After 50 Years

Being a Church in the World

Abstract

Continuing the reflections on the documents of the Second Vatican
Council, in this issue we deal with the two constitutions on the
Church, namely, Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes.
In a certain sense Lumen Gentium can be said to be the most
important achievement of Vatican II. All the other documents, in one
or another, deal with the Church and are related to this document. It
may be also interesting to note that of all the documents of Vatican II,
none underwent more dramatic revision from the first draft to the
finally approved text than Lumen Gentium. It went through three
major drafts, corresponding to the first three sessions of the Council.
These drafts show a major development in the self-understanding of
the Church. It may be interesting to note how Cardinal Montini of
Milan (later Pope Paul VI), speaking to the people of his diocese,
presented the dramatic shift after the first session, in the vision of the
Church:
Yesterday the theme of the Church seemed to be confined to the
power of the Pope. Today it is extended to the episcopate, religious,
the laity and the whole body of the Church. Yesterday we spoke of the
rights of the Church by transferring constitutive elements of civil
society to the definition of the Church as a perfect society. Today we
have discovered other realities in the Church — the charisms of grace
and holiness for example — which cannot be defined by purely
juridical ideas. Yesterday we were above all interested in the external
history of the Church. Today we are equally concerned with its inner
life brought to life by the presence of Christ in it.