Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age …” are also those of the church.  Known also by its first two nouns in Latin—Gaudium et Spes, this fourth and final constitution, or main document, of the council is the only major document to originate from the floor of the council.  Previous ecumenical councils dealt mostly with doctrine and did not write about pastoral implications for work with the poor, with other Christian denominations or with world-wide governmental organizations like the United Nations.  

The preparatory commissions for this council were Vatican-based and rigidly traditional.  Both Pope John XXIII, who called the council and presided over its first session, and Pope Paul VI, who presided over the final three sessions and gave final approval to all four, had a wider and definitively more pastoral vision than the schemas that were prepared for the council bishops to debate, amend and finally accept or reject. During the first session, Pope John ordered all the schemas revised, and Pope Paul VI accepted this decision.  

Therefore, it was not a shock, when on Dec. 2, 1962 Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Belgium called for an additional constitution to be written on the work of the church in the modern world and added to the other three on the church, sacred Scripture and the liturgy.  He was quickly backed by the Italian cardinals Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan and Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro of Bologna.  This solidified Pope John XXIII’s call for a genuine “aggiornamento” (updating) of the Catholic Church’s work both “ad Intra” (with its own Catholics) and “ad Extra” (with non-Catholic Christians and the rest of the world’s great religions and even those who don’t believe in God.)

“Gaudium et Spes” is a statement of how our Catholic Church conceives of its presence and activity in the world today.  That is why it is called the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” “Pastoral” because it is an outreach and a promise to work with all who influence the welfare of the people of today’s world.  It begins with doctrinal issues in its first four chapters and then offers a series of pastoral applications in its final four chapters to what it considers urgent contemporary issues.  Commenting on this constitution in Abbot’s edition of “The Documents of Vatican II,” Father Donald Campion SJ says, “The most distinctive note sounded in the text is that of the church putting itself consciously at the service of the family of man.”

The reasons for this offer and the details of what the church believes she can offer to our modern world form the 93 sections and 109 pages of this, the longest of the council’s documents.  I will try to synopsize the reasons and pastoral applications in 12 paragraphs.

1. The Catholic Church recognizes the dignity of every human being as stemming from our being created in the image of God. “The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God” (Section 19).  Each human being is born with a moral conscience. Our dignity demands that we be sufficiently free to make important decisions about our lives.  This is true of even atheists who do not recognize God.  St. Paul speaks of pagans being aware of a natural law in Rom 2:15-16.  At the same time, our church believes what the human conscience demands is best fulfilled by the biblical law of love of God and fellow human beings.  The church indeed wants to dialogue with everyone, including atheists, on how the human dignity of all can be assured.

2.  We have to accept what Pope John XXIII referred to often in his encyclicals, “Mater et Magistra” and “Pacem in Terris” as “The Signs of the Times.”  We live in times where there are many forms of unbelief, usually described as “isms” – scientism, relativism, extreme individualism or existentialism, communism and fascism.  All usually claim that religion somehow thwarts man’s freedom and his striving for economic and social emancipation.  The remedy for these forms of unbelief is for the church to fulfill her mission.  “For it is the function of the church, led by the Holy Spirit who renews and purifies her ceaselessly to make God the father and his Incarnate Son present and in a sense visible” (21).  Make God visible?  Yes. “What does the most to reveal God’s presence, however, is the brotherly charity of the faithful who are united in spirit as they work together for the faith of the Gospel and who prove themselves a sign of unity” (21).

3.  We must recognize the need of all for “socialization,” which is simply the growing interdependence of us all.  (And this was written in the 1960s before the explosion of the information age. Yet, one could argue that our cell phones keep us more apart than together.)

4.  Although the church can and should be a guardian of truth and provider of religious and moral principles, the council admits that the church often does not have a solution to “particular problems” (33).  These particular problems seem to be disputes between groups and nations.   The more we humans gain scientific mastery of our world, the more social problems we face.

5.  “Through her individual members and her whole community the church believes she can contribute greatly toward making the family of man and its history more human” (40).  The church claims that she can serve as a kind of leaven or soul for human society.  It has the Gospel of Christ to urge society to be more loving and caring of others, especially those in most need because of poverty, illness, racism and lack of education.

6. The church can also learn from history and its social context.  The human heart throughout history has always yearned to know the meaning of one’s own life, of one’s work in this world, of what one leaves behind in death.  Only God provides an adequate answer to these very human questions. “Whoever follows after Christ, the perfect man, becomes himself more of a man” (41).  The personal dignity and liberty of each of us is safeguarded by the Gospel of Christ which the church teaches.  That same Gospel teaches that all our human talents should be used for God’s service and that of society.

7.  The church through this document welcomes a dialogue with the modern world and offers this service from its desire that God’s kingdom may come, and that the whole human race may receive this salvation (44).  A part of her mission given by Christ to his apostles at the Last Supper was to bring an ever greater unity to mankind. “I pray that you all may be one, as I and the father are one.” For the force which the church can inject into the modern society of man consists “in that faith and charity put into vital practice not in any external dominion exercised by merely human means” (42).

8.  Beginning with Section 46 the constitution moves to more specific pastoral topics: marriage, family life, human culture, life in its economic, social and political dimensions and finally modern warfare and the formation of a true family of nations.  “On each of these may there shine the radiant ideals of Christ” (46).

9. The council frames Christian marriage as a covenant relationship bound by the conjugal love of the couple.  With that love they cooperate with their creator and savior “who through them will enlarge and enrich his own family day by day” (50).

10.  The council recognizes the necessity of parents to make decisions with regard to themselves and their mutual love, to children already born and those who can be anticipated, to the welfare of the whole family and to their society.  However the bishops very carefully avoid making a decision on artificial contraception, aware that Pope Paul VI followed Pope John XXIII’s thinking and was appointing an advisory committee to help him make that decision.  Thus he kept the council from getting bogged down on this one issue (48).

11.  The last chapter deals with the relationship among nations today. It says that Christians must cooperate with all others in the search for a peace that means more than just the absence of actual war. It has to be more than a balance of powers or the control of a dictatorship. The constitution condemns terrorism as  a means to wage war.  It concedes the right to legitimate defense “once every mean of peaceful settlement has been exhausted” (79).  But it also condemns war “aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of cities or extensive areas along with their population” (81).

12.  Finally, there must be greater international cooperation in the economic field of world commerce to assure developing nations the material assistance they need” (85).

There is much good in the document, but it could have been greatly improved by a good editor.

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 [email protected].