Conclusion

This book has argued that Vatican II should be understood as a point on an arc of reform that extends all the way back to the eighteenth century. Pushing the roots of the council back beyond the twentieth-century reform movements, modernism, Newman, and the Tübingen School helps us to better understand and interpret Vatican II reforms. Thus, the complexities of a hermeneutic of reform, which interprets the council as having both continuity and discontinuity, on different levels, with past Catholic teaching and theology, become clearer. A hermeneutic of reform should not only return to the “deepest patrimony” of the fathers or the early Church, but must also recognize that the agendas of failed Catholic reformers of the more recent past have sometimes survived, and have even been vindicated in certain ways. John O’Malley’s work has shown that to fully understand Vatican II, we must recognize that “in St. Peter’s, beside the thousands of [Council] Fathers . . . Pius IX and Pius XII, Marx and Freud, Lagrange and Rosmini, and De Maistre and Lamennais were there, listening to the infinite debate that changed the church.”...

The Ghost of Pistoia

This chapter shows that the Synod of Pistoia was a “ghost” on the council floor; that is, a key moment in the Church’s collective memory that influenced the drafting of texts and the subsequent debate over them. The first section briefly traces the legacy of Auctorem fidei and the Pistorienses from the death of Ricci (1810) to the eve of Vatican II. In the increasingly ultramontane nineteenth-century, the memory of the infamous Pistoians was evoked in a range of ecclesial documents. Auctorem fidei was firmly established as a bulwark of ultramontane thought. The second section surveys the many contexts in which Auctorem fidei was cited in Vatican II draft documents. The third section thoroughly analyses six evocations of Auctorem fidei during the debate on episcopal collegiality. These evocations constitute the most detailed discussion of an eighteenth-century doctrinal document at the Council, and prove that Pistoia was a “ghost” in the Aula.

Ressourcement and Aggiornamento in the Eighteenth Century

This chapter argues that the roots of Vatican II must be pushed back into the eighteenth century in order to fully understand the council. It profiles the existence and achievements of the “Catholic Enlightenment,” a now well-established phenomenon that spanned the entire European Catholic world, and argues that it was an attempt at aggiornamento. A variety of eighteenth-century movements, many of them later condemned or marginalized by the Church’s official magisterium, are then profiled, including Gallicanism, Richerism, Febronianism, and Josephinism. The chapter then examines a complex and misunderstood reform movement, Jansenism, which especially shaped Scipione de’ Ricci and the Pistoian circle. Finally, it examines a loose “Third Party” of moderate Catholic reformers (who were neither Jansenists nor traditionalist zelanti), focusing on Lodovico Muratori. The chapter shows that both radical Jansenists and moderate “Third Party” Catholics attempted ressourcement, especially in advocating liturgical and devotional reform and encouraging Bible reading.

A Hermeneutic of True Reform

This chapter argues that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, are best understood through a triadic grid: ressourcement (retrieval of past Christian thought and texts, especially scripture and of the church fathers), aggiornamento (updating), and the development of doctrine. It highlights four areas in which Vatican II sought to reform the Church—ecclesiology, religious liberty, liturgy and devotions, and ecumenism. The interpretation of Vatican II is still heavily contested. The chapter argues that the best hermeneutic for interpreting the council, advanced by Pope Benedict XVI and praised by John O’Malley, is a “hermeneutic of reform,” a theologically rigorous and historically conscious hermeneutic that sees Vatican II as having “continuity and discontinuity on different levels” with past teaching. It argues that such a hermeneutic can aid conciliar interpretation and deepen reflection on the nature of Catholic reform through a study of forerunners of Vatican II, who attempted aggiornamento and ressourcement.

The Spirit of Pistoia

This chapter examines the reception of the Synod of Pistoia and the failure of Riccian reform. It details Ricci’s and Peter Leopold’s strategies after the Synod, and the rejection of Pistoianism by most of the Tuscan bishops at the Episcopal Assembly in Florence in 1787. The chapter argues that the swift downfall of Pistoianism in Tuscany was the direct result of the imprudence of some of Ricci’s reforms. The reception of Pistoianism throughout Italy and in France, Spain, and the German-speaking world is then explored. Papal rejection in the bull Auctorem fidei, and the considerations of the committee which prepared it, are examined. The final part of the chapter evaluates Riccian reform and the Synod of Pistoia from the perspective of Yves Congar’s four conditions for true reform in the Church, and argues that despite many positive elements, the Pistoian movement fails three of these four conditions.

Radical Reform in Tuscany

This chapter examines the early life, education, and theological foundations of Scipione de’ Ricci (1741–1810) up to the eve of the Synod of Pistoia, in 1786. It explains the reformist milieu Ricci experienced as a young student in Rome and in his early career in Florence. The importance of the late eighteenth-century convergence of Habsburg Erastian reform, international Jansenism with its focal point in Utrecht, philo-Jansenism and anti-Jesuitism in Italy, and the legacy of Muratori is profiled. Then, the reform agenda Ricci sought to implement as the bishop of Pistoia-Prato (1780–91) is described: an anti-ultramontane and synodal ecclesiology (buttressed by Erastianism and, particularly, Grand Duke Peter Leopold’s fifty-seven Punti ecclesiastici), the importance of Ricci’s international (especially Francophone) Jansenist contacts, his propaganda campaign, and the Riccian drive to reform the liturgy and devotional life in his diocese, including an encouragement of vernacular Bible reading.

Introduction

The sources of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the history of the road to the council, and the nature of theological reform and development have been the object of much scholarly energy since 1965. To this day, the meaning, significance, and interpretation of Vatican II remain contested, and these debates have great importance for the Catholic Church and for Christian ecumenism. While studies exist that link the council to the thought of the Patristic period, as well as to movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, hitherto the connection of Vatican II to the post-Tridentine but pre-nineteenth-century church has been almost completely overlooked....

The Synod of Pistoia

This chapter examines in detail the Synod of Pistoia (18–28 September 1786) and the Acts and Decrees it promulgated. It follows a topical approach, and considers the reforms that the Jansenist-inspired synod attempted alongside the papal condemnations in the bull Auctorem fidei (1794). The Acts and Decrees were permeated by a Jansenist view of church history that blamed Molinism, the papacy, and the friars for “obscuring” the truth. The chapter then explores Pistoian ecclesiology, and its potent combination of Erastianism, episcopalism, and Richerism. Next, it examines the Synod’s inchoate vision of religious liberty. The last two sections investigate liturgical and devotional reforms that strikingly foreshadow Vatican II. These parallels include simplifying the liturgy and encouraging lay participation in it, pronouncing the Eucharistic canon out loud, promoting the vernacular, encouraging the reception of communion, focusing worship on the altar, contextualizing devotions Christocentrically, and asserting the centrality of lay vernacular Bible reading.