14 After the First Vatican Council, references to the special gifts of the Holy Spirit granted in the Church began to also reappear in papal documents in regard to the establishment of new religious institutes, new ecclesial movements as well as special graces granted to saints in particular. However, it was the Second Vatican Council that initiated a profound theological refl ection on charisms, using St. Paul’s teachings. As to the means, which the Holy Spirit uses to guide and to sanctify the People of God, Vatican II deliberately separates sacraments and offi ces from charisms, emphasizing the essential role of the latter for the growth and renewal of the Church. In its teaching, the Council also stresses the universality and ordinariness of “special graces” and the equality of the faithful of all walks of life in the face of the actions and gifts of the Holy Spirit.2 The term “charism” is used 14 times in the documents of Vatican II, but not even once in relation to the religious life. Instead, there are comparable defi nitions such as “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit”;3 “the infi nite power of the Holy Spirit marvelously working in the Church”;4 “gifts … differ according to the grace which is allotted to them”;5 “according to his proper vocation”; 6 “original spirit”;7 “their founders’ spirit and special aims”;8 and “according to the spirit of their founder”.9 However, it did not take long for this term to be applied to the religious life. Speaking before the members of General Chapters of the Congregation of Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Congregation of St. Louis de Montfort in 1969, Pope Paul VI used the phrase “charism of the founders” to defi ne the special gift of the Holy Spirit granted to women and men to raise up new communities of Christian life and new forms of imitating Christ in the Church. Whereas in the Exhortation Evangelica testifi catio of 1971, he used three defi nitions: “the charisms of your founders,”10 “charism of the religious life,”11 and “charisms of the various institutes,”12 thus introducing it permanently into the offi cial documents of the Teaching Magisterium. The papal teaching fi nds its continuation in the consecutive documents, such as: La scuola cattolica (March 19, 1977); Mutuae relationes (May 14, 1978), Optines evangelicae and Dimensio 2 Cf. LG, 12. 3 PC, 1. 4 LG, 44. 5 PC, 8. 6 ChD, 33. 7 PC, 2. 8 PC, 2; LG, 45. 9 AG, 40. 10 ET, 11. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 32.
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