The Wind and Where it Blows

There was a recent commentary by Massimo Faggioli at Commonweal called Vatican II at Napa.   In the context of a somewhat critical look at the Napa conference, the article referenced the talk given by Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, who is as Faggioli says

 one of the most interesting figures in a European Catholicism that is emancipating itself from the dominance of the French, Belgian, and German conciliar theology.

Here is the written version of Bishop Varden's talk.   Here is what he calls a brief antiphonal response of his to Faggioli's article.     Here is his conference on the Creed, which is as he notes the main feature of his attendance at the conference.... I think the comments on Vatican II were part of a panel he participated in?  

There are a few things that came to my mind when I was reading through this interchange.

One is the civil tone between two Catholic thinkers who come from very different contexts.   This can't be taken for granted any more, but is important, and indeed, Bishop Varden mentions it in quoting Pope Leo XIV on Irenaeus

The doctrinal divisions [Irenaeus] encountered within the Christian community, the internal conflicts and external persecutions, did not discourage him. On the contrary, in a fragmented world he learned how to think better, bringing his attention ever more deeply to Jesus. He became a cantor of his person, indeed of his flesh. He recognised that in [Jesus], what seems to conflict is reconciled in unity. Jesus is not a wall that separates, but a door that unites us. We have to remain in him and distinguish reality from ideologies.

Secondly, a key part of Bishop Varden's talk, which Dr Faggioli highlights, where he is discussing the third generation of Catholics after Vatican II, and the 2nd generation preoccupation with "hermeneutics" and the so-called liberal/conservative divides:

The collective remembrance of what the council and its aftermath felt like has faded. That notably reduces the emotional heat of hermeneutic exercise, enabling lucid reflection. Today’s young Catholics are not ungrateful for the council’s great gifts, but unable to proceed with their grandparents’ mindsets, uninclined to flog dead horses, unenthused by fossilised projects of aggiornamento when the sun has set on the giorno by which they were defined. What they long for is to awaken the dawn, to know the saving power of Christ, the same today, yesterday, and always, yet making all things new, often enough by exploding time-bound dichotomies. 

It is interesting to read Dr Faggioli's comment on this passage, which contrasts the perspective of youth today to what it was in the 70's, when Vatican II was seen as the very dawn that today's youth are trying to awaken:  

 These words should be brought to the attention of all those who teach Catholic theology today. Bishop Varden’s assessment corresponds to my experience everywhere I have had the opportunity to teach young people, in different countries and continents. The major problem isn’t outright opposition to the council. The major problem is that when Vatican II is downgraded to the memorialization of a generational event, it is no longer generative.

Thirdly and probably finally, I wanted to highlight Bishop Varden's starting point about "generations".    Answering the panel question What Do We Need Now, he says:

 As a student of monastic history I have noticed that a predictable crisis occurs in the life of a community when the reins of government pass from the second to the third generation. The founders set about their task with clear purpose and the exhilaration of starting something new. The second generation positions itself in relation to the founders. Some will adulate them, some will be more critical; but the founders’ experience, direction, and vision remain, for better or for worse, a criterion of collective discernment. This dynamic changes at the next generational juncture, by which time the founders will be dead, or quite ancient. All of a sudden the second generation’s search for particular identity seems like much ado about not very much. The truly pressing issues are more fundamental: ‘What are we all about? How can we find our place within a tradition that transcends us? Are we on the right track?’ The third generation is faced with the challenge of continuity. To carry on faithfully it needs more than the history — or myth — of heroic origins. It must at once integrate and relativise its specific heritage, looking forward as well as back, up, not down.

A similar thing, he suggests, is going on with the Church's reception of the Vatican II Council.   Note that in his view, though it is a challenge, it is also inevitable in any community that outlasts its founders.   That is precisely the point we are at now.   I am at retirement age and I was born a week or so before Vatican II commenced.   The people who remember the council as adults are in their 80's or beyond.   Every news cycle includes mention of yet another Boomer celebrity who has passed on.   Even though a surprising number of the Council Fathers and periti lived into their hale 90's, someday there will be none left, and their names are found in theological libraries perhaps, but not as the featured speaker at a crowded hall.   

This is simply how things work.   The youngsters are left with the legacy and it is their responsibility to sort out.    Faggioli writes that synodality as a constitutive and ongoing element of ecclesial activity is a reclaiming of the conciliar project -- here in his words:

By opening the synodal process in 2021, Francis reminded the Church that the Second Vatican Council was in itself an event of synodality ante litteram (with the word itself nowhere to be found in the conciliar corpus).

This is a very interesting light on the Synod on Synods, and may explain a lot -- the suspicion of the more conservative "second generation" thinkers seeing it as a revival of the old "Spirit of the Council", and the crashing boredom and confusion of much of the third generation with the Boomer-energy overload of the whole affair.   

It took a long time to write out even these sketchy notes.     Basically I just wanted to document those links but I know from experience it will be more interesting for me to read later if I've expanded past just hyperlinks.