Commentary: ‘People of God’ was seen as the way by which the Church could express herself as an institution rooted in the mystery of the Trinity, yet present and active in the world.

National Catholic Register
Father Joseph Thomas 
February 26, 2024

How can we explain that the Church is an ineffable mystery, yet also a visible institution present in the world? The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council faced this challenge as they debated a text on the topic of the Church — a text that would eventually become the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium.

How can we explain that the Church is an ineffable mystery, yet also a visible institution present in the world? The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council faced this challenge as they debated a text on the topic of the Church — a text that would eventually become the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium.

The Council had inherited, from the biblical studies and Church teaching of recent decades, the rich conception of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. This notion helped convey the mysterious yet real presence of Christ in the Church. However, seeing the faithful as simply “members” of a body also made it difficult to express the distinct individuality and personality of each of those persons who form part of the Church. After all, we tend not to think of parts of a body as being autonomous. Furthermore, since a body is something definite, and Pius XII had taught that the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the notion made it difficult to express the relationship of the Church with other Christians as well as with all persons.

In an effort to better articulate the Church’s identity, the Belgian Bishop Emile-Joseph De Smedt repeated a critique he had voiced during the previous debate regarding Revelation. Speaking on the opening day of the debate regarding the text on the Church, he noted the valuable elements present in the initial draft, but said the document was flawed “in many ways.”

In the first place, as he asserted, the text presented the life of the Church as a “chain of triumphs of the militant Church.” Such a style, he continued, was hardly consistent with the “real state of the People of God,” which Our Lord in his humility had called a “little flock” (Luke 12:32). Secondly, he noted, the text fell into the error of clericalism, giving priority to the powers of the pope, bishops and priests while the rest of the Christian people, at the bottom of the “traditional” pyramid structure, were mainly passive.

The solution to such a distorted vision of the Church, de Smedt argued, was the image of the Church as the People of God. In this identity, he asserted, all of the members of the Church share a fundamental equality. Authority in the Church, he further noted, is a humble service aimed at the growth and perfection of this People. He concluded his speech with a call for the document to be sent back to a commission for revision. Once again — as for his earlier speech regarding divine Revelation — his call for a change of perspective received applause, a rare occurrence during the Council assemblies.

Over the course of the Council, ‘People of God’ would become an ever more important way of more fully expressing the identity of the Church, intended to complement the presentation of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. In the summer of 1963, in a meeting to coordinate the work of the Council, the Belgian Cardinal Leo Josef Suenens proposed that, after the introductory chapter on the ‘Mystery of the Church,’ the Council might immediately dedicate an entire chapter to the ‘People of God’ as whole. This change would mean that before speaking about specific groups of members of the Church, such as the Church’s hierarchy and the laity, the Council would first speak in more depth about the identity common to all members of the Church…

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