By William R. Cannon, Dean of Candler School of Theology Emory University

When Bishop Fred Pierce Corson, president of the World Methodist Council, has his last audience with Pope John XXIIII, the Holy Father said to the bishop, “How much longer will there be denominations and divisions? When can we expect Christians to unite into one Holy Universal Church?” The bishop hesitated and then replied, “It has been now almost five centuries since the Protestant Reformation. We have waited this long even to begin a reapproachment. I do not know. I presume it will be another five hundred years at least before we can expect to become one again. An amazing act of Grace and Divine Love must take place. This act of union must happen in the hearts of Christian people first. Then it will be reflected in the structure of the Church.” “I presume you are right,” the pope replied, “but it is too long; bishops too lazy! It already happened to us. Spiritually you and I belong to the same Church. That act of Grace and divine love has taken place in our hearts.”

This conversation between Pope John XXIII and Bishop Fred Pierce Corson is a parable of what has happened between the first and the fourth sessions of this Council. The Conciliar Fathers and the Protestant observers have witnessed revolutionary changes. Most of these cannot be described merely by analyzing legislation and reporting on the daily happenings in the Aula of St. Peter’s Basilica. They are in the most important sense changes of heart and disposition. A feeling of kinship on a spiritual level has emerged, and there is the basic realization on the part of everyone that we are Christians, not Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian or members of any other particular communion in distinction from another communion recognizing the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior. We observers, for example, are present each morning with the Catholic fathers at Mass, and we follow the liturgy and witness what takes place at the altar with sincerity and devotion as do they. A Catholic woman stopped Bishop Corson and asked him to bless her little girl. She called him “Father.” When he explained he was Methodist, not a Roman Catholic, she still insisted on his blessing, for she recognized him as a true minister of Jesus Christ.

There has been a great a deal said in the press about a cleavage in the Council between conservative traditionalists and the liberals. To be sure, there have been honest differences of opinion, and strong expressions of conviction have marked the speeches in Aula. The Curial cardinals and bishops have been represented as adverse to any change and as insisting on doing the same old thing in the same old way forever. But it is possible to report an event as it happened and yet not to convey in that report the true picture of reality. Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani is always represented as the archconservative, an opponent really against even having a Council, and the chief conspirator in a concerted effort to block all progressive legislation. Well, it is true that Ottaviani is honestly and sincerely conservative. He is a strong man and expresses his convictions in a strong way. But having said this, we have said all that can be fairly said, for this man in his way is working as hard for the good of the Council and the health of the Church as anyone else, and this same internal transformation toward unity and brotherhood is apparent in him as in the others. His intervention on religious liberty was a masterpiece of dignified restraint in the interest of love and understanding. He said he was opposed to coercion, and he made what to me was a perfect statement: “God does not coerce. He obliges.” What the cardinal wanted to impress upon the Council was that there are dangers to the misuse of freedom. People are free to choose hell as well as heaven and the condemnations of the Gospel are as real as its promises.

Michael Cardinal Browne, the former superior general of the Dominican Order and theologian to Pope Pius the XII, always gives us a quote from Saint Thomas Aquinas when he speaks. He is reported to be one of the most learned of the Fathers. Yet a more liberal member of the Council represented him as having stopped with the thirteenth century. His presupposition is that truth alone is right and therefore good for God’s people. The Roman Catholic Church is the custodian of truth. Consequently she alone has what is good, wonderful, and spiritually healthful for all people. His approach is always theoretical, that of the classroom, not that of the world. Yet I have come to know Cardinal Browne personally. He is sweet-spirited and kind. He appreciates and admires his separated brethren, and he covets reunion, too, even though his theological plan might differ from that of others. His speeches, like those of Ottaviani are well thought out and logical and clear and worthy of close attention and respectful reflection. Ruffini, of Palermo in Sicily, belongs with the same group. He was for thirty years a teacher of Scripture in Rome. He is a fiery speaker and his utterances are replete with quotations from the ancient Fathers, especially Augustine, which is a delight to me.

The Council itself is being dominated and carried forward by its liberal and progressive leaders. At the third session they won every major decision and in every instance by an overwhelming vote. With the announcement by the pope on the first day of the Council that he intended to establish a Senate of Bishops to advise him on the government of the Church, this liberal movement will no doubt be intensified and expanded and the spread of progressive legislation accelerated. Until now, the pope’s own attitude has been ambiguous. His final allocution at the end of the last session was to many people disappointing, and his refusal to overrule the Conciliar presidents and bring religious liberty forward for a vote was to the great majority of the fathers, especially those from the United States, frustrating. Yet now everyone, including the most critical of the observers, recognizes the wisdom of the pope’s decision. He wants to carry the overwhelming majority of the Council on any major decision that is reached. He is by temperament cautious and reflective. This is what is now needed in the life of the Church and of the world. In my humble judgement, Pope Paul VI is beginning to emerge as one of the most gifted and creative of world leaders and will do immeasurable good for the Council and Christianity in the immediate as well as long range future. There is now no ambiguity whatever about his basic purpose for the Church. He is progressive as well as far-sighted, and he seems, by his cautions and careful consideration of every shade of opinion, to be carrying the most conservative Fathers along with Him. I cannot at all agree with the editorial in the New York Times, European Edition, which says that the Church has a Hamlet on her hands.

Though Paul VI does have the habits and dispositions of a scholar and is perhaps more comfortable in the presence of books than of men, he knows that ideas are worth very little unless they inspire, guide and determine the quality of action. He combines the intellect and the will. He thinks in order to do, and my feeling is that he will lead the Church into a new apostolate of service.

At the opening of the Council, his whole manner of action was to me symbolic. He chose deliberately the day in the Church’s calendar commemorating the Cross as the day for the opening of the fourth session. He carried, therefore, a wooden staff in the form of a crucifix in his hand. He refused to wear his bee hive crown. Instead, he wore the simple mitre of a bishop and walked in the company of bishops. He found the Papal litter awaiting him at the end of the ceremonies. It was placed at the left of his throne beside Bernini’s altar. In fact it was no more than ten feet from where I was sitting. I had my camera set to make a close-up picture of him as he entered the litter. But he waved it aside with humble disdain. He refused to be carried as a potentate, the Father of Kings and the Ruler of Princes. He chose rather the role of the servant, servus servorum Dei, “servant of the Servants of God.” Truly the New Testament Church which Pope John envisioned is being brought into reality by his successor, Paul VI.

The gracious kindness and cordiality which I found here last year at the third session is also apparent in the fourth. There is nothing too good for an observer. One poor Bishop whose seat is at the far end of the nave of St. Peter’s Basilica jokingly complained, when he saw that the best seats in the house were given to us, that he was going home and coming back again as a Protestant observer. Even Cardinal Cushing’s seat is twenty-five feet farther distant from the papal throne than is my seat. We observers are lavishly entertained. Yesterday we were honored at a reception given by His Eminence Augustine Cardinal Bes. Archbishop Hallinan and Bishop Tracy had me as their guest at dinner earlier in the week, and on Tuesday I am invited to tea with Cardinal Suenens of Brussels at the Belgian College.

What is happening at the Council must be carried back home to our people. Fellowship in love, as the pope has said, must characterize all Christian people. There is, therefore, the obligation of trying to live to the last phase of the Council, to put into practice at home its spirit as well as its recommendations. We must says the Holy Father, “endeavor earnestly to bring it about that the action of the Holy Spirit may unite with others, pervade, illumine, strengthen and sanctify it,” remembering St. Augustine’s admonition, “Nothing good is perfectly known without being perfectly loved.”