The Church, the Councils, and Reform: The Legacy of the Fifteenth Century (review)

This eclectic, wide-ranging volume commemorates the groundbreaking 1955 publication of Brian Tierney’s Foundations of the Conciliar Theory. Happily for all interested in the rich and varied history and potential of conciliarism, Foundations did not slip quietly onto bookshelves but, rather, became essential to any discussion of proper governance, primarily but not exclusively ecclesiastical, with the coincidental summoning of Vatican II four years afterward. Angelo Roncalli, the historian-pope who called for the council, was fully aware of the rich tradition and great goodwill such a council could draw upon. And though the decades since Vatican II ended have left a mixed legacy of that gathering, the wonderful teacher who introduced generations of students (including me) to the great flexibility and vitality of the Catholic Church’s intellectual heritage gives reason to hope: “The church is founded on a divine promise. It cannot be without the power to sustain its own life and correct its own failings” (Tierney, 327).

Thomas M. Izbicki provides clear and concise introductions to each of the book’s four sections: “Historical Perspectives,” “Sources,” “Challenges,” and “Applications.” Gerald Christianson’s general introduction and Nelson H. Minnich’s essay on councils of the Catholic Reformation are valuable guides to the range of issues and scholarship that conciliarism has generated. Christianson examines conciliar theory in the contexts of theology, constitutionalism, and the life of the Church, while Minnich traces the actual publication history of the proceedings of various councils and their deployment by later scholars. Together they offer an excellent historic and historiographic survey of major themes and controversies that conciliarism has evoked over the centuries.

“Aeneas Sylvius Piccolmini and the Histories of the Council of Basel” by Emily O’Brien (chapter 2), “From Conciliar Unity to Mystical Union” by Jovino Miroy (chapter 7), and “Angelo da Vallombrosa and the Pisan Schism” by J. H. Burns (chapter 9) all remind us of the value of reading texts closely and carefully. Each chapter offers unique insights into the precise mentality of a participant in the conciliar debate, contextualizing its subject personally, even politically, but giving primacy to the texts themselves—a useful reminder in these cynical times that heartfelt conviction has as much a place as expedience in determining an individual’s choices. Another most appealing essay, David Zachariah Flanagin’s contribution on Jean Gerson and “God’s Divine Law” (chapter 4), beautifully examines the theological arguments favoring conciliar theory.

Two especially gripping essays remind the reader of the transience and contingency of knowledge of the past: Francis Oakley’s “The Conciliar Heritage and the Politics of Oblivion” (chapter 3) and Christopher M. Bellitto’s “Councils and Reform: Challenging Misconceptions” (chapter 14). Both examine the transmission of memory, as distinct from historical events (as far as we can determine). Oakley reveals ways in which post–Vatican I scholarship had essentially muffled, if not completely eradicated, the contentious conciliar past, even to the extent of revising Angelo Roncalli’s own statement regarding his chosen name of John XXIII (89). Such a revisionist history has led to seeing Haec Sancta, one of the Council of Constance’s two most important decrees, as something of an aberration rather than as the culmination of centuries of canonistic and theological debate over the locus of authority in the Church. Moreover, such a view continues to weaken contemporary views of a conciliar, collegial, corporatist Church. For his part, Bellitto offers assurance to those unhappy with Vatican II that disaffection and dismay greeted many of the Council of Trent’s innovations (such as standardization of the liturgy [309]), which, ironically, have come to be bastions of tradition. Catholics, indeed all Christians, might remember that many implications of Vatican II are still in the process of realization and that everything traditional was once new. In addition, Bellitto offers a brief but fascinating survey of the...