The Council's Prospects

The aim of the Second Vatican Council, which opens in Rome next month, is internal renewal of the Catholic Church. Through the council's work, Pope John XXIII hopes, the world's largest Christian church will be better prepared for the spiritual tasks of combatting Communism and materialism, and exploring the hope of union with other Christian bodies. Advocates of Catholic reform, the church's "liberals." have been worried by rumors that the council might be stalled by such standpat conservatives as the cardinals of the Curia and the bishops of Italy and Spain. "The Holy Ghost," warned one Irish cleric in Rome, "has his back up against the wall."

Last week Pope John XXIII put at least some of the fears to rest. In naming the cardinals who will guide the council deliberations, and outlining the council's rules of order in a 48-page Motu Proprio (a "White Paper" issued on the Pope's personal authority), he made it clear that hierarchical reformers would have plenty of opportunity to make their cases.

Balancing Claims. Pope John's appointments neatly balanced the claims of liberals and conservatives, Vatican professionals and diocesan prelates from the international church. Each of the ten commissions that will prepare the formal decrees has a Curia prelate at its head--but two-thirds of the 24 members of the commission will be chosen by the bishops. On the presidential council of ten cardinals, who will take turns as chairmen of the sessions, the Pope named only one outright resister to change--Ernesto Cardinal Ruffini of Palermo. He filled the council with such middle-of-the-road prelates as New York's Francis Spellman and Achille Lienart of Lille, such prominent liberals as Bernard Alfrink of Utrecht and Joseph Frings of Cologne.

Another key regulatory commission at the council will be a Secretariat for

Extraordinary Questions, which will control the admission to the agenda of new problems raised by bishops in council discussion. Chairman of the secretariat is moderate Amleto Cardinal Cicognani, the Vatican Secretary of State and longtime 1933-58) apostolic delegate to the U.S. But also on the secretariat are such moderates and liberals as Chicago's Albert Meyer, Milan's Giovanni Montini, Julius Dopfner of Munich, Leo Jozef Suenens of Malines-Bruxelles.

Limiting Speeches. The papal Motu Proprio predictably decreed that all public sessions will take place in St. Peter's, where bleachers are now being built in the nave, and that the official language of the council would be Latin (translators will be on hand to help prelates through verbal thickets). Other procedural decisions: Council members will be forbidden to leave Rome without written permission from the presidential council. Clerics who wish to speak on the floor will present written requests to the presiding cardinal, then wait their turn. "Church fathers," the booklet noted, "are requested to limit their speeches to ten minutes."

At general sessions, members will be allowed to vote only placet or non placet (yes or no). The votes--in a rare Vatican concession to the age of automation--will be counted by electronic calculating machines. A two-thirds majority will carry a motion.

To Vatican observers, the rules indicated that bishops would not be coming to Rome merely to rubber-stamp predetermined decisions. Among the decrees expected from the council: a dogmatic statement on the bishops' position in the church, permission for more widespread use of vernacular in the liturgy, a definition of the church's stand on religious toleration for non-Catholics.

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