The Second Vatican Council was the most important event in the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century. In line with Pope John XXIII's desire for aggiornamento it searched for ways to enable the Church to meet the challenges of the times and thus prepare a future for Christian faith and life. This search for renewal met with opposition during the Council and its reception process up to the current day. In this volume authors known for their research on and familiarity with the Council's history and its reception reflect on the (non-)reception of Vatican II in the Roman Catholic Church. Paying attention to both the wishes of the majority of the Council fathers and the often blocked implementation of their decisions during the post-Vatican II period, they make clear that the freedom of speech that existed during the Council soon was put aside, partly because those who where opposed to the conciliar developments remained in charge after the Council. At the same time, the contributors to this volume are of the opinion that Vatican II and its texts continue to offer much inspiration for the life of the faithful today. According to Leo Declerck, Etienne Fouilloux, Peter Hünermann, Joseph Komonchak, Mathijs Lamberigts, Nicholas Lash, Gilles Routhier, and Christoph Theobald, "Gaudium et spes" thus continue to prevail over grief and anxiety, too often used as instruments for a 'revision' of Vatican II. This book offers both keen insights into the history of the Council and its intuitions, and the contested but still needed implementation of it.

A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism's dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America's leading intellectuals Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project. A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.

Professor Echeverria does a thorough job of drawing from the pre-papal writings of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the man's current papal writings, talks, and sermons to discover and document the continuity in thought Francis has with the councils.Echeverria compares Francis's discourse with that of his papal predecessors in the era since Vatican II. He draws heavily on the documents of Vatican II and the theology of doctrinal development stemming from the First Vatican Council and embraced by Vatican II. Not left out is the modern ecumenical movement from both the Reformed and Catholic side.

The goal of this volume is to begin writing Central and Eastern Europe back into the story of the Second Vatican Council, its origins, and its consequences. This volume assembles - for the first time in any language - a broad overview of the place of four different Communist-run countries - Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia - in the story of the Council. Framing these is an account of how the Cold War impacted the Council and its reception. The book engages with both English-language scholarship and the national historiographies of the countries that it examines, offering a global lens on the present state of research (covering all relevant languages) and seeking to propel that research forward. All of the chapters draw on both non-English secondary literature and original primary sources - some published, some archival.

A unique scholarly contribution, this book celebrates and studies the legacy of the Second Vatican Council by offering the contributions of twelve outstanding international scholars.

In "Reconciling Theology", leading thinker on Anglicanism and ecumenism Paul Avis focuses on the perennial Christian issues of argument, debate, polemic and conflict, on the one hand, and dialogue, search for common ground, working for agreement and harmony, on the other. Exploring the tension and interaction between them in a range of contexts in modern theology and the Church, Avis offers a rigorous but accessible vision of church which moves beyond the usual dichotomy of liberal or orthodox

Investigating Vatican II is a collection of Fr. Jared Wicks’ recent articles on Vatican II, and presents the Second Vatican Council as an event to which theologians contributed in major ways and from which Catholic theology can gain enormous insigh