Nostra Aetate in Boston

Historians and theologians are just now concluding observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. As that event begins to cross over the invisible line that separates the present from the past, it is entirely appropriate that scholars take stock of its meaning. Few would deny its significance for the Catholic Church itself, an importance that derives in part from the fact that it was a rare and unusual occurrence. When it convened in the fall of 1962, the last general council of the church had been held almost one hundred years before, and the last general council before that had been three hundred years earlier. When an event happens only a couple of times over the course of four hundred years, something big is likely to come of it. Within the Catholic Church, Vatican II obviously had tremendous impact, initiating major changes in religious practice and also in some important understandings of theology. In practice, the changes were evident for all Catholics to see, every time they went to Mass on Sunday. The altar had been pulled away from the back wall of the church, and the priest stood behind it, facing the congregation and speaking in their own language, rather than the Latin of centuries. The people were expected to respond aloud to his invitations to prayer and, alarmingly to some, they were even expected to sing, though many stoutly resisted all encouragement that they do so. In theology, the Council brought the reformulation of some traditional concepts and understandings. Others are more qualified to speak of this than I am (I am a historian, not a theologian), but the council’s adoption of the “People of God” as the governing metaphor for the church had tremendous significance. Here was a fundamentally democratic rather than hierarchical definition, a new way in which the church talked about itself. Words and images really do matter. The premier American historian of the Council, John O’Malley, S.J., has written that the real “revolution” of Vatican II was as much rhetorical as anything else. The pastoral language of the Council’s documents and their “soft” style conveyed deep meaning. The use of “horizontalwords,” of “humility-words,” of “interiority-words”—here was the key to grasping the real meaning of the gathering for Catholics. 1