When will we fully embrace the Council?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 07, 2025

How long will it take before the Catholic world enthusiastically accepts the teachings of the Council?

This year the Church celebrates the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea. The Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople has invited Pope Francis to join in an ecumenical celebration in May, and the Pope—before his recent illness—happily accepted. Yet to this day one can detect the lingering influence of the Arian heresy; there are theologians in Catholic universities propounding the idea—anathematized at Nicea—that Jesus is “mutable or subject to change.”

Aha! I tricked you, didn’t I? When I opened with a question about “the Council,” you assumed that I was referring to Vatican II. For decades now, Catholics have spoken about Vatican II as the Council, often implying that it is the only Council that matters. I wonder: 1,700 years from now, will the universal Church be planning an international festival to celebrate Vatican II?

Perhaps so. Every ecumenical council is an important moment in the life of the Church, and Vatican II is no exception. But there have been 21 ecumenical councils; to focus exclusively on one is to separate oneself from the rich history of Catholic teaching.

Think about it: The Second Vatican Council could not have taken that name if there had not previously been a First Vatican Council. Indeed the Second Vatican Council was convened in no small part to continue the work that the First left unfinished—having been cut short when Italian troops occupied the city of Rome. Vatican I focused on the role of the Roman Pontiff, leaving open questions about the authority of bishops. Vatican II took up that question, among others, but few informed Catholics would dispute that many questions remain about the nature of a diocesan bishop’s authority. The Council (and here I do mean Vatican II) did not resolve all those questions.

The battles that have been raging within the Church for nearly 60 years now, over the proper interpretation of Vatican II teachings, bear testimony to the indisputable fact that many questions remain. Not only questions about episcopal authority and collegiality, but also questions about the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, the understanding of conscience, and above all the proper form of the Eucharistic liturgy. On all these questions, an inquisitive Catholic can easily find sharply opposed opinions, some of them clearly at odds with the actual written pronouncements of the Council, confidently put forward by people who teach under the mantle of Church authority.

How can these conflicts be resolved? Pope Benedict XVI, who participated in the conciliar debates, offered the very reasonable proposal that every conciliar teaching—of Vatican II or any other council—should be interpreted with the “hermeutic of continuity,” on the unassailable understanding that what the Church has always taught remains what the Church will always teach, since the Truth vouchsafed to the Church in Jesus Christ is not “mutable or subject to change.” What Pope Benedict said in a letter to his brother bishops, as he issued Summorum Pontificum, applies to all of the Council’s teachings, not just the proposed reform of the liturgy: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

Now apply that principle to the teachings of the Council—of any Council. If the teachings of Nicea were sacred and great in 325, they remain sacred and great today. Conversely, what was seriously wrong in 325, or in 1960, remains seriously wrong today. To say that the teachings of an ecumenical council cannot be repudiated does not imply that those teachings are perfect, or that they represent the complete and final definitive statement of the Church. Every Council leaves some questions unanswered, some statements unclear, some points in need of clarification. But if anyone interprets Vatican II as repudiating fundamental principles of Catholic teaching and practice from the pre-conciliar era (which is to say, from most of the history of the Catholic Church), he must be misinterpreting the Council. But here again I am saying “the” Council. Which Council is he misinterpreting? Probably all of them.

Now my humble proposal, to the many good Catholics who wish for the wholehearted acceptance of Vatican II—and for a stable consensus on what that Council actually taught and sought—is that we should understand the teachings of Vatican II as the Council Fathers would understand them. The Council Fathers of Nicea, that is.