Diekmann says hold fast to hope - Vatican II figure Godfrey Diekmann

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 26, 1999 by Patrick Marrin

There were setbacks as well. The one Diekmann regards as doing the most damage to the intended impact of the council was the misapplied emphasis given to the phrase "the people of God" in the aftermath of the council.

An Old Testament designation, the phrase was used as the title of Chapter Two of the "Constitution on the Church," and there only to indicate that the whole church is more important than any one part, including the pope or the bishops. Unfortunately, it was later received widely as the operative image for the church, supplanting the body of Christ.

This led to de-emphasis of the most important message flowing from the council. The bold assertion of divine life through baptism, real incorporation into God's own nature, was conveyed as only a special closeness to God within the fellowship of the church. What the council had powerfully proclaimed it failed to effectively teach.

Liturgical buzzword

The idea of fellowship, or koinonia, became the buzzword of many liturgical reformers eager to replace the formal, vertical, divine worship in the old liturgy with the new, theologically horizontal and less formal celebration of a meal with the human Jesus in community. The result was a false evaluation of the transcendent and immanent dimensions of the liturgy. The former emphasis on transcendence became a one-sided stress on immanence -- we become pals with God. Both dimensions are essential. This misunderstanding created divisions within the reform effort and became a source of untold confusion and criticism in the wake of the council, and this has continued to distract and delay implementation of its deeper purposes.

For now, Diekmann is less interested in arguing than in appealing for an openness to the life that is meant to flow freely through the church to each member of the body of Christ. Any structure that blocks that life limits ministry within the church and blocks the urgent mission of the church to proclaim the gospel to the whole world.

As Diekmann anticipates his own face-to-face encounter with God, he has seized every opportunity to alert others to his concern that the gospel of divine life is not reaching the church or the larger world clearly and fully.

When Cardinal Joseph Bernardin attended graduation ceremonies at St. John's University in June of 1996, just months before his death, he asked to see Godfrey Diekmann.

"Before Mass he called for me. He said, `You know I'm sick and I'm not sure I can finish with the Mass. I don't want to just make conversation, but I asked for you so you could tell me what is closest to your heart.' And for 35 minutes I talked about being sons and daughters of God, how that is the essence of Christianity, how that is the glad tidings. He took all of that it in, he listened. Then he said, `You are perfectly correct that we haven't done enough to make that clear.'"

In recent interviews and letters to his many friends, Diekmann's long story of the miracle of the council is being distilled to a kind of mantra he seems intent on proclaiming until the time silence, claims him: