“Searching for Vatican II,” tonight at 6
September 14, 2010, 2:33 pm
Posted by Mollie Wilson O'Reilly
Tonight, an event at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus that dotCommonweal readers might find particularly interesting: If you can make it to the Pope Auditorium (at 113 West 60th Street) at 6:00, you’ll get to hear Fr. Joseph A. Komonchak speak on “Searching for Vatican II: Why a Transformative Moment Remains So Elusive.”
The respondents will be Peter Steinfels, whom you all know, and Melissa Wilde, author of Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change (reviewed in our pages by John W. O’Malley). And the evening’s moderator will be our very own editor Paul Baumann.
The event is free and open to the public; details are here. See you there?
Mollie – would love to be there. Will this be taped and made available? How about a transcript?
Thanks for the notice Mollie.
BdH: A transcript will be posted on the web-site of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture http://www.fordham.edu/religculture –in due time.
For those coming: we appear to have an almost full house, so come early to get a seat and avoid the security office closing of the doors when Pope auditorium is full!
Glad to see there will be a transcript; sounds like a great talk, wish it was in Chicago!
Thanks, Ms. Steinfels.
For those of us who couldn’t be in attendance last evening, do any of the participants/attendees have a report on the event? I’m sure Fr. Komonchak and the other presenters were excellent, and that Fr. K, baseball fan that he is, did not forgot to wish all the Yankees fans in the audience “good luck” against Tampa Bay and in post-season play. ;)
Everyone was excellent. Joe K was great. Full house. Transcript TK.
For what they are worth, these are my notes:
Fordham University, Searching for Vatican II: Why a transformative moment remains so elusive. Lincoln Center Pope auditorium, 9.14.2010.
Joseph A. Komonchak, presenter.
Respondents: Peter Steinfels; Melissa Wilde, sociologist, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Moderator: Paul Baumann.
Sponsored by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.
My notes, which may contain various errors:
• 452 seats, plus standees
• Part of the video “The Faithful Revolution” was shown.
• V2 opened October 11, 1972, with 2,500 bishops, torchlight at Piazza that night. Closing December 8, 1965. Aggiornamiento. Resourcement.
• Video has Robert McAfee Brown, Weigel.
• Peggy Steinfels at mike is clear, well-spoken.
• At 6:15 p.m., Paul Baumann introduced Joseph Komonchak.
• V2: Two years preparation, 4 sessions, 16 documents.
• Some interpreters regard the series of occurrences as higher than the texts issued.
• One must note the specialized use of the word “event” in sociology: a happening that marks a noticeable change, a break.
• Some include the aftermath of V2 in what they mean by V2. Interpretations: Progressive, traditionalist, reformationist. No intent of reformation and renewal.
• Ratzinger: hermaneutics of reform. Sociologists use the word event to indicate a break, a rupture. Greeley: V2 is an event by that view. Ratzinger: there is one church walking to the (truth).
• JK quoted much of old Ratzinger.
• The documents of V2 exhort rather than command.
• JK ended at 6:48.
• Peter Steinfels talked about 1) Text, experience, event. 2) Authority, power, gender, redistribution of power to the bishops. Resistance. Curial control might be lost. 3) Sexuality, gender, women’s equality as issues that arose more prominently later. 4) Fundamentalism, .insistence on the texts. Opponents say relying on the texts doesn’t work because there are contradictions and incompleteness in the texts. 5) Post conciliar: needs a before and after. See O’Malley’s history of V2. 6) An open-ended event demands a challenging agenda. V2 was a good idea.
• Melissa Wilde began her comments. She spoke of conservative, reformist, and objective perspectives. It was not V2 but Humanae Vitae that destroyed many links with the past. Change of structure, or institutionalised structures. Community habits of thought. Cultural presuppositions.
• Someone (replying to Melissa?) pointed out that V2 neglected to make changes in canon law. “Structures exist only because people let them continue.” Structure awards power to someone, who becomes unwilling to yield the power.
• Paul Baumann spoke of the ambiguity of V2 texts.
• JK: Many texts were deliberately left open. Some of the documents are like beads on a rosary, simply following one after another. Example: The role and authority of episcopal conferences. V2 was a council of transition. There were issues that V2 did not address. Doctrinal: continuity is emphasized.
• Theological achievements were in part the fruit of previous decades of renewal: biblical renewal, liturgical, ecumenical, worker priests.
• Yet, there were a host of people who had been disciplined: Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Jean Danielou, John Courtney Murray.
• Now to the index cards written as questions from the audience: Do we need Vatican 3? Someone, “If it includes women.” Someone else: How about including the bishops’ husbands?”
• Peter: Skeptical about V3 if it is built on the model of V2. A major problem would be the current role of the media. Peter urges rather a renewal of the Synod of Bishops.
• JK: V2 has not been repealed. There are exaggerated statements around to that effect. Things are not going back. (JK is genial, helpful.)
• A question asked about the English translation debate and the role of power. JK says that the objections to ICEL came from English-speaking bishops. (I think that is a misleading statement by JK. The liturgical restorationists, such as George Pell, got the ear of the Pope because their ideas were his.)
• Question: Why do bishops avoid collegiality? The USCCB took the narrowest meanings from the documents of V2. JK’s answer: JP2 carried religious freedom far beyond the documents. Of the 2,500 bishops, about 250 were opposed to the document on religious freedom, yet JP2 and B16 fully support it.
• There was a question about restorationists. JK answered with reference to priests in clown make-up in 1970′s. I have heard about “Clown Masses,” but maybe this is legendary. On my index card, I should have asked whether any of the five hundred in the audience had ever attended such a Mass.
• Many thank to those who worked on last night’s presentation. Joe McMahon
Thanks for the synopsis – very interesting, and I await the transcripts like many others here.
Just came from a meeting on funding and service issues for seniors here, The point was made that behavior and decisions are based on perceptions of behavior and not the words put out by advocates.
We’ve had lots of words about the Church and as the Pope visits England with all the provliges of a head of state, I think it noteworthy that many view the notion of Church to tbe quite analogous to the notion of a state with its own rules, laws bearacracy,
Like any State , there are groups within advocating for what they want and who may work very hard at it, but the Chujrch is primarily perceived by its rules, policies, doctrines, leadership statements.
So I think the split over the hermeneutic of continuity or nor not for many is grounded in perceptions of how V2 was or was not implemented and I find i thard to believe that the movenet has not been backward.
I hope that the outcome will be some precriptions for moving forward -sounds like some women thoughjt so too.
Thanks, Joe – appreciate it!