‘The people of God,’ a new way of defining the church

Bishop Robert E. Tracy wrote in his book, “American Bishop at Vatican II,”  that when fathers of the council received the original schema on the church, which had been prepared by the Vatican Theological Commission under Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, they found it to be “another carbon copy of a theological textbook, calculated to freeze and harden forever the positions at Trent (1565) and Vatican I (1870) … It seemed to consider the church merely as an organization on earth and not at all a mystery with little to say about her apostolic mission and duties, the role of the laity, holiness of the church or about the relationship of the church to our separated brethren (Protestants) and to the state.”  Indeed, that sounded just like the Canon Law we had studied at the Gregorian University in Rome during the fall of 1961, a year before the council began.

Encouraged by the overwhelming votes for renewal on the Constitution on the Liturgy, the majority of the bishops spoke in favor of revising this schema, too, before debating it, amending it, and sending it to the pope for approval.  Pope John XXIII did them one better.  He ordered all the schemas done by the Roman preparatory commissions revised.  However, he died in the spring of 1963 and was succeeded by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, who became Pope Paul VI.  The four chapters of the new schema on the church treated: The mystery of the church; the hierarchy, especially the bishops; the people of God, especially the laity; and the call to sanctity.  The order is important, for after debate and amendments it would be changed and another four chapters added. It would become the most important document of the council: The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, with the Latin title, “Lumen Gentium,” (Light of the Nations: Lk 2:32 and Jn 8:12).

As Bishop Tracy explained, the church was far more than an earthly organization.  It was the “people of God, with the pope, bishops, religious and laity all members of it, first and foremost by baptism, before they were officials in this or that position.”  This vision of the church well suited Pope John XXIII’s successor.  During the first session of the council, Cardinal Montini had sent weekly letters to his Catholics in the Archdiocese of Milan, updating them on the work of the council.  In his “Letters from Rome” to his Catholics in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Bishop Tracy was traveling in good company.

According to Giuseppe Alberigo, editor of the definitive five volume “History of Vatican II,” a majority of the bishops seemed to want the above definition of the church, while a minority wanted the traditional view of the church, held since the Council of Trent — a pyramid with the pope on top, heads of the Vatican departments below, followed by the bishops around the world who were appointed by pope and had authority only over the dioceses to which he appointed them, then the ordained clergy, religious and last the laity, pastored and directed by the clergy.  

Episcopal consecration was not considered a sacrament but an appointment as bishop or assistant bishop (auxiliary bishop) to a particular diocese.  In the council, cardinals always spoke first.  It was obvious that those who ran the Vatican departments (also called dicasteries) were adamantly in favor of the traditional description of the church.  The moderators, cardinals who controlled the order of speakers and held them to 10 minutes each, decided to call a straw vote on five questions to help decide how to get beyond what looked like an impasse.

The five questions: whether episcopal consecration is the highest degree of holy orders (a sacrament, like priesthood and diaconate); whether each consecrated bishop, in communion with the pope and the other bishops, becomes by virtue of his consecration a member of the episcopal college; whether the college of bishops succeeds to the college of the apostles in the task of teaching, sanctifying and ruling, and whether it possesses — with its head, the pope, and never without him —full and supreme authority in the church; whether the bishops enjoy this power by divine right (as successors to the apostles chosen by Jesus); and whether it would be opportune to restore the diaconate as a distinct and stable degree of the sacred ministry.  

Alberigo wrote “the vote brought results that were better than even the most optimistic expectations; in fact, the questions obtained an affirmative response with a majority that varied from 2,123 for the first question to 1,588 for the last. The votes in opposition were never more than 525, on the restoration of the permanent diaconate, and only 34 on the dogmatic question about the sacramental nature of the episcopate.”  

Pope Paul VI agreed and the schema on the church was sent back to the writing commission with two important changes in the order of chapters.  Following the first chapter on the mystery of the church as divinely founded by Jesus, the second chapter would be on the church as the people of God whose unity and equality are rooted in baptism.  Chapter Three would now deal with the hierarchy of pope, bishops, priests and deacons who serve these people.  Chapter Four would highlight the mission of the laity within the church.  “They are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly functions of Christ.  They carry out their own part in the mission or the whole Christian people with respect to the church and the world.” A Chapter Five was added concerning “The Call of the Whole Church to Holiness.”  Also, a Chapter Six on the religious and their special vocation and a Chapter Seven on the eschatological nature of the pilgrim church and her union with the heavenly church. (The purpose of the church is to get us to heaven: “The church, to which we are all called in Christ Jesus, will attain her full perfection only in the glory of heaven.  Then will come the time for the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).”  

Finally, Alberigo wrote, “The assembly had decided, by a small majority that the (previously planned) schema on the Virgin Mary should be included as the concluding chapter (Eight) of “De Ecclesi” (this Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) situating Mary as an icon of the church within a comprehensive theological perspective.”

Bishop Tracy was very much in favor of the permanent diaconate being reestablished as it was in the early church where “the deacon had a permanent role in the church and did not necessarily go on to the priesthood.”  He gives the example of St. Francis of Assisi who remained a deacon all his life.  

After all, Bishop Tracy wrote, the permanent deacon “can preach, baptize, give holy Communion and sing the Gospel at Mass.”  Such a man “might even be a married man with a family.”  In the 1960s we had lots of priests. I was the youngest of four at St. Joseph Cathedral in Baton Rouge.  Bishop Tracy was a prophet.  Where would we be today without the ministry of married deacons, given the severe shortage of priests?  

He felt the same way about the laity, which is why he thought this Dogmatic Constitution on the Church so important.  “The laity,” he wrote, “had been waiting 400 years for a positive statement from a council regarding their place, dignity and vocation ... they need a declaration of the theological nature of their state and their role as baptized and confirmed Christians.  It is simply not enough to say negatively that they are neither priests nor religious.”  I think that this was the pre-council definition of laity in the church’s canon law.  

(Correction of a mistake in my column on the liturgical renovation of a Vatican II cathedral:  I wrote that Bishop Tracy’s friend, Bishop Casey of Denver, won the race to be first to renovate his cathedral for the Vatican II liturgy.  He was then bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska.).          

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnnycarville@gmail.com.