Peter C. Phan
Of the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council only one, and by no means the most significant, contains the terms “renewal” and “accommodation” in its title, namely, Decretum de Accommodata Renovatione Vitae Religiosae, rendered in English as Decree on the Up-to-Date Renewal of Religious Life, and commonly referred to by its first two words Perfectae Caritatis (PC) (Flannery 1996). It would be a serious mistake however to conclude from this paucity of terminological usage and the minor importance of PC, in which the term renovatio occurs, that “renewal” (renovatio) and “accommodation” (accommodatio), or “up-to-date renewal” (accommodata renovatio) are peripheral to Vatican II. On the contrary, ressourcement (going-back-to-the-sources) and aggiornamento (updating), by which “renewal” and “accommodation” are achieved, can justly be said to constitute the very twin goals of the council. Indeed, aggiornamento is arguably the primary and the more important of the two, since it is for its sake that ressourcement is undertaken, that is, to provide aggiornamento with a firm grounding in the Bible and the Tradition.
Discoursing, then, on “renewal” and “accommodation” in Vatican II is tantamount to expounding the entire council, a wide-ranging task that is impossible to carry out adequately, even within ample space. Fortunately, the third term in the title of the essay, “inculturation,” will narrow down the scope of my discussion and will lend a precise focus to our otherwise sweeping reflections. The term “inculturation” itself was not used by the council, though it had already been in circulation among Catholic missiologists in the 1950s, itself a theological appropriation of the older concept of acculturation, much in vogue since the end of the nineteenth century among North American anthropologists, to designate the process of the individual’s encounter and interaction with different cultures.
This essay examines the ways in which Vatican II attempted to bring the church into dialogue with the modern culture and in the process instituted the requisite reforms of various aspects of church life to achieve this goal. It focuses, in current Catholic parlance, on the council’s project of inculturation and its impact on global culture since the 1960s. “Inculturation,” as its etymology implies, refers to the attempt to “localize” or “indigenize” the gospel into cultures (to play on the in of “inculturation”), or more generally, to formulate a theology of the dynamics of the interaction between church and culture/world. Given the limited space, the history of Vatican II will not be presented here, even though the council cannot be fully understood simply by interpreting its sixteen documents but must be viewed as an “event,” that is, as a happening situated in the context of historical factors preceding, during, and following the council (Alberigo 1995–2006; Alberigo 2006; O’Malley 2008).1 Nor is it possible to discuss all the doctrinal teachings and pastoral and canonical policies promulgated by the council except where such teachings and policies have had an impact on the forms of Christianity that Roman Catholicism has taken upon itself since the council (Vorgrimmler 1967–1969; Latourelle 1988–1989; Hünermann and Hilderath 2004–2006). I first briefly examine the various terms used by Vatican II to describe the process of inculturation and their underlying theologies. Next I survey some of the key areas of renewal in the form of inculturation of the gospel in cultures has taken place since the 1960s. Finally I describe the “reception” of Vatican II’s inculturation project, that is, the extent to which the council’s renewal program has been implemented – or, as the case may be, failed to be so – during the same post-conciliar period.
That Pope John XXIII intended the main objective of the council he convoked to be church renewal as part of the project of accommodation and inculturation in response to the challenges of modernity is clear from his opening speech on October 11, 1962:
The punctum saliens of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church . . . For this a Council is not necessary. But from a renewed, serene and tranquil adherence to the whole teaching of the church in its entirety and precision as it still shines forth in the conciliar acts from Trent to Vatican I, the Christian, Catholic, and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of the conscience in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration, with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character. (Abbot 1966: 715).2
What John XXIII means by “pastoral” in the phrase “a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character” must not be contrasted with “dogmatic,” the former dealing with contingent practical policies, the latter with unchangeable matters of faith and morals. This is the line of argument espoused by those who oppose the council’s doctrinal teachings and its reform programs. Notable among these are Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of St. Pius X, and his followers, who argue that because Vatican II was intended to be a “pastoral” and not a “dogmatic” council, it does not have a binding force, especially its liturgical reforms, its teachings on collegiality, its directives on ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and its attitude toward the modern world, endeavors that can be categorized under the rubric of “inculturation.”
This interpretation is of course a perversion of John XXIII’s use of the term “pastoral” and his intention for the council he convoked. What the pope intends by describing Vatican II as “pastoral” is that he would have the council, on the basis of a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, concentrate on the renewal of the church, to “let in fresh air,” as John XXIII is alleged to have said, opening a window of his apartment, in response to the question about his intention for the council. Letting fresh air blow through the church is part of the project of renovatio and accommodatio, the council’s two by far most commonly used words to describe the process of church renewal. In addition to these two, other terms are also used, notably instauratio (reform), recognoscere (revise), fovere (promote), aptatio (making suitable or appropriate), and progressus (advancement).
Renovatio, customarily translated as “renewal,” is taken to be equivalent to instauratio (reform), though several theologians have argued strongly that there is a radical difference between “reform” and “renewal” and that, more importantly, Vatican II aims at achieving the latter and not the former.3 Accommodatio is usually rendered as “adaptation,” and more literally, “accommodation.” What the council intends by accommodatio and what it proposes as the undergirding theological principles and the modes of realization of this renewal process cannot be ascertained simply by means of an etymological analysis of the term accommodatio and by contrasting it with other terms such as acculturation, assimilation, adaptation, inculturation, contextualization, indigenization, localization, and so on. Rather they must be discerned by means of a close examination of conciliar texts on the tasks and methods of church renewal.
Mention has been made above of the fact that of Vatican II’s sixteen documents only the decree Perfectae Caritatis has the expression accommodata renovatio in its title. Terminological usage aside, to understand the council’s theology of renewal, we must turn to its first, and from the perspective of intra-ecclesial renewal, the most influential text, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC). The constitution is first, not simply because chronologically it is the first document to be approved by the council, but more importantly, because it lays out renewal as the goal of the council:
The sacred council has set out to impart an ever-increasing vigor to the Christian lives of the faithful; to adapt more closely to the needs of our age those institutions that are subject to change; to encourage whatever can promote the union of all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever serves to call all of humanity into the church’s fold. (No. 1)
As is clear from the above text, in its effort “to adapt to the needs of our age those institutions that are subject to change,” the council intends to undertake an inward as well as outward renewal. Ad intra, it aims at updating and strengthening all aspects of Christian life; ad extra, it seeks to restore Christian unity and to make its mission to the world more effective. Indeed, these two renewals go hand in hand with each other and mutually condition their achievements: the more the church is renewed internally, the more it will better equipped to be reunited with other Christian communities and carry out its mission to the world, and vice versa.
Such a renewal program must not be understood simply as a strategy undertaken on purely pragmatic grounds. On the contrary, Vatican II roots the necessity of church renewal in the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. Thus, the council prefaces its liturgical reforms with an exposition of the “general principles for the restoration and progress of the sacred liturgy,” principles that are deeply theological in nature. At the heart of liturgical inculturation, according to Vatican II, lies God’s plan of salvation for all humanity that has been achieved in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit (SC, nos. 5–6), and liturgical renewal is aimed at enabling all the faithful to take a “full, conscious, and active part” in the celebration of the Paschal Mystery (SC, no. 14). This same doctrinal justification for renewal and inculturation is repeated, at times almost verbatim, in the council’s later documents. In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (LG), Vatican II lays the foundation for church renewal in the plan of salvation of the Triune God (nos. 2–4). In the council’s Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes (AG), the renewal of the church’s missionary activity is also rooted in the “‘fountain-like’ love, the love of God the Father,” from whom as “the principle without principle . . . the Son is generated and from whom the holy Spirit proceeds though the Son” (AG, no. 2). In the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), the restoration of unity among all the followers of Christ is built on the fact that “the only-begotten Son of God has been sent by the Father into the world so that, becoming human, he might by his redemption of the entire human race give new life to it and unify it” (UR, no. 2). The council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate (NA), grounds the necessity of interreligious dialogue in the fact that “humanity forms but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth and also because all share a common destiny, namely God” (NA, no. 1).
Nowhere perhaps is the urgency of renewal and inculturation more eloquently explained than in Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (GS). Its rich text on the duty of all Christians to listen to the cultures deserves our full attention:
The church is not unaware how much it has profited from the history and development of humankind. It profits from the experience of past ages, from the progress of science, and from the riches hidden in various cultures, through which greater light is thrown on human culture and new avenues to truth are opened up. The church learned early in its history to express the Christian message in the concepts and languages of different peoples and tried to clarify it in the light of the wisdom of their philosophers: it was an attempt to adapt the Gospel to the understanding of all and the requirements of the learned, insofar as this could be done. Indeed, this kind of adaptation and preaching of the revealed word must ever be the law of all evangelization. In this way it is possible to create in every country the possibility of expressing the message of Christ in suitable terms and to foster vital contact and exchange between the church and different cultures . . . With the help of the holy Spirit, it is the task of the whole people of God, particularly of its pastors and theologians, to listen and distinguish the many voices of our times and to interpret them in the light of God’s word in order that the revealed truth may be more deeply penetrated, better understood, and more suitably presented. (GS, no. 44)
Popes Paul VI and John Paul II have both written at great length about inculturation. Among Paul VI’s writings, to be noted are his 1969 address to the African bishops in the cathedral of Kampala archdiocese and his 1975 Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelization in the Modern World, Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN). In his Kampala address, Paul VI affirms the need for cultural pluralism and inculturation: “An adaptation of the Christian life in the fields of pastoral, ritual, didactic, and spiritual activities is not only possible, it is even favored by the Church. The liturgical renewal is a living example. And in this sense you may, and you must, have an African Christianity” (Hickey 1982: 204). Evangelii Nuntiandi is rightly regarded as the magna carta of the inculturation of the Gospel. It insists on the evangelization not only of individuals but also of cultures. On the one hand it affirms the distinction between the Gospel and culture, and on the other hand, it says that “when she [the church] puts down her roots in a variety of cultural, social and human terrains, she takes on different external expression and appearances in each part of the world” (EN, no. 62). This process, which EN calls “transposition,” must be done “with the discernment, seriousness, respect and competence which the matter calls for in the field of liturgical expression, and in the area of catechesis, theological formulation, secondary ecclesial structures, and ministries” (EN, no. 63).
In his prolific writings John Paul II greatly expands his predecessor’s teaching on inculturation. Notable among them is first of all the 1977 Apostolic Exhortation Catechesis in Our Time, Catechesi Tradendae (CT). Interestingly, here, in a papal document the word “inculturation” appears for the first time: “The term acculturation or inculturation may be a neologism, but it expresses very well one factor of the great mystery of the Incarnation. We can say of catechesis, as well as of evangelization in general, that it is called to bring the power of the Gospel into the very heart of culture and cultures. For this purpose, catechesis will seek to know these cultures and their essential components; it will learn their most significant expressions; it will respect their particular values and riches” (CT, no. 53). In his numerous worldwide travels, John Paul II shows a keen interest in the local cultures and strongly urges their use to inculturate the Gospel. In his 1980 address to the bishops of Zaire, the pope refers to the “Africanization of the Church” and states that, just as Catholicism has shaped Poland, “it should be possible for Christianity to unite with what is deepest in the Zairean soul for an original culture, at this time African and Christian” (John Paul II 1980: 224), In addition, the pope vigorously defends those indigenous cultures that are threatened or marginalized, such as those of First Peoples in the United States and Canada and the Australian aborigines, during his visits to these countries in 1984 and 1986 respectively, and urges their preservation and promotion in the process of evangelization.
John Paul II’s deep and abiding interest in culture and inculturation is demonstrated in his founding in 1982 of the Pontifical Council for Culture. In his letter to Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, to whom he entrusted the organization of the new council, the pope wrote: “Since the beginning of my pontificate, I have considered the Church’s dialogue with the cultures of our time to be a vital area, onr [one] in which the destiny of the world at the end of the twentieth century is at stake . . . For this reason, I have decided to found and institute a Council for Culture, capable of giving the whole Church a common impulse in the continuously renewed encounter between the salvific message of the Gospel and the multiplicity of cultures, in the diversity of cultures to which she must carry her fruits of grace” (John Paul II 1982: 1–8). Three years later, on the eleventh centenary of the two missionary brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, John Paul issues the encyclical, The Apostles of the Slaves, Slavorum Apostoli (SA), in which he writes: “The work of evangelization which they carried out – as pioneers in territory inhabited by Slav peoples – contains both a model of what today is called ‘inculturation’ – the incarnation of the Gospel in native cultures – and also the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church. By incarnating the Gospel in the native culture of the peoples they were evangelizing, Saints Cyril and Methodius were especially meritorious for the formation and development of that same culture, or rather of many cultures” (SA, no. 21; Shorter 1988: 206–238; Peelman 2007: 22–28; John Paul II 1990: nos. 52–54).
Pope Benedict XVI has not treated inculturation explicitly in his two encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est (2005) and Spe Salvi (2007). However, while still a cardinal, he made an important proposal that instead of inculturation we should speak of “interculturality” (Claver 2008: 120–123). His point is that the Gospel is already clothed in certain cultures, such as Jewish, Greek, and Latin, before it is brought into contact with other cultures, and therefore, evangelization implies an intercultural encounter between the already inculturated Gospel and these cultures. In his 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg, Benedict describes inculturation as the third phase of the de-Hellenization process and states: “True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself” (Pope Benedict XVI: 2006).
As mentioned above, Vatican II’s main goal was the reform and renewal of the church in responding to the challenges of our age. Indeed, the history of the Catholic Church since the 1960s can be characterized as a long and sustained effort at achieving this goal of global inculturation. Post-Vatican II reforms can be divided into two broad types: ad intra and ad extra. I will briefly review some significant reforms in both of these two types.
Among Vatican II’s intra-ecclesial reforms, the most visible, and as it turned out, the favorite target of strident opposition by right-wing Catholics, is without any doubt the changes in liturgy and worship. Vatican II urges that “all the faithful should be led to take full, conscious and active part in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (SC, no. 14). A commission for the implementation of liturgical reforms, known as Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia, was instituted in 1964, and later incorporated into the newly formed Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Under the direction of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the consilium revised existing liturgical books to conform them with the council’s directives and, more importantly, composed new sacramental and liturgical books in Latin (editio typica), to be translated into vernacular languages for use throughout the world. Most notable among these is the Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, now in its third revised editio typica, replacing Pope Paul V’s 1570 “Tridentine” and subsequently much revised missal. These liturgical reforms have been opposed by various groups of conservative Catholics (for example, the above-mentioned Society of Saint Pius X) who reject not only the plethora of new liturgical books but also all forms of inculturation that imply the abandonment of Latin in favor of the vernaculars and the enlargement of the role of the laity in worship (Faggioli 2012a).
Other significant intra-ecclesial reforms concern the structures and organization of the church. These reforms are codified in the 1983 Codex Iuris Canonici for the Latin Church and in the 1990 Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium for the Eastern Catholic Churches. Notable among organizational innovations are Paul VI’s 1967 and his successors’ frequent reforms and restructuring of the Roman Curia and its dicasteries (often with the changing of the names of several congregations and the addition of a host of new pontifical councils and commissions); the institution of the Synod of Bishops as a way to implement episcopal collegiality, and the creation of national episcopal conferences and transnational federation of episcopal conferences (the most important among them being the Consejo episcopal latinoamericano, created in 1955, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, created in 1968; and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, created in 1972). Though they do not possess canonical authority, both the national episcopal conferences and the transnational federation of episcopal conferences have functioned as effective organizational instruments for the inculturation of the Gospel not only in their own countries but in the Catholic Church throughout the globe.
At the theological level, post-Vatican II’s inculturation efforts give rise to what is known as “contextual theology,” in which the various contexts form not only the locale in which theology is developed but also its source (Bevans 2002). One of the most influential and lasting type of contemporary contextual theology is liberation theology. Rooted in the option for the poor, Latin American liberation theology was focused at first on economic justice. Later, it also became part of the inculturation project of the gospel (liberation from anthropological impoverishment), especially in countries where indigenous cultures have been suppressed, especially by colonial powers and dominant cultures, such as Africa and Asia. Liberation theology has also addressed other forms of oppression such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and ecology, in the effort to meet the challenges of contemporary cultures and societies (Irarrázaval 2000; Magesa 2004; Kenneday 2006; Claver 2008).
In connection with the option for the poor and liberation theology, a new form of spirituality has emerged in the post-Vatican era with a strong emphasis on social justice and ecological integrity. This spirituality is much strengthened by Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals on social issues such as Laborem Exercens (1981), Sollecitudo Rei Socialis (1987) and Centesimus Annus (1991) (Himes 2004).
In addition to promoting various forms of liberation and inculturation, liberation theology has also inspired another structural innovation with enormous implications for the inculturation of the Gospel, namely, the Basic Ecclesial Communities (or Basic Christian Communities, or Small Christian Communities). These grassroots communities, originating in Brazil and the Philippines and now spreading to all continents, are effective ways to live out the idea of church as the People of God and communio and have been hailed by the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops as “a true expression of communion and a means for the construction of a more profound communion evangelization” (Extraordinary Synod of Bishops (1985): II, C, 6; John Paul II 1990: no. 51).
There are two areas of ad extra reforms in which there have been significant achievements during the post-Vatican II era, namely, church reforms to achieve ecumenical unity and dialogue with non-Christian religions. As mentioned above, one of Pope John XXIII’s intentions for the council is the restoration of ecumenical unity. Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism states that “the restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council” (UR, no. 1). The decree spells out the Catholic principles on ecumenism (nos. 2–4), outlines the practice of ecumenism (nos. 5–12), and describes the different relationships between the Catholic Church on the one hand and the churches of the East (nos. 13–18), and the churches and ecclesial communions originated from the Protestant Reformation.
Toward the end of the council, on December 7, 1965 Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I officially withdrew the mutual excommunications that broke the communion between the two Churches of East and West in 1054. In their joint declaration the pope and the patriarch declare their hope that “the whole Christian world, especially the entire Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church will appreciate this gesture as an expression of a sincere desire shared in common for reconciliation, and as an invitation to follow out in a spirit of trust, esteem and mutual charity the dialogue which, with God’s help, will lead to living together again, for the greater good of souls and the coming of the kingdom of God, in that full communion of faith, fraternal accord and sacramental life which existed among them during the first thousand years of the life of the Church.”
To bolster support for Christian unity, in 1989 Pope John Paul II changed the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity that had been established by John XXIII into the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU). Since then the PCPCU has been engaged in an international theological dialogue with each of the following churches and World Communions: the Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Malankara Churches, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and some Pentecostal and Evangelical groups. In 1995 John Paul published his important encyclical on ecumenism Ut Unum Sint in which he stated forthrightly:
When I say that for me, as Bishop of Rome, the ecumenical task is ‘one of the pastoral priorities’ of my Pontificate I think of the grave obstacle which the lack of unity represents for the proclamation of the Gospel. A Christian Community which believes in Christ and desires, with Gospel fervor, the salvation of mankind can hardly be closed to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who leads all Christians towards full and visible unity. Here an imperative of charity is in question, an imperative which admits of no exception. Ecumenism is not only an internal question of the Christian Communities. It is a matter of the love which God has in Jesus Christ for all humanity; to stand in the way of this love is an offence against him and against his plan to gather all people in Christ (no. 99).
As a result of ecumenical dialogue at both the international and national levels, significant bilateral joint declarations and statements have been published detailing areas of doctrinal agreements and remaining differences, clearing the way for reunion, such as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church and the many statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.
The second area of extra-ecclesial inculturation is interreligious dialogue. Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate (NA), represents the church’s volte-face in its attitude toward non-Christian religions. Despite its brevity and beyond expectation, NA turns out to be one of Vatican II’s documents with the most far-reaching consequences. It makes interreligious dialogue into one of the most challenging and controversial tasks for the post-conciliar church, one in which no Christian belief has not been subjected to extensive revision (Dialogue and Proclamation 1991). In 1964 Pope Paul VI instituted the Secretariat for Non-Christians, which John Paul upgraded and renamed as Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 1988. More than any other pope, John Paul tirelessly promoted interreligious dialogue. In 1986 he gathered the leaders of various religions in Assisi for the World Day of Prayer for Peace. In his numerous travels throughout the world, he made a point to meet with the leaders of other religions, in particular Judaism and Islam. The dialogue between the Catholic Church and Judaism is no doubt the best organized and the most extensive, under the umbrella of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews. Recent political events have prompted the Catholic Church to devote more attention to the dialogue with Islam (Gioia 2006).
The year 2012, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, has sparked an avalanche of publications evaluating the impact of the council on the church.4 The overwhelming consensus of current historical and theological scholarship is that Vatican II has made an enormous impact on the church, especially through its programs of accommodata renovatio. That there have been deep and wide changes in the church and its relation to non-Christian religions and to the world is beyond dispute, especially for Catholics growing up before the 1950s. Whether the reforms and renewals mandated by the council have been too little or too much, too slow or too fast, beneficial or destructive, the assessment depends on the theological outlook from which the judgment is made, the evaluator’s agenda and interests, the geographical areas under consideration, and on the types of ad intra and ad extra innovations outlined above (Alberigo, Jossua, and Lomonchak 1987). It is impossible, and perhaps too early, to formulate an adequate evaluation of such a complex event as Vatican II and its aftermaths. That there have been a “clash of narratives” and a “battle for meaning,” to use two apt expressions of Massimo Faggioli’s, in interpreting what the Vatican says and has represented since the 1960s, has been amply documented (Faggioli 2012b). Ultimately, the issue comes down to how to interpret the council itself and not just of this or that text – the hermeneutics of the council as an event and not just the body of its sixteen officially promulgated texts (Rush 2004; Orsy 2009; Heft and O’Malley 2012).
One thing, however, has garnered the consensus among contemporary church historians and observers of the Catholic Church, and that is, there has been a concerted and pervasive attempt on the part of the Roman Curia since the 1960s to correct what it perceives to be false understandings of Vatican II and to roll back what it regards as a wrong-headed implementation of the council’s reform programs. Efforts have been made to carry out a “reform of the reform,” an circumlocution for Roman authorities’ attempts to reverse many of the council’s reform agenda.
At the theological level, there have been during John Paul II’s long pontificate numerous condemnation of innovative theological movements such as liberation theology, feminist theology, and theology of religions. Under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), literally hundreds of theologians in all parts of the world were silenced for their allegedly erroneous and confusing writings, especially in the fields of moral theology and religious pluralism. The Declaration of the CDF Dominus Iesus in 2000 takes a negative stand toward the ecclesial nature of the Reformation Churches and the salvific value of non-Christian religions.
On December 22, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech to the Roman Curia on the correct interpretation of Vatican II in which he contrasts two opposite hermeneutics of Vatican II, which he terms “the hermeneutic of discontinuity” and the “hermeneutic of reform.” The former, he says, urges following the “spirit” rather than the texts of the council; it leads to confusion and must be opposed. The latter, which affirms the continuity of Vatican II with the past and which denies that there is a rupture between the “pre” and the “post”-conciliar Church, “silently, but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit” (Pope Benedict XVI: 2005).
In liturgy, in line with his hermeneutics of reform, to appease the traditionalist Catholics, Benedict XVI permitted a wider use of the John XXII-approved 1962 Roman Missal (the so-called tridentine or Latin mass) instead of the Paul VI-approved 1970 Roman Missal, and the administration of most of the sacraments according to the rituals in force prior to Vatican II’s liturgical reform (Pope Benedict XVI: 2007). Also, in an attempt to bring the schismatic Society of Saint Pius X back to the church, in 2009 Benedict lifted the excommunication of the four bishops of that society who had been illicitly ordained by Marcel Lefebvre (one of whom, Richard Williamson, is a Holocaust-denier). Furthermore, a revised English translation of the Roman Missal was undertaken in conformity with the directives of the reactionary Fifth Instruction “For the Right Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council,” On the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Publication of the Books of the Roman Liturgy, Liturgiam Authenticam (2001). The norms imposed by Liturgiam Authenticam for translating the Latin editiones typicae into the vernacular languages, especially those that do not belong to the family of Indo-European languages, go against all that has been achieved in liturgical inculturation.
In ecumenism, in 2009 Benedict XVI approved the provision that allows the Anglicans who wish to enter into the Catholic Church to form ordinariates of their own within the Catholic Church. Despite vigorous protestations to the contrary on the part of Rome, such a decision seriously hampers the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church. In 2006 Benedict XVI decided to strike out “Patriarch of the West” from his many official titles (while keeping the titles of “Vicar of Jesus Christ” and “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church”) caused deep concern among the Orthodox Churches who saw in that act a surreptitious claim of universal jurisdiction over the whole of Christianity.
In interreligious dialogue, there have also been backward – perhaps unintended – steps. Mention has been made of the CDF’s Dominus Iesus, with its negative assessment of non-Christian religions, and of Benedict XVI’s speech at the University of Regensburg, in which he cites an offensive remark about the Prophet Muhammad, causing a violent reaction against Catholics among some Muslim communities. (Fortunately, it also provides the occasion for a stronger dialogue between Muslims and Christians, with the publication of the letter A Common Word Between Us and You on October 13, 2007.)
The post-Vatican II Catholic Church was buffeted not only by these zigzagging, restorationist movements in church reform that have caused disappointment and even anger among the liberal members of the rank and file. Tragically, the clergy sex abuse and its cover-up, which were reported by the media in the 2000s, first in the United States and then in other countries, have also destroyed the moral credibility of church authorities. The Vatican itself was riled by the Vatileaks scandal in 2012 which reveals serious internal problems of a sexual and financial nature and turf wars within the Roman Curia itself.
Perhaps overwhelmed by these church problems and because of old age, Benedict XVI took the dramatic step of resigning from the papacy effective February 11, 2013. With the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis, who brings to the papacy a set of pastoral experiences and an agenda quite different from those of his predecessor and a starkly contrasting papal lifestyle, there is a widespread hope that Vatican II’s renewal (and not just reform) will be taken up again.
Thus, so far, Vatican II’s project of accommodatio renovatio and inculturation still remain an unfinished business, even though a fair and objective assessment must recognize that significant progress has been achieved. What still needs to be done in terms of church renewal and inculturation depends on location and the resources of the local church. There is however a wide agreement on the key outstanding issues. Filipino Bishop Francisco F. Claver, in his honest and hard-hitting reflections on his thirty-five years of “episcopating,” mentions some of these issues such as the practice of genuine collegiality at all levels of church life, corresponsibility and participation of all members of the local church in all the decisions and activities affecting their lives, the collegiality of the laity, and a spirituality of which the option for the poor and solidarity are central components (Claver 2008: 149–159; Arbuckle 2010). Only when all of these (or at least these) proposals are fully carried out in all the churches can it be said that Vatican II’s acccommodata renovatio is a finished business.