Toward Deeper Reception of the Council: Pope Francis’s Legacy Concerning the Word of God

The renowned German scholar of Vatican II, Peter Hünermann, in an essay concerning the reception of the Second Vatican Council, succinctly summarized the meaning of “reception” in a few precise words: “‘to receive’ here means ‘appropriating something in such a way that we ourselves are shaped by what we receive.’ The gift becomes part of who we are.” [1]

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This definition corresponds strikingly to the experience of Pope Francis. As he described his own odyssey with respect to the Council, he observed that

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The ecclesial climate in Latin America, in which I was immersed first as a young Jesuit student and then in ministry, had enthusiastically absorbed and taken possession of the theological, ecclesial, and spiritual intuitions of the Council, actualizing and enculturating them. For the youngest among us, the Council became the horizon of our belief, and of our ways of thinking and acting. That is, it quickly became our ecclesial and pastoral ecosystem… The Council had simply entered into our way of being Christian and our way of ‘being Church’—and as life went on, my intuitions, my perceptions, and my spirituality were quite simply born out of the suggestions from the teachings of Vatican II. [2]

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This “ecclesial and pastoral ecosystem” is complex, and appropriating the Council’s teaching requires varied and multi-faceted efforts, not only by the Pope and the bishops, but by all the faithful. As Hünermann noted: “The reception of Vatican II takes place on different levels and in thousands of individual processes, as expressed in the prayers offered by the individual believer, in the administrative decisions of a diocese, in Vatican proclamations and canonical regulations, in the building of public opinion, in symbolic gestures like that of John Paul II at the Jerusalem Wailing Wall. Reception is an extremely complex process with ecclesial, social, and public aspects.” [3]

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Vatican II’s Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, along with the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, inaugurated a profound shift in the relationship of Catholics to Sacred Scripture. Catholics began to read, study, and pray with the Scriptures with greater fervor. They heard more scriptural readings at Mass, and were encouraged to draw from them inspiration for daily living. The Word was key to sustaining the Base Communities of Latin America. Indeed, it was due to the intervention of two missionary bishops from Argentina (Jorge Kemerer of Posadas, and Alberto Devoto of Goya) that a warm endorsement of Bible Services was added to Sacrosanctum Concilium. [4] Pope Francis was sensitive to the need for the Church to cherish the fresh emphasis the Second Vatican Council gave to the Word of God and foster it concretely. A variety of initiatives Pope Francis took during the period from 2019 to 2022 give evidence of this. He not only spoke enthusiastically about the power of God’s Word, he put in place mechanisms to support it.

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On September 30, 2019, he instituted the “Sunday of the Word of God” to be celebrated each year on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. In Aperuit illis, the motu proprio instituting this observance, he voiced this strong affirmation: “The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and sacred Scripture is essential to our identity as Christians” (AI 1). He called the Word of God “prophetic,” not in the sense of predicting the future, but in the sense of introducing divine judgment into the present moment, in ways that both challenge and comfort those who listen. “It proves both sweet and bitter” (AI 12), he said. He lauded the Second Vatican Council for giving “great impulse to the rediscovery of the word of God,” and called Dei Verbum “a document that deserves to be read and appropriated ever anew” (AI 2). 

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To honor the Sunday of the Word of God, Francis recommended enthroning the Gospel book during the Eucharist on that day. He also suggested using this Sunday as a time to commission lectors, give away copies of the Bible to the faithful, and urge them to read, study, and pray with the scriptures. By positioning the Sunday of the Word of God at the conclusion of the Week dedicated to prayer for Christian unity, he underlined the ecumenical significance celebrating the Word, and called it a time to deepen the bond between Catholics and the Jewish people too (AI, 3). ​​​​​​​​​​​​​Francis drew attention to the social dimension of hearing the Word: “The Bible is the book of the Lord’s people, who, in listening to it, move from dispersion and division towards unity.” (AI 4).

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In 2021 Francis issued two Apostolic Letters concerning ministries of the Word. The first of these, issued on January 15, was Spiritus Domini. It modified Canon 230 §1 of the Code of Canon Law in order to allow women access to the instituted ministry of Lector. Women had been serving as readers at the liturgy since 1970, [5] but their standing was ad hoc and not blessed by the bishop. The instituted ministry of Lector on the other hand—a solemnly recognized commitment to the ministry of the Word—was reserved to men. [6] Twice, the world’s bishops, gathered in Synod, petitioned the pope to admit women to this instituted ministry (among others),[7]  in order to recognize women’s contribution and lend it greater authority. 

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In Pope Francis’s post-synodal exhortation, Querida Amazonia, he acknowledged that women play an important role in ecclesial ministries, and their service should “entail stability, public recognition and a commission from the bishop” (QA 103). These criteria were fulfilled by admitting them to the instituted ministries. He established this not only for the Amazonian region but for the universal Church. Francis followed through on his decision by personally celebrating the institution of Lectors and Acolytes—both men and women—at St. Peter’s Basilica each year on the Sunday of the Word of God. 

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Catechesis has existed in the Church since ancient times, and magisterial teaching since the Council has called the catechetical ministry a ministry of the Word. [8] During the Council itself pastoral bishops, especially in mission regions, petitioned for the creation of an instituted ministry of catechist, to give greater recognition to this important role. But no one acted on this until Francis did so. His apostolic letter, Antiquum ministerium, citing Dei Verbum 8, created an instituted ministry of catechist (AM 2). As a result of Francis’s decision, the role of catechist, always venerable, is now recognized in a more official way and celebrated liturgically.

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In treating the thorny question of the use of liturgical rites that pre-dated the Council, Francis also made a significant move toward deepening the reception of Vatican II concerning the Scriptures. Without delving into the entire program announced by Pope Francis in his motu proprio, Traditionis custodes (issued on July 16, 2021), it is worth noting that he states two requirements for the Word in liturgical celebrations using the older rites (sometimes called “the old Latin Mass”). The readings must be in the vernacular, and modern biblical translations must be used (TC 3.3). 

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In other words, even while conceding the possibility that some communities may use the older forms of the rites, he decreed that no Catholic community may be exempted from hearing the Word in modern languages and in modern translations. This represents a strong stand in favor of what the Council did in opening the liturgy to the vernacular, making the Word accessible, and in strengthening the Church’s commitment to modern scripture scholarship. 

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Traditionis custodes was part one of a two-part intervention by Pope Francis, designed to establish the reformed liturgy as “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite” (TC 1). It was brief, and disciplinary in focus. The second part of this intervention is found in the apostolic letter Desiderio desideravi: On the Liturgical Formation of the People of God (June 29, 2022). It was written in a more personal, expansive, and pastoral style. Desiderio desideravi is addressed not only to bishops but to the whole people of God. In the letter, Francis invited his readers to engage the Word personally, finding their own struggles, passions, and stories of grace in the texts of Scripture. [9]  In the liturgy, Francis reminded us, the faithful encounter the living Christ through his Word, as well as through the sacraments. Through the Scriptures, Christ reaches out with his healing, pardon, and peace (DD 11). As Francis explained in Aperuit illas, “The Bible cannot be just the heritage of some, much less a collection of books for the benefit of a privileged few. It belongs above all to those called to hear its message and to recognize themselves in its words” (AI 4). 

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The symbolic gestures that have accompanied Pope Francis’s public enactments of these initiatives have also been striking. The liturgical act of handing over of the gospel book to female instituted lectors at St Peter’s Basilica on the Sunday of the Word of God, for example, is as much a part of the reception of Vatican II as is his writing of the motu proprio Spiritus Domini, in which he lifted the canonical prohibition on women serving in that role. The prayerful response of the lectors and the way they treasure and share the Word that has been entrusted to them is also critical to the story of how the Council is received.

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An objection, based on a narrow reading of the Conciliar texts, might of course be raised: “But the Council never said that women should be instituted as lectors. How can Pope Francis’s decision be construed as reception of Vatican II, when it concerns something that the Council fathers never even discussed?” As we consider each of Pope Francis’s interventions, however, we find that they are strongly anchored in the Conciliar corpus as a whole, in this case the recovery of baptism as the basis for ministry. They also take into account how the bishops gathered in synod, in the decades following the Council, have understood and interpreted the teachings of Vatican II. 

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The Second Vatican Council, in effect, presents us with a living legacy that offers orientation points and direction concerning a faithful approach to issues that were not considered during its four sessions. In time, new developments have become not only possible, but necessary in order to carry forward the Council’s teaching. This more expansive view of reception is actually truer to the Council’s own methodology, which intentionally left undetermined many of the pastoral means by which its principles would be carried out. Pope Francis’s varied and multi-faceted pastoral initiatives promoting the work of the Second Vatican Council in general, and Dei Verbum in particular, exemplify this attitude toward the Council. We are far from having exhausted the legacy of Vatican II. In some ways we are only beginning to realize it. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Rita Ferrone