With a spirit so bold, midst a war so cold, that critics were appalled.
He set up commissions and gave them permissions:
Let the old-time religion be overhauled!
First to be passed was a document vast—
by name, Sacrosanctum Concilium,
which gave the barbarians plenty of room
To consign our mystic worship to its (happily temporary) doom.
Second off the press was a thing of low stress,
Inter Mirifica—in forma specifica,
It sought illumination on social communication.
It’s a text no one remembers, consigned to the embers.
Third came a constitution, dogmatic in scope,
That spoke of a hierarchy topped by the pope,
And the People of God as a light to the nations:
Lumen Gentium, one of the council’s better creations
(as long as one resists a grin at the vexing phrase “subsistit in”).
Unitatis Redintegratio may not be a household name,
But this decree brought trouble all the same,
for it was no longer clear that conversion was the aim.
With Protestants, the idea was “be chummy,”
Don’t let past polemics make you glummy.
What about the East, with its splendiferous feast
For eye and ear, of raiment, icon, chant, perfume?
A decree entitled Orientalium Ecclesiarum
Met the genuine need: “Be very Eastern, please, with speed!”
(For if you are Byzantine, you get a pass for weirdness,
Inversely proportional to your virile beardness.)
In Christus Dominus on mitred men, we hear
How they from vice and error must keep clear.
Sadly, this important memo went astray
From 1965 down to the present day.
Presbyterum Ordinis highlights the priests:
If they are lukewarm, the sheep will be beasts,
But if they are good, the folks will be decent.
There’s no sense denying this law, old and recent.
And if they are saints, the flock will be good:
Behold, the Christian neighborhood.
Optatam Totius on forming future clerics
Has nothing that would detonate cholerics;
Its ringing command, “Take St. Thomas in hand,”
Suffers avoidance by sundry McCarricks.
The decree on religious renewal, Perfectae Caritatis,
Gave occasion for nuns to turn naughties,
As they tore off their veils and polished their nails,
While their brothers in brown, OFM, OCD,
Even black and white robes, OSB and OP,
Followed the fashions with all of their passions,
In pursuit of unholy grails.
With the Decree on Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem,
The gathered council fathers thought, “Now we’ve got ’em!
The laity will find their feet and voices!”
Sadly, be it noted, with their feet they voted,
And better to say even less of their choices.
An irony sweet, from the Paraclete,
Is the evident rise of the trad laity,
Known for their offspring, boldness, and gaeity.
Nostra Aetate declared, with novelty bared,
That Christians and Muslims adore the same God,
That Hindus and Buddhists and bushwhacking nudists
Are mystics of nature, for dialogue ripe—
Assertions our forefathers might have called “tripe.”
Gravissimum Educationis is a mouthful indeed
For a text so modest it adheres to the creed.
It means “the graviest drawing out,” which surely alludes
To ladels in kitchens for feeding our broods.
On revelation, faith, and handing down,
Dei Verbum wears the brightest crown.
It careful brevity is striking in comparison
With all the rest of the documentary garrison.
It is often said to say what it does not say—
A problem that never seems to go away.
Most vexatious of all, causing fights in the hall,
Was the document so liberal it seemed to recall
The very pollution of the French Revolution:
I speak, of course, of Dignitatis Humanae,
Which irritates Lefebvrists to this day.
There are at least a hundred and one interpretations;
Giving it resemblance to the famous Dalmatians.
The grave and zealous authors of Ad Gentes
Knew nothing of the future Nick Fuentes,
But their urging on of missions to all races
Shows a different line of thought about God’s graces.
Last, and actually least, was a constitution pastoral, Gaudium et Spes,
A sprawling counter-Syllabus that would have baffled St. Thérèse,
So full of joy and hope that one peritus, Ratzinger by name,
Would later brand it “downright Pelagian”—no minor blame.
Though John Paul Two found some of it true,
Sixty years after, it provokes laughter.
No human work is perfect—that is fate’s decree;
Not even Roman councils from that doom are free.
Yet works divinely wrought may come with blemish none,
Especially if they are from and for God’s Son.
Our Lady, fairest child of Adam, is the One
In Whom Our Lord outdid the rest that He had done:
The sinless Virgin Mother, filled with every grace,
The Queen and Co-Redemptrix of the human race.
To her we consecrate our life, our mind, our heart,
For Mary, well we know it, chose the better part.
If sixty years of chaos took a mortal toll,
’Twill be forgotten as the endless ages roll.
Peter A. Kwasniewski
December 8, 2025
60th Anniversary of the Close of Vatican II
