Second Vatican Council

When St. John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council (hereafter VC II) in 1959, he caught the Catholic world by surprise; no one expected that he would cause upheaval in the Catholic Church. I believe that VC II’s legacy is not strictly restricted to the Church’s doctrine, the liturgical changes that came out of the council signalled the Church’s willingness to reform itself to grow with post World War II society. Prior to VC II the mass not the all-inclusive experience associated with the modern Church: the priest did not address the congregation directly and the mass was said in Latin, the vernacular of the Middle Ages. When the mass was in Latin parishioners would not listen to the scripture readings, taking the opportunity to say prayers,

Popes Leo XIII, Pius IX and Pius X all rejected the prospect of salvation being attainable outside of the Catholic Church, considering the Catholic Church, the true Church of Christ. The stance of these popes disallowed Catholic clergymen and theologians from participating in ecumenical dialogues with other Christian denominations. However, Paul VI’s promulgation of The Decree on Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio in 1964 changed Catholic rhetoric towards Protestantism. Protestants were no longer considered heretical in their beliefs, the Catholic Church acknowledged Protestants as in imperfect communion with the Church, recognizing that the use of the Trinitarian formula in the baptism as signal that salvation is achievable in these denominations. The promulgation of Unitatis Redintergratio has forced the Catholic Church to communicate with its Christian brethren in an attempt to reunite the Church. The success of the ecumenical movement has been slow, but its yield can be seen in the revocation of the 1054 anathemas of excommunication between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in 1965. Since its promulgation Unitatis Redintergratio has reconciled the Church with many Eastern Churches becoming Eastern Catholic Churches, exhibiting Christian unity St. John XXIII envisioned when he called the

Within the Catholic Church today people who are divorced and remarried are not allowed to partake in the Eucharistic sacrament, barring them from salvation. I don’t think that the Church has considered the implications of this thinking, for many, divorce is the their only option to escape an abusive marriage, where the covenant has been broken. In some cases remarriage brings people out of squalor (single mothers) towards prosperity, to deny these people the Eucharist seems counter intuitive. The lack of definition on this topic has caused controversy recently when Pope Francis welcomed divorcees to the Eucharistic sacrament. Francis’ statement because of the undefined nature of divorce in the Catholic Church has caused the concept of papal primacy and infallibility to be challenged. If the council fathers had take the time to define the state of divorce in the Church, current unanswered questions about why remarried divorcees cannot partake in the Lord’s Supper. While it makes sense to protect the sanctity of the sacraments from persons who divorced their spouse for reconcilable differences (e.g. arguments), where the disillusionment of the covenant is not possible, it should not extend to persons whose spouse has abandoned or abused them. VC II’s inability to combat some of the pervasive issues of its time has led to the modern Church’s failure to address them in