Modern Man

AMERICA, 8/17/09

ByThomas C. Kohler [concurrent professor of law and philosophy at Boston College Law School. This essay is drawn from a forthcoming book, Solidarity Forever: The Story and Significance of an Idea.]

The already elderly Pope John XXIII—elected only weeks earlier primarily to sit as a “placeholder” on the chair of Peter—startled the church and the world 50 years ago last January by announcing his intention to convene an ecumenical council. Since the moment of its announcement, heated quarrels over the advisability, meaning and fruits of the council have gone on unabated—a sort of Fifty Year (and counting) War—leaving many of us who have few memories or none at all of the Second Vatican Council to wonder how and why it all came about in the first place.

Major events typically have deep and tangled historical roots. John XXIII said that the idea for a council came suddenly to him, as a “heavenly inspiration,” and bloomed like a flower “in an unanticipated spring.” Of course he and the council fathers had predecessors who helped set the conditions for what would occur there. This anniversary year provides an occasion to remember one of them: Félicité Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854). Although he died over a century before the council took place (1962-65), Lamennais anticipated some of its most significant developments. Even now, his ideas and concerns have a remarkably modern ring to them. An acquaintance with his life and work may provide an appreciation for some of what the council addressed and why.

[Read the rest, here.]