Open talk, frank debate at the Vatican — from way back

The archbishop minced no words in criticizing the draft document:

I must speak plainly. This document is going to dash the hopes of everyone who has been awaiting it. Its authors do not seem to realize even to whom the message should be directed. Here is an example of their way of writing: “Christians,” they say, “are ready to engage in a dialogue with all men of good will.” But surely this is a pointless thing to say.

We must protect the authority of the teaching Church. It is of no avail to talk about a college of bishops if specialists in articles, books and speeches contradict and pour scorn on what a body of bishops teaches.

No, this is not a leaked intervention from the recent Synod of Bishops on the family. It’s one of many speeches delivered during the Second Vatican Council, and which are now being published on Catholic News Service’s fascinating blog “Vatican II: 50 Years Ago Today.”

Just as at the recent synod, it’s apparent that candid and critical talk flowed freely during Vatican II, especially when it came time to revise the proposed documents. The quotes above came from a speech delivered by Archbishop John C. Heenan of Westminster, England, on the schema of the Church in the modern world.

At one point, Archbishop Heenan zeroed in on an issue that was making waves throughout the Catholic world:

Everyone knows that doctors all over the world are busily trying to produce a satisfactory contraceptive pill. This special kind of pill is to be a panacea to solve all sexual problems between husbands and wives. Neither the treatise itself nor the supplements hesitate to prophesy that such a pill is just around the corner.

Meanwhile, it is said, married couples and they alone must decide what is right and wrong. Everyone must be his own judge. But, the document adds, the couple must act according to the teaching of the Church. But this is precisely what married people want to be told — what is now the teaching of the Church? To this question our document gives no reply. For that very reason it could provide an argument from our silence to theologians after the council who wish to attack sound doctrine.

Heenan was among a group of conservative council fathers who worried that the church’s “opening to the world” was making too many doctrinal concessions. Today, that same debate continues…