By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — As a presentation concluded here that examined Vatican II statements for more than two hours, some advice from St. John Paul II was offered: “Get back to the documents. Get back to the documents.”
Bill Marcotte, assistant director of the Institute of Catholic Theology (ICT), recalled those papal words as he pointed to the importance of knowing what the Second Vatican Council actually taught, not what had been “hijacked.”
The ICT is an evangelization program based here at St. Thomas the Apostle Church. Its fall program is examining Vatican II decrees and declarations. On October 9 it took up religious freedom and priestly life and formation.
Eric Westby, Ph.D., director of the ICT, seconded Marcotte and said the laity need a guide, but, “The laity are smart. They can understand it.”
Westby began the morning by saying a lot of time could be spent talking about how the documents were implemented, but this is about “what’s in them.”
Rick Perry, a theology teacher at the local St. Mary’s High School, dealt with the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom: Human Dignity. It addresses “the right of the person and of communities to social and civil freedom in matters religious.”
Perry holds two master’s degrees in theology, from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and KU Leuven, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Belgium.
He said the declaration deals with such questions as what should be the relationship between the Church and state, on what basis does the Church promote religious liberty, and the difference between coercion and conversion in belief.
“You cannot coerce anyone into faith,” Perry said, adding a little later, “There must be a free act of faith.”
The declaration builds on the teaching of Popes, including Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John XXIII, he said, pointing out that Pius XI wrote Mit Brennender Sorge, the encyclical addressed to the German people in 1937 that expressed dismay at what was happening under the government of Adolf Hitler.
Unlike the customary use of Latin, this encyclical was released directly in German. Its title meant, “With burning concern.” And unlike encyclicals that deal with wider topics, this one focused on German events.
Perry didn’t examine this encyclical during his presentation, but it’s a useful review of events of that time. It makes plain the Church was not somehow friendly to that era’s National Socialist dictatorship.
To take just one example, Number 21: “In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State.”
Perry cited the Vatican II declaration on religious liberty to note how it’s being violated in Communist China now, with the Beijing government selecting and appointing clergy to suit itself rather than deferring to ecclesiastical authority.
Furthermore, Perry said, the Vatican document recognized that some governments proclaim constitutional recognition of freedom of religion but don’t honor it.
“The further fact is,” the declaration said, “that forms of government still exist under which, even though freedom of religious worship receives constitutional recognition, the powers of government are engaged in the effort to deter citizens from the profession of religion and to make life very difficult and dangerous for religious communities.”
Westby, the ICT director, spoke on the Vatican II Decree on The Ministry and Life of Priests: Presbyterorum Ordinis. He said it came out at the end of the Council, when it was promulgated by Pope Paul VI in December 1965, and addressed what a priest could do that others could not, “what made him a priest . . . his unique ability.”
He said the decree noted “a strong connection between the priesthood and the laity” in which priests “are to live as good shepherds that know their sheep.”
He cited Number 3, which said in part: “Priests of the New Testament, by their vocation and ordination, are in a certain sense set apart in the bosom of the People of God. However, they are not to be separated from the People of God or from any person; but they are to be totally dedicated to the work for which the Lord has chosen them. . . .
“They cannot be ministers of Christ unless they be witnesses and dispensers of a life other than earthly life,” the decree said. “But they cannot be of service to men if they remain strangers to the life and conditions of men. . . . Their ministry itself, by a special title, forbids that they be conformed to this world; . . . yet at the same time it requires that they live in this world among men. . . .
“To achieve this aim, certain virtues, which in human affairs are deservedly esteemed, contribute a great deal: such as goodness of heart, sincerity, strength and constancy of mind, zealous pursuit of justice, affability, and others,” it added.
The document recognizes that “the priesthood has difficulties, it can be a lonely job,” Westby said, but priests must realize “the Lord is always with them, that they’re never alone.”
People lined up at church after Mass to speak with the priest aren’t necessarily a fun experience, he said, because they may tell the priest what they thought of his homily.
The priest is to be “a herald of the Gospels,” Westby said.
Taking questions after his talk, Westby said that after Vatican II, there was a discrepancy between what its documents said and what many theologians were saying, including on the priesthood.
One was that the priest was just like a community leader, he said, which “really changes the identity of what makes a priest a priest. . . .
“The lines got blurred after the Council,” he said, and included “the clericalization of the laity.”
The universal call to holiness is foundational to everybody, Westby said.
Following the Council, he added later, there was widespread disagreement about what “pastoral” means. It shouldn’t just be, “by being pastoral, I’m being kind to people.”
Westby noted that generations affect those who come after them, and just as people in the 1950s impact people now, the current generation will affect people 40 or 50 years from now.
That’s quite a thought, and a responsibility. What you do today will influence people still unborn. It has always been that way.
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