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This year, we observe the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. As a seminarian at the North American College in Rome, I was privileged to be present in St. Peter's Piazza on October 11, 1962 (my mother's 56th birthday), when 2,400 cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots and superior generals of religious orders processed through the square into the basilica to commence this watershed event of 20th-century Catholicism.

In his homily at the October Mass commemorating the inauguration of the council launched by Blessed Pope John XXIII a half-century ago, Pope Benedict XVI urged us to return to and to study afresh the council documents.

In rereading the texts of the council, however, we must recognize that these are not legal documents or unalterable holy writ; but, as the late Cardinal Basil Hume of Great Britain noted, "They are to be treated as recording a point of departure, bearings taken on leaving port. They are a manual for navigation for a journey across the sea. But they do not describe fully the destination."

Let me suggest a few of the council's insights which, I am convinced, are as relevant today, if not moreso, than a half-century ago.

People of God
One of the most significant developments of the council was its reimagining of the Church as the people of God. The council fathers recaptured a keen awareness of a corporate belonging to the one body of Christ, based upon the unity of baptism, the priesthood of all believers and the universal call to holiness.

The shared baptism of all Christians became the fundamental ground of the Church. By making baptism, not ordination, the primary sacrament in the church, the council altered an ecclesiology that had become too rigid and brittle over time and opened a new way of understanding the Church and who its members are. The ordained hierarchy are now situated within the whole people of God as servants of a common mission and call to holiness that all share.

In this inclusive view of Church, membership centered in baptism is the promise of full equality and full inclusion of all men and women: ordained and nonordained; educated and ignorant; rich and poor; saints and sinners; and all colors, all tribes, all ethnicities.

As Boston College theologian Dr. Richard Gaillardetz writes, "The Church is we. It is all of us or it is nothing. It is - to use another council phrase - the full and active participation of all."

Reforming liturgy

The most practical way in which the unity of God's people expressed itself through the council was in its reform of the liturgy. The use of vernacular languages, the turning of the altar to the congregation, removing the altar rail separating the priest and the people and, most important of all, inviting the full participation of the congregation in the liturgy, gave a new sense of inclusion.

The opening of the offices of acolytes, lectors and eucharistic ministers to lay men and women expanded still further the opportunity for active participation by the entire people of God. It should be noted that such participation is no historical novelty, but really a return to the early practice of the Church.

The council fathers opened up other institutional innovations also intended to promote participation - the restoration of the diaconate, priests' councils, parish councils, diocesan pastoral councils, religious conferences of men and women - all intended at least to lead to regular channels of communication between the clergy, religious and laity and the hierarchy.

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) for those joining the Church and the call to evangelization have provided further new opportunities for the laity to become missionaries or evangelists.

God's revelation
Another significant advance of the council was the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation ("Dei Verbum"). This offers a clarion call to all Catholics to see revelation as the action of God that invited the human race into new intimacy with the creator.

As Rev. Nicholas King, SJ, an Oxford University Scripture scholar, observes: "Revelation is not the disclosure of truth to which we could not otherwise obtain, nor yet an increase in supernatural knowledge (whatever that might be,) but the unfailing self-disclosure of the triune God in Christ inviting human beings to enter into a dialogue of love, and a response to the faith issuing in personal commitment."

As Catholics, then, we must engage with Scripture, both Old Testament and New, and above all with the Gospels, and learn to read the Gospels and apply them in our time, in our place.

Interfaith progress
Another amazing result of the council was the emphasis on ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, calling for greater unity within the Christian community and recognition of "all that is good and holy" in other faith traditions, especially the Jewish community, which has brought the Church from its defensive posture regarding other religious denominations to one of mutual respect, understanding and finding common ground.

Further, canon law professor Rev. Ladislas Orsy, SJ, observes that in its decree on religious liberty, "Dignitatis Humanae," the Council recognized "that somehow the Spirit of God is hovering over the whole human family and that the mission of the Church is much broader than preaching the Gospel in the strictest sense. Hence, today, and ever since the council, the Church has been very eager to proclaim human dignity and lays claim to a competence to speak to the whole of humanity in order to protect, defend and promote human dignity."

Going beyond
In its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, "Gaudium et Spes," the council fathers proclaimed that "the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially that of the poor and the afflicted, are as well the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts."

"Gaudium et Spes," then, underscores that the Church must not only engage the world, but be willing to learn from the world - from culture, the physical sciences and the behavioral sciences.

As Archbishop Joseph Tobin, newly-appointed Archbishop of Indianapolis, points out: "There is a tendency to look at the world through the lens of its atomizing individualism, triumphal materialism, scientific hubris and deep skepticism about the existence of any transcendent values or reality. But there must also be a willingness to go inside to listen to what is provoking these things and to try to find the seeds of the Gospel."

When we do this, the Archbishop states, the Church, rather than locking itself in the attic and hoping the storm will pass over, goes out into the wind and rain with the confidence that the Gospel and the Holy Spirit give us a willingness to listen to other people and to learn from them.

New evangelization
Often, I believe, we will find in these "isms" a remnant of faith - seeds of the Gospel that won't quite go away, a stubborn refusal to deny God or Scripture values altogether - but what they need is spiritual guidance. To provide that guidance, I would suggest, is the challenge of the new evangelization.

The council also encouraged the laity not only to take a fuller role in the liturgical, faith formation and pastoral life of the Church, but pointed out that the laity's primary responsibility is to be about engaging the world through people's involvement with politics, the economy, the workplace, the labor union movement, family and civic life.

The laity, in other words, are now challenged to bring their faith to the secular sphere to transform a fallen world, rather than retreat from it.

Sadly, we can all recite ways in which the lofty goals of the council have fallen short in our liturgy and catechesis; in our collegial, ecumenical and interfaith efforts; and in combating an aggressive and unrelenting secularism. The litany could go on and on.

However, instead of lamenting our faults and shortcomings, our overreaching or retreating, the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council should be an opportunity to rejoice in what has worked, to assess what needs changing and to recommit ourselves to the task of living and serving in a Church "semper reformanda est" - ever to be reformed.

The Second Vatican Council rests on the long tradition of biblical paradox, of the "already, but not yet." It rests, too, on a history of debate and argument that goes back to the earliest days of the Christian community - to disputes about who would be included and who left out, about what food could be eaten and about who would be cared for or ignored. Indeed, we inherit a tradition that tells us that the answer should always be the most generous and gracious imaginable.

Answer the call
The challenge for us today is to remain open to the call of the Second Vatican Council for the ongoing renewal of the Church - the call, as Rev. John O'Malley suggests in his superb book, "What Happened at Vatican II," "to move from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from threats to persuasion, from rivalry to partnership, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from pettiness to magnanimity, from suspicion to trust, from faultfinding to appreciation, from intransigence to seeking common ground, from behavior modification to conversion of heart, from topdown vertical to horizontal, from alienation to reconciliation, from monologue to dialogue."

May this be our perspective as we celebrate this Year of Faith and continue in our efforts to fulfill the vision of the Second Vatican Council.[[In-content Ad]]

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