John Charles McQuaid - Second Vatican Council 1962-65

Second Vatican Council 1962-65

In 2007 Columba Press published "Hold Firm: John Charles McQuaid and the Second Vatican Council" by Francis Xavier Carty. The book focuses on how the legendary archbishop handled the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and its aftermath in his own diocese.

John Charles McQuaid will always be remembered for his attempt to reassure his flock at the end of the Council that "No change will worry the tranquility of your Christian lives". How wrong he was. There was to be no more tranquility in the Dublin diocese as priests and laity struggled to implement the new liturgical changes, to allow in the winds of change unloosed by Pope John XXIII, to reach out to non-Catholics with the new-fangled ecumenism and then endure the storm raised by the condemnation of artificial contraception in the encyclical Humanae Vitae issued by Pope Paul VI in July 1968.

Dr McQuaid, whose watchwords were control and discipline, was ill-prepared for these turbulent years. Much in his traditional clerical formation rebelled against the new spirit of renewal, aggiornamento, emanating from the Council. He confided to a fellow conservative prelate, Bishop Michael Browne of Galway, that the Holy Faith nuns "will do anything to aid a parish priest. They are untouched by modern craze for aggiornamento". But Dr McQuaid was above all loyal to his Church and pope and in his own way introduced the necessary changes. They were "a new emphasis on old truths rather than new truths" he assured his priests and flock, divided between those who wanted to go faster and those who thought Vatican Two was a lot of hot air which would blow away and life would go on as before.

FX Carty tells the story of that decade, which opens with the Council and closes with the death of Dr McQuaid. His research has thrown new light on the approach of the archbishop to the challenges, especially in the communications field. A poor communicator himself, he inspired the setting up of the Radharc religious TV programme under Fr Joe Dunn and he appointed the first diocesan lay press officer, Osmond Dowling. The files of the press office describe Dowling's private purgatory as he tried to present and defend the strange world of a diocese ruled by a clerical autocrat.

Dr McQuaid's attendance at the Council sessions in Rome was dutiful but without much enthusiasm. He and his fellow bishops were unprepared for the excitement generated by the first session. Dr McQuaid for his part was unimpressed by the reporting of the Council by the Irish religious affairs correspondents. He told the Public Image Committee that "the criticism produced is quite ignorant, the reporting on the Council has been very bad". He told Fr Burke-Savage from Rome: "I am dismayed by the facile ignorance of the journalists who are writing about the documents that have cost us years of work, and by the more facile dictation in regard to what we bishops must now do".

The archbishop would sometimes joke about his "ogre" image in the media. Behind the aloofness was a sense of humour but also, surprisingly, a sense of insecurity as he grappled with unwelcome change. He was devastated when the obligatory offer to resign on his 75th birthday was accepted by Pope Paul, albeit with a year's extension. Carty writes, "He was possibly worried that the Pope's rapid acceptance of his resignation was a negative judgement on his work".

Dr. McQuaid formally relinquished the government of the Archdiocese of Dublin when his successor was ordained Archbishop in February 1972.