Gaudium et Spes, Luctus et Angor: Vatican II and Social Justice
This year, as we begin the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council – remembering not
just the documents the council produced but also the process that went into their writing– it is
a time, like any anniversary, to celebrate what has been achieved but also to acknowledge the
loss and sadness that are part of the memories evoked by anniversaries.
Many people will remember something of the impact of the council on the local
church and particularly the external changes, e.g., of language or dress, that marked an
internal shift in theology and in the self-understanding of the church. Changes in religious life
that came from the council were external manifestations of an effort to grapple with internal
shifts in theology and in the self- understanding of religious communities.The title of a book
published in the UK to mark the 40th anniversary Unfinished Journey: The Church 40 Years
After Vatican II expressed one perspective on Vatican Two, that is, of an unfinished journey,
an incomplete project whose reforms we still await fully.1 Others in the church see Vatican
Two as a misguided project or as one which lost its way and therefore lost something of the
tradition of the church. Many of us studied under theologians who were full of the “spirit” of
Vatican II and they communicated something of that energy for newness to us. Increasingly,
young students of theology see Vatican Two as a rather ancient event whose significance they
have inherited but it does not hold the same importance for them as for older people.
We approach this fiftieth anniversary with a very different disposition to that which
was brought to the 40th anniversary of the start of the council celebrated a decade ago. This is
a church in crisis wherea loss of credibility,unimaginable at the time of Vatican II, affects our
capacity to speak to the world about justice and other important matters. We approach this
anniversary as a scarred church but one in which we still believe the Spirit of the wounded
and risen Christ is present.
Vatican II and a New Pentecost
In his apostolic constitution Humanae Salutis, marking the solemn convocation of Vatican II,
Pope John XXIII included the following prayer:
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Renew Your wonders in our time, as though by a new Pentecost and grant that the
holy Church, preserving unanimous and continuous prayer, together with Mary, the
mother of Jesus, and also under the guidance of St. Peter, may increase the reign of
the Divine saviour, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace.
Amen.2
What did that idea of a “new Pentecost” mean to John XXIII and how does that speak to us
now?There are twoaccounts of the coming of the Spirit in the New Testament,Acts 2: 1-21
and John 20:19-29. Acts describes the coming of the Spirit in terms of wind, tongues of fire
and multi-lingual comprehension, with the promise of dreams, visions and portents. John’s
gospel locates the coming of the Spirit in the context of closed doors and fear, a gentle
coming with words of peace and a simple breathing of the spirit imparting the gift of
forgiveness. The Johannine account underscores that the Risen Christ is still marked by his
wounds. Both accounts unveil something of the meaning of Pentecost and, considered
together, help us to reflect on any ecclesial references to a “new Pentecost” and its
transformative implications.TheIrish poet priest Pádraig J. Daly, in a poem entitled In the
light of “Ryan”, uses a Pentecostal allusion to capture something of the impact on people of
the recent and unrelenting scandals affecting the Church, the context in which we now remember the Second Vatican Council:
We huddle in our upper room,
The doors bolted,
For shame at our betrayal
Of all that is tender.
To our place of infamy, come,
Jesus, come. 3
John XXIII did not make specific reference to a “new Pentecost” in his Opening Address on
October 11, 1962, but in setting out the main “orientations” of the council he concretizes
what this might mean.4 It is clear that the work of justice and peace, broadly conceived, was
envisaged by John as being at the heart of the project of Vatican II:

The church’s bearing witness to the centrality of Christ in human history

Aggiornamento in the service of that witness
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
Communication of “the goods of divine grace which, by raising human beings to the
dignity of children of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a
more human life”.
This paper will argue that the contribution of Vatican II to the understanding of justice within
the Catholic tradition can be summarized in three interrelated themes:
1. The embrace of human rights
2. The expansion of humanism
3. A renewed missiological imagination
Together, these developments shaped the intellectual and practical work for justice of the
post-conciliar church. Much has been written about the “Pentecostal effects” of Vatican II,
effects that were evident in areas such as ecclesiology, ecumenism, liturgy and interreligious
dialogue. The embrace of human rights, the expansion of humanism and a renewed
missiological imagination can be understood as the “Pentecostal effects” of the council in
terms of justice and peace. What is the specific relationship of religious life to these
“Pentecostal effects”? What does GaudiumetSpessay to us as religious? The document says
nothing specific about the challenges for religious life. In one way, the challenge is the same
for all Christians, lived differently depending on one’s state in life, with greater responsibility
resting on the wealthy and those in power.For us, as religious, the challenge of the vision of
this document – and the general orientation of Vatican IIregarding social justice – should
simply be the samechallenge as that for other Christians, but a challenge felt more keenly,
engaged with more intensely and lived more courageously.
The Embrace of Human Rights
Belief in the inherent dignity of the human person is the foundation of Catholic social
teaching and the starting point for its vision of society. The development of this social
teaching constitutes an attempt to discover and articulate – in terms of foundational
justification, norms, and praxis – the concrete implications of human dignity in interpersonal,
social, structural, and international terms. However the acceptance of the notion of human
rights by the Church and the incorporation of that discourse into its social teaching was a
slow and complicated process. The relationship between the Christian churches and human
rights has been characterized as a movement from reluctance and hostility to acceptance:
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“reluctance” was the general response of Protestantism and “hostility” the general Catholic
response.5 Catholic hostility is probably best expressed in Gregory XVI’s 1832 encyclical
Mirari Vos.6 This issued condemnations of liberalism, individualism, democracy, the
madness (deliramentum) of freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, press freedom, and
the separation of Church and State. Bryan Hehir contends that in the midst of the hostility the
“neuralgic point” was the idea of religious freedom.7
The Catholic transition to acceptance of human rights was influenced by a number of
factors, including the ground laid by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. In the time between the
end of World War II and the Second Vatican Council there was considerable Catholic
intellectual engagement with the themes of democracy, human rights and religious
freedom.This engagement laid the groundwork for the first systematic treatment of human
rights in official Catholic social teaching, the encyclical of Pope John XXIII, Pacem in
Terris, issued between the first and second sessions of Vatican II. 8
Pacem in Terris (1963)
Due to the reference to economic rights in Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, and other
influences including the work of the American Catholic social reformer, John A. Ryan, the
Catholic tradition did not have the same difficulty with socio-economic rights as it did with
the concept of civil and political rights.9Pacem in Terris is a major development because of
its endorsement of civil and political rights. Its distance from the older Catholic view of
preference for the union of Church and state led also to the endorsement, by the council, of
democracy and pluralism. Rights are discussed in the context of some contemporary issues:
racism, the arms race (mentioned for the first time in official Catholic social teaching),
industrial progress, social welfare, economic sharing, and political participation. While the
document’s broad canvas of rights does not clarify how these rights are to be prioritized, it
marks an important contribution to Catholic discussion of human rights and links it with the
debate within the United Nations, at that time, about the primacy of particular rights.
John XXIII issues a subtle challenge to those who make ideological use of Catholic
social teaching in order to prevent greater social justice, e.g., where the appeal to the right to
private property is being claimed without any sense of social responsibility. He particularly
addresses those who “derive special advantage from the fact that their rights have received
preferential protection”.10 He had in mind the neglected rights of the poor in situations of
injustice and landlessness. In the encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961), Pope John made a
significant contribution to the development of Catholic social teaching by shifting from the
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traditional Catholic opposition to State intervention and the “Welfare State” and, in
combination with his treatment of human rights in Pacem in Terris, he contributed to what is
described as a “decisive move away from the right” in Catholic social teaching.11 The
political philosopher Maurice Cranston read Pacem in Terris not as an appeal to the Christian
imagination, but “to the Christian conscience, and beyond that to the conscience of
mankind”.12 The document lacks a sustained analysis of the dynamics of power in the world,
a general weakness in modern Christian social ethics, which is later challenged, to some
extent, by the ethics of liberation theology. Pacem in Terris influenced the position of
Vatican Council II on human rights and on the relationship between the Church and
democracy.
Dignitatis Humanae(1965)
The expressed intention at the beginning of Dignitatis Humanae(A Declaration on Religious
Freedom)is that of developing “the teaching of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the
human person and on the constitutional order of society”.13 This Declaration marks the
Church coming to accept what had already been recognized in civil law and to acknowledge a
principle that had been proclaimed in all the declarations of human rights. It had a major
impact on the self-understanding of the Church and on theunderstanding of the nature of
doctrine in history. While it may not be a milestone in philosophical debate about rights, the
significance of the development in Dignitatis Humanae is acknowledged by John Rawls in
one of his last essays, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited”.14
Interest in religious freedom arose particularly in contexts where Catholics were in a
minority, but as the Church began to reflect deeply on the dignity and freedom of the human
person, to develop its own social teaching in a more historical direction, to see value in the
documents of the United Nations, and to struggle for the rights of those living under
communist regimes, it became obvious that it was self-contradictory to continue to oppose
such freedom. Dignitatis Humanae was the document that brought out the struggle, at the
council, between traditional Catholic views of freedom and more “liberal” views, for the
rejection of the confessional state was anathema to those who defined freedom in terms of
possession of the truth. There were difficulties in the drafting of the document with the
distinction between the objective right of persons with regard to religious liberty and the
traditional argument regarding the right to the existence of the one true religion. The Council
had to stress that a person may have duties to the truth, but the truth has no rights. The
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subject of rights is the human person, in truth or error, based on the dignity of that human
person in their discernment and decision-making.
The methodology of Dignitatis Humanae reflects the shift from the concept of human
nature to that of the human person and this shift enables the right to religious freedom to be
grounded in the dignity of the person.15 It uses the language of “protection and promotion of
human rights”, language which echoes strongly that of the United Nations documents.
Within Dignitatis Humanae, the dynamic of freedom is one of movement from personal
freedom to the freedom of the Church. The primary emphasis is the issue of religious
freedom on formally juridical grounds, i.e., religious freedom as freedom from coercion, or as
an immunity. This civil right rests on the dignity of the human person who bears the
responsibility to search for the truth. This search for truth transcends the authority of the
State and the human person is bound to follow their conscience faithfully. Even if a
particular religious community is given special recognition, the rights of all must be
recognized for personal freedom is constitutive of the common good.
Religious freedom, that “neuralgic point” in the relationship betweenthe Catholic
Church and Enlightenment liberty, is now held to be the primary freedom which secures
other human and civil freedoms. Religious freedom is not simply about the toleration of a
lesser evil, nor is it identical with religious indifferentism or simple religious relativism.
Religious freedom concerns the safeguarding of that which is most precious in the human
person, the capacity for transcendence, for living out the orientation to God which is the
human vocation, even in the sincere search which expresses itself in agnosticism towards that
transcendentality. The right to religious freedom moves from personal freedom to the
freedom of the Church, not vice versa.
John Courtney Murray, the theologian who had most influence on this document, held
that “the issue of religious freedom was in itself minor”, maintaining that the hidden agenda
of the document was the issue of doctrinal development and that the right to religious
freedom was “simply juridical”. This document cleared up what Murray calls “a longstanding ambiguity”, indeed, a double standard, that is: “freedom for the Church when
Catholics are in the minority, privilege for the Church and intolerance for others when
Catholics are a majority”.16
Without the promulgation of this document, human rights could not have taken a core
place in the social teaching of the Church, nor could the Church have become the advocate of
human rights that it has become in many parts of the world. Dignitatis Humanaecleared the
way for the Catholic Church to become an active defender of human rights. Samuel P.
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Huntington suggests that Catholicism was second only to economic development as a force
for democratization in the two decades after Vatican II. In The Third Wave: Democratization
in the Late Twentieth Century, Huntington identifies three waves of democratization
experienced by the modern world:
1. the first, a century-long wave beginning in 1820, rooted in the American and French
revolutions, occurring mainly in dominantly Protestant countries in North American
and Europe;
2. the second wave began after World War II, continuing until the mid-1960s, during
which countries like West Germany, Italy, Austria, Japan and Korea established
democratic governments and steps towards democracy were taken in Greece, Turkey,
and many countries in Latin America, with decolonisation beginning in Africa, and
new democracies emerging in Asia. A diversity of religions was involved. There was
a period after each of the first two waves when some of the countries that had
embraced democracy reverted to former undemocratic patterns of government;
3. Huntington points to the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974 as the beginning
of the third wave which, at least in the first fifteen years, was overwhelmingly
Catholic (in countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia) due both to the Vatican II
change in official teaching regarding democracy and human rights, and to increasing
local involvement of clergy and laity in social justice. The formation of national
Episcopal conferences after Vatican II meant that in some countries, e.g., The
Philippines, Poland, and Brazil, these conferences played a key role in the struggle for
human rights and democracy.17
A comparative analysis of eleven different countries in Latin America of the efforts of the
Catholic Church to defend human rights and protect democracy shows that Church– in
varying ways, and to varying degrees – contributed to the redemocratisation of many
countries, through denouncing dictatorships, protecting the persecuted, documenting the
violations of human rights, legitimizing opposition, and creating “participatory spaces” for
religious groups or other groups associated in some way with the mission of the Church.18
Dignitatis Humanae, marks the first official recognition of doctrinal development
within the tradition of Catholic social teaching, a corpus that normally emphasizes continuity.
The acknowledgement, at the highest level, that the doctrine of the Catholic Church can
change is extremely significant, marking what Murray calls “progress in understanding of the
truth”.19 Cardinal Newman’s thesis, that the faithful should be consulted in matters of
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doctrine and contribute to the development of doctrine, finds its most obvious application and
“most fertile testing ground” in the development of the social teaching of the church.20
It is important to note here the danger of contemporary re-clericalization of episcopal
justice and peace bodies within the church. Commissions in the church can only be made up
of bishops,but justice and peace bodies have traditionally become known as commissions
often having lay members – not just advisors – and even lay chairs. There has been a move to
recover and reemphasize the clerical nature of justice and peace, thus impoverishing the input
on matters of justice and stalling any real consultation with the faithful that would further
develop Catholic social teaching. This is a development that religious congregations are wellplaced to monitor and challenge, not only for the sake of greater lay participation in decisionmaking structures within the Church but also to prevent the impoverishment and stagnation
of Catholic social teaching.
Gaudium et Spes (1965)
The words which I think capture most eloquently that spirit of the council are the opening
words of Gaudium et Spes(The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World):
The joys and the hopes, the grief and the anguish of the people of our time, especially
those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the
followers of Christ as well. Nothing genuinely human fails to find an echo in their
hearts. (1)
Both Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanaeare described as having undergone a
“torturous evolution” from their first consideration at the beginning of the council to their
finalization during the last session in late 1965. Part of the difficulty lay in Gaudium et
Spes’sopen ended commitment “to the world”. Its scope was far broader that any of the social
encyclicals, most of which did not explore the area of human culture and the church’s
relationship to this.In terms of the work of justice and peace, the following are key elements
of the document:
I.
It is addressed beyond the church to all people of good will, not just to be inclusive or
“politically correct” but as a real statement of belief in the wider action of the Holy Spirit
in the world. The church must take the human condition seriously because God is present
in all that is human.
II.
The document is positive about human freedom; the church admits that it does not have
all the answers, a modesty unusual before that in official church documents.It reflects a
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more humble approach of limiting the authority of the church’s voice in politics,
economics and social theory.
III.
Gaudium et Spesis positive about human culture; prior to this, the church spoke about
“civilization” in the sense of Catholic Christendom.There is an acceptance of plurality
and no attempt to describe or impose a fully “Catholic culture”.
IV.
Its tone is described as “inviting” but Gaudium et Spes was also constructive in terms of
Catholic social teaching. It contributedsignificantly to the development of the socioeconomic dimension of this teaching, e.g.: it condemned the injustice in international
trade (83); defended the rights of minorities (73); called for the re-evaluation of war (80),
and defended the rights of conscientious objectors (79).
V.
The document employs a historically conscious and inductive methodology in an attempt
to ground natural law specifically in the human person, not in an abstract conception of
human nature, seeking to hold in tension the commonality of natural law and the
specifics of historicity. Nature is not viewed as consisting of fixed and changeless
essences, nor is ethics the deduction of decisions from unchanging principles. It points
to a dynamic understanding of natural law engaged in an ongoing search to understand
what it means to be a human person – in his or her totality – in the world. It is a
watershed in the movement from an emphasis on human nature to the human person in
official Catholic documents, marking what Bernard Lonergan describes as a shift from a
classicist, deductive natural law approach to a historically conscious, inductive,
personalist approach.21
VI.
This personalist theological consideration of the human person led not only to greater
engagement with human rights in general, but also to engagement with the particularity
of the subject as woman, man, black, indigenous or poor. Theologian Anne Patrick
argues that there is a direct “connection” between the words of Gaudium et Spes “and the
emerging feminist critique of the tradition by Catholics who regard themselves as loyal
members of the Church”.22 However, I don’t think the Council Fathers would have
envisaged this document as a “catalyst for Catholic feminist theology”!
VII.
The human person is the end and purpose of every social organization and the emphasis
is on the need for society to develop in a manner worthy of human dignity (12, 25, 63).
There is no sense of the wider ecological agenda in which today we would locate
concerns about the future of the human person and the goals of society.
VIII.
This new humanism of Gaudium et Spes is a Christological humanism, for Christ is “the
focal point and goal of the human person, as well as of all human history” (10). Christ
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taught us by example that “we too must shoulder that cross which the world and the flesh
inflict upon those who search after peace and justice” (38). This pointer to a theology of
the cross is not developed, perhaps due to the optimism in the document about the
possibilities of reform and goodwill to bring about justice and peace. The theme of
shouldering the cross in the search for justice and peace finds more explicit development
in liberation theology.
IX.
One of the most significant contributions of Gaudium et Spes was to ground the
protection and promotion of human rights theologically and thus to place Catholic
involvement in the struggle for human rights at the heart of the mission and ministry of
the Church.23 “In virtue of the Gospel entrusted to it, the Church proclaims human
rights; it acknowledges and holds in high esteem the dynamic approach of today which is
fostering these rights all over the world” (41). While Pacem in Terris is an outstanding
text in terms of the promotion of human dignity and human rights, Gaudium et Spes
transforms the involvement of the Church in human rights, so that it has an evangelical
and eschatological dimension. The promotion of human rights is one of the ways in
which the Church carries out her role as “champion” of the dignity of the human
vocation (21): through proclaiming and fostering human rights, building up the human
community, and the initiation of action for service of all people, especially the poor.24
X.
There is an insistence on the right of the poor to their share of the Earth’s resources and
on the responsibility of the rich that goes beyond the giving of charity out of superfluous
wealth. We see here the influence of a group at the council called the Church of the Poor
Group –constituted by bishops and theologians mainly from Latin America, Africa and
India, with Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna acting as spokesman – who advocated for
greater attention to the poor of the world, to hunger and to colonialism in the treatment of
the signs of the times.25This group raised the issue not only of a church for the poor but
also the idea of a poor church, although it is acknowledged that ultimatelytheir influence
at the Council was limited and marginal. While they played “a significant role in the first
two sessions of the Council and created in many fathers a new sensitivity to the issues of
poverty”, a report on the work of this group is described as having “disappeared into the
sands of time".26
Signs of the Times: historical-pastoral and/or historical theological?
The responsibility the Church carries is that of “reading the signs of the times and of
interpreting them in the light of the Gospel”:
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Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial
questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about
the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and
understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often
dramatic characteristics. (GS, 4)
John XXIII begins with the hopeful signs and then reflects on the alarming signs of the times.
This phrase, “the signs of the times”, an echo of Matthew 16: 3-4, is given theological
significance in this document. It is a simple phrase, which can fall prey to superficial
interpretation and facile application; however, the actual working out of the issues addressed
in GaudiumetSpes demonstrates the complexity of the term. The phrase is used only once in
the document but it has captured the ethical imagination of people and has become, in some
ways, definitive of the perspective of Vatican II on matters of social justice. Jon Sobrino
reminds us that this phrase, “the signs of the times”, can be used in two ways:
At the time of the Council the expression ‘signs of the times’ had two meanings. On
the one hand, it had a historical-pastoral meaning: the signs of the times are ‘events
which characterize a period’ (GS, 4). They are, then, particular historical phenomena,
and the purpose of recognizing them, examining them, is directly pastoral: the church
needs to identify them if its mission – to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve
and not to be served (GS, 3) – is to be carried out in a relevant way. On the other
hand, ‘signs of the times’ had a historical-theologicalmeaning. The signs are
‘happenings, needs and desires … authentic signs of God’s presence and purpose’
(GS, 11). This statement, like the previous one, mentions historical phenomena, but
adds – and this is its crucial importance – that God’s presence or purpose has to be
discerned in them. History is seen here, not just in its changing and dense novelty, but
in its sacramental dimension, in its ability to manifest God in the present.27
There is a tension between both interpretations and Sobrino notes that while there is clarity
around the historical-pastoral interpretation of the signs of the times, “people are very
suspicious of attempts to use them in the historical-theological sense”. As Lukas Vischer –
World Council of Churches (WCC) observer at Vatican II – observes: “we have no criterion
for distinguishing the voice of God from any other deceptive voice in the great phenomena of
our age.”28
Reading the signs of the times is, however, a risky enterprise: one risks being wrong,
not so much in terms of ethical principles, but in concrete situational analysis and the
development of normative responses.Historical consciousness is a delicate balance, which
seeks to take history seriously, without reducing to historical or cultural relativism. The
responsibility the Church carries is that of “reading the signs of the times and of interpreting
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them in the light of the Gospel”(4). The call to be readers of thesigns of the times is a
reminder that the specific demands of human dignity cannot be outlined a priori.29
Discerning the signs of the times is not a soft process,and the imagination – as Iris
Murdoch reminds us – is not the poor cousin of reason. Catholic social teaching as
discernment calls us to analyse with objectivity the situation that is proper to our country or
region, to shed on it the light of the Gospel’s unchanging words and to draw principles of
reflection, norms for judgment and directives for action from this teaching. Such
discernment is the fruit of a reasoning heart: a meeting of reflective praxis, intellectual rigor,
and prayerful searching for wisdom. The capacity to read the signs of the times is, perhaps,
less a skill to be developed than a virtue to be cultivated. Bernard Häring includes the virtue
of vigilance as one of the biblical or eschatological virtues, vigilance corresponding to the
biblical concept of kairos, hora, “signs of the times”. Vigilance gives the believer “a
prophetic vision in which he or she discovers the present opportunity”. Vigilance gives us
discernment about priorities and discovers the profound meaning of suffering.30
GaudiumetSpesprogressed the work of justice, not only by its significant content and
themes, but also by the way this document touched the imagination of people,engendering a
renewed ethical and missiological imagination in the years after the Second Vatican Council.
Not all church documents touch the imagination in this way and this may be something that is
lacking in more recent documents of Catholic social teaching. Such flickering of the
missiological imagination is essential,for it enables us to understand ourselves and others in
new ways, to envisage alternatives in situations of injustice and conflict, and to cultivate
hope.
Criticisms of Gaudium et Spes
The protestant theologian Robert McAfee Brown argued that “the document minimizes the
degree to which the gospel is also a scandal and a stumbling block, by which men and women
can be offended as well as uplifted”.31EndaMcDonagh notes the absence of the cross from the
gospel reflections and observes that “the sense of the tragic is largely missing” from the
document.32 There is legitimacy in these criticisms but, as mentioned, liberation theology
addressed that deficiency in a very particular way. However, we read the document now with
a greater awareness that the church itself has become the scandal and stumbling block, butnot
in the Pauline conception of gospel scandal (1 Cor 1: 23). How can a Church which has
become, in some ways, a scandal, preach anew a gospel that both offends and uplifts? The
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Church at the Second Vatican Council saw itself called to be a “sign and safeguard of the
transcendence of the human person” (GS, 76), yet the documentsare largely blind to the
failures of the church in relation to that call. Gaudium et Spes admits the responsibility that
Christians share for spread of atheism:
Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism. To the
extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or
are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather
than reveal the authentic face of God and religion. (19)
The recent scandals have shown a deficiency in our moral life as church that has
concealed the face of God in horrendous ways. This section on Christian responsibility in
GaudiumetSpes offers a challenge not just to the church as an institution, but also to us as
individuals and communities, in private and public life: how do we conceal rather than reveal
the authentic face of God and religion?Gaudium et Spes was influential not just in the church
but also in the world, a kind of influence that the contemporary church will never recover
exactly.While the document marked a sea change in the relationship between the church and
the world, it did not turn its critique towards the church.
Conclusion
There has been discussion since the Second Vatican Council about the relationship
between the public position of the Church on social justice and human rights, and the internal
practice of the Church. This discussion focused on issues like the tension between public
teaching about the equality of men and women and domestic ecclesial practice regarding the
role of women in the Church, or on the contradiction between the emphasis on participation
as necessary for human dignity and the decision-making structures within the Church.
However the assessment of the impact and enduring relevance of the council that took place
on its 40th anniversary needs new analysis as we begin this 50th anniversary. It is often said
that the contribution of the church to democracy, freedom and human rights in the civil realm
will be strengthened or weakened in the public eye by its own self-governance and internal
practice. This no longer refers simply to issues of gender and participation but now has to
include the painful issues of the past number of years.
Why did the expanded humanism, the embrace of human rights and the renewed
missiological imagination – these “Pentecostal effects” of the council – not illumine the
response of the church to the scandals of our own day? The relevance of these dimensions of
conciliar teaching endure in our struggle for global and social justice, but the new challenge
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is for an ecclesiological ethic that matches ad intra what the church seeks to be ad extra in
terms of human rights and humanism. The challenge to work for justice and peace ad extra
and ad intra is one that religious life must respond to, drawing on the wisdom of the tradition
of Catholic social teaching but vigilant about the new ways in which this challenge presents
itself. At this time of crisis, when invidious divisions between models of religious life in the
church risk overshadowing the commitment we all share to increasing “the reign of the
Divine saviour, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace”,33we can make this
work for justice and peace a unitiveendeavour for religious life, so that together we can
respond to Gaudium et Spes, Luctus et Angor of the people of our time:
Such a mission requires in the first place that we foster within the Church herself
mutual esteem, reverence and harmony, through the full recognition of lawful
diversity. Thus all those who compose the one People of God, both pastors and the
general faithful, can engage in dialogue with ever abounding fruitfulness. For the
bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything dividing them. Hence, let
there be unity in what is necessary; freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any
case.(GS, 92)
Ethna Regan
Rome, December 1st, 2012
Dr. Ethna Regan CHF
School of Theology
Mater Dei Institute
Dublin City University
ethna.regan@materdei.dcu.ie
1
Edited by Austin Ivereigh (New York: Continuum, 2004).
John XXIII, Humanae salutis, apostolic constitution, December 25th,
1961.http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jxxiii_apc_19611225_humanae-salutis_sp.html
2
15
3
Afterlife, Dublin: Daedalus Press, 2010.
AllocutioIoannis PP. XXIII inSollemni SS. ConciliiInauguratione, Die 11 Octobrismenis a. 1962.Available
online at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/speeches/1962/documents/hf_jxxiii_spe_19621011_opening-council_lt.html
4
Charles E. Curran, “Churches and Human Rights: From Hostility/Reluctance to Acceptability”, Milltown
Studies 42 (1998), 30-58.
6
“On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism”, available online at
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16mirar.htm http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16mirar.htm
7
“Catholicism and Democracy: Conflict, Change, and Collaboration”, in Charles E. Curran, ed., Change in
Official Catholic Moral Teachings: Readings in Moral Theology No. 13 (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
2003), pp.20-37, at p. 22.
8
The first session lasted from October 11-December 8, 1962. Pacem in Terris was promulgated on April 11,
1963. Pope John XXIII died on June 3, 1963. The second session opened on September 29, 1963, after the
election of Pope Paul VI on June 21, 1963. Pope Paul announced his intention to continue the council the day
after his election. Vatican II was closed on December 8, 1965. When John XXIII – then Angelo Roncalli – was
Papal Nuncio in Paris in the 1940s, he participated, with René Cassin, in discussions about the drafting of the
Universal Declaration. This was the time of the establishment of UNESCO in Paris and Roncalli was influential
in ensuring that the Catholic Church would make connections with the United Nations and its organizations. PT
recognizes the role of the United Nations, and makes special reference to the Universal Declaration, seeing
therein a profound recognition of the dignity of every person.
9
Inspired by Rerum Novarum, John A. Ryan wrote an influential book entitled A Living Wage: Its Ethical and
Economic Aspects (New York: Macmillan, 1906).
10
Pacem in Terris, no. 65. See also Mater et Magistra, no. 119.
11
Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor, Chapter 6: “Pope John XXIII – A New Direction?” pp113-48, p.144.
5
“Pope John XXIII on Peace and The Rights of Man”, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 34 (1963) pp.380-90, at
p.390. Cranston suggests that the intellectual force of Pacem in Terris is comparable to that of Kant’s Zum
Ewige Friede.
13
Dignitatis Humanae, no. 1.http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vatii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html
14
Published together with The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1999),
pp.131-80, at pp.166-67, n.75. See also p.142 and p.170 for a positive assessment of aspects of Catholic
political discourse.
15
Dignitatis Humanae, nos. 2, 6.
16
John Courtney Murray, “Religious Freedom” in Walter M. Abbott, gen. ed., Documents of Vatican II (New
York: Guild Press, 1966), pp.672- 673.
17
Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
18
See Jeffrey Klaiber: The Church, Dictatorships, and Democracy in Latin America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1998), pp269-70. Even in Argentina, during the “Dirty War” (1976-83), where the bishops denounced
the military regime in private, but supported it in public, a courageous minority of bishops and priests, together
with many other Catholics, struggled to defend human rights. He notes that the paradox of the return to
democracy, for many progressive Latin American Catholics, is that it coincided with the rise of neoconservatism in the Church and the spread of neo-liberalism.
19
In Abbott, ed., p.677, no. 4.
20
On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (London: Chapman, 1961).
21
“Theology in its New Context”, Theology of Renewal, Vol. 1: Renewal of Religious Thought, ed. L.K. Shook
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp.34-36. This shift to historical consciousness was one of the
nineteenth-century trends that the Church had resisted due to the misuse of the notions of the historicity of the
truth, and the question of the role of the subject in possession of the truth, in order to attack the objective
character of truth.
22
“Toward Renewing ‘The Life and Culture of Fallen Man’: Gaudium et Spes as catalyst for Catholic Feminist
Theology”, in Charles E. Curran et al., eds., Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition, (New York:
Paulist, 1996), pp.483-510, p.484.
23
Pope John Paul II will later use the term “apostolate of human rights”.
24
Gaudium et Spes, nos. 40-42.
25
This group included Juan Landázuri Ricketts of Peru, Raymond-Maria Tchidimbo of Guinea, Helder Camara
andSoares de Resende of Brazil.
12
16
26
See Giuseppe Albergio, ed., History of Vatican II, Vol. IV (Maryknoll, NY/Leuven: Orbis/Peeters),pp.289-90,
382-386, p. 289, p.385.
27
Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis,1993), pp.25-26.
28
“Los signos de los tiempos como lugar teológico”, Estudios Eclesiásticos, 207 (1978), pp.527-8.
29
David Hollenbach,Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights Tradition (New
York: Paulist Press, 1979), p.70.
30
Bernard Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ,Vol. I of General Moral Theology, (Middlegreen, Slough: St.
Paul Publications, 1978), pp.206-7.
31
“A Response”, in Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II, p.315.
32
Adrian Hastings, ed., Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After (London / New York: SPCK / Oxford
University Press, 1991), p.110.
33
John XXIII, Humanaesalutis, apostolic constitution, December 25th, 1961.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jxxiii_apc_19611225_humanae-salutis_sp.html