Church Councils: 100 Questions and Answers

By Paul Senz

From the days of the apostles, the Church's pastors and teachers have met, when necessary, to defend and explain the Catholic faith. From the "Council of Jerusalem" in the Acts of the Apostles, through the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Trent, and Vatican II, these meetings of the world's bishops are some of the most important events in the life of the Church and the most profound expressions of the Church's teaching authority.

More than a history of the twenty-one ecumenical councils, this question-and-answer book provides a practical and theological explanation of them. It provides the historical context that led to each council, the reasons it was convened, the major events that happened during the council, and the impact of its teachings, then and now.

While surveying some of the most important issues and controversies in the history of the Church, the author also explains and defends the teaching authority of the bishops as successors to the apostles, particularly when teaching together as a single, united body, in union with the pope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781642292534

Book preview

Church Councils

100 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

PAUL SENZ

Church Councils

100 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

IGNATIUS PRESS     SAN FRANCISCO

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition) copyright © National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved worldwide.

Unless otherwise noted, the English translations of papal documents have been taken from the Vatican website.

Cover photo:

Between sessions at the Second Vatican Council

© Giancarlo Giuliani/Catholicpressphoto

Cover design by Enrique J. Aguilar

©2023 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-62164-511-5 (PB)

ISBN 978-1-64229-253-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number 2022946630

Printed in the United States of America

To Dr. Michael Cameron, Fr. Charles Connor, and

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who taught me to love

and cherish the history of the Catholic Church

CONTENTS

FOREWORD by Mike Aquilina

BRIEF PREFATORY NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. What is a council?

2. How often do councils happen?

3. What prompts a council to be called, then?

4. Who participates in a council?

5. What is a council father?

6. Why are only these men council fathers?

7. Are there others who participate in a council, apart from the fathers?

8. Are there different types of councils?

9. What does ecumenical mean?

10. What makes a council ecumenical?

11. How many ecumenical councils have there been?

12. What are they, and when did they take place?

13. Do all Christians agree on this?

14. How do they decide the location of a council?

15. I’ve heard of synods of bishops; how are these not a council? What’s the difference?

16. Do the councils change Church teaching?

17. What does a council look like, practically speaking? On a day to day basis, what happens?

18. Has this changed over the centuries, or did it always look like this?

19. Since bishops come from all over the world, how do they communicate at a council?

20. Who calls a council?

21. Who decides what is to be discussed at a council, and how is this decided?

22. The emperor used to convene them—when did it start being only the pope?

23. When the emperor called the council, did he get to make the final call on the council’s decisions?

24. Where do the names of councils come from?

25. Does the pope have to attend a council?

26. Can an ecumenical council err in defining a matter pertaining to faith and morals?

27. Do Protestants adhere to the councils?

28. Did the Nicene Creed come from a council?

29. Is a council just for discussions and meetings? In this day and age, can’t this all be accomplished over email or video calls? What’s the difference?

30. What is the point of a Church council?

31. Are the Orthodox bishops still invited to ecumenical councils?

32. Have non-Catholic, non-Orthodox ever participated in councils?

33. Are councils closed and confidential, like a conclave to elect the pope, or are they public events?

34. Are there councils that Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and other Christians (Copts, Anglicans, etc.) all universally accept?

35. Why do the Protestants accept only the first four or seven as ecumenical?

36. Why do the Orthodox accept only the first seven as ecumenical?

37. Apart from councils and synods, there are many other ways in which bishops gather together to teach as a group: within a state; within a region; within a country; within a continent; within a language group, etc. How is this different from a council?

38. I’ve heard of pontifical councils. Are these anything like ecumenical councils?

HISTORICAL QUESTIONS

39. What are the pre-ecumenical councils?

40. What sort of weight did/do these have?

41. Did any of these have lasting effects that come down to us today?

42. What happened at the Council of Jerusalem?

43. Why is this not considered an ecumenical council?

44. What prompted the First Council of Nicaea, and what happened?

45. Did Saint Nicholas really slap Arius at the First Council of Nicaea?

46. What prompted the First Council of Constantinople, and what happened?

47. What prompted the Council of Ephesus, and what happened?

48. What prompted the Council of Chalcedon, and what happened?

49. Do the councils always finally resolve the issues they confront?

50. What prompted the Second Council of Constantinople, and what happened?

51. What prompted the Third Council of Constantinople, and what happened?

52. What prompted the Second Council of Nicaea, and what happened?

53. What prompted the Fourth Council of Constantinople, and what happened?

54. What prompted the First Lateran Council, and what happened?

55. What prompted the Second Lateran Council, and what happened?

56. What prompted the Third Lateran Council, and what happened?

57. What prompted the Fourth Lateran Council, and what happened?

58. What prompted the First Council of Lyons, and what happened?

59. What prompted the Second Council of Lyons, and what happened?

60. What prompted the Council of Vienne, and what happened?

61. What prompted the Council of Constance, and what happened?

62. What prompted the Council of Basel/Ferrara/Florence, and what happened?

63. What prompted the Fifth Lateran Council, and what happened?

64. What prompted the Council of Trent, and what happened?

65. Why was there such a long time between the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council, with no other councils?

66. What prompted the First Vatican Council, and what happened?

67. Why was the First Vatican Council left uncompleted?

68. Are its decrees still valid, even though it ended under such strange circumstances?

69. So what exactly is papal infallibility?

70. What prompted the Second Vatican Council, and what happened?

71. What is ressourcement? What is aggiornamento?

72. What is the Spirit of Vatican II?

73. Have any councils ever been overruled, undone, or annulled?

74. Did the twenty-one ecumenical councils all get such recognition right away, or was it in retrospect they were recognized as such?

THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS

75. Can a council override a pope?

76. Can a pope override a council?

77. Do councils always produce documents?

78. Do these different types of documents have different weights of authority?

79. I’ve seen the word anathema in regard to councils, as in let him be anathema. What does anathema mean?

80. How can it be said that the pope is teaching in union with all the bishops when (a) not all validly ordained bishops attend, (b) some of them vote against certain measures, and (c) some of them explicitly teach something different?

81. Do the councils ever contradict each other?

82. Could a council ever remove a pope?

83. Since a pope is the one who calls a council, what happens if a pope dies partway through?

84. Do synods of bishops have the same infallibility as ecumenical councils?

85. Is a council infallible in its own right, or does it only get that protection when the pope signs off on its decrees? In other words, does infallibility only apply to the successor of Saint Peter, or do the successors to the apostles—teaching in unison—have the same protection, apart from the pope?

86. Were there ever any councils at which the pope was not involved?

87. Why do the bishops have special authority when teaching all together, as opposed to teaching individually on their own?

CONTROVERSIES

88. Why is Vatican II so controversial?

89. Did Vatican II change the Church’s teaching on ecumenism?

90. What are the arguments people make against Vatican II? In other words, why do some people not accept Vatican II?

91. Vatican II is often called a pastoral council, as opposed to a teaching council. Is this a fair description/distinction to make? Where does this distinction come from?

92. Did the Second Vatican Council ban the use of Latin in the Mass and the teaching of Latin in seminaries and Catholic schools?

93. If it is a pastoral council, does that mean its documents are not binding?

94. Are the decisions of a pastoral council infallible?

95. Were any of the other councils this controversial? In other words, did any of the other councils also spawn offshoot groups who claim that the Church had clearly abandoned the faith based on what a given council said?

96. What if I don’t like what a particular council says? Am I bound to follow its decrees?

97. Are there councils that others claim to be ecumenical but that the Catholic Church does not recognize?

98. Quinisext Council—why do the Orthodox accept this as part of the Third Council of Constantinople, but Catholics don’t accept it?

99. Why does the Catholic Church not accept them?

100. Can I read certain council documents with a critically obedient eye?

Notes

FOREWORD

by Mike Aquilina

I grew up at a time when there was only one council. When my religion teachers spoke of The Council, they were not talking about