About fifteen years ago while studying with the Benedictines of St John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, I was privileged to be in the last Patristics (early church history) class taught by Father Godfrey Diekmann. Although his infectious good spirits made his class a real treat, Father Godfrey’s reputation was due to his role in twentieth century progressive Catholic history more so than as a professor.
As a young priest spending four years in Europe while studying for his doctorate in Rome, he heard Hitler speak to a youth rally.
He had a demogogic power to influence people. Within two minutes the entire crowd was ready to give their life for him. Of course, I was caught up in it, in spite of myself, and leaving the stadium I had to shake myself to get rid of the evil miasma. He had a terrible, terrible gift.
Later, as a worker in the civil rights movement, he was on the grandstand in Washington, not far from the podium, as Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech. Godfrey characterized the experience as “one of the great moments of truth in my life.”
But Godfrey’s greatest contribution was as a progressive reformer in the liturgical movement of Roman Catholicism that resulted in the reforms of Vatican II. It was here that Godfrey crossed paths with a young professor from the University of Tübingen, Germany, named Hans Kung. In fact, they were two of the four blacklisted by Catholic University of Washington for their progressive Catholic views in the days leading up to the Council. The backlash from the blacklisting probably kept Godfrey from receiving an invitation to the Council, but it also helped sway public attitude away from the conservatives towards the reformers. From his base in Collegeville, Godfrey was a force behind the scenes of Vatican II, drafting many of the important documents.
Father Godfrey passed away in 2002 at the age of 93, but professor Kung carries on, even though the Vatican has long prevented him from teaching at Catholic institutions. In fact, December 18th is the thirtieth anniversary:
of the day when Pope John Paul II revoked the ecclesiastical right to teach (missio canonica) of Prof. Dr. Hans Kueng because of his proposals for reform in the Catholic church. In his book ‘Infallible? An inquiry’ published in 1970 after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and equally prompted by the encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ from 25 July 1968 Kueng raised the question if the papal ministry is indeed infallible. With this Kueng, like nobody else in our time, raised the question of truth in Christianity and kept it alive ever since.
In 2005, Kung published a scathing criticism of Pope John Paul II.
This Papacy has repeatedly declared its fidelity to Vatican II, in order to then betray it for reasons of political expediency. Council terms such as modernization, dialogue, and ecumenicalism have been replaced by emphasis on restoration, mastery, and obedience. The criteria for the nomination of Bishops is not at all in the spirit of the Gospel … Pastoral politics has allowed the moral and intellectual level of the episcopate to slip to dangerous levels. A mediocre, rigid, and more conservative episcopate will be the lasting legacy of this papacy.
Kung continues to be a progressive Catholic voice crying in the wilderness about obligatory celibacy, the role of women in the church, papal infallibility, and ecumenism. Carry on, Herr Doktor.
Dom Godfrey did attend Vatican II as a peritus (expert).
“Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ, in her splendid biography, The Monk’s Tale (The Liturgical Press, 1991), has thoroughly documented Father Godfrey Diekmann’s leadership in the drafting and implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy as a peritus during the Second Vatican Council. He was the founder and member of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), a member of the Consilium for Implementing the Liturgical Reforms of Vatican II, and a consultor to the American Bishops Committee on the Liturgy.
“Godfrey’s interest in the unity of Christian Churches prompted his membership in the National Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue. He was a founding fellow and professor at the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies at Tantur, Israel, and co-founder of the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He gave witness to the intrinsic bond between worship and social justice by taking part in the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, where he carried a banner that read, ‘Selma is in Minnesota, too.'”
“Ten honorary degrees and a batch of prestigious awards such as the Cardinal Spellman Medal of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Berakah Award of the North American Academy of Liturgy served to confirm the length and depth of his contributions. In 1997 the Saint John’s School of Theology-Seminary honored him by establishing the Godfrey Diekmann, OSB Center for Patristics and Liturgical Studies.
“With almost a dozen near-death experiences to his credit, Godfrey could never deny his terminal condition. He grew impatient over his persistent knocking at the Gate of God’s Glory and its not opening. He envisioned heaven as experiencing God with the ecstasy of honeymoon love. ‘Heaven,’ he said, ‘is eternal, supreme life–not just eternal rest.’ The door to that life opened for Godfrey on the Feast of the Chair of Peter when he went to sit with the first Vicar of Christ to discuss the state of the Church on earth. How pleased Peter was to meet one who, like himself, was like a rock.”
–Obituary, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN 56321-2015
My understanding, also from the Hughes biography, is that Godfrey was not invited to the Council the first year. “Had the first of these episodes [Catholic University blacklisting] hurt Godfrey’s chances to be invited to the Council as a peritus? It’s difficult to trace cause and effect, but when the Council opened in the fall of 1962, Godfrey had not been summoned.” p 201 But, Godfrey was invited for the second session of the Council a year later to join the periti: “Many were appointed by cardinals as their personal theologians during the Council. They were ghostwriters for interventions, mediators and interpreters for a world press. They were invited to discussions among bishops and sometimes to give formal addresses.” p 209-210
Noteworthy names included Rahner, Schillebeeckx, Kung … and Godfrey Diekmann.
As an undergraduate at St John’s University, I was privileged to have met Godfrey Diekmann in the most of serendipitous ways. He was also an expert in the study of mushrooms; he discovered and even named one after his brother, Conrad, a fellow Benedictine priest at St John’s University. Godfrey was on his knees, studying a mushroom. My question of asking what he was doing became the genesis of many forest expeditions to study mushrooms.
During these forages, I would sometimes ask questions about Vatican 2, (among a myriad of random topics) and in only completely humble and deferential tones would Godfrey mention his roles.
On one trek, he asked me if I had read the Vatican 2 Documents and when i admitted, “No,” he asked me if I would like to read them.
Thus on our next tour he handed me a copy, bookmarked. The bookmark was in a “counter- argument” section that ended each chapter. His brilliant intuition/insight had deduced my college- aged skepticism, and he provided this wise lesson.
Godfrey Diekmann– phenomenal person, scholar, and teacher.