From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. But the meaning of the Second Vatican Council has been fiercely contested since before it was even over, and the years since its completion have seen a battle for the soul of the Church waged through the interpretation of Council documents. The Reception of Vatican II looks at the sixteen conciliar documents through the lens of those battles. Paying close attention to reforms and new developments, the essays in this volume show how the Council has been received and interpreted over the course of the more than fifty years since it concluded. The contributors to this volume represent various schools of thought but are united by a commitment to restoring the view that Vatican II should be interpreted and implemented in line with Church Tradition. The central problem facing Catholic theology today, these essays argue, is a misreading of the Council that posits a sharp break with previous Church teaching. In order to combat this reductive way of interpreting the Council, these essays provide a thorough, instructive overview of the debates it inspired.

A sequel to Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition (OUP 2008), The Reception of Vatican II shows how the Council has been received and interpreted over the course of the more than fifty years since it concluded. The meaning of the Second Vatican Council has been fiercely contested since before it was even over, and since its completion has seen a battle for the soul of the Church waged through the interpretation of Council documents. Each essay in this volume looks at how one of those documents has been interpreted in the post-Vatican II era and points the way forward for its future reception.

Vatican I and Vatican II represent two of the three ecumenical councils in modern times, yet relatively few studies have sought to understand their relation to one another. In fact, the councils are often positioned as mutually exclusive so that one must choose either Vatican I’s or Vatican II’s presentations of church and ecclesial authority. Failing to understand the relationship between these councils inhibits the church’s self-understanding and risks misinterpreting key aspects of its own tradition; further, it limits the church’s ability to teach effectively on topics of concern to modern women and men, such as authority, freedom, and ecclesiology. Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition uses the questions of what, why,and how the councils taught to frame and demonstrate significant points of continuity, complementarity, and difference between them. It argues that only by seeing both Vatican I and Vatican II as communicating vital dimensions of the Christian faith can the church’s living tradition be fully appreciated and speak meaningfully to modern Christian women and men.?

From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. In many ways, though, the real challenges began after the council was over and Catholics began to argue over the interpretation of the documents. Many analysts perceived the Council's far-reaching changes as breaks with Church tradition, and soon this became the dominant bias in the American and other media, which lacked the theological background to approach the documents on their own terms. In Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition, an international team of theologians offers a different reading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting forth a vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in two millennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that Vatican II's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the Roman Catholic Church. Each chapter contextualizes Vatican II teachings within that rich tradition. The resulting book is an indispensable and accessible companion to the Council's developments, one that focuses on theology and transcends the mass-media storyline of "liberal" versus "conservative."

The Second Vatican Council is the single most influential event in the 20th century history of the Catholic Church. The book analyzes the relationship between the Council and the "Ostpolitik" of the Vatican through the history of the Hungarian presence at Vatican II. Pope John XXIII, elected in 1958, was a catalyst. The pope thought that his most urgent task was to renew contacts with the Church behind the iron curtain. Hungarian participation at the Council was also made possible by the new, pragmatic model in Hungarian church politics. After the crushing of the 1956 Revolution, churches in Hungary thought that the regime would last and were willing to compromise. Vatican II – in the perspective of Hungary – was not primarily an ecclesial event, but it remained closely joined to the negotiations between the Holy See and the Kádár regime: during the Council Hungary became the experimental laboratory of the Vatican's new eastern policy. Was it a Vatican decision or a Soviet instruction? Fejérdy suggests that it was a decision of the Holy See.

With the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the Roman Catholic Church for the first time took a positive stance on modernity. Its impact on the thought, worship, and actions of Catholics worldwide was enormous. Benefiting from a half century of insights gained since Vatican II ended, this volume focuses squarely on the ongoing aftermath and reinterpretation of the Council in the twenty-first century. In five penetrating essays, contributors examine crucial issues at the heart of Catholic life and identity, primarily but not exclusively within North American contexts. On a broader level, the volume as a whole illuminates the effects of the radical changes made at Vatican II on the lived religion of everyday Catholics. As framed by volume editors Lucas Van Rompay, Sam Miglarese, and David Morgan, the book's long view of the church's gradual and often contentious transition into contemporary times profiles a church and laity who seem committed to many mutual values but feel that implementation of the changes agreed to in principle at the Council is far from accomplished. The election in 2013 of the charismatic Pope Francis has added yet another dimension to the search for the meaning of Vatican II. The contributors are Catherine E. Clifford, Hillary Kaell, Leo D. Lefebure, Jill Peterfeso, and Leslie Woodcock Tentler.

As the church marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, too few Catholics have an adequate grasp of what the council contributed to the life of the church. The problem is understandable. The Second Vatican Council produced, by far, more document pages than any other council. Consequently, any attempt to master its core teachings can be daunting. There is a danger of missing the forest for the trees. With this in mind, Keys to the Council identifies twenty key conciliar passages, central texts that help us appreciate the Vision of the council fathers. Each chapter places the given passage in its larger historical context, explores its fundamental meaning and significance, and finally considers its larger significance for the life of the church today. Chapters include exploration of Sacrosanctum Concilium's demand for full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy; Lumen Gentium's eucharistic ecclesiology; Gaudium et Spes's vision of marriage as an intimate partnership of life and love; Nostra Aetate's approach to non-Christian religions; and more.