A Mind of Its Own

Out of respect for the freedom of the Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI has stayed away from its working sessions and avoided expressing opinions on the matters before it. But because of his great interest in the subject, he went to St. Peter's when the prelates began deliberating the schema on missions. Shunning the papal throne, he took a seat among the council's twelve cardinal-presidents and gave a brief speech on the schema. He pronounced it generally satisfactory and urged its approval as a basic text for further revision. The council fathers responded by rejecting the schema 1,601 to 311.

Bows & Arrows. Clearly, none of the prelates intended to affront the Pope. Just as clearly, their vote indicated that the council does have a mind of its own, and that the bishops cannot be satisfied with platitudes. The schema was denounced in language so harsh that the moderator of the discussion pleaded with the bishops to be more temperate. Irish-born Bishop Daniel Lamont of Rhodesia, for example, complained: "We needed fire and they give us a candle. We wanted powerful weapons to do the battles of the Lord and they give us bows and arrows."

The harsh attack on the missions schema suggested that the third session of the council may be as unproductive, in terms of the volume of documents approved, as the second--although for a different reason. Last fall's session was frustrated by the dilatory maneuvers of the council's conservatives. This time the pace has been slowed by the progressive majority, which has called for radical revisions of every schema presented for debate. The missions document was one of seven shortened items that council authorities hoped would skate by without any trouble; the first three to be voted on were criticized so severely that they must be completely rewritten.

Reality v. Romanism. By and large, criticism of the third session's agenda has been in the interest of greater realism rather than Romanism, clarity rather than cliche. Challenging the schema on religious orders last week, Belgium's Leo Josef Cardinal Suenens attacked the "ridiculous complications" of nuns' flowing habits, "which give the impression that the church is growing old rather than trying to renew itself in order to meet the needs of the day."

Another schema, on "The Church and the Modern World," denounced nuclear weapons that have "effects greater than can be imagined" as "most wicked." Some European and Oriental prelates wanted to make this denunciation even more specific; but Auxiliary Bishop Philip Hannan of Washington and Archbishop George Andrew Beck of Liverpool argued that the schema said too much about banning the bomb and too little about disarmament controls. Beck said that the council should not be too quick to condemn governments that have kept the peace and freedom through the nuclear deterrent: "To turn the other cheek is a counsel of perfection addressed to individuals, not to governments that have a grave duty to defend the citizens entrusted to their authority." The schema was sent back for rewriting.

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