Vatican II : an exchange of gifts

Abstract

Vatican II was ushered in by an unusually far-sighted pope, St John XXIII, whose announcement of the Council took his own cardinals by surprise, but whose genius for affability won the world over to his plans. It was also accompanied by an unusually gifted reporter, Xavier Rynne, whose verve and insider approach made him pass on to an avid public both babe and bath with. Indeed, Rynne’s real identity, as Redemptorist Father Francis Xavier Murphy, professor at the Lateran University, was one of the best-kept secrets for years after the Council. Starting with his Letters from Vatican City, first published in the pages of The New Yorker, and then as a four-volume work to cover the Council’s four sessions, Rynne’s account is credited with having fixed on the collective imagination the idea that Vatican II was a prolonged tug of war between conservatives and liberals.1 Such sociological tags cannot, however, fully satisfy theological concerns. Here we want to go beyond such journalistic oversimplifications, and go to the heart of the matter by turning to one of Vatican II’s most profound but neglected thoughts: exchange of gifts.