Apparently, the Roman Catholic Church places little comparative weight upon the authority of Scripture as the apostolic, prophetic, and patriarchal witness to worship, the covenant proclamations, and obligations of God’s people. It emphasizes tradition, philosophy, and Greco-Roman and Hellenized patristic sources of order and religious structure.
Yves Congar
Yves Congar (1904-1995), a French Dominican priest, cardinal, friar, and theologian, was a controversial figure highly influential to the development of the Second Vatican Council. He is well known for his work concerning a return to the sources of biblical studies, liturgy, and tradition for historical and biblical authority on faith. The whole effort as ressourcement was to reform the Catholic Church to break from Neo-Scholasticism and organize a laity movement that adheres to a patristic conception of the Church. He sought to bring clarity and formation to the community of Catholic believers to fulfill the Church’s apostolic mission.
John XXIII
Pope John XXIII (Angelo Giusseppe Roncalli, 1881-1963) was responsible for calling the Second Vatican Council into formation. Influenced by nouvelle théologie and Congar Yves’ True and False Reform in the Church, Pope John XXIII through Vatican II directed a reformation that involved a pastoral focus among its parishes. The post-World War II sentiment concerning modernity, technological advancements, and nuclear weapon proliferation set the stage for the Catholic church’s outreach and move toward solidarity with humanity. According to the Livingston text, Vatican II drew closer attention to peace, social justice, and a desire to relieve spiritual hunger where there was widespread spiritual hunger.
Vatican II
The Second Vatican Council lasted from 1962 through 1965, and it was a reformation of the Catholic Church. It significantly transformed the Church organization more in alignment with modern culture and society as a whole. Vatican II produced a constitution based upon historical tradition and theology that contrasted the hierarchical structures and doctrine of papal infallibility of Vatican I. Much of its significance is centered upon the understanding and functions of the Church. The body of Christ as a community was returned to the apostolic view of its character and formation to serve its intended purpose. More specifically, as the Church of Christ “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church, it implemented improvements concerning the role of local priests and its emphasis toward shepherding with the laity to fill duties as the Church laid claim to the concept of the universal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). The people of the Church were “on the way” or of a pilgrimage toward holiness both individually and as a community.
Pastoral liturgy and sacramental emphasis underwent changes to support people-friendly patterns of worship more clearly. Language in the vernacular was permitted at the pastoral level, while the formation of local ministries attended the social life and reality of hardships. Bishops were brought together in a Synod of collegiate leadership to better support their areas of responsibility according to Catholic principles, apostolic tradition, doctrine, and the renewed emphasis upon biblical studies and community. There was substantial attention placed upon people concerning their social life with respect to the Church’s mission and social vision.
Hans Küng
The legacy of Hans Küng (1928-2021) is about his ecumenical approach to theology and controversial positions with the Catholic Church about the infallibility of the papacy and the limitations of language to interpret the meaning and realities of truth. With his call to return to Scripture of the authority over a sinful Church, it has the authority to resolve ambiguities, disputes, or points of disagreement about the structure and doctrines of the Church. He was a Swiss theologian who called attention to the structures of the Church with an orientation toward Scripture and the apostolic tradition. The Hellenization of the Roman Church was a point of criticism as it was a Patristic organizational structure foreign to what Küng made clear from the text of Scripture.
He wrote numerous texts during the course of his life’s work as a Catholic priest, a Jesuit, theologian, and author. His work as a theological adviser during the Second Vatican Council also positioned him as an influential thought leader within the Catholic Church. From his interaction and activity with Karl Barth, he with limited fashion, reconciled the doctrine of justification with Protestant theology to indicate that a person is justified by faith alone and not by works. While The Catholic Church censured Hans Küng for his assertions concerning papal infallibility, he remained an admired and devoted follower of Christ who constructively contributed to the faith of many. Pope John Paul II declared that Küng was no longer considered a Catholic theologian due to his position about the papacy.
John Courtney Murray
Another influential figure upon the Second Vatical Council was John Murray (1904-1967). He was a Jesuit priest and theologian broadly effective by his published work in theological studies. Toward his mid-life’s work, his focus turned toward the relationship between the Church and State that consequently placed him in a position to advocate for religious freedom in the context of Vatican II. Murray was committed to human rights but was also an accomplished theologian with Catholic tradition commitments. His views concerning religious freedom were developed on three platforms of interest: philosophical, theological, and practical. Religious liberty within constitutional government was of paramount importance, and his views were of significant contrast from a legal and moral perspective.
Hans von Balthasar
An outspoken critic of Vatican II was Hans von Balthasar (1905-1988). While he wasn’t an academic or Ph.D. with credentials in theological or philosophical disciplines, he was an author of many books across various topics. He wasn’t trained to contribute to the Catholic Church as an instructor or to teach at a college or university formally. Still, he had substantial influence and standing with well-known Catholic intellectuals. He wasn’t conditioned to tow the Catholic line by his training in formal Catholic theology in an academic or institutional setting. As Balthasar’s voluminous work covered numerous topics, he was engaged with Catholic religious journals and in polemical work against well-known and respected intellectuals Pierre Rousselot and Karl Rahner. Conversely, Balthasar developed a relationship with Karl Barth, a prominent Protestant intellectual with impressive credentials. He gradually severed his historical connections and background with socialist Germany over a long period.
Balthasar and Barth shared various points of agreement and disagreement concerning theological topics of interest. A key difference concerned the “analogy of being” (analogia entis), where Balthasar defended Catholic teaching and its position on the matter. Historically, the analogy of being, or metaphysical analogy, is a medieval theory. The doctrine of reality is divided or organized horizontally by modes of existence in substance and accidents while vertically by God and creatures where both axes are analogically related. Barth observed that the analogy of being was central to Catholic theology and an invention of anti-Christ. It is an ancient philosophical concept going back to Aristotle, whereas, by comparison, Barth held to an “analogy of faith” (analogia fidei). As a critical method of interpretation, the “analogy of faith” is a reformed hermeneutical principle that teaches that Scripture should interpret Scripture. Barth espoused that as a guiding tenant of theology. The OT and NT writers complement one another as Scripture and as an authority of tradition to guide understanding and life. The Catholic perspective holds that the analogy of being doesn’t place philosophy over faith.
In contrast to Balthasar, Barth’s view is concerned with the certainty of knowledge of man rather than of being – or a noetic perspective rather than ontic. As there are limits to the Protestant vocabulary, Catholics will readily admit that analogy of faith is essential for meaning and interpretation. Catholics simply hold to the primacy of Scripture and its sacred status, but they are guided by tradition and Scripture and not solely by Scripture, as the Reformed position insists.
Hans von Balthasar was a defender of the Catholic faith despite his concerns and criticisms of Vatican II as he saw the Catholic Church on the same path as liberal Protestantism. Two days before Balthasar died (June 26, 1988), Pope John Paul II appointed him as a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
The single most effective figure who answered Vatican II and restored the Catholic Church’s trajectory away from an embrace of Europe’s Enlightenment worldview, from the work of Pope John XXIII, was Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger. Ratzinger was a Cardinal who studied under the philosophical and theological traditions of Augustine, Bonaventure, and Aquinas, who later became Pope from 2005 to 2013. He reportedly retired for health reasons.
Ratzinger’s objections to Vatican II were the purpose and rationale behind the Aggiornamento (“bringing up to date”) of Roman Catholic Theology. Fundamentally, he believed that the Catholic Church wasn’t a “People of God” on a pilgrimage, but the Body of Christ. The theology and metaphor for understanding the Catholic Church were Theology of the Cross and not of the Incarnation as it related to the trinity and what that meant to the Church about God. From Scripture and traditional interpretation, Ratzinger restored Church perspective away from Vatican II about the Church in the world. As an instrument of suffering and redemption, the cross put the Church at enmity with the evil in the world that Christ overcame. Despite the fact that the Church’s earlier desire to be one with humanity in the world, the scriptural and traditional role of the Church was to serve as a light of the world.
Ratzinger was also deeply concerned about both Marxism and Relativism within the Catholic Church. First Marxism with its historically violent socialist background. Then only to be eclipsed by a severe strain of the humanistic interests around moral relativity in a world that highly values freedom and democracy. It was his view that moral relativism robs faith of its claim on truth while religious pluralism became a prevailing philosophy of modern democratic societies. Ratzinger argued that democracy rests not upon relativistic convictions but fundamental human rights and dignity. Democracies based upon human rights and dignity can stand against a tyranny of the majority. Democracies that are based upon an ideology of relativism and not human rights cannot withstand social pressures to wreak havoc on large populations of people. Ratzinger spoke against Kant’s views that human reason was incapable of metaphysical cognition (which leads to moral relativism).
Conclusion
Despite the efforts of the Second Vatican Council and the Aggiornamento of the Roman Catholic Church, its successes were largely limited to the liturgy or worship practices within parishes. How the Eucharist was administered, how people as a collective were pastorally addressed, and the vernacular language over Latin during Mass held sway as reforms. However, not much else happened as many still left the Catholic Church. A decline in religious vocations also occurred, along with a decrease in the practice of sacraments to include oral confessions. Progressive Catholics would defend the spectacle of Vatican II while cautious traditionalists saw it as a surrender to modernity, liberalism, and secularism.
