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Towards the congress on putting the Council into action

Massimo Tarantino

The Second Vatican Council “marked a providential event through which the Church began the preparation for the Jubilee of the second millennium...The best preparation near the end of the second millennium, however, cannot but express itself through the renewed commitment of the application of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council to the lives of each one of us and all the Church – for as much as we can be faithful to them” (TMA n. 18, 20). The tight bond between the Council and the Jubilee was first pointed out by the Holy Father in 1994, in the apostolic letter on the preparation of the Holy Year. And the vitality of the bond, as written by the Vice-president of the Theological-Pastoral Commission for the Jubilee, Bishop Rino Fisichella, is seen through the common need of “reproducing Christ and his Church in a way which does not leave our contemporaries indifferent. The invitation of the Pope to reflect on the Council will find its most solemn achievement through the international congress that will study the putting into action of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, which is scheduled on the Jubilee calendar for February 25 to 27, 2000 in the New Synod Hall. The program of study plans an introduction, on the opening day, by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray and Monsignor Crescenzio Sepe, respectively President and Secretary General of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee. That will be followed by a speech by Hermann J. Pottmeyer, scholar at the University of Bochum, on “The Second Vatican Council: from the Synod of 1985 to the Great Jubilee.” The first day will end with a series of discussions that deal with theological research, the problems of inculturation, education and priestly life, theology and spirituality and the transmission of faith. A speech on the Council Constitution, Dei Verbum, proposed by the Secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Albert Vanhoye, will open the second day of the congress, which will also have a speech by the Auxiliary Bishop of Barcelona, Monsignor Pere Tena Garriga, on the Sacrosanctum Concilium, and another series of discussion will be carried out on religious freedom, ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue, Missio ad Gentes, renewal and the continuity of the liturgy. Amongst the speakers, there will be talks by Monsignor Eleuterio Fortino, Monsignor Bruno Forte, Monsignor Marcello Bordoni, and Professor Angelo Amato. The synthesis from all the discussions will be made by Bishop Fisichella, on the last day of the Congress, Sunday February 27. It will be an especially significant day, in that a speech on Lumen Gentium, will be given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, another will be given by the rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, Monsignor Angelo Scola on Gaudium et spes and finally, to conclude the congress, John Paul II will give a speech entitled: “The Church in the third millennium, strong in the prophecy of the Second Vatican Council.” The Congress will not just be an occasion to celebrate, but a true “fact of the Church,” that will be accomplished, according to the words of Monsignor Fisichella, “to look to the future and to search and understand in which way it is possible to communicate, to that person who is following us, those treasures of grace and knowledge that have marked this, our, era.” Therefore, this will be one of the most significant events of the Jubilee year, recalling those words by the Pope in Tertio Millennio Adveniente: “The examination of conscience cannot but also examine the reception of the Council, this great gift of the Spirit to the Church at the end of the second millennium” (n. 36).