The question, ‘Are we ready for Vatican III?’ provides food for thought. Is the Church today open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the way the bishops at Vatican II were? The bishops at Vatican II were open to the Spirit speaking to them from outside the Episcopal and Papal Magisterium. They listened very attentively – and humbly – to the expertise and experience of the many Spiritinspired theologians they had invited as their ‘periti’ to join them at the Council. They also listened, especially many of the Latin American bishops, to the experience of the marginalised who were struggling to live the Gospel in situations of desperate injustice, poverty and oppression. In other words, they listened to the ‘cry of the poor’ mediated through the rich vein of liberation theology. Would such listening take place if a Vatican III was to take place in the Church as it stands at present? Only the Holy Spirit can answer that question. Maybe the presence of laypeople, especially women, would help along the process, provided they are elected by their own constituencies, rather than by the Vatican.
Perhaps the inspired words of Ladislas Orsy, which I quoted in the Introduction to this book, point the way forward. He drew our attention to the resounding cry ‘Adsumus’ (‘We are present and attentive to the Spirit’) of the Vatican II Bishops at the beginning of each day’s deliberations during the four years of Vatican II. And he ended with the following proposal:
Whereas the years from 2012 through 2015 will be the fiftieth anniversaries of the Council, they should be solemnly declared the years of the Council – when the entire people, ‘from the bishops to the last of the faithful’ (LG, 2, quoting St Augustine), recalls the memory of the ‘Sacred Council’, studies its determinations, and exposes itself to the transforming light and force of the Spirit – as the Council Fathers did. Over four years again, let the cry Adsumus, ‘we are present and attentive’, resound – not within the walls of St Peter’s Basilica but throughout the face of the earth. The Spirit of God will not fail to respond (p. 152).
Maybe the only way we can move towards being ‘ready for Vatican III’ is by receiving in all its fullness the tremendous gift which God’s Spirit has given us in Vatican II. How can we start talking about Vatican III when we still have so much to receive from Vatican II? Rather than distract ourselves by talking about Vatican III, we would do better to devote ourselves whole-heartedly to receiving Vatican II.