Congregation of the Holy Spirit | Rome
Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council as “a new Pentecost blowing through the Church”. Throughout the four sessions of the Council, the Church looked at itself with new eyes.
Several insights meant the opening of a new missionary era:
Christian disunity is opposed to the will of Christ. At the world conference on mission at Edinburgh in 1910, the participants declared that their divisions were to the detriment “of the unity of the Church of Christ”. This meeting marked the opening of an era of ecumenism. And in its decree on missionary activity, Vatican II repeated that the division amongst Christians is a serious obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel:
Thus Vatican II put an end to a certain proselytism by the Church. For too long, in its anxiety to preserve its integrity, the Church had not sufficiently emphasized the announcing of the Kingdom of God.
In the wake of Vatican II, many things were questioned. The Congregation of the Holy Spirit also experienced considerable internal tensions and divisions.
In the wake of Vatican II, many things were questioned. The Congregation of the Holy Spirit also experienced considerable internal tensions and divisions.
A few months before the end of his mandate as Superior General of the Spiritans, Mgr. Lefebvre wrote an article entitled “A little light on the present crisis in the Church”. He denounced the “collegiality of the Magisterium” which he saw as a sign of the democratization of the Church:
“Modern ideas have been introduced into the Church under the famous slogan of “collegiality”. The whole government has to be “collegialised”: that of the Pope and the bishops with a presbyteral college, that of the parish priest with a pastoral college of lay people, the whole enveloped by commissions, councils, assemblies etc….before the authorities can proceed to giving orders or directives…This war of collegiality, supported by the communist, protestant and liberal press, will remain famous in the annals of the Council”
Having been elected Superior General in 1962, Mgr. Lefebvre did not approve of the spirit of Vatican II. But forty other Spiritan bishops asked Mgr. Lefebvre for an exchange of views because they were not happy with his attitudes and positions. Mgr. Lefebvre listened to them, then with his usual good nature, but without any dialogue, brought the meeting to a close with the following words:
“You have your way of thinking, I have mine. I would never force any of you to vote the same way as myself, even less to think the same way as I do. We all have a conscience: everyone must follow his own”.
A bishop spoke of the disappointment that they all felt: “And that was it, the end!, and always with a smile that disarmed us. He seemed to have a blockage. He seemed incapable of reviewing his ways of thinking”.
During the General Chapter of the Congregation in 1968, the capitulants came up against the same difficulties with Mgr. Lefebvre, who would not consider any form of collegial government in the Congregation. He finally resigned and opened his traditionalist seminary at Ecône in Switzerland.
He was succeeded as Superior General by Fr. Joseph Lécuyer, a well-known theologian and one of the experts who had worked for the Vatican Council. He collaborated with Fr. Yves Congar on the “Decree on the Episcopal role of bishops in the Church”.
Fr. Lécuyer worked to repair and overcome the internal divisions in the Spiritan family, and pointed towards the missionary future of the Congregation.
Fr. Lécuyer worked to repair and overcome the internal divisions in the Spiritan family, and pointed towards the missionary future of the Congregation. For him, the very essence of evangelization was the announcing of the Good News which would ripen and bear fruits in different cultures. The preaching of the Gospel should no longer be a cause of division amongst Christians.
The Chapter of 1968 committed Spiritans to live a practical ecumenism. “The starting-point in ecumenism is the practice of Christian charity towards all Christians…Dialogue will be undertaken on the common ground of the study of the Bible…Mutual co-operation in works of development could prove to be an important means of removing prejudices”.
By means of three General Chapters (1968-69, 1974, and 1980), the Congregation progressively defined its role in the mission of the Church. In the Superior General’s report to the 1980 Chapter, we read:
“The Congregation is one of the Church’s living cells. Its purpose is the preaching of the Good News of Christ to the world. It came into being for this purpose and in view of precise needs, and it is in this context that it must evaluate its life and service.”
As the final documents of the 1980 Chapter put it, a new age of mission had already begun:
“The changes that are affecting our missionary life are not passing, superficial phenomena; they reflect the changes in the world and the deepening renewal in the Church….Responsibility for evangelization is now shared with the young Churches, born of yesterday’s mission. Mission is no longer only a departure from Europe or North America for the southern hemisphere; it originates in all parts of the world.”