Rev. Ralph Wiltgen: The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II

[Stone]

THE THIRD SESSION
September 14 to November 21, 1964

SEMINARIES AND SCHOOLS


The schema on priestly formation was reduced to propositions by the Coordinating Commission shortly after the end of the second session. By letters of May n and July 7, 1964, the Secretary General informed the Council Fathers of the procedure prescribed for the propositions: no proposals were to be submitted for amending the text, but a vote would be taken upon it after the reading of an introductory report.

Nevertheless, the German-speaking and Scandinavian Council Fathers, meeting at Innsbruck in May, 1964, prepared fifteen long pages of commentary. For all practical purposes, this was a substitute schema, since it contained numerous proposals for rearranging the text of the propositions and inserting lengthy additions. The degree of control exercised by this small group of bishops over the Council became evident on the following October 14, during the third session, when each Council Father received a revised edition of the propositions. They were twice as long as before, many had been changed, and lengthy additions had been made.

A careful comparison of these revised propositions made it perfectly clear that some 90 per cent of the changes and additions had come from the fifteen-page commentary prepared by the Innsbruck conference. This was proof enough that one of the purposes of reducing schemas to short propositions had been to render possible the introduction of more of the ideas of the bishops and periti of the European alliance.

The revised propositions came up for discussion on November 12, 1964. Auxiliary Bishop Jozef Drzazga of Gniezno, Poland, speaking on behalf of the bishops of Poland, praised the text, but observed that its principles on priestly formation were too vaguely stated. “It is not enough to say that priestly training may be adapted to local circumstances by the competent territorial authority,” he said, “because such authorities expect to receive from the Council norms which are valid for the entire world.”

Archbishop Giovanni Colombo of Milan, Italy, who had been rector of the archdiocesan major seminary of Milan from 1954 to 1963, said that a great defect in seminary training was the lack of organic unity. It was due, he said, to the fact that the “programs of spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and disciplinary formation were independent of one another, so that each went its own way without a common meeting point, without any unifying and dynamic idea.” This fault was remedied in the schema, he said, because it set up Jesus Christ as the unifying, focal point. “And because it is so excellently stated in these propositions that the renovation of seminaries depends more on qualified men than on good precepts,” he added, “we should brook no delay and spare no sacrifice in securing such men, who are truly specialists and animated with the spirit of this Council.” He also called for new textbooks for seminaries. “Without qualified teachers and suitable books, there is a danger that the wisest prescriptions of this Holy Synod may remain a dead letter”

Cardinal Leger wanted the text to cite St. Thomas Aquinas as a master and model for all those studying theology. “In this way,” he said, “the doctrine of St. Thomas will not be imposed, but rather the scientific and spiritual approach will be extolled whereby he creatively utilized the knowledge of his day in the service of the Gospel.”

Cardinal Dopfner expressed great satisfaction with the amended propositions, which, he said, followed a middle road in the very difficult question of priestly formation “by retaining rules proved by the experience of centuries and introducing new ones more appropriate in changed circumstances.”

Cardinal Suenens called the schema “generally satisfactory,” but suggested the addition of a new proposition providing for the establishment of a special commission to study the question of seminary renewal. A published text was not sufficient to bring about the renewal intended by the Council, he maintained.

Bishop Sani of Den Pasar, Bah, said that the Council should not place too much emphasis on the negative aspect of separation from the world.

“It has the positive effect of freeing the student from distractions in his studies,” he said. Sufficient pastoral and practical experience could be gained during vacation time, he suggested, and this could be supplemented in the seminary itself through frequent conferences by clerical and lay experts.

Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban, South Africa, said that the apostolic character of seminary formation should in no way detract from the importance of study or the value of scholasticism. He agreed with Cardinal Suenens that existing methods of teaching philosophy should be re-examined, but felt that scholastic teachings should not be brushed aside. Some of its themes were essential to a Catholic philosophical approach, he said; without them, philosophy and theology might come to be regarded as incompatible. If philosophy demanded unlimited freedom of inquiry, then “we concede that Catholics cannot be philosophers.” 

Only in the light of divine faith and scholastic principles, he said, was the Catholic free to embark on a philosophic investigation of God, man and the universe.

Archbishop Jean Weber of Strasbourg, France, speaking from twenty-five years’ experience in a Paris seminary, called the propositions fair and full of wisdom, even though short. He hoped, however, that two extremes would be avoided: on the one hand the “determination to tear down everything that has been set up by holy men since the Council of Trent,” and, on the other, “opposition to any change whatsoever, even when this is demanded by changing times and attitudes.” He hedged somewhat in his comments on the principle in the schema that episcopal conferences and diocesan bishops should be the competent authorities in regulating seminary training. “For Italy or France this is good today,” he said, “but it may not be good elsewhere, and it is not something eternal.” Seminary authorities, he said, should form among themselves a true “college,” since the greatest difficulties in seminaries arose from disagreement among the authorities and from the absence of dialogue between them and students.

One of the last speakers was Archbishop Garrone of Toulouse, France, who praised the schema highly and called Article i most opportune for stating that programs of priestly formation should be drawn up in each country by the episcopal conferences concerned, to be revised at stated intervals and approved by the Apostolic See. This would ensure the adaptation of universal laws to special circumstances of time and place, so that priestly formation would always answer the pastoral needs of the area where the ministry was to be exercised. Such decentralization, the Archbishop said, would alter and increase the duties of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries, which would now have to acquaint itself with the needs and problems of the different countries, and to take note of progress and change in the disciplines pertaining to seminary training.

To achieve the first goal, the Sacred Congregation must no longer remain behind the times, or be negative in its approach. “It would also be necessary that this Congregation have as members men from all over the world, so that it might better know the conditions of priestly life.” The second goal could be achieved if the Sacred Congregation were to use men who were true experts in the sacred and social sciences, and who likewise represented all regions of the world.

Probably unwittingly, Archbishop Garrone was outlining a task which he himself would be asked to carry out. Less than two months after the end of the Council, Pope Paul named him pro-prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities. This meant that he would automatically head the Sacred Congregation on the retirement of Giuseppe Cardinal Pizzardo, the existing incumbent, who was eighty-eight years old when the appointment was announced.

The discussion was concluded on November 17, 1964. In the voting, only 41 called for the rejection of the propositions, but numerous qualifications were submitted on each of the seven ballots. These, together with ninety-nine oral and written interventions, were used to revise and lengthen the text, which was officially designated as the Decree on Priestly Formation. The new text was formally adopted by a vote of 2318 to 3 on October 28, 1965, and immediately promulgated by Pope Paul VI.

The Commission responsible for the schema on priestly formation was also responsible for the schema on Christian education, and discussion on the latter text began on the day on which discussion of the former ended.

Once again, the Council Fathers were surprised at the distribution of a revised set of propositions. This time, however, the text had been shortened instead of expanded. The propositions distributed before the opening of the third session had contained seventeen articles and covered 165 lines. The revised version contained 11 articles and covered 106 lines. This extremely brief text was the seventh revision of the schema.

One of the speakers on the first day of debate was Cardinal Spellman of New York, who directed his attention to Article 4, on the rights of children and parents. He said that parents should be free to choose the schools they wished for their children. They should not, therefore, be subject to unjust economic burdens which infringed upon this freedom of choice. Since it was the function of the State to promote civil liberties, justice and equity demanded that a due measure of public aid be available to parents in support of the schools they selected for their children. Moreover, if those schools served the public purpose of popular education, the fact that they might be religious in their orientation should not exclude them from a rightful measure of public support.

Coadjutor Bishop Elchinger of Strasbourg, France, said that it was unfortunate that the schema should have been drafted before account could be taken of the other important schemas discussed during the third session. The existing text, he said, needed complete revision. The purpose behind Christian education should be the development of what he called a missionary spirit, so that young persons thus educated would not hide their faith, but would base their personal and social lives in the modern pluralistic and ecumenically minded society in which they lived on their Christian faith.

Cardinal Leger suggested that the schema should be referred back to the Commission together with the comments of the Council Fathers, so that it might undergo a thorough revision, prior to presentation at the fourth session. “At the present time,” he said, “we do not seem to have sufficient time, or sufficient strength, for a fitting examination of this schema and the preparation of adequate amendments.” He asked the Council Fathers not to approve too hastily what would become a Magna Carta of Christian education and higher studies for years to come. He found fault with the schema for not giving sufficient attention to scientific investigation and for its lack of inspiration. He asked specifically for practical proposals on coordination and cooperation among Catholic universities, especially with regard to theological, scriptural, philosophical and sociological studies. The promotion of such coordination and cooperation by modern means should be the chief task of the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries and Universities.

Auxiliary Bishop Luiz Henriquez Jimenez of Caracas, Venezuela, criticized the schema for placing too much stress on Catholic schools, which he called “lovely and enclosed gardens cultivated with much love, but whose fruits for the evangelization of the world seem to diminish with each passing day.” In the Middle Ages, when the State was helpless in educational matters, the Church had assumed the whole field of education as a supplementary role. But now that the State had taken up this task, with technical and financial resources far beyond the Church’s means, it was high time for the Church to determine whether its schools really served the cause of evangelizing modern youth as a whole, especially the poor, who were often unable to attend Catholic schools because they could not pay the tuition.

The bishop pointed out that the Catholic Church was virtually absent from the public school. “We have lacked the interest to train Catholic teachers who might transform those schools from within,” he said. “Those who already work in public schools have been, as it were, abandoned by us and sometimes have been made to feel like traitors to Catholic education.” In the name of 120 Council Fathers, he then asked that the schema be thoroughly revised, and Catholic education subjected to critical analysis, so that it might become an efficacious instrument for preaching the Gospel. He also suggested that youth should be fully prepared to assume teaching positions in public schools and universities, and that, if necessary, special institutes should be established for their training.

Bishop Simon Nguyen-van Hien of Dalat, Vietnam, said that in mission lands the Catholic schools served as a most efficacious means of the apostolate. Many non-Christian parents in Asia, where Christian morals were respected, preferred to send their children to Catholic schools, especially when these were directed by priests and religious.

The discussion of the text on Christian education ended on November 19. The vote was 1457 to 419 to proceed to a vote on the text, without referring it back for revision. Nevertheless, there was still much dissatisfaction with the text, since on each of the four ballots an average of 161 negative votes and 168 qualified affirmative votes were cast.

After the close of the third session, the text was revised, and presented during the fourth session for further voting. On the last ballot before it was sent to the Pope, there were 183 negative votes—an extraordinarily large number. At the final vote, however, on October 28, 1965, in the presence of the Pope, the vote on the Declaration on Christian Education was 2290 to 35; those Council Fathers who were dissatisfied with it felt that they had sufficiently indicated their displeasure at the previous vote.

The document was then promulgated.