Where Do We Go From Here?
Six Lessons from the History of Church Reform

Christopher M. Bellitto

For the first time since the years right after the Council of Trent in the 1560s and Vatican II in 1960s, never have so many been talking so much about reform so passionately. But church reform goes far beyond Martin Luther's 95 Theses (1517) and Vatican II (1962-1965), and involves more than structural changes. In fact, one theme endures throughout church history: as often as we fail, God offers both the individual believer and the entire institutional church the chance to reform our ways and renew our commitments. As we debate change today, what lessons can we draw from the history of church reform to light our way ahead?

LESSON ONE: Personal reform, ultimately, is the only thing that matters

As natural as it is for us to look for institutional answers in the current situation, the gospel message turns on personal reform. We can change how we train and supervise priests; we can influence how bishops are selected; we can come up with policies, procedures, review boards, and mission statements to deal with sexual crimes (real and alleged) and their aftermath. But no reforms from the top of the church down will be lasting or effective if the people of God don't embrace the metanoia at the heart of our faith.

We've been trying to reform ourselves since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden. The Old Testament prophets invite God's people to return to the covenant after they repeatedly turn away. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Acts of the Apostles call God's people to repentance and renewal, since the kingdom is at hand. Paul offers hopeful words that may resonate especially with headline-fatigued Catholics today: "Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed each day" (2 Cor 4:16).

For the first millennium of Christianity, personal reform was the only reform. After the age of the martyrs passed in the early 300s, Christianity's heroes were the men and women who retreated to monasteries to seek metanoia and the conversion of their hearts through their personal reform. The fathers urged Christians to return to the pristine imago Dei they had lost in the Garden. "It is indeed possible for us to return to the original beatitude," Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 330-395) promised in the fourth century. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) taught Christians to return through prayer, study, and service: "The more we progress in [God's] knowledge and in charity, the more similar shall we become to Him."

The lesson of personal reform was not lost in the second millennium of Christianity, when lay movements centered on personal reform as a disturbing portion of the church hierarchy grew more corrupt and distant by the decade. Even in the midst of Vatican II's wholesale structural changes, Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) stressed the primacy of personal reform: "The church will rediscover its youthful vitality not so much by changing its external legislation, as by submitting to the obedience of Christ and observing the laws which the church lays upon itself with the intention of following in Christ's footsteps. Herein lies the secret of the church's renewal, its metanoia, to use the Greek term, its practice of perfection." Personal reform, not institutional change, will make the difference.

Christopher M. Bellitto, Ph.D., Academic Editor of Paulist Press, is also a church historian and teacher. His most recent books are the companion volumes Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II (Paulist Press, 2001) and The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II (Paulist Press, 2002). He is also the author of Lost and Found Catholics: Voices of Vatican II (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1999).

This article is reprinted, in a slightly different form and with permission, from its initial publication in Catholic Library World, a publication of the Catholic Library Association, www.cathla.org., to which the author expresses his thanks.

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