It is now over 40 years since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. Those of us who lived through its years can attest to the immediate impact it had on our lives. Changes in liturgical and sacramental practice spread through the church like wild fire.
For some it was liberating, for some aggravating and for all disorienting. We would often hear appeals to the 'spirit of the Council' as justification for the wide variety of changes we faced. Few who lived though that period would doubt the epochal significance of the Council.
Yet increasingly the significance of the changes produced by the council has been subject to debate. On one side there is the Bologna school of church history which emphasises the 'rupture' of the council. On the other side is a more official interpretation which so emphasises continuity as to rule out any possibility of discontinuity. John Paul II said in 2000 that 'to read the council as if it marked a break with the past ... is decidedly unacceptable'.
It is not difficult to see these divergent positions in operation in the Australian Church. We need only witness the recent events in the St Mary's parish in South Brisbane. While Archbishop John Bathersby calls the parish to return full communion with the archdiocese, the people of the parish proclaim that it is a 'Vatican II parish'.
At the core of that conflict lies an understanding of the significance of the Council, the changes it introduced into Church life, and the limits of those changes. Indeed it is very difficult to conceive of such a conflict arising prior to the event of the Council. The solidity of the pre-Vatican II Church bordered on immobility.
Change when it was introduced was rapid and generally poorly handled. Many of the changes went beyond those envisaged by the Council. Any reading of the document on the liturgy makes it clear that the council Fathers expected Latin to continue as a liturgical language, yet in quick time it was replaced by the vernacular.
The process of change created an expectation of further change in a range of issues: birth control, ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, women in ministry and so on. Are there limits to such change? Much energy from the Vatican since the Council has been expended in clarifying the boundaries of change, on what is acceptable and what is beyond the