Vatican II: Work begins with Constitution on Liturgy

    Vatican Council II was designed to last 10 weeks each fall, during the months of October, November and December, for however long it took.
    In preparation, bishops throughout the world had sent in topics they wanted considered. Preparatory committees, consisting of members of Vatican congregations and theologians chosen by committee members, had compiled the bishop’s suggestions into eight volumes, which totaled 5,000 pages. The committees turned these topics into schemas – or “white papers” – that the council fathers would use as the basis of their discussions, which were held five times a week in the central nave of St. Peter’s Basilica.
    Following this period of preparation from 1959-62, the questions were, “How to organize this voluminous amount of opinions and concerns into statements that would define the nature of the modern church and its direction for the future? Where to begin? How to make this council the council of renewal and of unity desired by Pope John XXIII?”
    When the bishops began their general work meetings, the first agenda item was to elect the commissions or working groups that would guide the writing of each document. The curial members who administered the Vatican congregations expected they would be elected to these working groups since they had produced the preparatory schema, the “white papers.”
    But the bishops didn’t like the tone and some of the content of the papers that had already been sent to them. At this first meeting the bishops were supposed to select 160 council fathers who ultimately would be responsible for producing the final documents of the council. The only names they had been given were of those who had been on the preparatory commissions.
A timeout is granted
    Cardinal Achille Liéwnart of Lille, France, immediately asked that the voting be postponed a week to allow the bishops a chance to get to know one another, and for the episcopal conferences of each nation to develop their own list of writing-team members.  Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne, Germany, seconded the motion.
    The 10 cardinals who were assigned to rotate as president of each working session agreed, postponed the election for a week, and adjourned the session, which had lasted less than an hour. Evidently, as Cardinal Giovanni Urbani of Venice noted, the bishops had not come merely “to sprinkle holy water” on the status quo.
    Another indication that the bishops were thinking for themselves was a brief letter to the world, written by the bishops during the weeklong break, declaring that their concern would be for the poorest and weakest of the world’s afflicted.
    This focus would eventually become known as “a preferential option for the poor.” As one African bishop noted, “We were no longer closed up in our little huts.” The bishops had quickly recognized the insufficiency of the preparatory schemas in which such concerns were absent.
    Pope John XXIII, himself, decided that the first topic of the Vatican Council would be the liturgy. It was the only topic that had found a consensus among the bishops when they were asked to submit their own suggestions for the council’s agenda. Liturgy was also the aspect of the Church’s life in which renewal had already made the most progress.
My travels had prepared me
    Seminarians at the North American College were allowed to travel throughout Europe every summer for a month. The summer just before the council began, I spent five days in Paris.
    The small hotel where a group of us were staying on the Rue de la Seine was within walking distance of the University of Paris, the Sorbonne. I had heard of the student church there, St. Severin. My first morning in Paris I got up early, made my way down St. Germain des Pres through the Latin Quarter past St. Sulpice to attend Mass at St. Severin.
    As I entered the church, I noticed there was a small table covered like an altar in front of the chairs which served as pews. Also people entering put a host from a ciborium in one little basket near the door and a coin in another basket. The coins were a franc, worth about 20 cents, or less. Since I could afford that, I did likewise.
    The priest came down the aisle and greeted everyone with “Bon jour,” and then, facing the people, began “En nom du Pere et du Fils, et du Saint Esprit…”
    I couldn’t believe it! For two years I hadn’t heard anything but Latin – in Roman churches, in university lectures, in oral exams. I soon understood what the coins were for – an offertory procession. And here in a weekday Mass the Scripture was read in French, and many of the Mass prayers too.
    After Mass I asked the celebrant about it, and he explained that they had a special indult (permission) for a liturgical experiment. Apparently, the liturgical movement was alive and well in France, and it would not be long before what they were doing was no longer an experiment.
    At the council, the debate on the Liturgy centered on some main considerations:
    ➤ Should all decisions about the liturgy be made in Rome, with national bodies of bishops merely proposing changes, or should these territorial bodies have legislative power with the Holy See approving?
    ➤ Should the vernacular be permitted in the Latin rite, and if so, to what extent?
    ➤ Did the Latin liturgy, generally, need to be renewed all along the line, or was it satisfactory as it was?
    ➤ Was there a need for active participation by the people in prayer and song in the liturgy, or was this only a distraction?
    ➤ Was there need for greater use of Holy Scripture and more emphasis on preaching in the liturgy or not?
    ➤ Should the laity and religious on certain occasions be permitted to receive Communion under both species?
    ➤ Should concelebration of Mass by a number of priests be permitted more widely?
Questions led to extra time
    Debate on all aspects of the liturgy so excited the bishops that there were many amendments to the original text. This prolonged the work of the commission in drafting the final document, and the vote on the final revision had to be saved for the second session. This at least was proof that the Council would not be quickly over. Pope John was going to get the “aggiornamento” he wanted.
    You are witness to how these questions were answered. You experience it at all Masses. The two most important changes were the restructuring of the Liturgy of the Word with a renewed emphasis on the Scripture readings and the homilies that were to be focused on the Scriptural passages proclaimed at that Mass, and the use of the vernacular instead of Latin to promote understanding and, above all, active participation of the laity. The Constitution on the Liturgy was approved by vote of 2,162 to 46.
    After the Council of Trent (1554-1565), the importance of Scripture in the Mass had all but been forgotten as emphasis was placed on the Eucharistic Prayer in opposition to some Protestants who denied the Eucharist. Prior to Vatican II, the extreme emphasis on the Eucharistic Prayer, in fact, led to the requirement that the Eucharistic Prayer was the only part of Mass that faithful had to attend in order to fulfill their Sunday and Holy Day obligation. Vatican II’s recognition of the importance of Scripture in the Mass also prepared the way for a very strong document on divine revelation that would come later. Catholics began to catch up with their Protestant brothers and sisters as people of the Bible.
    The change to the vernacular overhauled and updated 400 years of liturgical practice that seemed to be set in stone. Mandatory Latin for the Mass had long relegated the laity to the role of passive observers. The willingness to vote for change on this issue was a way of reestablishing contact with the common people by proclaiming the Gospel message in an understandable way. It was also a sign that the time of fear, the era of the Church as a fortress secured against change, was over.
    The first session of Vatican II ended for the council fathers in the way it had begun. They were held to their opening letter written to the world.    
    A small bishop, Dom Helder Camara, of Recife, Brazil, the poorest diocese in the world, urged the assembly to not forget the Church’s mission to the poor. To remind them, he gave each bishop a simple wooden cross on a leather thong and told them to wear it instead of their gold and silver pectoral crosses.
    When they returned the following October, gone were the Grecas and silver buckles. And in the streets of Rome the bishops wore simple black business suits.
    Father Carville, the former vicar general of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, is reflecting on the documents of Vatican II in a series of columns for The Catholic Commentator.