Book Review

Light to all nations of the world

Global Catholicism: diversity and change since Vatican II

Every bishop and priest in the Catholic Church should sit down and read this remarkable book. Ian Linden has quietly demolished canards levelled against those who believe that the reforming work of the Second Vatican Council is not yet complete. Instead of imagining that life beyond the Council is ever upwards and onwards, he takes as seriously as Pope Benedict the ever-lurking reality of sin.

The Council, which John XXIII called on 25 January 1959, struggled to birth, despite what the then Professor Joseph Ratzinger called the Curia's "almost neurotic denial of all that was new". In an Anglican theological college back in the 1950s, we were aware of new life bubbling up in the Catholic Church, for we had read Jungmann and Bouyer on the liturgy, Yves Congar on ecumenism, admired the Abbé Michonneau's revolution in his city parish and the struggles of the French priest-worker movement: great riches, but for us outsiders they were locked in a "walled-up supernatural garden". It took the "warm, gentle, charismatic" Angelo Roncalli to throw open the doors so that the Church could be the servant of the world. Instead of seeing out there "nothing but betrayal and ruination", he wanted "the signs of the times" to be read. Maybe "this holy old boy did not realise what a hornets' nest he was stirring up", but in truth he had a remarkably clear idea of what he was after. The Council might not promulgate new dogmas but this Pope wanted "a leap forward in doctrinal insight", a change of focus resulting from the recognition that, if "the substance of the ancient deposit of faith is one thing, the way it was presented was another".    

If conflict led up to the Council, conflict was also part and parcel of its life. Every step towards the fulfilment of John XXIII's dream was strongly resisted. Yet Linden is swift to insist that the proceedings remained "good-humoured and courteous" and that these conflicts were not just between those who could be crudely labelled "conservatives" and "liberals". For instance it was the great reforming Archbishop Hurley of Durban who believed that the nuclear deterrent was necessary, while it was that tough old resister of change Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani who called for a total condemnation of all war. Despite the battles, "warm personal relationships" were built up and "collegiality" became a lived experience. And that, as Cardinal Gracias of Bombay testified, was a liberating experience: "we have learned to walk with our own legs".

Just as councils do not drop out of heaven but are part of the ongoing life of the Church, so they always leave unfinished business. The imperfections and incompleteness of Vatican II are clear: a purely clerical assembly, the laity, especially women, firmly excluded; and it was a very Europe-centred affair. The voice of the developing world was hardly heard, the call for justice and peace somewhat muted. The Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), as it sought to embrace "the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of our time", made a start despite bearing the scars of being cobbled together at the last minute; but that was to prove its strength.

Now the seed of the Council had to be scattered abroad in a bewildering variety of cultures - to be tended by the local church and applied to particular circumstances. The growth of this seed depended on these churches being free to cultivate them. And here was the rub: episcopal minds may have been changed, but what was not changed were "the curia and administrative culture of the Vatican". Minds were bent to tame wild bishops and make sure that, when they came together for their synods, these should be occasions for them to sit and listen to the pure voice of Rome and have the conclusions of what deliberations they were allowed written for them.

From all his past experience as director of the Catholic Institute for International Relations, Linden paints the drama of the local churches' struggle to exercise this freedom. Whether it is in Latin America, the Philippines, India, South Africa, Rwanda or Zimbabwe, it is the gripping story of the growing maturity of the People of God. But Linden never romanticises it. While hailing the insights of liberation theologians and the many martyrs for justice in Latin America, he recognises that Marxist ideology could be allowed to mask the Church's own tradition of social teaching. While recognising the growth of lay leadership through the "base communities", he can see that the old traditional religion of the poorest of the poor could be overlooked or even despised. In Africa, commitment to the cause of freedom might not survive the slaying of the colonial foe. In Rwanda, tribalism might capture religion, and in Zimbabwe a devout altar boy might become a new tyrant.

But for all the flaws and faults there is evidence of a renewed and flourishing Catholicism. Such rich diversity needs to be held together by a Petrine ministry of unity, but the reality is one of frustration and sadness. Instead of martyrs celebrated and solidarity declared, an assault on liberation theology came from "wood-lined libraries and dim Vatican offices". While Oscar Romero cried to an oppressive government: "In the name of God, stop the repression!" and was gunned down for it, curial cardinals were planning their own way of getting rid of this turbulent priest. While that most political of popes John Paul II was helping to dismantle the Soviet empire, he was wagging his finger at the political priests of Nicaragua. While women Religious were standing on the front line of Catholic witness and laywomen, in the absence of priests, were running parishes, the Vatican closed eyes and ears to such resources and preferred on such matters as sex and marriage the views of its old all-male club. It is not surprising that many faithful Catholics quietly make a detour around an organisation which seems no longer "fit for purpose". This is understandable but, in the end, sad. Here is a great opportunity for the papacy to shake itself free from its shackles, to become what it was always meant to be, the rock of support for front-line troops and the strong band of love, which can hold this glorious variety together.

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