My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
Vatican History and Lumen Gentium
In this episode, John and Fr. Stephen delve into the historical context of Vatican II.
Take a walk through history with us as we revisit the abrupt end of the First Vatican Council in 1870 and the unresolved issues it left behind. Fast forward to 1958, when Pope John XXIII initiated the Second Vatican Council with a focus on inclusivity and transparency. We explore how his vision aimed at addressing the Church's challenges and how the preparatory work set the stage for a significant shift towards openness and communal participation within the Church.
Understanding the Second Vatican Council's teachings isn't straightforward, and we tackle the complexities head-on. From the diverse sources and necessary compromises to the broader context of the council's entirety, we provide insights into interpreting these teachings.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
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Speaker 2:So good, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. My friend the friar, he's back. He's back Father Stephen Sanchez, a discalced Carmelite priest. Good afternoon, good evening, good evening.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is evening, You've been gone for so long. Yes, been doing a lot of traveling.
Speaker 2:How many states have you been to?
Speaker 1:this year alone One, two. Well, of course, arkansas, then North Carolina and Georgia.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I'm going to Boston next week.
Speaker 2:And Texas. That's what four? Texas, yeah, and you've been sick 17 times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that COVID kind of got me, really, knocked me on my behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's that. And now the spores. Yes, you don't look like a zombie.
Speaker 1:Yet See, that's externally. It hasn't broken through yet it's still gestating.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, I've missed you so much, man.
Speaker 1:Um, we have talked about all sorts of things without you, and now yes, I'm waiting for the um Holy sees approval that I begin the inquisition for you and Mark.
Speaker 2:We'll have that talk later. All the the heresies about aliens and stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll get back to that. We'll come back to that.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, before you righteously smite me how about you teacheth me about lumingentium?
Speaker 1:Yeah, lumumen Gentium, when we first talked about this, we had said that I wanted to talk on chapter 8, which has to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church and Mary as the icon of the church right and the importance of a Christological Mariology, or an understanding of Mary within the scope of the church as the people of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when was that? That was a while. I mean everything, because I haven't talked to you in so long. It was a while back, it was a while. It was one of those things that we actually said, hey, we should talk about that, we should, yes, and we remembered.
Speaker 1:To talk about this, right? So then I began working on that, and then, as I was working on that, I go like ah, it's all contextual, I need to contextualize this, so I should probably do an introduction to Lumen Gentium. So I said, okay, so, but I just can't do an introduction. I should probably do a little bit on chapter one, a little bit on chapter four, a little bit on chapter five, so I can actually get to chapter eight.
Speaker 2:So yeah, well, and you have to understand it in historical context as well. Yes, the context of it all, because you just yeah yeah, yeah, but I'm really excited because the um, like I always, I get to cheat right like. I've read the show notes, I know what, I know what we're going to talk about, but these documents are amazing.
Speaker 1:They are.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Well, I would have to say I have a feeling that people who are all on the bandwagon of, oh, Vatican II was heretical nonsense and all that kind of stuff, right the end of the church, blah, blah, blah I don't know if they've read the documents.
Speaker 1:Most likely not. Most people have not, so we're not going to cover them all. That would be nice, though we could probably do a deep dive into the Vatican documents, but anyway. So I want to do this introduction to Lumen Gentium, which is the dogmatic constitution on the church which was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 21st 1964. But before we dive into the intro to this document, lumen Gentium, first I want to sort of lay out the logic of the conciliar fathers and the manner in which we should understand and approach these documents. Now I'll start off by saying that these are very, very broad strokes, a very general way of approaching the documents. But it's helpful to have this sort of 30,000-foot kind of like overview and look at this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So of all this, there are 16 documents that were published. So at the center of all these documents, at the center of this thing, we have two primary documents, and it has to do with the core belief that God has revealed himself to us. And so if God has revealed himself to us, then that this revelation that God manifests himself, he manifests himself to us for our salvation, our redemption or our restoration, whichever word you want to use to communicate that inner yearning for a communication with or connection with the supernatural, for our completion, a revelation that is for God's revelation, that is for our completion, a revelation that is for God's revelation, that is for our benefit, but also that revelation is an essential part of God himself, that is the revelatory aspect of his being. So it's important that we know this. We've talked about this before in, I think, the episodes on relationships. Yeah Well, and this shows up in the cate the episodes on relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and this shows up in the catechism too. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:That's very essential, that this is part of our core belief, in that God is not someone who says I'm going to show myself and then not show myself. I'm going to reveal myself and not reveal myself. Part of God's essence is this revelatory aspect of his nature. Right, and so then for us, then, as we look at this and we examine this revelation, that revelation that God makes for our well-being, for our salvation, redemption, restoration, the fact that God reveals himself, this revelation then expects a response from us, who he has revealed himself to, right? So, getting back to the 30,000-foot overview of this, so we have two foundational ideas here. One is God's revelation. Two is our response to that revelation.
Speaker 1:For us, as believers, we see that the response to God's revelation is liturgy. So after the fall, we see it in the sacrifices of Cain and that of Abel and the many iterations afterwards, most famously the sacrifice of Abram and the smoking pot between these animals that were cut in half and stuff. So I mean, this is all of this is a response to God's manifestation, right? So there is liturgy. So then you have the two core documents are De Verbum, which is God's word, or the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation. So revelation and then the response to that revelation we call sacrosanctum concilium, or constitution on the sacred liturgy. So, god's revelation, dei Verbum, our response, sacrosanctum concilium. And since God's revelation eventually makes us a people, a community of belief, then there is a development of a communal response to this revelation, a communal liturgy which we celebrate as the Eucharist, and different liturgical celebrations that we have within the church, right that we have within the church, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, would you liturgy, I guess I don't know definitions simile kind of thing. Would you just call it like the process, like the act of something? Right, because we have the liturgy the word liturgy of the Eucharist?
Speaker 1:Well, if we go back to one of the previous episodes, we talked a little bit about liturgy and that liturgy, originally the Greek word, was public service. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. Liturgia, was he paid for?
Speaker 1:an apotheater or he paid for the construction of some patron or patroness of something right, and that was for the public service. And later on we, as a community of belief, then we took up that idea of liturgy that this is sort of again for the public good, for the public service, this is the way that we respond to God'sgy, that this is sort of again for the public good, for the public service, this is the way that we respond to God's revelation. And this is where that word liturgy now refers to that religious act, this religious response to God's revelation. Okay, for our well-being, right? Yeah. So then, with the fact that we are a community of belief, okay, we believe and we belong to the church, we also face the fact that not everyone in the world believes and therefore not everyone belongs to this community.
Speaker 1:So you have then De Verbum Revelation, sacrosanctum Concilium. Liturgy, which is the response, and the response that we make to God, makes us a church. And so that leads us to the next two core documents Lumen Gentium, which is the dogmatic constitution on the church, that is, the church defines itself. So the lumen gentium is the way the church, or the conciliar fathers, verbalize and express. This is how we understand ourselves to be as church, as a community of faith.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So then that's lumen gentium, or the light to the nations right, and then the next core document is Gaudium et Spes, joy and hope, so it's the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world. So okay, so you have revelation, you have a response, which is liturgy. The response to the revelation makes us church, and then we, as a church, we find ourselves in a world that doesn't believe. So then now, who are we in a world that doesn't believe? How are we to live in the world, or what is our place in the world?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, so it's like relationship to God, relationship to the world. Relationship to God defines who we are and then relationship to the world. Well, relationship to God defines who we are and then relationship to the world.
Speaker 1:Yes, so those are the four core documents and everything sort of comes from that, right? Yeah, so, as the conciliar fathers lead us through, de Verbum, the Revelation, then the liturgy, sacrosancto Concilium, then Lumen Gentium, definition of the church, how we see ourselves, define ourselves, then how we relate to the world. So that's Gaudium et Spes. Okay, so all of these, the core element, the core teaching, is that all of this is for our understanding, because our vocation is to be holy, as our Heavenly Father is holy. So all of these constitutions, all of these documents really are supposed to help us to understand that our vocation are called to holiness. So that's what the teaching is about. The purpose of Christianity is to imitate the perfect charity of Christ. Right?
Speaker 1:That we be other Christs. Okay, so, okay, so again, this is the 30,000-foot view View yeah, so from these four documents, de verbum, sacrosanctum concilium lumigensium gaudium mispes, from these four documents, all of the rest of the documents naturally fall into three categories. Now it's important that people understand that all of these documents are meant to be read in the context of all the other documents. You are not to take one document and extract it from the rest. You're supposed to understand and read that document in the light of everything else that has been published.
Speaker 2:I wonder if people that make all the arguments and stuff against Vatican II, if that's also something that they do, they're cherry picking, and when you try and take something that they do, they're cherry-picking and when you try and take something out of context. It's easy to make it. It's proof, texting right.
Speaker 1:You can find anything you want to prove your point or to argue, whatever right. So it's all contextual. Okay. So now, from these four documents we have, the other documents fall into three categories. One, the people of God, the church, those who believe, and then the documents having to do with the people of God are the documents on bishops, on priests, on the laity and on religious. And then the next category is the mission of the people of God. So the documents under this category are the documents on the training of priests, the documents on education, the documents on social communication and the documents on missionary activity. Then the third category, the people of God in relation with those outside of the faith. So these documents are on religious liberty, on ecumenism, on our relationship with the Eastern Rites in union with Rome, on our relationship with non-Christian churches and religions. So those are the three general categories then.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, okay, bertha is joining us. Come here, bertha, come here. She's so talkative I don't know if you can hear her on the mic.
Speaker 1:No, I can't, I can't hear her she's good, okay, so that's the 30,000-foot overview of that right. As I said before, very broad brushstrokes. And again I have to emphasize, all the documents should be read in the context of all the other documents. So there's a lot of reading to do, a lot of studying to do. People are still studying, Books are still being published on these documents. So now a little bit of background on the Second Vatican Council. So the first Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican I, was convened by Pope Pius IX on June 29, 1868, because of the rising threat of the Kingdom of Italy's encroachment upon the papal states. Way back then there was a lot of territory of Italy that belonged under the pope as a, as a state, right, yeah, as a state and for for context, when was the uh, the french revolution?
Speaker 1:oh, my goodness that was it's the 1870.
Speaker 2:Well, because it was kind of long along, it was way before it. Yeah, because 1870?
Speaker 1:Well, because it was kind of long. It was way before, yeah, because 1870, we have the Franco-Prussian War, and so this was already after Napoleon had taken power. So those are already the different civil wars in France too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is a the reason I bring it up. This is a serious time in the church Like there are a lot of things all around the world going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the church is A lot of revolution, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, getting kind of beat up.
Speaker 1:And so the reason Pope Pius called it was because of the threat of the Italian states against the papal states, states against the papal states. And what happened was napoleon the third, and this is in 1870. Napoleon the third had stationed french troops in rome to protect the pope from the italians.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of funny yeah, it is so.
Speaker 1:The council ended in 1870 because of the Franco-Prussian War. Because of that war, napoleon had to pull out all his French troops that he had stationed in Rome for the Pope's protection. So he needed them to fight his war. And as soon as Napoleon III pulled the french troops out, the italian national army seized the papal states, they seized rome, and so the council ended. They couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't continue because of the threat of their lives, uh, and their well-being, right. So that's why they, they stopped, that's why vatican one was never really officially ended.
Speaker 1:So the issues that the council were able to address before the ending were those of the roles of the papacy and the infallibility of the petrine office and the condemnation of the errors found in many of the modern philosophical trends rationalism, communism, materialism, secularism. These were the things that were on the agenda for them, as conciliar fathers, to address and because of the abrupt closing, many of these pastoral issues that were on the agenda were left undressed. They did define papal infallibility and the role of the papacy, and this is where the old Catholics split from the church, because they could not accept papacy, this teaching right of papal infallibility, and so that's where we begin to have some schism. Some people start leaving because, again, they weren't able to work it out, they weren't able to have the council to discuss all of these things, and so, as it's left abruptly, there is this reaction to that it's okay, that was in 1870.
Speaker 2:So 88 years later, yeah, 88 years and two world wars later.
Speaker 1:Yes, on October 28th 1958, angelo Cardinal Roncalli, who was the Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope and he took the name of John XXIII and he succeeded the saintly but very severe Pope Pius XII. Yeah, but praise God, because of Pope Pius XII's encyclical Divino Afflanti Spiritu encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. He encouraged a lot of biblical studies or before you couldn't do it without permission, and so he really opened up this whole idea of biblical studies. That actually began the liturgical movements and the liturgical reform, because people were actually going back to the original manuscripts and studying the original manuscripts and there's a lot of biblical studies that were now being undertaken mm-hmm okay, so anyway.
Speaker 1:So Roncalli is elected Pope, and he was elected. He was an older man and so they figured he would not last long, so they he was known as a caretaker Pope. Like we didn't, they couldn't figure out who they wanted to elect pope, so they elected him as like an interim right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a safe bet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a safe bet, he won't be around much longer anyway. So three months after he's elected, on January 25th 1959, on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, pope John XXIII met with a small group of cardinals at the Basilica of St Paul, outside the Walls, during Vespers, at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. And at this Vespers, this Prayer for Unity, to end the week of prayer for unity, christian unity, he announced three central points of his pontificate One, the convocation of a diocesan synod that word, that synod for the diocese of Rome. Two, the reform of the Code of Canon Law of 1917. Two, the reform of the Code of Canon Law of 1917. And three, the convocation of an ecumenical council. So basically, what had not been carried out 88 years before, now he's taking it upon himself to. We're going to come back and we're going to address those issues, okay going to address those issues.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the council was summoned by the apostolic constitution, umani Salutis, on December 25th 1961. And it took two years to make all the preparations. So the number of court attendees, once it was convoked, once the Second Vatican Council was official, the core number of attendees was 987 bishops. Later, sessions varied from 2,100 to 2,300 bishops. Also attending were 17 orthodox churches and protestant denominations sent as observers. Three dozen representatives of other christian communities attended the opening session and that number of christian communities attended grew to a hundred by the end of the fourth session. So people were coming. They couldn't vote, but they could come and see the process. And so, basically, this is how things, this is how the church works, this is how we work. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Why do you think so many? I don't want to say outsiders, but you know what I mean. Why do you think so many were invited? But you know what I mean. Why do you think?
Speaker 1:so many were invited. Well, I think part of it, too, was instead of the closed door mentality which you know. What does that do? Makes you suspicious? What are they hiding? And so this was like no, this is kind of, we would say, a transparency right in today's language. So the Pope wanted there to be greater transparency for people to see exactly how christ's church functions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to work with somebody who would say in the absence of information, people will use their imagination to fill in all the blanks exactly people will make up.
Speaker 1:So if you give them the information, then they know the facts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in getting ready for the council, then before it opens, john XXIII had handed over the responsibility for planning the planning of the council to the Roman Curia was what was called a preparatory I always want to say preparatory and that's wrong preparatory commission. In preparation, preparatory commission drafted documents or they're called schemas, like rough drafts and worked to ensure that the council kept the status quo. In other words, the preparatory commission did not want any changes. So the rules for the contract with the council were not well developed and the Curia decided that it would be held in Latin, without the use of translators. So because of this walled-off mentality, many bishops and theologians feared that the council was doomed Like okay, you're setting us up for failure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I don't want to skip too far ahead or anything, but it was Pope John, or? Wait, who was it? Pope John, the 23rd, 12th? No, who's the 12th Pius? The 12th that called it Pius the 12th. So he called it. So we've transitioned into a new pope.
Speaker 1:He called it Pius XII. So he called it. So we've transitioned into a new pope. No, no, no, no. John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council. He dies, and then we elect Pope Paul VI. So during the Second Vatican Council, there's a transition from John XXIII to. Paul VI. Now the first Vatican Council, the first Vatican Council that was convoked by Pius IX, the one that was ended abruptly. So they had to officially close that council at the meeting of the Second Vatican Council and begin the Second Council.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it was Pius XII who starts this whole process in 58.
Speaker 1:Pius XII with his encyclical Divino Afflanti Spiritu, which was the opening of biblical studies, and it's because of that, all of a sudden there's this huge excitement about Scripture and going back to the sources and there's this huge movement in Germany and in France and basically the liturgical reform actually began in Germany and France in the 40s.
Speaker 2:So did he die shortly after.
Speaker 1:He died in no, he died in 58. And Devon of Flanti Spirit was in 43.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:But these are some of the contributing streams that brings the Council together, the Second Vatican Council together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then, on October 11th 1962, 92 years after the sudden ending of the First Vatican Council, john XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council with the opening speech Gaudet Mater Ecclesia. Mother Church rejoices in the convocation of this new ecumenical council. Okay, okay. So remember, the Preparatory Commission wanted everything in Latin. They didn't want any changes, and so the first order of business on the first day of the council was to elect 16 bishops to serve, with eight appointed members on the 10 conciliar commissions, a total of 240 members. This is a lot of prep work.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well. So now looking back at the notes too, so when Pope John XXIII, when all the people were invited and there's 987 bishops and all that, that's not even Vatican II. Yet it's the beginning. Yeah, so it's like they're still just getting started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is the very beginning. We're all coming together. They're trying to get the drafts together. What are we going to talk about? Right? And so the first order of business then on the first day is to elect 16 bishops, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1:The commission on the apostolate of the laity. This was very well thought out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean this was encompassing right. There were some of the bishops who wanted those who served on the Preparatory Commission to be simply re-elected, those that had already been appointed by Pope John XXIII. Then the senior French cardinal Akhil Lainart addressed all of the council and he said that the bishops could not intelligently vote for strangers. He asked that the vote be postponed to allow all the bishops a chance to draw up their own lists. So German Cardinal Joseph Frings seconded that proposal and the vote for the election was postponed until they got all these things worked out. So the first meeting of the council adjourned after only 15 minutes. I can't vote for somebody I don't know. So the majority of the bishops arranged for recess and met in five different language groups, with each group proposing a slate of their own candidates. This resulted in a more ideological and geographic representation of the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the work of the Spirit, right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. What's so cool about all this to me is like have you ever tried to get a group of people to get anything accomplished?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, I've said on many committees yeah, it's insane, it's a pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't matter if they're a bunch of kindergartners or a bunch of 40-year-olds. It's almost impossible to get anything done, and this shows that our church is a worldwide church. Yes, and so you've got the language groups where it's like, okay, what's the closest language that I speak, the best that I can go buddy up in.
Speaker 1:And it was amazing that again, immediately in the first day, within the first few minutes, like no, no, that's not going to work, so let's do it this way. And obviously it was the Holy Spirit inspiring these people and moving these people so that there is a greater representation of the church on the commissions, right, yeah? So then the first session of the Second Vatican Council adjourned on December 8, 1962, and work began for the session slated for 1963. The preparations were halted upon the death of Pope John XXIII on June 3rd 1963, because an ecumenical council is dissolved automatically upon the death of the pope who convened the council. So the idea was okay, we're done, the pope's dead. So Cardinal Montini, the Archbishop of Milan, was elected on June 21st 1963, and he took the name of Paul VI and immediately announced the continuation of the council.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you imagine if everyone's like oh yeah, womp womp, we tried.
Speaker 1:Again. So another beautiful thing, another work of the Holy Spirit. Many of the bishops used this as an opportunity for their own ongoing formation and education. They were able to attend evening lectures given by the world's leading scholars. They called them Peretti's theological expert or advisor, and there were several hundred Peretti at the council that were teaching, catechizing, educating which is the latest research? Right, the latest research on all these different various topics, because now they could right Latest research on all these different, various topics, because now they could right, and according to languages, different languages.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was wonderful. So they were going to be in Rome for several months a year from 1962 to 1965, for a total of four sessions. So another contributing factor to the council's success was that the bishops were seated by seniority and therefore they found themselves sitting with bishops from different countries, which contributed to the broadening of the horizons as they began to see the different cultural and language differences and as they got to know each other and explain to each other the church that they're coming from and the reality of the church that they were coming from. That really helped a lot into the broadening of the understanding of the church as universal right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because bishops in Africa deal with completely different problems than bishops from California.
Speaker 1:Correct, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, bishops from California, Correct, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a minority of bishops, and they're everywhere. You'll always find them in any group. There was a minority of bishops who were resistant to any type of ecclesial reform. Edward Skillebeck, in his book the Real Achievement of Vatican II, states during the final weeks of the third session, it became doubtful even whether the unofficially planned promulgation of five constitutions and decrees would take place at all.
Speaker 1:Some of the commissions indeed had to reckon with anything between three and five,000 Modi or amendments. So when you present a constitution, you present a charter, you present there's a document. So then what happens is people will send in amendment, like an amendment to the document, to the commission that's in charge of it. So what Skilabek is saying is that some of these commissions were receiving 3,000 to 5,000 amendments. Like that's impossible to process all that. So they were being bogged down by all these. You know, and who knows, it might have been like well, you need to put a comma here and this should be a semicolon, and you know all that stuff that can happen when you're trying to to publish a document that's written by a, a committee yeah, yeah yes, don't want to do that anymore but it's it's amazing that it it worked.
Speaker 1:Yes if anything, it just proves that the holy spirit is very present and alive in the church of Christ, because this would be impossible anywhere else or by any other body right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've heard somebody say that the surest proof of the church is for how long it's been run by a bunch of idiots who are trying to ruin it and it's still there.
Speaker 1:It's still there. We've tried to kill it for 2,000 years and we haven't been able to do it. Yeah, so, okay, lumen Gentium. So Lumen Gentium was approved and promulgated at the end of the third session September, november of 1964, along with the decree on ecumenism and the decree on the Eastern churches. So those were the three documents that were published from the third session.
Speaker 1:Now, why is it difficult to grasp the Council's teachings? So there's three contributing factors to this difficulty. The first is that both Trent and Vatican I, the First Vatican Council, were grounded in a theological scholasticism that gave to each council a real, if limited, conceptual unity. They were all coming from the same mentality. By contrast, in the text of the Second Vatican Council, we find biblical references, alternating with historical exposition, alternating with analysis or analyses of contemporary issues, citations of previous councils Half of them were from Trent and the First Vatican Council and references to papal texts. And half of the texts, half of the papal texts that were cited, were texts of Pius XII, the one that wrote Divino Flantis Piditum.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's one of the reasons why it's difficult to understand the Second Vatican Council and why it's so different from the other councils. Another difficulty is a lot of compromises were made to gain more than two-thirds majority. Now, this was something that Paul VI pushed. Paul VI pushed, he wanted a greater unity in the publications, and so what happens is usually in a situation like this sometimes some things pass by simple majority. He wanted two-thirds majority, which means a lot more work had to be done to please a lot more people, and so a lot of compromises were made to be able to get these things published, the documents published. And the third reason for the difficulty in understanding the Council's teaching is that and this is what I said at the beginning each document should be read in the context of the totality of the documents.
Speaker 1:So if you really want to understand Lumen Gentium, you have to go back and you read De Verbum and Sacrosanctum Concilium to be able to understand Lumen Gentium, to be able to go forward and read Gaudium et Spes, and so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can I pick your brain a little bit, mm-hmm. So what do you like? I can imagine somebody sitting here listening to this, maybe especially if they're non-Catholic and say something, or and focus on the way that you chose to phrase it, that there had to be compromises, mm-hmm, that there had to be compromises and they had to get a majority vote where you could argue with Protestantism or non-Catholic Christian denominations within that one denomination. In theory, right, everything's in theory. You're not compromising because everyone's on the same page, right? So why do you think, before I even ask, I can, even I can see now pope francis is taking a very kind of similar approach, like the openness and the listening and the relationship to the world, not just kind of closed in and like who are we to us?
Speaker 1:but who are?
Speaker 2:we to the world. So I can see all of that stuff starting to develop over time and I can see it influencing him. So why is this significant? Why is it important that the church, the bishops and everybody compromised on some of these topics? Or that like is it a bad thing? No, two-thirds. So if somebody, if something, only passed with 66%, is that a bad thing? No, that a third of the church didn't agree with it.
Speaker 1:No, no, I think it's part of and it's part of the work of the Spirit too, like okay, and it's part of the work of the spirit too, like okay. So as part of the whole idea of, I have to understand that this is the work of the spirit and the work of the spirit is something beyond my comprehension. I have to be docile to that right. And so the compromise, I think, is not a bad thing. I think the fact that you get two-thirds majority is miraculous in itself. But because what were the compromises is miraculous in itself. But because what were the compromises? It's a matter of a lot of. It had to do with expression, how it's written, how it's expressed. What is, is it a negative expression? Is it a positive expression? How is it being communicated? For example, in Trent, which was a reform council as well, in Trent, the first thing the church does is it defines itself as a hierarchy. It defines the hierarchy of the church. That's the first thing it does, and it had to because it was responding to the questioning of the hierarchy by the Reformation or the Protestant Revolution. But that's not the point here, right? And so now it's not a matter of expressing ourselves as hierarchy, it's expressing ourselves as the people of God, which is a different. It's the same truth, but it is a different way of manifesting that truth. Instead of pushing or emphasizing the hierarchy, you're emphasizing the common call that we all have and share through the gift of baptism, that we're all made a people of God because of the revelation of God's Word to us. So the compromise is not so much compromises of value.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the compromises had to do with what we would say today as a narrative. What is the narrative? How is it being presented? Right? So again, we still have them. In the church today, we have people you know, the crotchety, old, bitter person or bishop or cardinal or whatever who absolutely refuses, you know, to take into consideration the work of the Spirit and just refuses to budge because they're incapable of change or incapable of allowing the church to move forward. Not that they're all wrong I mean a lot of it has to do with the lack of understanding or education or catechesis, or even fear and insecurity. Right, and so it's not that they're evil, it's just like they're stuck in a place that they're really the idea of a church that is dynamic and moving and growing and still essentially the same church that Christ founded, and that's where you have the difficulty A lot of people. We've always done it this way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the argument, that's always the argument.
Speaker 1:We've always done it this way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and what's kind of funny to that argument is regarding arguing we've always done it this way too. We've always argued about it Right, and you've even expressed certain things, and now it's escaping me off the top of my head, but I remember you talking once you're like yeah, I don't like that this is expressed this way, whatever in the world it was, and so some of the compromises I'm sure are like that, like should we use the language economy of salvation Right, or should we use something?
Speaker 1:else.
Speaker 2:Right, you know like what's more descriptive Right, because you can say it like you were saying, in the affirmative Right or in the negative.
Speaker 1:But you Like you were saying in the affirmative or in the negative, but you're still communicating the same thing. Yeah, for example, in the consecration. So we've done away with cup, we had cup and we've gone back to chalice. Why? There's no real good reason other than that it's—the Latin says chalice, and so we want to, and so we want to Latinize our English, which is not a real reason for it. But anyway, okay.
Speaker 1:And then the Semitism to shed this blood. We had before for all, which is the meaning of it. But we went back to the Semitism which is for many, okay. So now you have to explain to people well, for many is a Semitism which is for many, okay. So now you have to explain to people well, for many is a Semitism, that actually means for all. So I go like okay, so why didn't we just keep for all, instead of now making it, yeah, it doesn't make sense? Like, okay, this is what I have to do and I do it and I don't agree with it. But okay, this is the choice that they've made and the same thing. Like that. I mean, it's a different way. Again, the compromises at times are not so much a compromise of some theological essential value as much as it is. What is the narrative. How is it being presented?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you this before we keep going Is this a good place to to maybe stop this episode? Is there something else you want to kind?
Speaker 1:of. I think, yeah, we could probably stop here and then go on, because the next thing would be just really going over the outline of the dogmatic constitution, the different chapters, and then start going into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, I love this stuff, me too. To that yeah man, I love this stuff, me too. And I've missed you. Don't ever leave again or take me with you, that'd be there you go, there you go I can be your, uh, my chauffeur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, well cool. I'm super looking forward to the rest of these because we've you know, I would say we probably have two days, two more episodes worth. Like, I love this stuff. So thank you for this, thank you for coming back, thank you Everyone who joined us today. Thank you for listening. It really does mean a lot to us to know that somebody somewhere out there is listening. We appreciate it, so please share us with others.
Speaker 1:Please share. How many countries did you say we were? I heard you the other day.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, 47.
Speaker 1:47 countries 47.
Speaker 2:And I would say, especially on that note, with sharing, pray for everyone, because some of these countries are places where I don't think Christians are very safe. Right, correct so yeah, it's pretty cool, the internet. Yeah, all right, father, I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:Good night, god bless All right.
Speaker 2:God bless, bye, bye.
