A Forgotten Vision?

: The Function of Bishops and its

Exercise Forty Years After the Second Vatican Council

Gilles Routhier

The Jurist: Studies in Church Law and Ministry, Volume 69, Number 1, 2009,
pp. 155-169 (Article)

Published by The Catholic University of America Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jur.2009.0014

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/585140/summary

Access provided at 8 Jan 2020 17:02 GMT from University of Toronto Library
The Jurist 69 (2009) 155–169

A FORGOTTEN VISION?
THE FUNCTION OF BISHOPS AND ITS
EXERCISE FORTY YEARS AFTER
THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Gilles Routhier*

The issue that the author was asked to address in this presentation was
a question. But this question also suggests a hypothesis to interpret what
happened over the last forty years since Vatican II. One hypothesis is that
Vatican II has expressed a vision of the function of bishops and its exer-
cise (note how we put two elements together that are not of the same
value). Furthermore, it is suggested that this vision has been forgotten, a
point which we will need to examine. We will need to see if the term “for-
gotten” (or amnesia) is the best way of expressing what has happened.
Finally, the way the question is asked indicates a relationship between
this vision and the life of the Church. In understanding this relationship,
there is a presupposition that we have a certain vision that is expressed in
our ecclesiology and that this vision is empowered in the Church through
legislation.1 In such a case, there is a great risk of transforming the
process of reception into an application of the reality of a vision that de-
veloped at the council. In such circumstances, not only do we grant the
practice a consecutive status in regard to ecclesiology; but we limit the
relationship and the intermediaries that lead us from text to action, or
from the vision to its realization.
As we can see, the title of this article alone offers us a full program if
we want to study its various elements in detail. But, remembering the
words of Congar, who is still, in the author’s opinion, an ecclesiological

* Professor of Theology, Faculté de Théologie et de Sciences Religieuses, Université

Laval, Québec.
1 This is generally the relationship articulated in the Peter and Paul Seminar, from

which I will distance myself. For a presentation of this consecutive relationship between
vision (theology—or the teaching of the council) and the life of the Church (canon law and
legislation), see Ladislas Örsy, “Introduction: The Scope and Spirit of the Peter-Paul Sem-
inar,” The Jurist 59 (1999) 331–334; “Collegiality in the Church: Theology and Canon
Law: Editor’s Introduction,” The Jurist 64 (2004) 205–207. For a critique of the concept
of the consecutive character of law in relationship to theology, see Gilles Routhier, Le défi
de la communion (Montréal; Paris: Médiaspaul, 1994) 170–182.

155
156 the jurist

master, “the door through which you venture into a question sets the
stage for a favorable or not so favorable solution. The concepts that we
use are the determining factor.”2 To enter through the door of the vision
of the council and then its application does not necessarily offer the best
conditions for a fruitful reflection. The chances are, however, that it will
determine its conclusions. The author suggests we enter through another
door, approaching the issue from another angle, without leaving aside
the terms of the problem as it was submitted to him.

An experience of communion
Starting from the theology of communion or the understanding of the
Church as communion—this is already a vision of the Church that we,
rightfully so or not, attribute to Vatican II—Pottmeyer already pointed
out in 1980 that “there must be a practice and experience of the commu-
nion in order for a corresponding ecclesiology to develop and be ac-
cepted. The development of the ecclesiology of the Church as commu-
nion as part of the council is an excellent example of the intimate union
between the practice and the experience of communion, on the one hand,
and a further reflection on this issue and its formulation on the other
hand.”3 Along those lines Congar observed:
The fact of the council has been, for those gathered in a council
situation, an experience with its own importance and energy. The
council helped rediscover the value that it was expressing. That
was obvious for such realities as the liturgy, whose variety was
proposed in the daily Eucharist; the theology of local churches,
for they were all there; collegiality, since the College was assem-

2 “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des ministères,”in Ministères et

communion ecclésiale, coll. «Théologie sans frontières» nº 23. (Paris: Éditions du Cerf,
1971) 17–18.
3 Hermann J. Pottmeyer, “Continuité et innovation dans l’ecclésiologie de Vatican II.

L’influence de Vatican I sur l’ecclésiologie de Vatican II et la nouvelle réception de Vati-

can I à la lumière de Vatican II,” in Les Églises après Vatican II, ed Giuseppe Alberigo.
Théologie historique 61 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1981) 93. He expressed the same idea a few
years later: “Si le Concile a pu faire admettre une ecclésiologie de communio, n’est-ce pas
pour la seule raison qu’il a été amené à s’expérimenter comme communio?” See also
“Vers une nouvelle phase de réception de Vatican II. Vingt ans d’herméneutique du Con-
cile,” in La reception de Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Jean-Pierre Jossua (Paris:
Éditions du Cerf, 1985) 54.
 forty years after the second vatican council 157

bled there . . . . Finally, the conciliar experience helped reopen

the chapter of its own conciliar life in the Church’s own history.4
That presents, almost in opposition, the relationship between the vi-
sion (or the theory, the “logic”) and the life of the Church. For the
Bochum theologian and the Dominican churchman, there is an interac-
tion between the thought process and the experience, an interaction be-
tween church practice and the conceptualization or the articulation of
that experience in ecclesiastical structures. We thus come out of a con-
secutive and linear schema, a two tier sequential program, where we go
from the vision to the application, to adopt a more circular model where,
at every moment of the process, we find experience and vision always in-
teracting with each other. This repeating loop, which began with the
council, keeps manifesting itself in the Church while it is being received
and studied. At each moment of this journey, the practice and experience
of episcopal ministry meet a corresponding ecclesiology (in develop-
ment, accepted or not) of the episcopate (theoretical reflection). This
leads us to look differently at the post-conciliar period and to appreciate
in a different manner the factors that have led to the present situation.
That may lead us to accentuate less the “lapse of memory” or “amnesia”
aspect and emphasize the fact that there is a lack of practice and experi-
ence, which remains to be verified.
But before moving on in this examination, the author further explores
the relationship between the life of the Church and the theology or the vi-
sion of the Church. Already in 1937, many years before the council, Con-
gar stressed the fact that “it is in becoming aware of its universality that
the Church became universal.”5 The Dominican theologian pointed out
that, following the story of the Acts of the Apostles, we did not start from
a vision of the universality of the Church to fulfill that vision; but, on the
contrary, while we did not have that vision of the Church, the Church
first experienced that it had a character of universality through an expe-
rience and an event. It is through that experience of going beyond the
Jewish world that the Church became aware of its universality. That

4 Yves Congar, “Regard sur le concile Vatican II,” in Le Concile Vatican II. Son

Église peuple de Dieu et corps du Christ (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984) 56. In his Journal du
Concile, after having discussed episcopal meetings, he wrote: “Un des résultats du Con-
cile pourrait bien être la naissance d’une collégialité épiscopale mondiale articulée et
structurée.” (October 14, 1962) vol. I: 118.
5 Yves Congar, “Vie de l’Église et conscience de la catholicité,” in Esquisse du mys-

tère de l’Église coll. Unam sanctam 8 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 19532 [1941]) 121.
158 the jurist

awareness of an experience was reflected upon and then brought to ex-

pression in a discourse or treatise. It is that pneumatic (spiritual) event of
Peter at the house of Cornelius at Caesarea, an event understood in the
fullest sense of the term, that enabled him to become aware—and the
Jerusalem church with him—of the universality of the Church.
Quite a different perspective. As in another pneumatic event—Vatican
Council II—the Church, in its first spring time, developed its own aware-
ness of what it is, precisely, from that experience, reflected upon and in-
terpreted over again in the Holy Spirit.
Congar adds:
What we know for certain, from all of our texts, is that the early
Church . . . only recognized its true calling to expansion and its
conditions based on the facts, by carrying out its expansion and
by having carried it out under the pressure of certain events pro-
voked by God.
If Peter quoted the Lord (11:16), it is precisely to tell us that he
remembered, or shall we say, understood the meaning of this par-
ticular passage; and we would not be far from the truth: for the
Church realized, through that progressive discovery of its inter-
nal law and by living it, that it is the facts and the life which, after
the facts, gives the meaning and the true sense of previous expe-
riences.6

The author finds it useful to add this passage since the notion of mem-
ory (closely tied to that of memory lapse) becomes ever present. Bring-
ing to discourse his experience through his account to the Jerusalem
community, Peter “remembers” (mimvêskomai) a word of the Lord, not
in the sense that he had forgotten it, but in the sense of an “appropriation
for oneself,” that he fully understands it. That experience awakens his
memory. Is there a connection between recollection and experience and,
correlatively, between memory lapse and the absence of experience?
That too, we need to examine more closely.
Finally, the author again calls upon Congar:
Upon reading Acts, chapter 15, we have the impression that,
indeed, the things long taken for granted (such as the admis -
sibility of the gentiles into the Church), only later entered the
“lived” consciousness: thus the success of the evangelization of
6 Ibid.
 forty years after the second vatican council 159

the pagans (15:3–4), brought the Church to realize truly those

things already declared (2:39) or previous facts (10; 15:7), but
for which we had no full understanding or awareness of what it
meant.7
This last remark helps us to think differently about the time period be-
tween the declarations which in themselves do not suffice to construct
the “lived consciousness” and their fulfillment. The construction of lived
experience is the result of the encounter of a practice that is a situation
and an experience and that which is latent, potential, and enveloped in
the memory of the Church or its tradition. It is only through an action
which sets in motion these two entities, shall we say, that the lived con-
sciousness develops. It is not, therefore, through a decree that the Church
reforms itself, to recall a conviction of Hervé Legrand, or that a vision
gives proof of its effectiveness. Neither is it by the affirmation or the rep-
etition of a doctrine that we change the reality, since we do not simply
move from text to action—the study of the reception of Vatican II has
shown that sufficiently. We need to put at the heart of our reflection other
elements, among which is the notion of experience which recalls situa-
tions, practices, and also institutional models. Eventually, we will inte-
grate the notion of learning, also dear to Hervé Legrand. All in all, on the
way, we have come up with three new hypotheses which go beyond that
of the amnesia that was first postulated. We have come to question our-
selves on the inadequacies of the Catholic Church in terms of synodal ex-
perience and collegiality, a lack of experience probably related to a lack
of innovation at the institutional level.
Before considering the two poles of our question, the author closes
this first part of our journey with a quote from Congar, but not without
having insisted again on the necessity of pursuing a “theology of life,”
despite its perils,8 and not only “a theology of structures,” if we want to
understand something of the evolution of Christianity.
In his opening allocution to the second session of the council, Pope Paul
VI addressed at length the relationship between the “consciousness” that
the Church has acquired of itself through its experience and life over the

7 Ibid.
8 Read his “Avertissement” in Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église. After having ini-
tially declared: “Of the Church, we have only studied its structure, and, shall we say, not
its life,” he lists a number of observations on the difficulties and perils of such a study. He
comes back to it in his Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 19542)
16.
160 the jurist

centuries, a consciousness that has been renewed and deepened in recent

times, and the necessity for the Church to express in words, “in a teaching
more explicit and authorized, what she thinks of herself.”9
One should not be surprised if, after twenty centuries of Chris-
tianity and such development throughout the world for the
Catholic Church, along with other religious denominations, all
claiming to profess the same faith in Jesus Christ, the authentic,
profound and full concept of the Church, as Christ had wanted it
and the apostles had started to build, still needs to be presented in
a more precise manner. The Church is a mystery, that is, a reality
filled with a divine presence; and it could always be the object of
deeper studies.
Human thoughts develop in a progressive way, moving from
an empirical knowledge of the truth to a scientific one in a more
rational manner. It logically deduces one truth from another.

There are many insights for us in this paragraph. On the one hand,
Pope Paul VI points out that human thought not only develops progres-
sively, but moves from an empirical knowledge to a more rational one.
That is most fascinating when it comes to situating the conciliar event in
the life of the Church. Moreover, amidst all possible data, he focuses on
one element of the real situation: “the significant development of the
Catholic Church throughout the whole world.” It would be this particu-
lar situation or that historical experience that enables the Church to gain
a new awareness of herself, just as, one century earlier, another event had
led the Church to formulate the doctrine of infallibility of the Roman
Pontiff notwithstanding certain conditions.10
Paul VI alluded to what was coming in Dei Verbum 8 on the develop-
ment of the perception or the comprehension of the Tradition that comes
from the apostles:
This tradition which comes from the Apostles is developed in the
Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in

9 Paul VI, “Discours d’ouverture,” quoted in Vatican II. Les seize documents concil-
iaires (Montréal: Fides, 19672) 601–602.
10 See the work of Hermann J. Pottmeyer. To recall the historicity of doctrines does not

lead us to dissolve them, but helps us see their full weight and reach. Everything is histor-
ical, as Congar repeated often: “Everything is absolutely historical, even the person of
Jesus Christ. The gospels are historical. Thomas Aquinas is historical. Pope Paul VI is his-
torical. And my point of view is etched in history . . .” Jean Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le
Père Congar. ‘Une vie pour la verité. (Paris: Le Centurion, 1975) 43. See also Entretiens
d’automne, présentées par B. Lauret. Coll. Théologies (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1987) 95.
 forty years after the second vatican council 161

the understanding of the realities and the words which have been
handed down, both through the contemplation and study made
by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts through a
penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they
experience, and through the preaching of those who have re-
ceived the sure gift of truth through episcopal succession. For as
the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves
forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of
God reach their complete consummation in her.
This heightened perception of things and words transmitted is realized
through studies, but also through the experience of spiritual truths. Pre-
cisely, the life of the Church offers us such spiritual truths that we truly
experience and for which we need to develop a spiritual intelligence.11

The vision of Vatican II

Some might wonder if the question mark in the title of this article
should have determined the adjective qualifier “forgotten” vis-à-vis the
substantive noun “vision.” In other words, we need to ask ourselves if
Vatican II was the bearer of a vision of episcopal ministry, and if so,
which one.
It is obvious that there are many documents and writings where this vi-
sion of the episcopate was developed. These developments expressed re-
alities that are at least complementary to each other, sometimes with some
contrast. Among these special documents, Lumen gentium chapter three
and the decree Christus Dominus are of particular interest. That being
said, all the documents are to be taken together as a corpus; and it would
not help to isolate a portion of the text and analyze it outside of the con-
text of the whole.12 Indeed, we could say that chapter three of Lumen gen-
tium constitutes a central element of this corpus and thus acquires a spe-
cial status. Its teaching serves as a foundation (in particular that which
bases episcopal ministry on the sacrament of orders) for the development
of other notions; and it was well understood at the time; for many inter-
ventions on the schema on bishops attempted to question or undercut this
foundation. Nonetheless, and this is a real paradox; it is probably the place

11 On the relationship between experience (life of the Church) and post-conciliar de-

velopments, see par.1 of Pope Paul VI’s September 1965 motu proprio Apostolica sollic-
itudo instituting the synod of bishops: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 57 (1965) 775.
12 See Gilles Routhier, L’herméneutique de Vatican II: de l’histoire de la rédaction

des textes conciliaires à la structure d’un corpus, dans Vatican II: Herméneutique et ré-
ception (Montréal: Fides, 2006) 361–400.
162 the jurist

where the relationship between a bishop and his church is not well artic-
ulated (except in articles 26 and 27, which talk about the functions of
sanctifying and governance). This could be explained by the fact that what
was sought here—besides basing the episcopate on sacramental conse-
cration (art. 21)—was firmly to establish the doctrine of collegiality.
However, this explanation is insufficient. It has more to do with the fact
that the writing of chapter three, which started before the first debate on
the document De Ecclesia, took place within the context of a universalis-
tic train of thought reflected in the preparatory schema prepared by Fr.
Tromp.13 By focusing on these objectives and using the schema prepared
by Tromp as the framework for the new text, the Theological Commission
neglected the question of the relationship between the bishop and his
church, a relationship which, although not fully developed here, is devel-
oped throughout the corpus of the conciliar texts.
If we were to characterize succinctly the vision of episcopal ministry
expressed by Vatican II, it could be summed up in the following four
points: (1) it is a ministry established on a sacramental basis; and it is im-
perative to return to the liturgy of ordination fully to understand this min-
istry; (2) it is a ministry that, if characterized by three functions (teach-
ing, sanctifying, and governing), is defined also by the bonds and
relationships into which a person is inserted, the bishop never being seen
as an isolated figure, but rather as one inserted into the Church and into a
college; (3) the three aforementioned functions belong to the whole
Church; and the bishop exercises them as one who presides over a
church, an exercise which is different from other ministries and charisms
in the Church; and (4) if that ministry is characterized by those three
functions, the council gives a certain priority to the first one. It is still, in-
deed, a deficient vision; but the figure of the bishop is clearly described
when we read the whole conciliar corpus.

A forgotten vision?
That vision, as we have already seen, is not estranged from an experi-
ence of communion, an experience that has allowed us to recapture some
elements of the tradition that had been neglected.

13 See Gilles Routhier, “Saramentalité de l’épiscopat et communion hiérarchique,” in

Le ministère des évêques au concile Vatican II et depuis, ed. Hervé Legrand and Christoph
Theobald (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2001) 49–74.
 forty years after the second vatican council 163

What happened following the council is not merely the development

of two lines of interpretation of the council, but the pursuit of two types
of experiences of the Church. Not only is there a conflict of interpreta-
tions, but also the construction of two experiences that created a tension.
This tension lasted, by means of the law, until one interpretation was im-
posed on the other through the shaping of institutional structures, and by
implementing practices that fostered one form of understanding the
Church over the other. Unfortunately, in such a dynamic, the text of the
council served too often as a repository of statements to justify different
positions. In that respect we too often move from text to experience
(from vision to its exercise) rather than from practices to the text which
are often used to legitimize it. That is the author’s hypothesis. If this is
the case, the problem is not so much the vision of the episcopate, but an
experience and a practice of conciliarity in the Church, of the collegial-
ity of bishops, of the synodality of local churches. In fact, what the
Catholic Church is most lacking is effective collegial action from the
bishops at the continental, national, regional, and ecclesiastical province
levels. What is lacking is a broad and profound experience of sharing be-
tween the churches and a consciousness rooted in the experience of one
Church of global dimensions.
We have seen the fruits of such an experience at Vatican II, but that im-
pulse alone is not sufficient. Such an impulse has to be transmitted, de-
ployed, deepened, developed, taken anew, criticized, and pondered. If
the conciliar life of the Church remains an exceptional event, as is the
case since the Council of Trent, we cannot hope to move forward too
rapidly. Deprived for over three hundred years of conciliar experience
(1563–1869), barely revived by an eleven month council in 1869 (Vati-
can I), the memory of this form of government has not only been weak-
ened in the memory of the Catholic Church; but over the same period that
vacuum has been filled by the development of new forms of govern-
ment—forms that are more centralized and less attuned to the local
churches and to the responsibility of bishops—that are still largely shap-
ing the life of the Catholic Church today. Mentalities are formed over
time by such experience and can be changed, only over time again, by the
development of other forms of episcopal ministry. The development of
such practices and structures in the life of the Church is more important
than we think. Their role is comparable to that of the Denkformen in the
formulation of doctrines. They are true factors that shape mentalities.
Consequently, the author endorses the saying “As a person experiences
164 the jurist

the Church, so he or she will come to think of the Church.”14 Experience

is more important than even theologians tend to think.15
Congar remains a master. He would comment over and over again not
only “on the fact that there had been a council,” but also on the relation-
ship between that event and the conciliar nature of the Church.16 If we
turn the proposition around, we can conclude that the absence of concil-
iar experience weakens this major reality of the Church’s innate concil-
iarity at the level of its consciousness. Here again experience and vision
meet.
The author wants to make the point that in this post conciliar period we
are not simply experiencing a conflict of interpretations of the conciliar
texts, but we are also in a period of tension between two types of experi-
ences; and that tension must be overcome through a synthesis. A first ex-
perience has shown a preference for an exercise of episcopal ministry in
a framework that is more reflective of the “monarchical model” (“hiero-
cratic” for Pottmeyer17) even though the expression is not the most ap-
propriate one to describe this experience. What the author means is an
exercise of episcopal ministry that emphasizes the hierarchical subordi-
nation of the members of the Church and the centralization of forces
around a single active subject. This fosters the personal exercise of the
episcopal ministry. Another experience would encourage the interdepen-
dence of all the baptized, foster “intermediate entities” that would re-
lease the diversity of charisms, and reflect a multipolar conception of the
Church conceived as a system. By so doing we would foster the devel-

14 Patrick W. Collins, “The Diocesan Synod—An Assembly of the People of God,”

The Jurist 33 (1973) 402.

15 See the work Synod and Synodality. Theology, History, Canon Law and Ecumenism

in new contact, ed. Alberto Melloni and Silvia Scatena (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005).
16 See “Regard sur le concile Vatican II,” 52. On the relationship between “reality,”

“experience,” and the “conciliar event,” and the innate conciliar nature of the Church, see
also his “Conclusion” in Le concile et les conciles (Paris and Chevetogne: Éditions du
Cerf et Éditions de Chevetogne, 1960) 284–334; “Structure ou régime conciliaire de
l’Église,” Concilium 187 (1983) 14–15 and 20 and, “Remarques sur les conciles comme
assemblées et sur la conciliarité foncière de l’Église,” in Le Concile au jour le jour. 2e
Session (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1964) 9–39.
17 Hermann J. Pottmeyer, “Continuité et innovation dans l’ecclésiologie de Vatican II.

L’influence de Vatican I sur l’ecclésiologie de Vatican II et la nouvelle réception de Vati-

can I à la lumière de Vatican II,” in Les Églises après Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo
Théologie historique 61 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1981) 111. According to Pottmeyer Vatican I
constitutes the high point of these tendencies which began to emerge in the Middle Ages
and have strengthened their influence since the Counter-Reformation.
 forty years after the second vatican council 165

opment of the synodal and collegial aspects of the Church. In a more

schematic fashion, we could say that these two experiences, made up of
a complex ensemble of references and memories, of mental schemes and
fantasies, of habits and practices, enter into conflict, which causes a cer-
tain number of dysfunctions in the Church. It is not simply a conflict be-
tween two experiences, but a tension between structures and institutions
which reflect various experiences. In fact, the history of the Church in-
volves not merely the development of doctrines, but equally important
the development of structures and institutional forms. The history of Vat-
ican II reveals the tension between central institutions (the Roman curia
and the council, to name but two); but post-conciliar history shows
clearly the tension provoked by the development, over centuries, of in-
stitutions whose relationship with one another is still not clear today: the
curia, the college of cardinals, the synod of bishops, continental confer-
ences of bishops, national conferences of bishops, plenary councils,
provincial councils, etc. Here again, we encounter the juxtaposition of
two theses—not theoretical ones, but institutional ones, these supported
by practices, ways of operating and institutions—competing and com-
plementary, with an insufficient effort to harmonize these theses. These
competing and parallel practices, as has already been shown at the local
level,18 also exist on a larger scale at the level of the Church. Here again,
one can see the tension between the innovative character of the council
and its innate traditional character.
Not only is there ambiguity in the texts of the council—an ambiguity
that we should not overestimate, the juxtaposed theses not having the
same weight—but also there is tension between two competing or juxta-
posed experiences and institutional forms. Pottmeyer’s suggestion about
overcoming the juxtaposition of theses in the conciliar texts could apply
here if we want to overcome the opposition of these experiences. He said
that “the Catholic Church cannot simply deny one phase of its evolution”
and that “the task at hand consists in integrating what, in the pre-concil-
iar theology, is obligatory, with the understanding of this ecclesiology of
communion.”19 It is not a question of choosing one experience over the
other—since both are part of the Catholic Church—but of not forgetting
one or the other in terms of what they hold essential. In short, we need to

18 See Gilles Routhier, Les pouvoirs dans l’Église (Montréal et Paris: Médisapaul,

1993).
19 “Vers une nouvelle phase de réception. Vingt ans d’herméneutique du Concile,” in

La réception de Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Jean-Pierre Jossua (Paris: Éditions
du Cerf, 1985) 52.
166 the jurist

recognize the personal dimension of the exercise of episcopal ministry

without forgetting its synodal, collegial, and conciliar dimensions. One
cannot choose between one or the other, but we need to think of these di-
mensions in a dynamic way. In short, we are not simply in a dialectic be-
tween two historical experiences or between a vision and a practice or
between two moments in the reception of Vatican II (a moment of initia-
tive and a moment of reaction). To go beyond a dialectical comprehen-
sion of the situation requires a more complex appreciation of the eccle-
sial reality as it develops, something which probably requires adopting a
systematic approach that does not limit its conception of reality to exclu-
sive choices or binomial terms.

For the Future

If we understand the present situation as a moment in a repeating loop
where experiences and theologies interact in a continuous and dynamic
manner, and not as moments of dimming the conciliar vision in the mem-
ory of a Church that has become forgetful after only forty years, the work
of theologians and canonists is now seen in light of a new horizon.
In that case, what matters most for the Church, is to put in place or to
maintain favorable conditions for the pursuit of creative interaction
between vision and original experiences that are based on innovative
new practices and institutional models ad experimentum. It is for theolo-
gians to pursue that research since it does not suffice to explore new
practices, but rather one must also critically examine these new develop-
ments and categorize them. “Actually, we need to be careful,” according
to Pottmeyer, “not to hastily include changes adopted by particular
churches within the rules of the universal Church lest the reception of
Vatican II be stalled by excluding possibilities not codified in the law.”20
That is truly where the danger lies. By codifying and normalizing too
quickly certain practices and institutional models, we run the risk of de-
priving ourselves of valuable learning experiences that could lead us to
balanced solutions.
This form of learning, which includes experimentation, reflection, and
synthesis, and which was in full force after the council, was abandoned
too quickly. We indeed have examples of this at the level of the liturgical
reforms, but also in the field of the development of synodal patterns at
the local church level. Nevertheless, the council counted on the learning

20 Ibid., 55.
 forty years after the second vatican council 167

that could take place afterwards. Congar, for one, believed that it would
be “especially the life of the Church, the initiatives and the forms that it
would give rise to, that would determine the concrete form of collegial-
ity, a collegiality, once well understood, that would summarize the teach-
ing of Vatican II just as other key concepts characterize other great doc-
trinal councils.”21 If we want the life of the Church to give rise to new
institutional models and practices, which are two indispensable elements
in the renewal of the ministry of bishops, we need to provide a certain
space for experimentation. We also need reflection that will allow the
passage to a true experience, i.e., a life with a heightened consciousness
and with adequate words and forms of expression that are brought to the
level of discourse.
We must acknowledge that the post-conciliar period has been rich in
this respect. For example, in the wake of Vatican II, new synodal forms
came about (new types of diocesan synods, all sorts of councils, quasi-
synodal processes, gatherings, etc.) that left an imprint on the local
church. Furthermore, new forms of expression of collegiality occurred at
the national and continental levels; and other forms were extinguished
(provincial and plenary councils); and the practice of pastoral visitations
was renewed. Over the past few years, though, there has been a tendency
to crystallize the institutional models, and thus halt the process of recep-
tion of Vatican Council II. This is especially true where diocesan coun-
cils and conferences of bishops are concerned. If we were to continue in
that direction, we run a greater risk of aggravating the tensions instead of
solving them through a solid contribution of theologians, canonists, his-
torians, and various other experts. Indeed, experimentation needs to be
illumined and guided; but we cannot do without it.
In a comment on the new Code of Canon Law, Böckenförde said: “A
praxis and an experience of communio are necessary so that a corre-
sponding ecclesiology may develop and be accepted in the Church, so
that we may draw consequences of an institutional character that will de-
velop into customs, in order to obtain the force of law (through the inter-

21 Informations Catholiques Internationales 204 (November 15, 1963) 3. See also the

declarations along those lines by Pope Paul VI in his motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo
on the synod of bishops: “We establish here in Rome a permanent council of bishops for
the universal Church. . . . . This synod, like all human institutions, can be improved with
the passing of time. . . .” AAS 57 (1965) 776. Nevertheless, the “perfection” often asked
for by the bishops only led to a more notable curial influence on the development of the
synodal institution.
168 the jurist

vention of the competent authority).”22 This constitutes the exact re-

sponse, at the level of the local churches and for the post-conciliar pe-
riod, to what Congar and Pottmeyer had observed at the time of the coun-
cil. We must therefore continue to foster that experience of communio, to
accompany it, to nurture it, to enrich it, and to reflect upon it.
Since we need to start somewhere, the author suggests that we start
with the teaching office of bishops since this is indeed what should be
highlighted without neglecting the rest. What does it mean, in today’s
world, to be a witness of the gospel within society and to exercise that
ministry, not alone, but by rooting one’s words in the faith of the church
over which one presides, giving it a collegial expression as part of the
testimony of and in harmony with all the churches? This would allow us
to go back to the experience of the council which Pope John XXIII
wanted to be an experience that would answer the needs of our time by
expressing the Church’s doctrine in modern terms. It is from this starting
point that bishops have had a new experience and a renewed conscious-
ness of their ministry. It is only from this vantage point that we will move
forward. Thus we do not start with the question of collegiality or other
disputed questions, for we must arrive at these questions from the most
fruitful starting point. That starting point remains always the witness to
the gospel in a given society that responds to the needs of our day. Sooner
or later, we will face the other questions. Nevertheless, they will have the
benefit of being situated in a framework that will allow us to come to new
syntheses.
The author ends with the words of Pottmeyer: “We have not . . . fin-
ished with the reception of Vatican II as a movement, an event,”23 i.e., as
an event that has allowed a new awareness and will enable a new energy
in the Catholic Church. This was true for the bishops who took part in the
council and we have not listened to their experiences enough.24 Let us
hope that this new way of understanding the episcopacy and the exercise
of this ministry as fostered by Vatican II may continue to bear fruit in the

22 “Der neue Codex Iuris Canonici, Neue Juristiche Wochenschrift 36 (1983) 254.
23 See “Vers une nouvelle phase de réception. Vingt ans d’herméneutique du Concile,”
in La réception de Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Jean-Pierre Jossua (Paris: Édi-
tions du Cerf, 1985) 61; 55.
24 We find many accounts of that experience, but few studies. See Giuseppe Alberigo,

“L’expérience de la responsibilité épiscopale faite par les évêques à Vatican II,” in Le min-
istère des évêques au concile Vatican II et depuis, 21–47. See also Massimo Faggioli, “Le
groupe informel ‘Évêques de Vatican II’ au concile. Quelques thèmes de réflexion sur le
modèle d’évêque post-conciliaire,” Revue des Sciences religieuses (2002) 78–102.
 forty years after the second vatican council 169

Church, at least as much as was the case with the Council of Trent and the
episcopacy of Charles Borromeo. Pottmeyer goes on to say: “We must
do all we can so that the Church enters into a new phase of the reception
of Vatican II.” In that respect and in order to enter this new phase, not
everything depends on canonists, theologians, and historians. Our role is
modest and remains important. It is, as suggested by Congar upon the
launching of the Unam Sanctam collection, to put back “into the flow of
ideas a certain number of ecclesiological values and themes, deeply tra-
ditional . . . and which have been more or less forgotten.”25 We must also
accompany these experiences with an honest reflection in order to assure
a constant interaction between praxis and theology. Only then will we
fully understand the particular epistemological status of ecclesiology
that is not part of the dogmatic field. Indeed, as regards the Church, as
Congar proposed in his introduction to his two main works, Jalons pour
une théologie du laïcat and Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église, we
need to come to a practice of a “theology of the structure” and a “theol-
ogy of life.”
This suggests to our group (Peter and Paul Seminar) that we must not
only examine the texts (doctrinal, disciplinary, or legislative), but also the
practice of the churches and the actual functioning of their institutions.

25 Une passion: l’unité. Réflexions et souvenirs 1929–1973 coll. «Foi Vivante», 153

(Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1974) 46.