Vatican I, the New Papacy, and the Crisis of Catholic Globalization

Abstract

There are few uncontroversial statements in the contemporary intra-Catholic debate on the recent conciliar tradition. One of them is that John Henry Newman was not only one of the major contributors to the teaching, reception, and interpretation of Vatican I, but can be seen also as one of the “fathers of Vatican II.”1 A significant part of the importance of Newman’s contribution in shaping Catholic tradition has to do with the understanding of the papacy in a new historical and cultural context.2 One way to understand the importance of Newman is to reflect on the unfinished trajectories of modern Catholicism originating from the Vatican councils, particularly on the evolution of the papacy in global Catholicism. The papacy was at the center of the discussions at Vatican I and Vatican II. Conversely, the papacy has become one of the most important sources for the interpretation of these two councils and of their mutual relationship. On 14 February 2013, in one of the last public speeches before his resignation, which he had announced just three days before, Pope Benedict XVI delved, with remarks delivered a braccio (without a formal text), into his autobiographical interpretation of Vatican II before the clergy of Rome. Benedict XVI, the last pope who had been present at Vatican II, connected the two latest councils of the Catholic Church in a way that configured Vatican II as a completion of Vatican I, but also the ecclesiology of Vatican II as an extension of the ecclesiology of Vatican I: