1.2 The Teaching of the Council

Vatican II takes the same approach as Paul VI. For the faults committed against unity, the Council Fathers state, “we ask pardon of God and of the separated brethren, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”⁸ In addition to faults against unity, it noted other negative episodes from the past for which Christians bore some responsibility. Thus, “it deplores certain attitudes that sometimes are found among Christians” and which led people to think that faith and science are mutually opposed.⁹ Likewise, it considers the fact that in “the genesis of atheism,” Christians may have had “some responsibility” insofar as through their negligence they “conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion.”¹⁰ In addition, the Council “deplores” the persecutions and manifestations of anti-Semitism “in every time and on whoever’s part.”¹¹ The Council, nevertheless, does not add a request for pardon for the things cited.

From a theological point of view, Vatican II distinguishes between the indefectible fidelity of the Church and the weaknesses of her members, clergy or laity, yesterday and today,¹² and therefore, between the Bride of Christ “with neither blemish nor wrinkle...holy and immaculate” (cf. Eph 5:27), and her children, pardoned sinners, called to permanent metanoia, to renewal in the Holy Spirit. “The Church, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of purification and incessantly pursues the path of penance and renewal.”¹³

The Council also elaborated some criteria of discernment regarding the guilt or responsibility of persons now living for faults of the past. In effect, the Council recalled in two different contexts the non-imputability to those now living of past faults committed by members of their religious communities:

“What was committed during the passion (of Christ) cannot be imputed either indiscriminately to all Jews then living nor to the Jews of our time.”¹⁴ “Large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church – at times not without the fault of men on both sides. However, one cannot charge with the sin of separation those who now are born into these communities and who in these are instructed in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church embraces them with fraternal respect and love.”¹⁵

When the first Holy Year was celebrated after the Council, in 1975, Paul VI gave it the theme of “renewal and reconciliation,”¹⁶ making clear in the Apostolic Exhortation Paterna cum benevolentia that reconciliation should take place first of all among the faithful of the Catholic Church.¹⁷ As in its origin, the Holy Year remained an occasion for conversion and reconciliation of sinners to God by means of the sacramental economy of the Church.