There are many good arguments against quickly convening a Third Vatican Council—a notion beloved of Catholics who occupy the portside cabins on the Barque of Peter.

The most obvious is that Catholicism has barely begun to digest the teaching of Vatican II on the nature of the Church, the universal call to holiness, and the reform of the episcopate, the priesthood, consecrated life, and the lay vocation in the world. Until the dramatic change in Catholic self-understanding that Vatican II mandated is fully internalized and implemented—until the Church understands itself as a mission, not as an institution that has a mission (as one among many things it does)—there seems little sense in convening Vatican III.

One might also argue that another ecumenical council would be a distraction from the evangelical mission to which Vatican II called the Church, and especially the Church’s bishops. As it is, bishops spend far too much of their time in meetings. Would the preaching of the Gospel, which, according to Vatican II, is the first responsibility of bishops, be advanced by gathering the entire world episcopate into a global mega-meeting for three or four months of the year, over a period of years?

Then there’s the question of resources. Any Vatican III would cost vast sums of money: would such an expenditure be the best use of the Church’s resources? (As Father John O’Malley reports in “What Happened at Vatican II?,” one of the reasons Pope Paul VI was determined to conclude Vatican II in December 1965 was that the Council was simply costing too much.)

These are all good reasons why a general council would be a bad idea for the foreseeable future. But there’s another issue here, one that raises an intriguing question about any future council, no matter when it’s convened: Where could Vatican III (or Lateran VI, or Trent II, or Lyons III, or whatever-the-future-council-is called) possibly be held?

Vatican I (1869-70) met in one transept of St. Peter’s, because there were only 737 bishops attending. Some 2,800 bishops participated in the four sessions of Vatican II, which met in the fall months of 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965, although at any one session there were between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops present—and they filled the entire, vast nave of St. Peter’s, seated on bleachers built high above the basilica’s marble floor. Add the ecumenical observers, the Council periti (advisers), and other functionaries with access to the Council aula (as the reconfigured basilica was called), and St. Peter’s was packed full.

But today? At the end of 2009, the last year for which complete Church statistics are available, there were 5,065 Catholic bishops in the world. A general or “ecumenical” council is, by definition, one in which all bishops have the right to participate (Canon 339). Where would this throng of over 5,000 bishops, literally twice the size of the episcopate that attended the most jam-packed session of Vatican II, meet? It certainly couldn’t meet at St. Peter’s, or at any of the other Roman basilicas. Indeed, is there a Catholic church in the world that could readily accommodate more than 5,000 bishops, their advisors, the ecumenical observers, and all the others who would rightly claim at least some place in a council hall?

One wag to whom I mentioned this conundrum spoke of a future council as “Metroplex I,” with the Council Fathers, the observers, the advisers, the translators, and all the rest of the apparatus meeting in Cowboys Stadium, graciously donated for the occasion by Jerry Jones. Bad jokes aside, however, the fact that the world episcopate has doubled in number over the past 50 years raises important questions for the future. How can this large a body function as the episcopal “college” of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church? Is it possible to imagine a “virtual council,” or some other technological mechanism that would allow the world episcopate to meet as a whole?

There’s far more, literally, to any future council than typically meets the eye.

Since the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Church around the world has spent five decades enduring vast changes, from liturgical reform to liturgical renewal, declining priestly and religious vocations, major political and social fluctuations, and demographic shifts from the Global North to the Global South and from the American North to the American South. Out of this tumult Bl. John Paul II and Benedict XVI have proposed that the Church renew her hope by engaging in a “New Evangelization”.

The hope offered by the New Evangelization is not mere optimism, but authentic hope. In his wonderful essay on hope, “The Yes of Jesus Christ,” Joseph Ratzinger defines optimism as naïve, shallow, and easily subverted by dominant trends and ideologies. Hope, on the other hand, understands the trials and tribulations of a given period. Hope allows us to situate ourselves in the broader scheme of history. When we hope in Jesus Christ, we know where we are, we know where we came from, and we know where are going. This confidence, particularly in the belief that Jesus Christ will have the final word at the end of our pilgrimage, is the reason why the Church has the audacity to call for a New Evangelization.

So, what is this New Evangelization that John Paul II proposed and Benedict XVI has asked the Church to reflect on and implement? What began as a call for missionary activity outside the Church has matured into a call for missionary activity within the Church and within a formerly Christian culture.

This has led to the notion of a re-proposal of the Christian message, which was the thrust of John Paul’s challenge to the South American bishops in 1983. It remains true to this day. “The commemoration of this half millennium of evangelization will have full significance if, as bishops, with your priests and faithful, you accept it as your commitment; a commitment not of re-evangelization, but rather of a new evangelization; new in its ardour, methods and expression.” This re-proposal of the Gospel must fundamentally reawaken in the baptized the true nature of the sacramental character of their initiation into the Body of Christ.

As Pope Benedict has said, “The rediscovery of the value of one’s baptism is the basis of the missionary commitment of every Christian, because we see in the Gospel that he who lets himself be fascinated by Christ cannot do without witnessing the joy of following in his footsteps.” It is this fundamental fascination with Jesus Christ that the New Evangelization aims to provoke in the fallen-away Catholic, the non-Catholic, and even the practicing Catholic.

What is new about the New Evangelization is that it is not directed toward the non-believer alone but is at the same time an all-encompassing renewal of the life in Christ for all Christians. The Lineamenta, a document used to prepare Bishops for the upcoming Synod on the New Evangelization in October 2012, reminds us that “the Church does not give up or retreat into herself; instead, she undertakes a project to revitalize herself. She makes the Person of Jesus Christ and a personal encounter with him central to her thinking, knowing that he will give his Spirit and provide the force to announce and proclaim the Gospel in new ways which can speak to today’s cultures.”

At its heart the New Evangelization calls us to share the fundamental decision of the Christian life. Our efforts as evangelizers should seek to lead us more deeply into the encounter with Jesus Christ and the stunning ways in which this encounter changes our lives. Most importantly (and this is one of the biggest challenges of the New Evangelization) we must ensure that the Church witnesses to the encounter with Christ instead of standing as an obstacle to it.

This has been a long-standing concern of Pope Benedict. In 2004, he warned, “Many people perceive Christianity as something institutional — rather than as an encounter with Christ — which explains why they don’t see it as a source of joy.” This should serve as constant reminder to us that we cannot forget the reason for the Church, which is to reveal the joy of life in Christ.

The New Evangelization is nothing less than a new beginning. What makes it new is that this is a new time, a new place, new challenges, and new hope. The New Evangelization is laden with the potential to bring the truth of Jesus Christ to a world in constant need of the healing renewal that transformed the world with the birth of a baby in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. The Church—whether as a minority presence (as in the West) or as a rising influence in Africa and other parts of the Global South—is uniquely equipped to address the wounds of our world.

In addition to bringing the healing of Christ through the sacraments, the Church’s 2000 year history brings with it the scars and lessons of basic human problems. The Church can bring its older institutions, like monasticism, and its newer movements and ministries to bear on the challenges we face. In this day and age we are particularly well-equipped with a host of tools for evangelization.

These tools include The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which will play a vital role in the upcoming “Year of Faith”. Established events like World Youth Day and new events like The Courtyard of the Gentiles present fresh opportunities to witness to the joy of the Catholic faith. Finally, the ongoing witness of the saints continues to bring the Catholic faith alive. With these tools in hand, the New Evangelization provides the Church with the opportunity to once again “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4).

Two flawed interpretations of the ecumenical enterprise are disturbingly widespread among Catholics today. One is “progressive,” the other “traditionalist.” Both are wrong.

The progressive version goes like this. Fifty years ago, in the time of Pope John XXIII and Vatican Council II, ecumenism was going great guns. Indeed, the speedy reunion of separated Christians was a real possibility. But soon after the council things stalled, and under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI a reaction set in. Due to foot-dragging by Rome, the ecumenical movement is now at an impasse.

The traditionalist story is hugely different. Starting with Vatican II and continuing since then, it holds, Catholic ecumenism has been a mistake. There’s been no significant progress, there’s been no reunion, and the practical result of it has been mainly to encourage the relativistic notion that one religion is as good as another. Better we admit our mistakes, cut our losses, and concentrate on encouraging people to convert.

Neither in theology nor in matters of fact is either the progressive or the traditionalist account correct. It’s the great merit of Kenneth D. Whitehead’s helpful new book, The New Ecumenism (Alba House, 2009), to show in concrete detail why that’s so.

Writing from the perspective of an eminently orthodox Catholic, Whitehead argues that the formal commitment of the Catholic Church to the ecumenical movement which began some four decades ago conforms to Christ’s will for Christian unity as well as to the Church’s own solemn teaching. Individual conversions to Catholicism are much to be desired and should be encouraged. But the “new ecumenism” of ecumenical dialogue in a search for common ground isn’t merely permissible but necessary.

Nor is it reasonable to put the blame for slow progress on the Vatican. Take the Catholic relationship with the Anglican Communion. Generally speaking, the gulf between Rome and Canterbury hasn’t been widened by the Vatican’s words and deeds but by the Anglicans’ well publicized inability to put their house in anything approximating even a semblance of order.

The Orthodox? Recall that Orthodoxy isn’t one body but a grouping of autocephalous — independent — national churches, each with its own historically-conditioned relationship to the Church of Rome. Among these bodies, the prickly nationalism of the largest, the Russian Orthodox Church, remains an especially serious huge obstacle to entente with Catholics.

To be sure, in some cases Rome hypothetically might gain an appearance of unity by abandoning one or another dogma or authoritative teaching. Progressive voices in Catholicism sometimes urge that. But this kind of political compromise would be, Whitehead notes, a dishonest way of handling substantive differences about doctrinal truth. It contains the seeds of its own collapse.

As matters stand, Rome has gone pretty far. In 1995 John Paul II reached out to the Orthodox in the encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One), inviting suggestions on how to exercise papal primacy of jurisdiction in a way they would find more congenial. If there have been significant responses to date, it’s a well-kept secret.

Yes, half a century ago there were expectations that unity would be quick and easy. “We wanted to do ourselves what only God can do,” Pope Benedict says. Now we know better. When and if unity comes, it will be in God’s good time.

Meanwhile, the Pope says, “we have to be prepared to keep on seeking, in the knowledge that the seeking itself is one way of finding….[It is] the only appropriate attitude for the person who is on a pilgrimage toward eternity.”