The Theology of Vatican II and Renewal

By Douglas G. Bushman

Douglas G. Bushman is Director of Parish Formation and Mission at the Church of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, MN. He is well-known as past director of the Institute for Pastoral Theology at Ave Maria University and the University of Dallas and for his courses on Ecclesiology, Catholic Spirituality, John Paul II, Vatican II, Pastoral Theology, and the New Evangelization.

Bushman recently authored The Theology of Renewal for His Church: The Logic of Vatican II’s Renewal In Paul VI’s Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam and Its Reception In John Paul II and Benedict XVI (Wipf and Stock, 2024). The following WWNN email interview was conducted by Carl E. Olson.

What We Need Now: I’ve long appreciated the insight you bring to studying the Catholic Faith. What was the genesis of a book on a relatively obscure encyclical?

Bushman: Vatican II, as you well know, has been foundational for my teaching, which now spans five decades. Almost universally, direct contact with the Council’s texts, coupled with interpretation guided by the theological work of those who participated in the Council, has been the occasion for my students to see through the one-sided, tendentious, and exaggerated interpretations that distort the Council’s true teaching. Trusting in the maturity of their faith (sensus fidei), their encouragement to make much of that material more widely available really became something of call, a sense of responsibility to make available to others what they had found compelling.

A sense of urgency was added to this by interactions with numerous bishops, priests, and deacons during the Year of Faith, which began on October 11, 2012—the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. It was my privilege to give presentations on the Council to clergy in several dioceses. Many expressed gratitude for finally being able to see “the big picture” regarding Vatican II.

Many also asked: “Why are we hearing this for the first time only now?” That was when I decided to write this book. Obviously, my sense of urgency did not exactly coincide with the design of Providence! Other responsibilities delayed the completion of the project until it was finally published this year.

WWNN: Why did you take Paul VI’s 1964 encyclical on the Church, Ecclesiam Suam, as the basis for this book?

Bushman: The short answer is that I discovered that this “relatively obscure encyclical” was like a “road-map” for the Council. That’s not my opinion; rather, it is the opinion of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, and I wanted to address the nearly total neglect of Ecclesiam Suam in scholarly work on Vatican II.

In many ways, Paul VI and this encyclical were overshadowed both by the Council itself and by the aftermath of his encyclical, Humanae Vitae. I discovered that both Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI took Ecclesiam Suam as a guide for understanding Vatican II as a doctrinally-based pastoral council. So, what the astoundingly prolific Matthew Levering called my “proposal to read Vatican II through the lens of Pope Paul VI’s Ecclesiam Suam” came from them. If, indeed, it can be called (again, Levering) “a breakthrough not only for the interpretation of Vatican II but also for insight into the particular mode and extraordinary power of Pope John Paul’s reception and implementation of Vatican II”—it is not that I have proposed a hypothesis of my own. Rather, my goal was to let these three popes of the Council speak for themselves.

WWNN: What you just said seems valid for the first two parts of the book. The first part is an in-depth analysis of Ecclesiam Suam and the second examines its reception by and influence on John Paul II and Benedict XVI. But the third part does seem different; you are proposing something like a hypothesis.

Bushman: Fair enough. While the third part may seem like a hypothesis, I think of it more as an analysis of the mind of Christ and His Church, a “mind” evidenced in the paths set forth by Paul VI and the long-standing tradition of the Church.

In the third part, I propose that Paul VI’s encyclical and the standard three dimensions of programs of formation mutually enlighten one another. While I’m not arguing a “cause-effect” relationship between Ecclesiam Suam and later documents on formation/education, I am asking the reader to consider seriously the relationship between the two. This struck me as more than coincidental insofar as both bring to light an essential dynamism of revelation and of the Church’s faith and life. That correspondence looks like this:

Ecclesiam Suam: Awareness (doctrinal penetration); Programs of Formation: Intellectual or theological formation

Ecclesiam Suam: Renewal (metanoia); Programs of Formation: Spiritual formation

Ecclesiam Suam: Dialogue (ministry, apostolate)'; Programs of Formation: Pastoral formation      

WWNN: How are these three aspects or dimensions related?

Bushman: Paul VI clearly saw but never fully explained the logic that unifies the three paths of the Church, and thus his understanding of the renewal of Vatican II.

To answer your question, we have to see what the bishops at Vatican II saw and considered the main purpose for the Council. The Council’s main goal was to revitalize the Church’s mission. Many detractors of Vatican II like to think of the Church prior to the Council as stable, strong, and vigorous. By superficial measures, this is understandable, but such a reading of history must be set aside in the name of realism.

For example, in 1958, the young Joseph Ratzinger gave a lecture entitled “The New Pagans and the Church.” He argued that there was still a “Christian façade” to the Church’s public image, but for countless Catholics it was no longer faith that gave definitive meaning to their lives. There was less and less a distinction between the Church and the world. They had become secular in their ways of thinking, no longer living according to that “renewal of your minds” (Rom 12:2) that comes with faith in Christ. Thus, the lines between the world and the Church were no longer discernable.

What was needed, he said, was for the Church to rediscover her identity and mission: “Only when she ceases to be a cheap, foregone conclusion, only when she begins again to show herself as she really is, will she be able to reach the ear of the new pagans with her good news, since until now they have been subject to the illusion that they were not real pagans.”

Similarly, and fully eleven years earlier in his pastoral letter for Lent in 1947, Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, wrote that “Pagan society penetrates everywhere into the daily life of Christians.” France had become “a mission country.” In many respects, Catholics in France had lost their faith and needed to be re-evangelized.

WWNN: How do the three dimensions of renewal—the three paths of the Church—promote the goal of revitalizing the Church’s mission of witness to Christ?

Bushman: Well, we have to ask ourselves: Who is qualified for this re-evangelization? Who can be entrusted with a ministry or apostolate in the name of Christ’s Church? The answer is: those who can say, with St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Missionary disciples, as we refer to them, “have the mind of Christ” (2 Cor 2:16). They have undergone the conversion that St. Paul calls the “renewal of our mind” (Rom 12:1). They are filled with missionary zeal, eager to share with others the life in Christ that they have received.

Finally, we must ask: What is the catalyst for conversion? It is a conscience purified by the blood of Christ (see Heb 9:14). Consciences are purified by revealed truth, by doctrine. When the truth of doctrine penetrates the conscience by faith, it bears the fruit of becoming a mandate to live in accordance with that doctrine. For Paul VI and Vatican II, the more clearly Catholics understand what Christ has revealed about His Church, the more they are impelled to live up to that doctrine.

Jesus said, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Lk 12:48). Renewal through conversion begins with a deeper understanding of doctrine and its implications for life, and it bears the fruit of a new missionary zeal.

Along the way, I propose that this schema can be discovered in St. Luke’s account at the Annunciation. It begins with a new revelation to Mary. Through Gabriel’s words, she is enlightened and comes to understand her place in the fulfillment of God’s plan. The first effect this has on her is the realization that her vocation is beyond her. It seems impossible to her (which is why Gabriel reassures her, “nothing will be impossible with God” [Lk 1:37]). Mary knows she must be renewed for her new mission, that she needs a new grace. We know that this renewal was effected by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. From the moment of Christ’s conception, then, Mary is the handmaid of His mission.

At the time of Vatican II, the Church experienced a renewal of the grace of Annunciation. In the face of a mission that seemed too great, the Church imitated Mary by humbly asking, “How shall this be?” “How can the Church effectively bear witness to Christ in a post-Christendom world?” The answer lay in divine revelation. Imitating Mary yet again, the Church pondered all the revealed truth that she had stored up on her memory. She experienced a doctrinal penetration that put new demands on her, and she engaged in a profound renewal through conversion (metanoia). St. John Paul II called the fruit of the conciliar renewal the New Evangelization.

This is what I intend to convey through the phrase, “the logic of renewal.”

WWNN: If I am not mistaken, Ecclesiam Suam is best known for what it says about dialogue. If that is correct, is your main focus, then, on dialogue?

Bushman: You are not mistaken. Virtually universally, when people think about Ecclesiam Suam, they think almost exclusively of dialogue. This includes theologians, and many who participated in Vatican II. But that is precisely the problem. “Dialogue” is the subject of Ecclesiam Suam’s third section. The correct understanding of dialogue requires seeing how it relates to the prior two sections. Pope Paul says that there are three paths that the Church must follow. He names them: Awareness, Renewal, and Dialogue.

The order is highly significant. Renewal must be based on the doctrine of Christ’s apostolic Church. So, the first path is a deeper awareness or consciousness of that doctrine. John XXIII called it “doctrinal penetration.” The focus of Vatican II was especially on what God has revealed about the Church. For those who love the Church with the very love of Christ Himself, “who gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph 5:25–26), a deeper understanding of the Church cannot fail to produce what Paul VI describes as “the unselfish and almost impatient need for renewal, for correction of the defects which this conscience denounces and rejects, as if, standing before a mirror, we were to examine interiorly the Image of Christ which He has left us.” This renewal concerns, first and foremost, “correcting the defects of its own members and of leading them to greater perfection.” This is why both Paul VI and John Paul II told us that the Council’s teaching on the universal call to holiness is the main focus of the Council and thus the primary way to implement the Council, is “the most characteristic element in the whole Magisterium of the Council, and so to say, its ultimate purpose.… This call to holiness is precisely the basic charge entrusted to all the sons and daughters of the Church by a Council which intended to bring a renewal of Christian life based on the Gospel.” Of course, the only way to greater holiness is the path of conversion. This is the second path, which Paul VI does not hesitate to call metanoia.

Thus, the third path of dialogue is the fruit of this conversion. Dialogue is the form that the Church’s missionary activities must take because dialogue is the way that God revealed Himself. This in itself is highly significant, since many well-catechized Catholics who live and love their faith have concluded that “dialogue” is something that is antithetical to the propagation of faith. I find this easy to understand, since their experience of what many have said about dialogue and of how it has been practiced has been nothing short of scandalous. But this only shows that it is necessary to distinguish between what Paul VI and the Council actually taught and the unenlightened ways that many understood it and acted on it. The same can be said about the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.

The main point is that the third path of missionary witness to Christ presupposes the prior two paths of doctrinal penetration and personal conversion. Holy men and women, who have suffered through the many conversions to put whatever is sinful in themselves to death, are best able to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and to proclaim the mystery of Christ through their lives and their words. It is precisely the suffering of deep conversion, that interior violence that is necessary in order to take the kingdom of heaven by force (see Matt 11:12), that creates an authentic sense of the faith (sensus fidei) and authenticates a holy love for the Church and thinking with the Church. For men and women of such mature faith, the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Church’s life, not just as a slogan but in fact. Nor can they be fooled into thinking that any program of renewal that does not entail a deepening of baptismal death-to-self has any chance of contributing to the renewal of the Church and revitalization of the Church’s mission through personal testimony of life and words.

WWNN: Given all of the emphasis on synodality these days, I wonder: Did your research uncover anything on synodality? Where does synodality fit into the logic of renewal?

Bushman: Some theologians maintain that Pope Francis has ushered in a new phase in the reception of Vatican II. The Council did not use the term “synodality,” but it did convey the essentials of the notion by emphasizing that all of the Church’s members are united in a communion of participation in and co-responsibility for the Church’s life and mission. The Council envisioned several institutions to serve this end, especially the synod of bishops, regional episcopal conferences, the diocesan presbyteral council, and the diocesan and parish pastoral councils. The documents issued under Pope Francis define synodality in terms of communion and mission, and differentiated participation and co-responsibility.

Since there is an obvious effort to enlist the Council for support of synodality, I think that the logic of renewal has much to offer an authentic theology of synodality. Synodality aligns with the third path of renewal, that is mission. Synods are meetings ordered to a communal reading of the signs of the times and discernment about how best to promote the Church’s mission. Thus, on the part of those who participate in them, they presuppose both doctrinal formation and personal conversion, or holiness.

The emphasis on everyone participating, without any kind of condition regarding maturity of faith and commitment to evangelical holiness through conversion, is unrealistic. This is what happens when synodality is virtually equated with the Church herself. Everyone who seeks faith and its development is welcome in the Church, but the same criteria that canon law stipulates for membership to pastoral councils should be also enforce for participation in synodal events.

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Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report. Follow him on Twitter @carleolson.