Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Key

We are now in a position to reflect on the way, if any, in which the liturgical constitution can be said to be a key to the Council. The proponents of this new theory are often imprecise in identifying the exact way in which Sacrosanctum Concilium should be seen as key to understanding the Council as a whole. In what way can it be said to be "a key"?113 No one can doubt that in terms of understanding the Council, all the documents are in some respect a key. To be a key is to be, by analogy, something that unlocks something else. In this sense, Sacrosanctum Concilium is a key, since understanding it helps one to understand the Council better. But, of course, this is true of all sixteen documents of the Council in varying degrees. While Sacrosanctum Concilium cannot be said to be the key to the Council theologically, there are four important ways that Sacrosanctum Concilium can be said to be a key to both the Council and the reform of the Church. To this extent, the proponents of the new theory have quite correctly sensed the greatness of the liturgical constitution.

First, Sacrosanctum Concilium is a key to the Council insofar as it is a constitution. The Council chose wisely and purposely to make it a constitution to deal with "the renewal and fostering of the liturgy." This choice was natural, since constitutions are reserved for only the most important disciplinary acts of the Church, and there are few acts in the life of the Church that are as important as the renewal of the liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium is, then, a crucial key in understanding the decrees and declarations of the Council. This was a point affirmed in 1985, on the twentieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, by the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which proposed six norms for the interpretation of the Council.114 Among these norms were the propositions that each Council document must be interpreted in the context of all the other Council documents,115 with the four constitutions as "the interpretative key" to the other twelve documents.116

113 13 Faggioli, True Reform, 19. 114 For the 1985 Synod of Bishops, see Xavier Rynne, John Paul's Extraordinary Synod: A Collegial Achievement (Wilmington, DE: M. Glazier, 1986); Giuseppe Alberigo, James H. Provost, and Marcus Lefébure, Synod 1985, An Evaluation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986); Peter Hebblethwaite, Synod Extraordinary: The Inside Story of the Rome Synod, November-December 1985 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986); and Johannes Baptist Metz, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Philip Hillyer, World Catechism or Inculturation? (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989). 115 "The Final Report: Synod of Bishops," Origins 15 (Dec. 19, 1985): 445; Avery Dulles, "Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality," America 188, no. 6 (February 24, 2003): 7-11. 116 Avery Dulles, "Vatican II: the Myth and the Reality," 9.

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The Second Vatican Council and the Theological Authority of Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Constitution

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