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Le Concile Vatican II et le monde des religieux

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Christian Sorrel

L’événement conciliaire. Préparations et réalisations

Redemptorists and Vatican II: Two American Contributions

Patrick J. Hayes

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  • 1 For additional influences on and by Vatican II, particularly in the field of moral theology, see fo (...)

1During the Second Vatican Council, nearly two dozen Redemptorist bishops attended various sessions. Fourteen lived at the Redemptorist Generalate, Casa S. Alfonso, on the Via Merulana, together with a number of other visiting prelates, including Cardinal Joseph Ritter of St. Louis in Missouri. The impact of the Redemptorist bishops on the proceedings, while not negligible, hardly registers today. Redemptorist periti, by contrast, carried substantially more weight. Two relatively unknown Americans, Fathers Francis Connell and William Coyle, joined their more prominent German confrere, Bernard Häring, and fellow American Francis X. Murphy (Xavier Rynne) in the shaping of the American public’s discourse on and reception of Vatican II1. In this paper, I am going to examine the legacy developed by these men for the Catholic Church in the United States. Their work before, during, and after the Council shaped the internal dialogue that Redemptorists had among themselves and influenced the wider ecclesial debates in the United States. One can see their impact in the discussions resulting from the Redemptorists’ General Chapter of 1967, but also on questions of Church authority and theological dissent, the nature of marriage, the role of conscience, the future education of priests, pastoral implications of divorce and remarriage, and the Church’s relation to the modern state.

Francis Jeremiah Connell

  • 2 For what follows, see « RP Francis J. Connell’s Obituary », Redemptorist Chronicle, November 1967, (...)

2We may begin with the elder statesman. Father Francis Jeremiah Connell was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 31 January 18882. He professed as a Redemptorist on 15 October 1908 and was ordained on 26 June 1913. He was repeatedly praised as a brilliant student and was sent to study for the doctorate in sacred theology at the Angelicum, from which he matriculated (summa cum laude) in 1923. He returned to the Redemptorist seminary at Mt. St. Alphonsus in Esopus, New York, and taught dogmatics until 1940, when he was released to teach moral theology at the Catholic University of America. In 1946, he was elected the first president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, of which he was a co-founder. He became the Dean of the School of Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America in 1949 and remained in that position until he retired in 1958, whereupon he took up the position of dean for religious communities. He wrote several books during this time, mostly on moral questions. He also was a regular author in publications such as The American Ecclesiastical Review (a 1958 issue is dedicated entirely to him), the Boston Pilot, and the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1956, he was appointed consultor to the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities. Connell died on 12 May 1967 and was buried from the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. He is interred at the Redemptorist Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.

  • 3 There is a curious discrepancy between O’Boyle’s biographer and the findings of Joseph Komonchak. W (...)

3Connell’s work on the Council began, first, in response to the letter of Cardinal Domenico Tardini of 18 June 1959. Tardini requested input from the world’s diocesan bishops on the formulation of a conciliar agenda. Connell supplied Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington with eleven proposals for discussion on questions of faith and ten more on morals, some of which the prelate accepted and sent in to the Secretariate of State3. Listed in Connell’s memorandum were, among others, the historical value of Sacred Scripture, particularly the New Testament; the constitution of and membership in the Mystical Body of Christ; the significance of the doctrine Extra ecclesiam nulla est salus (outside the Church no one is saved); the mediation of divine grace by the Blessed Virgin Mary; the relation of the Church to the State, as well as doctrinal questions related to the papal magisterium. Among Connell’s suggestions for moral subjects, one could find a call for defining the requisite elements of a just war; just wages; matrimonial ends; the use of rhythm in marriage; the obligations of parents in teaching their children; and the role of international authorities in relations between states.

  • 4 Komonchak notes that Connell’s recommendations did little to influence the ultimate vota submitted (...)
  • 5 Étienne Fouilloux, « The Antepreparatory Phase: The Slow Emergence from Inertia (January 1959-Octob (...)

4In the aftermath of Tardini’s letter of 18 July to heads of seminaries and pontifical faculties, Connell submitted several more topics for discussion to the faculty at the Catholic University of America, to which he was still connected as an emeritus professor4. His five theses for discussion at the Council were on the relation of Church and State; on the historical value of the New Testament; on the ordinary magisterium of the pope; on the evil of contraception; and equality of all persons. The university’s votum was one of 51 higher education institutions that sent agenda items5.

  • 6 John XXIII, motu proprio Superno Dei Nutu, AAS, LII (27 June 1960), p. 433-437.
  • 7 James I. Tucek, « Pope Embarks on Final Preparations for Council; commissions are created », NCWC N (...)

5In early June 1960, Pope John established ten commissions and a central coordinating commission « to devote themselves to the study of matters which it will be possible to have discussed at the Council6 ». Among these was the powerful theological commission, headed by the prefect of the Holy Office, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani. Connell was enlisted as a consultor for this commission, which was charged with synthesizing questions and directing debate on matters « touching Holy Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the Faith and its practices7 ». His own activities and input were apparently minimal. There is no data on his participation in his personal papers. Connell was also enlisted by his Redemptorist confrere, Bishop James McManus of Ponce in Puerto Rico, to be his conciliar peritus.

  • 8 See the undated letter of Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton to Father Connell, in RABP, Connell Pape (...)
  • 9 The remark is made by Connell in a letter to Bishop John Wright of Pittsburgh, in which he praises (...)

6Connell left for Naples aboard the Leonardo Da Vinci ocean liner on 22 September 1962, and departed for New York on 13 December 1962. While on board the first leg of the trip he gave seminars to 52 bishops, prelates, and priests en route to the Council8. Connell’s principal work at the Council was to serve as an expert on the press panel which gathered together reporters at the conclusion of each day’s session in St. Peter’s at the office of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Rome. He worked alongside ten other American priests who met daily in the USO Club, Via Conciliazione. Among them were the Paulist editor of The Catholic World, Father John Sheerin, newly minted professor of Church History, Robert Trisco, Holy Cross Father Edward Heston (a member of the preparatory commission on religious), and Fathers Fred McManus (a member of the preparatory commission on sacred liturgy) and William Keeler, the future Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore. Though some of these men rotated off the press panel from session to session, or others were brought in as special guests, Connell was a member for all four sessions of the Council and promised to do so « if it kills me9 ».

  • 10 Connell to Siri, 8 April 1964, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council (text of the letter is i (...)

7During the periods between conciliar sessions, Connell also worked on three committees of American periti and theologians established by the United States bishops. His assignments were to the committee on faith and morals, the committee on sacraments, and the committee on religious liberty. Through it all, Connell maintained a consistently conservative outlook, urging traditional positions on mixed marriage, contraception, and the authority of the pope to whatever audience he spoke. He often lobbied for his views among powerful cardinals. He wrote to Cardinal Joseph Siri, for instance, asking him to urge the pope to make some pronouncement on the problem of freedom of conscience, where one is not free to make subjective decisions that are objectively erroneous10. This was a central problem in the birth control debate and was particularly vexing to Connell who believed that action was needed in the face of liberal recommendations. He was open about this to John Ford, sj, a fellow moral theologian:

  • 11 Connell to Ford, 1 November 1964 in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council.

You have probably learned from the papers the events of the Council in recent days. The impression has been given – and I fear with reason – that some are pushing for a radical change in the Church’s stand on birth-control. That was apparently implicit in the speeches of Suenens, Leger, and Maximos. They are calling for a “reexamination” of the theology of marriage and its ends, while maintaining that the traditional doctrine must be maintained. Double-talk, I call it. […] I have spoken to Archbishop Heenan. He told me yesterday that two English bishops, Holland and Pearson, will speak on Wednesday, by a rule that under certain conditions topics can be discussed [only] after the debate has been closed. I feel that these two will speak along the right way. But the [others?] have the greater influence. We are hoping that the Pope will soon speak. The opinion that birth control is permissible – any form, not merely the pill – is now being followed by confessors in the USA. So, that is the situation. I am confident that God will preserve the Church from teaching error, even though in the meantime souls are suffering. I respect the Pope’s conscience, but I pray that will soon speak firmly. I know you will do your part intelligently and loyally11.

  • 12 Connell gave talks to bishops periodically on a variety of subjects, including on Church-State affa (...)
  • 13 McCarty to Connell, 12 January 1965, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council. McCarty mentions (...)

8On the religious liberty question, Connell supplied several bishops at the Council with his rationale for his opposition to any principle that would undermine the duties of Catholic States to promote Catholicism as the one, true Church12. He breathed a sigh of relief when the text on religious liberty was postponed for further study during the so-called « Black Week » in November 1964. His Redemptorist confrere Bishop William McCarty wrote Connell in January 1965 requesting his opinion on the adoption of the second version of De Libertate Religiosa instead of the third version – a suggestion made by both Cardinals Ritter and Meyer13. Connell was often caricatured as a kindly, old man, which of course he was. John Cogley, writing in the pages of America, recalled a passing insight during those days:

  • 14 John Cogley, « Roman Diary », America, 26 September 1964, p. 350.

So many Americans in the city for the Council.… The daily press briefing is where the Americans meet each other… Fr. Connell, the venerable Redemptorist, ever a dependable spokesman for the conservative minority, belies the ferocious rigidity of his writings. He is a very gentle, very priestly priest, utterly without side, and wholly winning. One non-Catholic critic of the Church said the other day, privately: “I was ready to detest that man above all others, but I like him best of all. How do you figure that out?” Not hard to figure out, of course – but an interesting reaction14.

Thomas William Coyle

  • 15 For what follows I rely on the Rev. T. William Coyle, c.cs.r. Papers, Redemptorist Archives of the (...)

9Thomas William Coyle was born in Oklahoma in 1918 and professed as a Redemptorist in 193915. He was ordained in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, at Immaculate Conception Seminary on 22 June 1944 and sent for graduate study in theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, where he earned a licentiate. He returned to Oconomowoc, where he taught dogmatic theology for the next seventeen years and was the seminary’s academic dean from 1956 to 1964. Long active in the seminary section of the National Catholic Educational Association, in 1960, he became president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, a sign of his prominence in the field of theology. He remained on its board of directors from 1961 to 1964.

10During the years of the Second Vatican Council, he was the theological expert for his classmate, Bishop Thomas Murphy of Juaziero, Bahia, Brazil. Between 1963 and 1965, he was a theological advisor on conciliar matters for Cardinal John Cody of Chicago and during the fourth session, he was a consultor to Bishop Robert Anglim, cssr, of Coari, Brazil, another member of the old St. Louis Province. Relative to other periti and the other bishops they served, Coyle’s own contributions to the Council were minor, though he earned a reputation as a skilled translator among his Redemptorist confreres in the Generalate. This made him invaluable for the group of Redemptorists assigned to revise the Congregation’s statutes and rule – a project that kept him in Rome between September 1964 and August 1966. He was a member of the so-called « commission of Eight » who helped formulate a contemporary rule that attempted to remain faithful to the charisms and spirituality of the Redemptorists’ founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori.

  • 16 See, for instance, Maryanne Confoy, Religious Life and Priesthood, New York, Paulist Press, 2008; J (...)

11What Coyle contributed to the Second Vatican Council came in the form of precise memoranda. Insofar as his expertise lay in formation and religious life, he was especially useful on texts pertaining to priesthood, seminaries, and the renewal of religious life16. He was critical of the schema of 23 April 1963, De Sacrorum Alumnis Formandis, which he felt was overly general and said nothing radically new. While praising some features of this text, such as the stress laid on the selection of administrators and spiritual directors, he saw the statements on minor seminaries as altogether wanting. He warned that the text as written would not appeal to seminary administrators in the United States and other contexts which had adopted a 4-4-4 curriculum (four years each of high school, college, and seminary).

  • 17 Coyle to « Reverend and dear Father », 13 March 1964, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 5: Vatican II Docu (...)
  • 18 For the developments leading up to and away from De Institutione Sacerdotali, see Josef Neuner, « D (...)
  • 19 The tipping point came with an intervention, written by Coyle, of Cardinal Meyer of Chicago.

12Like Connell, at the end of the first session, Coyle joined three committees of periti and theologians assigned by the United States bishops to help them in their deliberations. His committee assignments were to faith and morals, religious, seminaries, and missions. After the conclusion of the second session of the Council, Coyle was placed in charge of the American bishops’ committee on faith and morals. In March 1964, Coyle began assembling suggestions from fourteen experts to « prepare reports on the various schemata and the theological problems involved, and possibly to prepare background studies on some of these problems17 ». Perhaps the most notable of these was his commentary for the American bishops on the proposed schema De Institutione Sacerdotali which emerged in March 1964 and was sent to all the Council Fathers later in May. It was finally taken up for debate at the Council on October 13, 196418. De Institutione Sacerdotali had the benefit of providing general norms and wisely leaving to individual episcopal conferences the determination of specific curricula which would reflect local pastoral needs. Coyle’s text was key to getting the bishops to rally around the idea of episcopal conferences setting the educational requirements for seminarians in their respective dioceses and eliminating the more general language that considered secular and religious seminarians under the same umbrella. According to Josef Neuner, « this is why the final version of the text states only that the training of all candidates for the priesthood, for the diocesan clergy, the orders and the different rites requires renewal19 ».

  • 20 See Coyle to « Friends, Benefactors, and Superiors », 3 November 1963, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 1 (...)

13In one of his letters to his provincial, Father Ray Schmidt, Coyle relayed that he had joined other periti (Barnabas Ahern, Eugene Maly, and Godfrey Diekmann) on a panel at the North American College to address the American hierarchy on the schema on the Blessed Virgin Mary. The importance of this was not only the topic, which itself was divisive, but that the bishops had voted unanimously that all American periti and theologians would be part of their deliberations. Few other episcopal conferences were so collaborative with its theological advisors. The panel recommended inserting the Marian schema into the schema on the Church, and not to make it a single, separate document as originally proposed. On 29 October 1963, the Council Secretary, Archbishop Pericle Felici, announced that the Council would vote on this. A margin of only 40 votes favoring inclusion was all that separated Mary’s mention at Vatican II. Ultimately, the Council approved a highly revised Marian text and today it stands as the concluding chapter of Lumen Gentium20.

  • 21 Practically simultaneous with this appointment, Coyle was also asked to head of the seminary depart (...)
  • 22 See National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Program of Priestly Formation, Washington, D.C., N (...)

14Coyle’s post-conciliar activities and his importance for carrying conciliar teaching into practice occur mainly in the years preceding 1977. In the spring of 1966, he was called to become the inaugural director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, a new agency established by the American bishops to implement the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatam totius. He therefore had oversight over all national groups and movements interested in vocations, seminary education, and post-ordination continuing education of priests. Working alongside Father James Hickey, the future Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, he ran the office for the next three years from Chicago, where both men resided and formed a friendship that lasted until Coyle’s death21. Ultimately, Coyle produced two path-breaking documents – the first editions of the Program of Priestly Formation and the Program of Continuing Education of Priests. These set out, for the first time, national standards for seminary instruction and the formation of priests over the course of their lives in ministry22.

  • 23 Giovanni Caprile (ed.), Il sinodo dei vescovi 1971. Seconda assemblea generale (30 settembre – 6 no (...)
  • 24 The resulting document was published in an English translation as Synod of Bishops, « The Ministeri (...)

15Coyle’s second major influence on the post-Vatican II Church in the United States occurred while he resided at Holy Redeemer College in Washington, DC, from September 1969 to July 1972. It was during this period that he served as a peritus for the American delegation to the World Synod of Bishops in 197123. He joined Father Carl Peter, a professor of theology at the Catholic University of America. As this Synod focused on priestly ministry and social justice, Coyle’s expertise was invaluable24. Prior to the Synod, Coyle was armed with a lengthy memorandum from the American bishops’ subcommittee on the theology of the priesthood, which had been formulated by a team of theologians that included the Jesuits Walter Burghardt, Avery Dulles, Michael Fahey, and Ladislas Orsy. The document sought to provide the American delegation to the Synod with a comprehensive overview of some of the more pressing theological concerns on the nature of priestly ministry. Unfortunately, it was a gatherum omnium and included topics as divergent as women’s ordination and the selection of bishops. The American bishops relied on Coyle to be the memorandum’s chief interpreter and so leaned on his expertise throughout the proceedings. We know Coyle’s mind on many of the issues raised during the Synod from the diary and other documents he kept. He was well aware of that there was a

  • 25 Coyle to Schmidt, October 3, 1971, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 9: Personal Correspondence.

great difference between a Synod and a Council. A Council prepares a statement of doctrine or practice. A Synod does not try to prepare any statement; the schema is not going to be re-written and reworked like the schemas during the Council, but it serves only as a basis laboris; ultimately some proposals or recommendations might be drafted and submitted to the Pope for him to do with as he pleases. But the basic function is to come to a better understanding of the situation as it affects the Church, to see the disparate views and practices and the reasons behind them, and to work collegially toward some few practical steps. The press certainly does not understand the difference, the priest pressure groups here do not, and many of the delegates do not25.

  • 26 See RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 6: Synod 1971 Diary.
  • 27 See RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 6: « The Rights of women, especially in the Church ».

16Coyle lived with all the American bishops at the Villa Stritch, where he helped them craft responses to media questions about the possible ordination of women, clerical celibacy, and the Synod itself. He occasionally drafted their interventions as well, including an important speech for Archbishop Leo Byrne of Minneapolis26. The Byrne speech focused on the rights of women, including equal pay for equal work, an end to sexual exploitation, and eradication of sexism within the Church. Building on the text of Gaudium et Spes 60, the prelate stated that « women are not to be excluded from any service in the Church, if the exclusion stems from questionable interpretation of scripture, male prejudice, or blind adherence to merely human traditions that may have been rooted in the social position of women in other times27 ».

17One final element of Coyle’s post-Vatican II career is notable for the Council’s implementation. From 1 October 1975 to 15 November 1976, Coyle was the interim executive director of the office of the Bishops’ Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices. He worked with the Committee chairman, his friend and now Bishop James Hickey of Cleveland, Ohio. Together the two tackled one primary issue: the pastoral care of divorced and remarried Catholics who sought sacramental reception. Coyle’s later career included a pastorate at the Redemptorist parish of St. Alphonsus in Chicago, serving there from 1972 to 1975, and rectorships in Witchita, Kansas and Fargo, North Dakota, where he was simultaneously Chancellor of the Fargo Diocese. The remaining years of Coyle’s ministry were spent in semi-retirement. He died on 26 January 2000 and is buried in Liguori, Missouri. Cardinal James Hickey of Washington, his long-time friend, officiated at his funeral.

  • 28 For more on the influence of these men, particularly in relation to the Second Vatican Council, see (...)

18In this essay, I have sought to introduce two of the lesser known Redemptorists who had a hand in the events at the Council and in its aftermath. They joined other Redemptorists based in Rome in creating something vital and far-reaching – most notably Fathers Bernard Häring, Francis X. Murphy, Jan Visser, Domenico Capone, and Joseph Owens28. I have only just skimmed the surface of their collective and positive influence.

Notes

1 For additional influences on and by Vatican II, particularly in the field of moral theology, see for example, Luigi Lorenzetti, « Il Concilio Vaticano II: Svolta per la teologia morale », Studia Moralia, 51/2, 2013, p. 403-419.

2 For what follows, see « RP Francis J. Connell’s Obituary », Redemptorist Chronicle, November 1967, p. 30-32 and, generally, the Francis J. Connell Papers in Redemptorist Archives of the Baltimore Province, Brooklyn, New York (RABP).

3 There is a curious discrepancy between O’Boyle’s biographer and the findings of Joseph Komonchak. Whereas Morris MacGregor notes that « with advice from his subordinates but drafted by himself, his list addressed five topics pertaining to interpretation of matters of faith and four referring to Christian morals ». See Maurice Macgregor, Steadfast in Faith: The Life of Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle, Washington, D.C., Catholic University of American Press, 2006. Compare this biography to Joseph Komonchak, « U.S. Bishops’ Suggestions for Vatican II », Cristianismo nella Storia, 15, 1994, p. 318-319. Komonchak consulted the Connell papers, which contain the propositions for the Archbishop of Washington.

4 Komonchak notes that Connell’s recommendations did little to influence the ultimate vota submitted by the Rector of Catholic University, William McDonald, in May 1962. The text may be found in Acta et Documenta Concilio Vaticano II. Apparando, series I (Ante-praeparatoria), Vatican City, 1960-1961, IV/2, p. 617-631.

5 Étienne Fouilloux, « The Antepreparatory Phase: The Slow Emergence from Inertia (January 1959-October 1962) », in Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak (eds.), History of Vatican II, v. 1, Maryknoll, Orbis-Leuven, Peeters, 1995, p. 98.

6 John XXIII, motu proprio Superno Dei Nutu, AAS, LII (27 June 1960), p. 433-437.

7 James I. Tucek, « Pope Embarks on Final Preparations for Council; commissions are created », NCWC News Service release, June 6, 1960, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council. Connell is not listed among the consultors in Giovanni Caprile, Il Concilio Vaticano II, vol. 1/1, Rome, Edizioni La Civilità Cattolica, 1966.

8 See the undated letter of Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton to Father Connell, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council, II, citing a report quoting Archbishop Shehan of Baltimore.

9 The remark is made by Connell in a letter to Bishop John Wright of Pittsburgh, in which he praises the bishop for requesting more conservative theologians for the press panel. The letter is undated, though likely it was written in April or May 1964. It may be found in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council. The reply of Wright is dated May 21.

10 Connell to Siri, 8 April 1964, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council (text of the letter is in Latin).

11 Connell to Ford, 1 November 1964 in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council.

12 Connell gave talks to bishops periodically on a variety of subjects, including on Church-State affairs. See the letter of appreciation from Bishop William Connare of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to Connell, 17 September 1964, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council.

13 McCarty to Connell, 12 January 1965, in RABP, Connell Papers, Ecumenical Council. McCarty mentions the requests of the two American cardinals to have McCarty ask the Secretariat of the Council to adopt the second version. Included in the third version was a definite omission of the paragraph asserting that there was only one true religion. Connell opposed such an omission. Nevertheless, Connell begged McCarty not to approve a change back to the second version since it would serve to « revive heated controversy and perhaps be thrown out ». Connell to McCarty, 16 January 1965, RABP, Connell papers, Ecumenical Council.

14 John Cogley, « Roman Diary », America, 26 September 1964, p. 350.

15 For what follows I rely on the Rev. T. William Coyle, c.cs.r. Papers, Redemptorist Archives of the Denver Province.

16 See, for instance, Maryanne Confoy, Religious Life and Priesthood, New York, Paulist Press, 2008; Jean Frisque, Prêtres, Paris, Cerf, 1968; Francisco Gil Hellín, Decretum de presbyterorum ministerio et vita Presbyterorum Ordinis, Vatican City, LEV, 1996; René Wasselynck, Les prêtres. Élaboration du décret de Vatican II, Paris, Desclée, 1968.

17 Coyle to « Reverend and dear Father », 13 March 1964, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 5: Vatican II Documents. In reply, Coyle’s confrere Francis Connell suggested that one topic that needed clarification was freedom of conscience. Connell to Coyle, 24 March 1964, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 5: Vatican II Documents.

18 For the developments leading up to and away from De Institutione Sacerdotali, see Josef Neuner, « Decree on Priestly Formation », in Herbert Vorgrimler (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, New York, Herder and Herder, II, 1968, p. 371-404; Joseph Lécuyer, « Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests », ibid., IV, p. 183-209; Mario Caprioli, Il Decreto Conciliare Presbyterium Ordinis. Storia, analisi, dottrina, Roma, Teresianum, 1989-1990.

19 The tipping point came with an intervention, written by Coyle, of Cardinal Meyer of Chicago.

20 See Coyle to « Friends, Benefactors, and Superiors », 3 November 1963, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 19: Second Vatican Council. The letter indicates that after the close vote, Archbishop O’Boyle of Washington approached Coyle and said, « “Congratulations, Bill, you won the election.” I am still not sure of where he was on the vote, and whether he meant that I had won it but the BVM had lost it ». See also Coyle’s « American Influence on the BVM Schema », a report presented to the Mariological Society of America and later published in Marian Studies, 37, 1986, p. 266-269.

21 Practically simultaneous with this appointment, Coyle was also asked to head of the seminary department of the National Catholic Educational Association. Upon the death of executive secretary, Monsignor Frederick Hochwalt, Coyle took over Hochwalt’s managerial role. See « R.P. William Coyle », Analecta C.Ss.R., XXVIII/3, 1966. See also the request of Bishop Ernest Primeau to Very Rev. Raymond Schmidt, Provincial, 7 March 1966, with reply of Schmidt on 11 March 1966, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Deceased File, asking that Coyle serve as executive secretary.

22 See National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Program of Priestly Formation, Washington, D.C., NCCB, 1971 and Norms for Priestly Formation, Washington, D.C., NCCB, 1971.

23 Giovanni Caprile (ed.), Il sinodo dei vescovi 1971. Seconda assemblea generale (30 settembre – 6 novembre 1971), Roma, Edizioni La Civiltà Cattolica, 1974.

24 The resulting document was published in an English translation as Synod of Bishops, « The Ministerial Priesthood and Justice and Peace in the World, Rome, 1971 », Washington, D.C., National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1971.

25 Coyle to Schmidt, October 3, 1971, in RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 9: Personal Correspondence.

26 See RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 6: Synod 1971 Diary.

27 See RADP, Coyle Papers, Box 6: « The Rights of women, especially in the Church ».

28 For more on the influence of these men, particularly in relation to the Second Vatican Council, see for example D. Billy, T. Kennedy (eds.), Some Philosophical Issues in Moral Matters: The Collected Ethical Writings of Joseph Owens, Rome, Academia Alfonsiana, 1996; H. Boelaars, R. Tremblay (eds.), In Libertatem Vocati Estis. Miscellanea Bernhard Häring, Roma, Academia Alfonsiana, 1977; Wendell Dietrich, « Gaudium et Spes and Häring’s Personalism », Oecumenica. An Annual Symposium of Ecumenical Research, 1968, p. 274-283; Patrick Hayes, « “Bless me Father, For I have Rynned”: The Vatican II Journalism of Father Francis X. Murphy, cssr », U.S. Catholic Historian, 30/2, 2012, p. 55-75 and « The Francis Xavier Murphy (1914-2002) Collection of the Baltimore Province Archives: A Bibliography », Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris, 61/2, 2013, p. 425-462; Terence Kennedy, « Bernard Häring and Domenico Capone’s Contribution to Vatican II », Studia Moralia, 51/2, 2013, p. 419-442; M. Nalepa, T. Kennedy (eds.), La coscienza morale oggi. Ommagio al Prof. Domenico Capone, Rome, Academia Alfonsiana, 1987.

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