The Tablet Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatical Council

Don't let anyone tell you the Council didn't change much

These days, both wings in the Church are saying the Council was a failure. The left wing is saying the Council didn't go far enough. The right wing is saying it went too far.

I do not believe the Council was a failure. It has already changed the way we live - and think - as Catholics. I believe the charter that was written at Vatican II is the only thing that will save the Church, the people-of-God Church, not the hierarchical Church.

I had a peculiar vantage point on Vatican II. I was Time magazine's man the Council, sent there in part because I had spent 10 years in the Jesuits and because I was one of the few reporters on earth who could speak fluent Latin, the official language of the Council. So, here I am in mid-August 1962, chatting with Pope John XXIII's secretary, Loris Capovilla, at the papal summer residence, Castel Gondolfo. All of a sudden here comes John XXIII bouncing up the marble hallway. 'Why,' he says, arms outstretched, 'What a wonderful surprise!' Of course, it wasn't a surprise at all. It was all prearranged by Time magazine's friend in New York, Cardinal Francis Spellman, arranged that way so the Pope wouldn't be breaking tradition.

I thought I might have a few mostly chatty minutes with the Pope, and then make my move to leave. But no. The Pope grabbed my elbow and said he had some things he wanted to tell me. He was at last ready to tell the world (and he chose to do it through Time magazine) that he did not intend his Council to be a strictly churchy event, but a worldly event designed to bring people together, people of all faiths, even the so-called godless Communists.

His predecessors, Pius XI and Pius XII had mounted crusades against communism. As an historian, Papa Roncalli knew what a disaster the Crusades had been. Now, he said that, in a world that was armed with megaton nuclear warheads, the time had come to say, 'No more crusades.' In fact, he didn't want the Council to launch condemnations of any anything or anyone.

Time magazine's foreign editor Henry Grunwald didn't want to believe my report, but what could he do? This Rome correspondent had talked with the Pope and he hadn't. So Time ran with my reporting, on this NO MORE CRUSADES story, and on a good many other initiatives the Pope was starting to make.

Grunwald had to admit: 'We've got to watch this Roncalli pope. What's this word aggiornamento? What is that all about?'

I had to admit: aggiornamento was a pretty bold word for the pope to use, in Roma aeterna, where nothing ever changed. How do you bring a Church that never changes 'up to date'? The top cardinal in Rome, Alfredo Ottaviani, the pro-prefect of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, could not conceive of any of the changes that the word aggiornamento implied, and I soon found out from theologians like Yves Congar, Jean Danielou, Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx (all of whom had been silenced before Vatican II for their 'radical thinking') that Ottaviani was doing almost everything he could to put roadblocks in the way of Council's major change-projects. And why wouldn't he? His coat of arms said it all: Semper Idem. Always the same.

How would the Council bring things up to date? Early on, this wasn't too clear to anyone, not even perhaps to the Pope himself. He was a modest man who used to end jokes with his secretary with the punch line, 'I'm not infallible, you know!' But he had an intuition: that 2,500 bishops encouraged to speak freely in a kind of parliament of bishops would figure it out.

They did this very quickly. After a month-long debate on whether the Church should scrap its traditional Latin Mass for the vernacular, the Council Fathers voted 2200 to 200 in favour of the language of the people. It was our first clue: that Vatican II was trying to re-create a people's Church.

Up to now, the bishops had been part of the ecclesia docens, the teaching Church, while the rest of us were the ecclesia discens, the learning Church. Here at the Council, the bishops all became part of the learning Church. Hobnobbing with theologians like Congar, Danielou, Chenu, Schillebeckx, they began to start speaking of the Church in new ways, promising to create a new kind of Church, a people's Church, not a Church that was making itself less and less relevant with its excessive clericalism, juridicism and triumphalism. Some of the best Council speeches were now calling for a Church that believed God was at work in all men and women, in individuals as well as in humankind as a whole, a Church that wanted us to be all that we could be - in this life as well as in the next.

As the Council opened, I sought out America's most famed Catholic preacher, Bishop Fulton Sheen (he was staying at the Excelsior, the most pricey hotel on the Via Veneto), to ask him about his hopes for the Council. He turned down my request by denying the very humanity of the Council itself. 'It will be all about the Holy Spirit,' he said. 'He will tell us what to say and do.' Bishop Sheen didn't tell me how I should go about interviewing the Holy Spirit.

I went on to interview everyone else I could find, often in 18-hour-days, and, much to my surprise, I was getting stories about the Council into the magazine almost every week. And then at the end of the Council's first session, the Macmillan Publishing Company in the U.S. and Tom Burns of Burns, Oates and Washburn asked me to do a book on that first session of the Council. Time's editors gave me six weeks off to do it. I went off to the Rome headquarters of the Society of the Divine Word and wrote pretty much around the clock (with a couple of hours home for lunch every day). The Observer serialised the book, installments on page one every Sunday for four Sundays in a row in August 1963. And when the book came out, first in London and Dublin, it shot to number one on the bestseller list.

In the book, I used an extended metaphor, imagining the Church as the barque of Peter, a boat that had been in port for too many centuries, its bottom so encrusted with barnacles that it couldn't even sail. Now, by calling a Council, I said that Pope John had figuratively launched that vessel out on to the seas of the world.

Pope Paul VI liked the image so much that he got one of his American monsignor friends who lived in Rome to ask me for permission to have my book translated into Italian and published for the benefit of the Italian bishops who didn't quite understand the Council was trying to create a new kind of Church, one less concerned with its own power, one more at the service of humankind.

My barque-of-Peter image underlined what was different about Vatican II. For all the other councils of history (20 of them) the Church turned inward on itself. This council was turned out to the world.

Not everyone understood that right away. Pope John's Curia didn't get it--they may have never gotten it. The most curious among you might want to read Yves Congar's Journal of the Council, a daily diary of his exhaustive and exhausting work behind the scenes, battling with Cardinal Ottaviani and his chief aide, the Dutch Jesuit Sebastian. To get ready for the Council, they were crafting a compendium of the faith as enunciated by all the papal encyclicals written since Pius the Ninth, doing everything they could to make Vatican II into another Council of Trent.

'This is all wrong,' Congar wrote. 'This is papalist nonsense. It is making the Council into a textbook manual that will not help bring about the aggiornamento Pope John XXIII is calling for--a recreation of what the faith was in its primitive beginnings. To rediscover the beauty of that faith, we have to take a deeper look at Sacred Scripture, and study the Fathers of the Church. And only then will the Council speak to the world in language it can understand.'

Reading Congar's accounts now, I realise my reports in Time and my book on the first session reflected only dimly what a fierce battle was going on. The Observer had a poster for my series that appeared in all the tube stations of London. It screamed out the headline THE PLOT TO THWART POPE JOHN. Read Congar and you will see that headline was an understatement.

Why am I telling you these stories? Because I want you to be aware during the coming year of efforts to dumb the Council down, of efforts to convince you that the Council didn't change the Church very much. I think it did, and after you recall what kind of Church we lived in before Vatican II, I think you will agree with me, and rejoice with me and be glad for what the Council did do, irreversibly, I hope.

The Council changed the way we thought about God, about ourselves, about our spouses, our Protestant cousins, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims
and Jews, even the way we thought about the Russians. When a handful of bishops kept pushing for conciliar condemnation of Communism, John XXIII kept insisting that that kind of talk would only blow up the world. Pope John and his Council made some preliminary moves that helped end the Cold War. For this, the editors of Time made John XXIII the Man of the Year.

The Jews? The Council reversed the Church's long-standing anti-Semitism. Until the Council, Catholics believed that, if Jews didn't convert to Catholicism, there was something wrong with them. The Council Fathers took another look at that idea and decided that Jews were still living their ancient covenant with God. We decided there was nothing wrong with the Jews; they became our brothers and sisters.

Before the Council, we thought we were miserable sinners when we were being nothing but human. After the Council, we had a new view of ourselves. We learned to put a greater importance on finding and following Jesus as 'the way' (as opposed to what we said in the Creed. It didn't matter so much what we said. What mattered was what we did: helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and find shelter for the homeless. That's what made us followers of Jesus.

Before the Council, we were told we were excommunicated if we set foot in a Protestant Church. After the Council (where Protestant observers were welcomed, given seats of honor, and spoken of no longer as Protestants, but as 'separated brethren'), we stopped fighting the Methodists and the Presbyterians and conspired with them in the fight for justice and peace and marched with them to Selma.

Before the Council, we thought only Protestants read the Bible. After the Council, we've seen a new Catholic appreciation of the Scriptures; they've been given a more prominent place at Mass; and in many parishes, we have groups gathering every week for Bible study.
Before the Council, we took pride in knowing that we were the only people on earth who could expect salvation, according to the centuries-long mantra, 'There is no salvation outside the Church.'
After the Council, we began to see there was something good and something great in all religions. And we didn't think we had all the answers. After Vatican II, we started thinking of ourselves not as 'the one, true Church'. We were 'a pilgrim people'. It was a phrase that summoned up an image of a band of humble travellers on a journey who, though we are subject to rain and snow and high wind and hurricane, to thirst and starvation and pestilence and disease and attack by leopards and locusts, keep on plodding ahead with a hope and a prayer that we will someone reach our destination. The image was calculated to counter an old self-concept that hadn't stood up to scrutiny - of a triumphal Church that had all the answers, lording it over humankind.
Before the Council, we identified 'salvation' as 'getting to heaven.' After the Council, we knew that we had a duty to bring justice and peace to the world in our own contemporary society, understanding in a new way the words that Jesus gave us when he taught us to pray, 'thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' By the end, among the most influential figures at the Council, we encountered two humble souls, one a woman, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, who wasn't allowed to speak to the assembled bishops at Vatican II (no woman was), and a bird-like figure, Dom Helder Camara, the archbishop of Recife, in Brazil. Both of them went around Rome telling individual bishops and those who were putting together the Council's crowning document, Gaudium et Spes: please don't forget the poor.

The Council did not forget the poor, and the statement out of Rome in October 2011 allying the Church with the world's have-nots only proves that even the current powers-that-be in the Church (still so unaccountable in so many other ways) get it. I will quote Gaudium et Spes:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

Before the Council, we were sin-obsessed. It was even a sin to eat a hamburger on Friday night after the game. After the Council, we had a new sense of sin. We didn't hurt God when we sinned. We sinned when we hurt somebody else. Or ourselves. After the Council, we had a new holy hopeful view of ourselves, redefining holiness as the famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton did: to be holy is to be human.

Before the Council, we were told we were condemned to hell if we made love to our spouses without at the same time making babies. After the Council, we knew we had a duty (and the God- approved pleasure) to make love even if we could not afford to have another baby.

Before the Council, we thought God spoke directly to the Pope and that he passed the word down the ecclesiastical pyramid to the bishops, then to the priests, then the nuns, and, properly filtered, to us. After the Council, we learned a new geometry. The Church wasn't a pyramid. It was more like a circle, where we are all encouraged to have a voice. We are the Church. We have a right and a duty to speak out about the kind of Church we want.

Please note that most of these changes did not come about because the Fathers of Vatican II revamped what we had already professed believing in the Apostles Creed. They didn't change our faith, they didn't come up with a new understanding of God. Still one God, two natures, three persons. Only in this sense can I agree with Pope Benedict XVI when he keeps insisting on something he calls 'the hermeneutic of continuity.'

I have to agree with him when he says the Council didn't come up with anything new. No, no new dogmas. (And thank God for that. The last thing modern, thinking Catholics want are dogmas of any kind. 'Dogma' and 'dogmatic' are words that we do not much resonate with. When I think of dogma, I think of the hundreds of anathemas laid down by the Council of Trent: 'believe these dogmatic propositions or be damned.')

When Jesus addressed the multitude on that hillside overlooking the lake, he did not enlighten their minds by reading them the Ten Commondments. He enkindled their hearts by telling what would make them happy.

The Council Fathers did not follow the example of Trent. They followed the example of Jesus. They did not anathematise anyone or anything. They set a new style of thinking about ourselves as followers of the guy who told us how we could have life and have it more abundantly.

We make a mistake if we comb through the sixteen documents of Vatican II and hope to find explicit warrants for the Church we want to see take shape in the future. We can only capture the real, revolutionary meaning of the Council by looking at the new kind of language that permeated all those documents. It was not the kind of legalistic language Cardinal Ottaviani loved. The American Jesuit John W. O'Malley, author of the most authoritative work on the Council, What Happened at Vatican II, says the Council's message was hidden in plain sight. Fr O'Malley describes it by contrasting the old language with the old:
...at stake were almost two different visions of Catholicism: from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to service, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptance to active engagement, from fault finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principled, from behaviour modification to inner appropriation.

Mere words? I do not think so. They underline my thesis - that the Council helped us all be more real, more human and more loving. The Council helped us realise that the world was a good place. It was good because God made it, and he made it because he loved us and loved the world, too. As should we.

I don't know what Council documents you're reading... truth in all religions? We don't have all the answers? The pleasure to make love without openness to children? The Jews are 'just fine'? Yikes....

Mr kaiser obviously has his head buried in the sand like most of his liberal modernist contemporaries. There is a massive crisis in the modernist church Mr Kaiser. It began in 1965 when the Council you praise blindly set about 'razing bastions'. By 2013 the chief indicators of the church demonstrate they did such a great job that just about every factor from seminary & church closures to sunday attendance and vocations have plummetted disastrously. In the meantime we have had popes who are obsessed with ecumenism and creating the impression that God got it wrong when he invalidated the old covenant with the Jews for the New. 'Enemies of the Immaculata' , as St Maximilien Kolbe has stated boldly and unambiguously enough. The consequences are the very apostasy decried by John Paul II. And he should know. Here is the man who has been beatified under false pretenses and who turned the post-conciliar church into the rubble that it is today.

i met bob on a train from florince to luzerene switzerland in1999 happy he's still writing and i agree the council has had effect

I agree with Mr. Blair that Vatican II changed things in he Church. A reasonable person would admit that the aftermath has been catastrophic. In my lifetime I have witnessed a massive drop in Church attendance, the infrequency of confession, sexual misconduct by the clergy, adoption of new age spirituality by nuns, the destruction of Church architecture; the banality of modern hymns, vestal virgins prancing about sanctuaries, Catholic politicians advocating for abortion and same sex marriage. I await the renewal promised by Vatican II. I have no doubt the real renewal has begun, but it will take years to dig our way out of the post conciliar mess to the level of the much maligned pre-Vatican II Church. But at least Mr. Blair can enjoy his hamburger after his Friday game.

An important understanding Post Vatican 2 was that of the 'hierarchy of truths'. Some teachings are foundational and unchanging in their essence (though the ways they are expressed may change and develop). Other teachings, ways of doing things, and modes of organisation may be superseded and change and develop as contexts and understandings grow and develop.

As a religious 'formed' in the pre-Vatican 2 Church, words fail to describe the feeling of freedom that the council generated. Freedom to know and be myself, freedom to pray and plan......My only regret is that the Council was not held before I joined the novitiate.

It is time to abandon the myth of a great post-Vatican II 'springtime'� for the Church. I would point to the almost panicked admission of Pope Paul VI in the immediate aftermath of the Council '“ an admission without precedent in the annals of the pronouncements of Roman Pontiffs: 'By some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it has entered through the windows which were meant to have been opened to the light. This state of uncertainty reigns even in the Church. It was hoped that after the Council there would be a day of sunlight in the history of the church. Instead, there came a day of clouds, of darkness, of groping, of uncertainty. How did this happen? We will confide Our thoughts to you: there has been interference from an adverse power: his name is the devil'¦'� Paul VI, Insegnamenti, Ed. Vaticana, Vol. X, 1972, p. 707.

Vatican II's Constitution on the Church says this in chapter three: 'Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held. This is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith.' (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html) The 20 ecumenical councils before it are still infallible, like the ecumenical council of Trent that declared that Catholics with faith can lose salvation from unrepented mortal (grave) sin. And that baptism or the implicit desire of baptism is necessary for salvation.

' I love the order, structure and the traditions of the Church and I'm tired of my parents and their parents generation squadering my spiritual inheritance.' Perhaps the irony is lost on Mr. Malony, but disparaging the ideas of your parents and grandparents amounts to squandering your spiritual inheritance. No? A young person yearning for some imaginary, prelapsarian purity (pre-Vat II Church) is understandable, but easily cured by speaking to some of the older people who had to live in that paradise. If it was all so beautiful and pure, why did John XXIII bother calling the council? Unless, gulp, the Pope was wrong. But that would be anathema in the pre-Vat. II Church.

Robert Blair Kaiser is skilled in the art of sophistry for sure, but the analysis behind the slick verbiage is crude. The 'before and after' presentation was the 'old order = bad'; 'new order = good' rhetoric that has been the stock in trade of usurpers down the ages. Like so many who try to project the Second Vatican Council as a break with the past, Kaiser is adept at presenting criticisms as a rejection of specific institutions of the Church. The reality is that the Church is not ours, it is God's working through the Holy Spirit. The 'Spirit of VII' usurpers have wreaked havoc for decades. I for one am glad to hear that the new Prefect of the CDF is willing to call heresy by its name.

wow what nonsense! You think we're a circular not a hierarchical Church? tell that to Korah in Numbers Ch. 16. As a young Catholic, I'm tired of this rebellious old generation and their disdain for authority and complete lack of respect for tradition (not to mention poor theology). I love the order, structure and the traditions of the Church and I'm tired of my parents and their parents generation squadering my spiritual inheritance - my parish is spending tens of thousands restoring the destruction of the 70s and 80s and it's precisely this kind altar-in-the-middle arrogance that caused it. It IS time for the restoration of the Church, because the renovation was a DISASTER.

Father John George's comment is spot-on. Kaiser's piece is full of manipulative slogans that caricature - almost demonize - the pre-conciliar Church, in an effort to idealize the 'spirit' of the Council. That spirit of conformity with the world has had a catastrophic effect on the Church in the West, as is evidenced by the cold, hard statistics that document massive declines in church attendance, acceptance of the creeds, baptisms, priestly and religious vocations, and adult conversions. Far from making the Church more 'relevant' to the modern world, that conciliar 'spirit' has clearly alienated Westerners and led to endless painful divisions among Catholics themselves. Forget that 'spirit of the Council'! We need the 'letter of the Council' i.e., reading it in continuity with our great bimilennial Tradition.

Just a comment to 'A concerned priest reader'; One God, Three Persons, the Second Person two Natures; Human and Divine. Agree with that?

A quote from the gentleman's lecture:'They didn't change our faith, they didn't come up with a new understanding of God. Still one God, two natures, three persons.' One God, two natures?!? Someone had better brush up on his basic catechism. Our faith teached that God is one nature and three persons, and this is no small matter. I think a published correction is in order.

Time for Vatican III? I wonder. Diarmuid McCollough suggests that early 21st Christianity as a whole, and not just Catholicism, is characterised by a spirit of 'angry conservatism'. Maybe, then, not the time for Vatican III. Why not just implement Vatican II?

J.G., did I mention 'sexual' abuse? Nice try all the same :)

Thank you, Robert Blair Kaiser and The Tablet for pointing out the continuing impact of Vatican II and for inspiring us to keep The Way as taught by Jesus as our goal. Wonderful encouragement in a darkening time! And yes, Kaiser, please republish!

@Jeff - But note that Wordsworth came to regret profoundly his youthful idealism in 'The Prelude', where he asks Edmund Burke to forgive him for being seduced by radical change. Surely with age should come wisdom. '...Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced By specious wonders, and too slow to tell Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men, Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides, And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught, Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue...'

It was indeed a very uplifting lecture. The lucid down to earth style can easily be comprehended by lay people. The pace put us right back to 1962 where the early seeds of Vatican II were laid and indeed we do see the fruits of that Council today. Its not so much of 'how much change have we seen' as 'how much change we would not have seen, had it not been for Vatican II'. We are indeed a privileged generation and clearly it was the Holy Spirit inspiring and guiding the church fathers. Of course, many of the events that have happened in the world could not have been forseen 50 years ago. Begs the question, in this digital compressed world with information-idealogies-dialogues at finger-tips, would a Vatican III happen in our lifetime ?

Theformerpresidentof Ireland says she was lectured by Cardinal Laws on one occasion and told to listen to a lecture by an approved writer -such arrogance !Now we have the new evangelisation and a new branch of the curia to promote it as well as a Synod.This all smacks of flogging a dead horse.The present hierarchy do not-fifty years on-understand inspiration,They havnt yet embarked on the road to Damascus but we can pray for them.

I entered the seminary just as Vatican 11 began. And as Wordsworth once intoned: 'Bliss it was to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven' Robert Kaiser's piece really re-enkindled that feeling of enthusiam (Gk: en -in; thus - God)'! The years that followed only enflamed this - especially when some Anglicans prayed with me for the full gift of the Holy Spirit. Fifty years later there is a sadness, the sense of opportunities lost and of church politics obscuring the wonderful vision of the Council. But always Hope. 'Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with -ah! - bright wings' (Hopkins).

Change in perspective & externals is not the same as change in 'essential constitution.' Why imply that the present state & orientation of the Church depends on the agenda of its current policy-makers, i.e., Pope and curia, etc.? If we view the Church as a single continuing organism, we will see why ruptures & discontinuities are irrelevant.

Oh what a refreshing piece of writing that even those of us in the lower echelons of the Church can understand. Thank goodness for a true view of what the Pope was striving to achieve in Vatican 2 - and a measure of his humility, something rarely seen in the senior hierarchy of the Catholic Church. I hope his wisdom is not hi-jacked by the presentation of the Year of Faith.

Dear Sir, It was a wonderful summary of your lecture. Please republish your work as its unavailable in some parts and out of print in others. Perhaps bring it up to date by writing some final chapters - I believe they call it afterword - of what happened since 1962 and in the final chaper republish in full your lecture that you gave at Heythrop for those of us unlikely enough not to be able to attend

I have seen a film about Pope John 23rd where he was lying in his deathbed and Cardinal Ottaviani came to say his last goodbye, telling him that he had opposed him because he thought the novelties were harmful for the Church. Pope John asked Ottaviani to move a bit aside because he was obstructing his view of the crucifix on the wall . Most symbolic, isn't it?

This is a superb article to keep at hand when anyone speaks of 'continuity' as a hallmark of Vatican II. The listing of all those actual, factual 'ruptures' is a meaningful reminder of what it was like beforehand. Thank you Robert Blair Kaiser for the uplift and rekindling of hope. I am keeping this at hand for rereading in the face of creeping restorationism.

At the time there was a lot of Transatlantic traffic and delegates were entertained at the American Air Bases in East Anglia where courtesy of the chaplains we picked up all the gossip and copies of American journals and Time magazine with Bob Kaisers observations.It is impossible to convey the euphoria of all the participants -they were beside themselves with astonishment that they were not being dictated to by Roman officials but could fully engage in rebuilding the church using a new Testament template - or rather the old fashioned New Testament model.Those of us who got the renewal bug then still retain a certain keenness and joy CONGRATS TABLET

Lilly,you most sadly state ' the abuse...was of the relics of an ancient regime.'[while such abuse must be deplored, nonetheless, abuse[eg sexual is not predicated merely to ancient 'relics'. I recently perused the global media, blackballed, USA 2004 Shakeshaft Education Report. Such described 4.5 million public school children. as sexually molested over 3 decades with 10% of school officials as molesters all very hush hush mind you![mustnt distract from 'RCC crisis' readership value!

Kaiser's article represents the slogans, that epitomize the antinomian 'post-gone-sillier' church quakes, Such let loose dark forces, responsible for decades of doctrinal and moral chaos, that still harass the church. His article paints well with obvious journalistic skill,though unintentionally, the shallow zany adolescent reactions to magnificent documents of the Council,typeset by 'the right finger' of the Holy Spirit, [ like De Milles' Tablets, 'chiseled' on Sinai], those glorious docs, shredded by lesser spirits, indeed the antithetical so called 'Spirits of vatican 2', oft invoked for decades of anarchy.[Any wonder Jean Guitton, esteemed layman at the Council, recorded the last words of Pope John xxiii:'Stop the Council,Stop the Council'

Best common sense spoken about religion for a long time. I had almost forgotten what Vatican II was all about, after having been reared mostly in this style of education. Now having been exposed to the extremes of the current heirachy, I had just about given up on faith all together. Now I'm not so sure anymore if indeed there are people around who understand these issues far better and can write with such clarity about what the initial thrust of the teaching was all about. To now understand that there has been a constant war within catholicism, has helped me to understand that the great things I experienced in growing up within a catholic culture, was in fact due to this kind of teaching, and the abuse that I experienced, was of the relics of an ancient regime. Thank you.

What a wonderful, inspiring, uplifting address by Robert Blair Kaiser? I would have loved to have been there to have listened to him delivering it. Congratulations, Bob. I doubt you would have convinced Benedict and those who control the agenda today. You article would have lifted the hearts of many though.

Superb piece by Robert Kaiser.Also the O,Malley.Hope you publish them in a book.

       

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