Hope in Change?

            I am not sure why I am still surprised when I pick up the CCC or Vatican II documents. Maybe because I was confirmed with the Baltimore Catechism, that I expect them to have all the warmth of a legal document. Lumen Gentium’s title, the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” does not indicate to me that I will be touched  by what I find.

            Yet I am touched and impressed. This Catholic Church that is often labeled as “behind the times” was very much in touch with the issues and sentiments of the day. The 1960s and the 1970s brought us to Civil Rights, The Women’s Movement, and all that came with the Vietnam War. Those events were very American.  I did not know how much of the thought behind them was also reflective of worldwide attitudes.

            Nor did I understand what it took for participants of Vatican II to produce its documents. Lumen Gentium speaks in a very familiar voice, one that I find present in the Catholic Church I live in today. Its familiarity belies the struggle it took to get those words to paper. The process was difficult and hard won. Thomas B. Rausch, in his Towards a Truly Catholic Church, compares the agendas for three council sessions. The development over time is dramatic. In Rev. John O’Malley’s lecture “What Happen at Vatican II” (at Vanderbilt University) he highlights the distinct differences in thought and attitudes prevalent before Vatican II with those in what was later published.

            Is this an example of how the Holy Spirit works through faith for us? Fr. OMalley said that Vatican II came under the guidance of two popes included some 2100 Bishops, 400 theologians, plus Vatican staff. They came from all over the world with strong Catholic opinions and somehow gave us the Church changing documents of   Vatican II.  Lumen Genioum says the Holy Spirit “distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG 12). For me that is a hopeful thought.