Grateful Remembrance of Vatican Council II

Participating at Vatican Council II as a peritus of the Secretariat of Christian Unity was the most exciting and liberating experience of my life. I witnessed how the Church's magisterium, eager to make the gospel relevant for today's world, became willing to update its official teaching. On several issues the magisterium now affirmed what it had previously rejected. It now recognized dissident Christians as living members of Christ's mystical body; it praised the ecumenical movement as the work of the Holy Spirit; it acknowledged the ongoing validity of God's covenant with the house of Israel; and it expressed respect for the world religions, recognizing in them an echo of the Word that was fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The council acknowledged the creativity of the regional churches, the priesthood of the baptized, and the collegiality of the bishops with and under the pope. Reappropriating an ancient patristic theme, the council recognized the presence of the Word and the action of the Spirit in the whole of human history, summoning forth faith, hope, and love in people's hearts and making them yearn for freedom, justice, and universal solidarity. My Activity at the Council After my studies at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, I returned to Canada in 1959. A year later I received a letter signed by Pope John XXIII appointing me as peritus at the Secretariat for Christian Unity. I was totally amazed; I was also happy and grateful. My dissertation on an ecumenical topic, later published as a book, had attracted the attention of Cardinal Augustin Bea, the chair of the Secretariat, and his assistant, Monsignor Johannes Willebrands. They chose me to work with them, because in those days Catholic theologians familiar with the ecumenical movement were few in number. My work at the Secretariat before and during the Vatican Council was an exciting activity, a spiritual experience, a theological adventure, an unmerited privilege, and an unforgettable time of intense living. The Secretariat was responsible for composing three draft documents to be submitted to the council: on ecumenism, on religious liberty, and on the Church's relation to the Jews and to the world religions. These were among the most controversial topics at the council. As I am writing these lines, I remember the first meeting of the Secretariat in November, 1960, at which Bea impressed upon us the importance of convincing the bishops of the Church's new openness. In order to reach them, he urged the members of the Secretariat, upon returning to their own countries, to publish articles, give lectures, write to newspapers, and speak on radio and television about the new Catholic approach to religious pluralism. If we have an impact on public opinion in the Church, the cardinal said, the bishops will listen. He himself would give public lectures and publish them in the review La documentation catholique. We could use these speeches, he said, as an umbrella when attacked as unorthodox by conservative Catholics. At the end of this first meeting, Bea announced that he just had a conversation with John XXIII, at which the pope asked the Secretariat to prepare a draft document on the Church's relation to Jews and Judaism. Many years later I found out that John XXIII had been visited by Jules Isaac, a well-known French scholar, a Jew whose wife and daughter had been deported to the death camps, who was the author of several books on the anti-Jewish rhetoric that was part of the Church's proclamation. Isaac was sad but not bitter. With his Christian and Jewish friends, he founded the center l'amitie judeo-chretiene to promote dialogue and mutual respect among Christians and Jews. When Isaac visited John XXIII in 1960, the pope promised him that the council would redefine the Church's relationship to Judaism. Bea did not give us this background information. He only asked us to give him the names of Catholic theologians familiar with this issue whom he might appoint as periti. …

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