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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2019
Many pressing issues facing the church today require a deeper appreciation of Vatican I, marking its one hundred and fiftieth year. We can now return it to its context and accept its “incompleteness” rather than insist upon its “wrongness.” The distance provided by time shows that its teachings are not as rigid or extreme as they are often perceived to be, but rather stand open to significantly broader interpretations. Pastor Aeternus has faced Vatican II, the social leveling brought about by democracy and the mass media, and an erosion of confidence in hierarchical institutions. Yet the council cannot be left behind. This essay's goal is to contextualize Vatican I's voice so that we can hear what it intended to say in its own day and see how it might contribute to some of our own most urgent conversations today.
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8 Pope Francis, “Address” Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html.
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15 Ulrich Horst treats this sense of insecurity in his Unfehlbarkeit und Geschichte: Studien zur Unfehlbarkeitsdiskussion von Melchior Cano bis zum I. Vatikanischen Konzil (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1982)Google Scholar.
16 Cf. Schatz's section “From the French Revolution to Vatican I,” in his Papal Primacy, 143–55.
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30 Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion, 83.
31 Butler, The Vatican Council, 2: 162.
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33 Butler, The Vatican Council, 2: 164.
34 Cardinal Walter Kasper, email to author, December 11, 2018.
35 All references to Pastor aeternus are taken from: Tanner, Norman, ed., The Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1990)Google Scholar.
36 This point is developed in Gerard Kelly's excellent article “The Roman Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility: A Response to Mark Powell,” Theological Studies 74, no. 1 (2013): 129–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Ibid., 132.
38 Ibid.
39 This issue was at the heart of one of the council's most critical moments: the intervention by Bishop Vincent Gasser charged by the Deputation de Fide to persuade the minority that the final version of Pastor aeternus was not in conflict with their views. In his address, Gasser states unequivocally that consultation between pope and bishops is a normal and appropriate element within the development of an infallible teaching and that this is not excluded by the present formulation. Yet he argued that it was inappropriate for the definition to formalize the necessity or means of such a consultation. Such consultation, he asserted, is a moral necessity and therefore “cannot have a place in the definition of a dogmatic constitution.” See Gasser, Bishop Vincent, The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Gasser at Vatican Council I, ed. O'Connor, James (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1986), 51Google Scholar.
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41 Cf. Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion, 51–109, and Dulles, Avery, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 121–40Google Scholar.
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43 Cf. ibid., 123. Here I am building on the conditions identified by Ford.
44 Kelly, “The Roman Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility,” 133.
45 Ibid.
46 Bringing equilibrium to Vatican I's understanding of these subjects of authority—and our overall understanding of ecclesial authority—requires developing our knowledge and exercise of other forms of authority, especially lay authority. Given Vatican I does not significantly treat this topic, however, our focus here will be on bringing greater balance to that which it does treat.
47 For more on this see Colberg, Kristin, “Recognizing Vatican I as a Context for Vatican II,” in Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2016), 85–114Google Scholar.
48 See Eyt, Cardinal P., “La collégialité épiscopale,” in Le deuxième concile du Vatican 1959–65. Actes du colloque organisé par l’École française de Rome en collaboration avec l'Université de Lille 3 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1989), 54Google Scholar.
49 John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint makes the same choice to consider papal primacy without ever adding the phrase “of jurisdiction.” On the significance of this choice in efforts to receive Vatican I's teachings, see Scatena, Silvia, “From Medellín to Aparecida: The ‘Lesson’ of a Regional Experience in Searching for Forms and Styles of Effective Collegiality,” For a Missionary Reform of the Church: The Civiltà Cattolica Seminar, eds. Spadaro, Antonio SJ, and Galli, Carlos Marìa (New York: Paulist, 2018), 266–90Google Scholar.
50 Cf. Colberg, Vatican I and Vatican II, 115–36.
51 Schatz, The Origins of Papal Primacy, 175.
52 John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint (May 25, 1995), http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint.html.
53 Kasper, “Introduction to the Theme and Catholic Hermeneutics of the Dogmas of the First Vatican Council,” 22.
54 Multiple chapters in For a Missionary Reform of the Church deal with the significance of Lumen gentium's third chapter in Francis’ papacy; particularly valuable is Hervé Legrand, OP's contribution entitled “Communio Ecclesiae, Communio Ecclesiarum, Collegium Episcoporum,” 159–95. Also valuable on this topic is Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism: Evangelii Gaudium at the Papal Agenda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.
55 Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (November 24, 2013), http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html.
56 Legrand, “Communio Ecclesiae, Communio Ecclesiarum, Collegium Episcoporum,” 184.
