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14 Councils and Reform ChallengingMisconceptions } ChrisToPher m. belliTTo On October 7,1964,readers of theNewYorkTimes awoke to find Vatican II’s ecumenical steps described as “truly startling”: “The Counter-Reformation is over.” Historians of the future can write this after the votes of the last few days at the Second Vatican Council in Rome.It was the Council of Trent, 1545–1563, that set up a fighting defense against the new Protestant movement and the old schismatic Orthodox believers. Vatican II is dismantling that fierce defensive mechanism which has endured for four centuries ....... The Roman Catholic Church has been transformed in the two short years since Vatican II’s first session opened. Transformation in this sense means “a change in outward shape or form,” to give Webster’s definition. It does not mean that the Roman Church has changed in a substantial or dogmatic sense or that its authorized,formal teaching (its magisterium) has any less validity for Roman Catholics than heretofore....... Outside of these unchangeables is the vast field of interpretations, attitudes , practices, customs, traditions, understandings, methods, which are changeable and which are now leading to a new era in Roman Catholic history. The obstacles to Christian unity are still formidable, but certainly the Roman Church is taking great strides toward the goal.1 This excerpt has it all: a somewhat simplistic description of Trent, but one with an element of important truth; an overly enthusiastic assess291 1.Unsigned editorial,“On Ecumenism,”NewYorkTimes, October 7,1964,46. ment of the ecumenical steps,but an understanding of the long road to unity still ahead; a recognition of what can and cannot be changed in Roman Catholicism (and that there is indeed a difference);and a sense of history. It is,unfortunately,an informed sense of history that is lacking in current discussions of councils, reform, and ecclesiology, which often follow a flawed fault line pitting Trent against Vatican II.For some time now,in fact,scholars have reassessed the stereotypes of Trent,early modern Catholicism,and Vatican II.2 One needs only to look at the multivolume History of Vatican II that Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak have edited for some examples. Alberigo notes that it was indeed the pastoral side of Trent’s application that had long fascinated the Borromeo scholar Angelo Roncalli.3 Another chapter notes that in the 1959–62 period between John XXIII’s call for a council and Vatican II’s commencement, Trent was seen as the “exemplar” of the kind of council that condemns heresy and states orthodoxy,but that it was also recognized as a council of reform.At the same time, one group of bishops in their vota hoped Vatican II would complete Trent, but it appears these bishops had the intransigent Trent, not the pastoral council of reform,in mind.4 Komonchak found that John XXIII’s ecumenists recognized that at Trent—and recommended that at Vatican II—a sincere attempt had in fact been made to see what other Christians really believed.5 Is anyone beyond academics listening? We should note, however, that some academics may not be listening, either—a point made recently by William Hudon when he demonstrated how reassessments of the supposedly repressive and monolithic papacy during the era of reformations have filtered only imperfectly into textbooks.The big bad papacy continues to be a cliché in the allegedly 292 ChristopherM.Bellitto 2.For the most comprehensive treatment of Trent’s history,see John W.O’Malley,TrentandAllThat:RenamingCatholicismintheEarlyModernEra (Cambridge,Mass.:Havard University Press,2000).For a short primer on what Trent actually was and did, see O’Malley, “The Council of Trent: Myths, Misunderstandings, and Misinformation ,” in Spirit, Style, Story: Essays Honoring John W. Padberg, S.J., ed. Thomas M. Lucas (Chicago: Loyola, 2002),205–26.On Vatican II,see the very helpful summary provided by Joseph A.Komonchak,“Interpreting the Council: Catholic Attitudes toward Vatican II,” in Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America, ed. Mary Jo Weaver and R.Scott Appleby (Bloomington:Indiana University Press,1995),17–36;and,now a bit dated,Avery Dulles, “Vatican II and the American Experience of Church,” in Vatican II: Open Questions and New Horizons, ed. Gerald M.Fagin (Wilmington,Del.:Glazier,1984),38–57,reprinted as “American Impressions of the Council,” in Dulles,TheReshapingof Catholicism (San Francisco:Harper & Row,1988),1–18. 3.Giuseppe Alberigo, “The Announcement of the Council from the Security of the Fortress to the Lure of the Quest,”in Historyof VaticanII, vol.1,AnnouncingandPreparingVaticanCouncilII...

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