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As the golden anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s opening on Oct. 11, 1962, approaches, men ordained in the years bookending the council predominantly embrace “the spirit of Vatican II” as a wellhead for their lives and ministry even as other Catholics disparage that “spirit.”
At the same time, many of these “Vatican II priests” — as researchers call them — express concern that the iconic church windows thrown open by the council are being shuttered and latched. They raise concerns about church leadership, ecumenical apathy, a collapse of collegiality, the role of women, liturgical reform and more.
“Sometimes I think the Second Vatican Council is the church’s best-kept secret,” said Fr. David Pettingill, a retired priest of the San Francisco archdiocese who is still active in retreat work and teaching courses on the council for lay ecclesial ministers.
“What I see is a concerted effort to pull back from Vatican II with a party line, and that party line is that the council was simply in continuity with the church’s teaching and that it simply evolved,” said Pettingill, a former pastor, college seminary teacher and high school administrator who was ordained in 1962.
“However, when you take that approach, and it can be a valid one,” he added, “you also have to ask another question, if you are going to be historically accurate: What did that council do for the church?
“Unless you want to say it was a waste of time, there are some things that happened there that had never happened in the 20 other ecumenical councils, and the documents produced are in a different literary form, and they are the consensus of the largest number of bishops throughout the world ever assembled, and they were taking a fresh look at the church because John XXIII said, ‘We are going to have aggiornamento. We are going to bring the church up to date.’
“So I find the party line,” Pettingill said, “a real admission of that fact that we are pulling back” from ongoing renewal. “I find that very sad.” Read more
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