D. C. : United States Catholic Conference, 1988.
Mac Eoin, Gary. What Happened at Rome? The Council and Its Implications for the Modern World. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. Ratzinger, Joseph.
Theological Highlights of Vatican II. New York: Paulist Press, 1967.
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