Abstract
Peter Hebblethwaite’s 1975 monograph The Runaway Church gave an unequalled account of the excitement that surrounded the Second Vatican Council. It captured the sense of liberation afforded by the ‘opening of the Vatican windows’ by Pope John XXIII. Not everyone welcomed those breezes – and even gales – that the open windows allowed in: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s negative reaction was perhaps the most extreme. In this concise volume, which is a model of clarity, Guarino asks whether the Council did take forward ‘Catholic doctrine’ as a true development, or whether the critics, whose reaction has not abated, were right in seeing the Council as a relativizing episode encouraging what has been called ‘indifferentism’.
An abiding motif throughout the book is the analysis that originated from Vincent of Lérins (died c.445), author of the well-known Vincentian Canon, which uses as a measure of faith ‘that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all’ (Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum es). In establishing this principle, Vincent distinguished between legitimate advance (profectus) and alteration (permutatio). In setting these limits, Vincent effectively set out a model for analysing proper ‘developments’ in doctrine as opposed to inappropriate reversals – or, indeed, changes in doctrine. Adopting this approach, Guarino recalls the intention of Pope John XXIII in calling the Council. The Council fathers were to approach their work using a pastoral rather than an analytical approach, the latter rooted in the theological methodology of the medieval ‘schoolmen’. Guarino analyses the work of the Council in an attempt to discover whether there were any ‘inappropriate discontinuities’. The use of the methodology outlined above contrasted with the majority of earlier theological analyses within Roman Catholicism, which had focused on discontinuity and difference (rather as is still the case with the work of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith). Instead, the key words were now analogy and similarity.
Guarino analyses the progress of the key documents and ‘dogmatic constitutions’ of the Council and in his analysis retains some of the sense of excitement in the debate at the time, including key interventions by Pope Paul VI himself, who, of course, presided over the Council. The crucial role of the Belgian theologian Gérard Philips, who was Secretary of the Theological Commission, is never in doubt in this examination. Paul VI’s ability and desire to work for unanimity in the voting on all these documents is both fascinating and impressive in itself. Ultimately, those voting non placet (against) were in every case a very small minority. Even in the fierce disputes over the document on ‘religious freedom’, Dignitatis humanae, the majority vote was remarkable.
Guarino’s conclusion, almost throughout his analysis, is that the Council satisfied the requirements of Vincent’s critique at the same time as opening up the Roman Catholic Church to other churches, to other religions and to the wider world: the ‘spoils of Egypt’ – that is, insights from outside the Catholic Church – were also embraced, albeit critically. This is an authoritative, significant and positive contribution to our understanding of Vatican II.