A Proposal
The first half of George Weigel’s fine book about the legacy of Vatican II is in fact about the time preceding the Council. This is helpful, enabling us to understand conciliar accomplishments within an ongoing history, an oriented history of salvation. Striking is his account of the sea-change wrought by Leo XIII, symbolised somehow in the pope’s funerary monument: ‘Leo, wearing the papal tiara, stands atop the marble coffin that contains his mortal remains. His right foot is thrust forward, and his right hand is raised in a gesture of invitation, as if to say to modernity, ‘We have something to talk about. We have a proposal to make.’ With Leo XIII, a new Catholic era opened: an era in which the Church would engage modernity in an effort to convert it – and perhaps, thereby, help the modern world realise some of its aspirations to freedom, justice, solidarity, and prosperity.’
Such engagement, such help are still called for.
