Book Review

Looking back to look forward

Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition

Few theological subjects are more likely to provoke a good argument among Catholic theologians than the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. Commentators have come to speak of two prominent schools of interpretation. One - whose doyen is Giuseppe Alberigo, editor of the multi-volume History of Vatican II - claims that the council inaugurated a new era, breaking with the history of Counter-Reformation Catholicism toward a new solidarity and engagement with modernity. Movements of ressourcement prepared for the council, but its true meaning is grasped only by one who understands the "event" behind the conciliar texts. Understanding this "event" in turn enables judgement about which trajectories of recent thought and practice best fulfil its promise. (This language can be seen clearly in Alberigo's A Brief History of Vatican II.)

The second school found a new focus in Pope Benedict's call, in December 2005, for a "hermeneutic of reform". While Benedict sets this in opposition to the "hermeneutic of discontinuity", it is a style of "reform" not simply "continuity" for which he calls. The Pope criticises those who see the true meaning of the council in an "event" to which only the intent of the "progressives" at the council bore witness and which is not truly present in the texts of the council. He emphasises instead the importance of the texts themselves and of the clear statements by John XXIII and Paul VI that the council will and did transmit the Church's unchanging doctrine with certainty and continuity. In a more speculative vein Benedict calls for an understanding of the balance between innovation and continuity that marks the council's statements. In particular, he suggests, one cannot interpret shifts marked by the council in ways that would be opposed to the continuous teaching of the Church. Renewal thus must always draw on and adapt the Church's tradition.

At the level of "general" hermeneutics there is at issue between these schools a basic question about the reading of texts. For someone trained to read texts historically it seems unavoidable that interpretation of them should begin with attention to the thought of those who were influential in drafting the council's documents, and then to the process of negotiation and redaction that led to their final form. Claims to novelty or continuation should be assessed by comparison of a given text with relevant earlier texts. Such methods of interpretation are central to Alberigo's own treatment of the Vatican II. However, when Alberigo speaks of the meaning of the council today he adopts the rather different hermeneutic of which I spoke above: only by identifying the "event" underlying the text can we understand the council's true meaning. But such a hermeneutic is simply not persuasive at the philosophical level, and perhaps especially so when it is used to argue for current causes in the council's "spirit" which find little support in the texts themselves.

There are also significant theological questions at issue. I termed Benedict XVI's discussion of continuity and discontinuity "speculative" not because I found it unconvincing, but because it attempts to answer a question not often treated in Catholic theology: what is the appropriate hermeneutic for conciliar texts? In part, I suspect, it is because Alberigo's "hermeneutics of the event" is very much a product of the twentieth century.

We should, then, read in Pope Benedict's address not only a call for a reading of Vatican II as such, but also a call for reflection on an insufficiently explored aspect of fundamental theology. Given that many of the themes that would need to be brought together and the questions to be asked are clear enough, let me suggest just a couple. What does it mean theologically to say that it is the text of a council that is authoritative, not a reconstruction of the intentions of just one set of its authors? No decent historian would suggest that the texts are not the product of compromise between competing groups, but if we see the Spirit guiding the Church, then is it not the case that it is the resultant complex text (with its own internal ambiguities), endorsed by the Council Fathers and the Pope, that stands as authoritative? To what extent are councils always also a negotiation of previous tradition? To what extent should we read Vatican II as a directing of Catholic theologians towards particular streams of ressourcement and as a calling for making the patristic and medieval texts central to the work of those theologians? The history of Catholic thought hints at answers but much remains to be done.

All this said, what of Lamb and Levering's book? The volume offers an essay on each of the documents of Vatican II. Many of the chapters follow a standard format, following through the text assigned section by section, showing continuities with earlier tradition, exploring particular terminologies against the contexts of the alternatives proposed. A joint essay by the editors introduces the volume, and pieces by Geoffrey Wainwright and Matthew Lamb conclude it. Some of the essays are extremely helpful (most are also clear enough to be approachable by students and general readers). I think especially of that on Lumen Gentium by Cardinal Dulles, the essays by Pamela Jackson and Romanus Cessario OP on the liturgy and the sacraments, that on Unitatis Redintegratio by Charles Morerod OP. With real skill these essays situate their texts against the background of the renewals and shifts in liturgical thinking during the early twentieth century. The discussions of Dei Verbum by Francis Martin and Denis Farkasfalvy O.Cist. are also noteworthy, although less time is spent on locating the constitution against the background of work since Trent than one might have wished. Khaled Anatolios' discussion of Orientalium Ecclesiarum is a model of how to read the texts' innovations as expressions of a desire for ressourcement.

The two essays on Gaudium et Spes are less satisfying. Brian Benestad's "Doctrinal Perspectives on the Church in the Modern World" is helpful, but it tends describe changes from previous teaching without coming to grips with the question of how one should read these shifts. Levering's own piece, "Pastoral Perspectives on ...", follows similar lines. Give the frequency with which Gaudium et Spes is read as a progressive statement of the Church's new embrace of modernity and thus as a hermeneutic for all other conciliar texts, it is odd that neither piece discusses the overall place of this text within the conciliar corpus.

While there is much here that is useful and timely, I had hoped for far more overt discussion of the questions to which I earlier alluded. The idea that Vatican II can be read simply as rupture is well refuted: but the relevant hermeneutical questions remain for the most part below the surface. This is a helpful commentary on the council, but some significant nettles remain to be grasped.

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