In this book, Shaun Blanchard argues that the roots of the Vatican II reforms must be pushed back beyond the widely acknowledged twentieth-century forerunners of the Council, beyond Newman and the Tübingen School in the nineteenth century, to the eighteenth century, when a variety of reform movements attempted ressourcement and aggiornamento. This close study of the Synod of Pistoia (1786) sheds surprising new light on the nature of church reform and the roots of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The high-water mark of the late Jansenist reform movement, this Tuscan diocesan synod was harshly condemned by Pope Pius VI in the Bull Auctorem fidei (1794), and in the increasingly ultramontane nineteenth-century Church the late Jansenist movement was totally discredited. Nevertheless, much of the Pistoian agenda--an exaltation of the role of the local bishop, an emphasis on infallibility as a gift to the entire believing community, religious liberty, a more comprehensible liturgy that incorporates the vernacular, and the encouragement of lay Bible reading and Christocentric devotions--would be officially promulgated at Vatican II. Investigating the theological and historical context and nature of the reforms enacted by the Synod of Pistoia, he notes their parallels with the reforms of Vatican II, and argues that these connections are deeper than mere affinity. The tumultuous events surrounding the reception of the Synod explain why these reforms failed at the time. This book also offers a measured theological judgment on whether the Synod of Pistoia was "true or false reform." Although the Pistoians were completely rejected in their own day, the Second Vatican Council struggled with, and ultimately enacted, remarkably similar ideas.

"This book sheds further light on the nature of church reform and the roots of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) through a study of eighteenth-century Catholic reformers who anticipated the Council. The most striking of these examples is the Synod of Pistoia (1786), the high-water mark of late Jansenism. Most of the reforms of the Synod were harshly condemned by Pope Pius VI in the Bull Auctorem fidei (1794), and late Jansenism was totally discredited in the ultramontane nineteenth-century Church. Nevertheless, much of the Pistoian agenda - such as an exaltation of the role of bishops, an emphasis on infallibility as a gift to the entire Church, religious liberty, a simpler and more comprehensible liturgy that incorporates the vernacular, and the encouragement of lay Bible reading and Christocentric devotions - was officially promulgated at Vatican II. The career of Bishop Scipione de'Ricci (1741-1810) and the famous Synod he convened are investigated in detail. The international reception (and rejection) of the Synod sheds light on why these reforms failed, and the criteria of Yves Congar are used to judge the Pistoian Synod as "true or false reform." This book proves that the Synod was a "ghost" present at Vatican II. The council fathers struggled with, and ultimately enacted, many of the same ideas. This study complexifies the story of the roots of the Council and Pope Benedict XVI's "hermeneutic of reform," which seeks to interpret Vatican II as in "continuity and discontinuity on different levels" with past teaching and practice. Vatican II, Second Vatican Council, ressourcement, Jansenism, Synod of Pistoia, Scipione de'Ricci, Yves Congar, Benedict XVI, development of doctrine, Catholic Enlightenment"--

This third volume of the History of Vatican II describes the period during which the Second Vatican Council began to assume its mature and distinct character. With the succession of Pope Paul VI to Pope John XXIII the Council had a new head. With the revisions of texts accomplished during the first intersession the council had a new agenda more in line with the desires of the majority that had emerged during the first period. With the appointment of four Moderators the Council had a new leadership. The ecumenical commitment of the Council became visible, not only in the discussion of a decree on ecumenism, but in the visit of Paul VI to the Holy Land. During the second intersession the work of the Council continued, the most important features of which were the beginnings of the liturgical reform, the revision of the major texts still to be considered or voted on, and a plan to reduce many other texts to simple sets of propositions that was designed to make it possible for the Council to end with the third period.