Vatican II: A Shift in the Attitude of the Roman Catholic Church Toward the Reformation Churches?—A Protestant Perspective

Abstract: After a description of the ﬁve solas of the Protestant Reformation and their biblical basis, the rejection of the solas by the Roman Catholic Church at Trent and Vatican I is traced, focusing on revelation, justiﬁcation, and worship. The account of Roman Catholic theology is brought up to date by an examination of changes that occurred at Vatican II. A different stance toward Protestants and the wider world is explained by a shift in the Church’s view of the nature-grace relationship. Despite this change, the core commitments of the Catholic Church on revelation, justiﬁcation, and worship remain unaltered. They are held within a less adversarial but still expansionist Rome-centered theology that Protestants must continue to resist.

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II. Modernization of the Papacy and Catholicism in the Postmodern: Legacy and Challenges to Vatican I

Horizons ◽

10.1017/hor.2020.44 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (1) ◽

pp. 115-119

Author(s):

Massimo Faggioli

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Vatican Ii ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Fiftieth Anniversary ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Pope Francis ◽

Vatican I ◽

The One ◽

Pius Ix ◽

The Way

In the ongoing aggiornamento of the aggiornamento of Vatican II by Pope Francis, it would be easy to forget or dismiss the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Vatican I (1869–1870). The council planned (since at least the Syllabus of Errors of 1864), shaped, and influenced by Pius IX was the most important ecclesial event in the lives of those who made Vatican II: almost a thousand of the council fathers of Vatican II were born between 1871 and 1900. Vatican I was in itself also a kind of ultramontanist “modernization” of the Roman Catholic Church, which paved the way for the aggiornamento of Vatican II and still shapes the post–Vatican II church especially for what concerns the Petrine ministry.

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‘Awakening the echoes of the ancient faith’: the National Pilgrimages to Iona

Northern Scotland ◽

10.3366/nor.2021.0246 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 132-154

Author(s):

Katherine Haldane Grenier

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Religious History ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

The Reformation ◽

Theological Understanding

This article examines two pilgrimages to Iona held by the Scottish Roman Catholic Church in 1888 and 1897, the first pilgrimages held in Scotland since the Reformation. It argues that these religious journeys disrupted the calendar of historic commemorations of Victorian Scotland, many of which emphasized the centrality of Presbyterianism to Scottish nationality. By holding pilgrimages to “the mother-church of religion in Scotland” and celebrating mass in the ruins of the Cathedral there, Scottish Catholics challenged the prevailing narrative of Scottish religious history, and asserted their right to control the theological understanding of the island and its role in a “national” religious history. At the same time, Catholics’ veneration of St. Columba, a figure widely admired by Protestant Scots, served as a means of highlighting their own Scottishness. Nonetheless, some Protestant Scots responded to the overt Catholicity of the pilgrimages by questioning the genuineness of “pilgrimages” which so closely resembled tourist excursions, and by scheduling their own, explicitly Protestant, journeys to Iona.

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Interchurch Families

The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.013.33 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Ruth Reardon

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Vatican Ii ◽

Positive Attitude ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

International Network ◽

Christian Unity ◽

The Relationship ◽

The Church

In interchurch families, both partners are practising members of their respective churches but wish also to participate in their spouse’s church as far as possible. Can such families really be ecumenical instruments, when they are so different from the organs of dialogue generally established by the churches? Interchurch couples themselves, united in an international network of groups and associations, believe that they can contribute to the growing unity between their churches. The Roman Catholic Church in particular has developed a more positive attitude towards the ecumenical potential of such families since Vatican II. Interchurch families contribute to Christian unity by their very existence as ‘domestic churches’, embodying and signifying the growing unity of the Church. The chapter concludes by suggesting how, with greater pastoral understanding and a deeper appreciation of the relationship between marital spirituality and spiritual ecumenism, they can become more effective ecumenical instruments by their characteristic ‘double belonging’.

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Roman Catholic Ecclesiology from the Council of Trent to Vatican II and Beyond

The Oxford Handbook of Ecclesiology ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199645831.013.14 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 262-292

Author(s):

Ormond Rush

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Vatican Ii ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Second Vatican Council ◽

Council Of Trent ◽

People Of God ◽

The People ◽

Vatican Council ◽

The Church

For 400 years after the Council of Trent, a juridical model of the church dominated Roman Catholicism. Shifts towards a broader ecclesiology began to emerge in the nineteenth century. Despite the attempts to repress any deviations from the official theology after the crisis of Roman Catholic Modernism in the early twentieth century, various renewal movements, known as ressourcement, in the decades between the world wars brought forth a period of rich ecclesiological research, with emphasis given to notions such as the Mystical Body, the People of God, the church as mystery, as sacrament, and as communio. The Second Vatican Council incorporated many of these developments into its vision for renewal and reform of the Roman Catholic Church. Over half a century after Vatican II, a new phase in its reception is emerging with the pontificate of Pope Francis.

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Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther’s Leadership in the Early Reformation

American Sociological Review ◽

10.1177/0003122420948059 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 85 (5) ◽

pp. 857-894

Author(s):

Sascha O. Becker ◽

Yuan Hsiao ◽

Steven Pfaff ◽

Jared Rubin

Keyword(s):

Social Relations ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Regression Analyses ◽

Network Ties ◽

Trade Routes ◽

Radical Innovations ◽

Multiplex Network ◽

The Reformation

This article analyzes Martin Luther’s role in spreading the early Reformation, one of the most important episodes of radical institutional change in the last millennium. We argue that social relations played a key role in its diffusion because the spread of heterodox ideologies and their eventual institutionalization relied not only on private “infection” through exposure to innovation but also on active conversion and promotion of that new faith through personal ties. We conceive of that process as leader-to-follower directional influence originating with Luther and flowing to local elites through personal ties. Based on novel data on Luther’s correspondence, Luther’s visits, and student enrollments in Luther’s city of Wittenberg, we reconstruct Luther’s influence network to examine whether local connections to him increased the odds of adopting Protestantism. Using regression analyses and simulations based on empirical network data, we find that the combination of personal/relational diffusion via Luther’s multiplex ties and spatial/structural diffusion via trade routes fostered cities’ adoption of the Reformation, making possible Protestantism’s early breakthrough from a regional movement to a general rebellion against the Roman Catholic Church.

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Two Autobiographical Narratives of Conversion: Robert Hugh Benson and Ronald Knox

Recusant History ◽

10.1017/s003419320000248x ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 237-253

Author(s):

George Marshall

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Twentieth Century ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Church Of England ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Autobiographical Narratives ◽

The Reformation ◽

The Future ◽

The Church

Ever since the Reformation, and increasingly since the example set by Newman, the Church of England has had to contend with the lure of Rome; in every generation there have been clergymen who converted to the Roman Catholic Church, a group either statistically insignificant or a momentous sign of the future, depending on one’s viewpoint. From the nineteenth century Newman and Manning stand out. From the first two decades of the twentieth century among the figures best remembered are Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) and Ronald Arbuthnot Knox (1888–1957). They are remembered, not because they were more saintly or more scholarly than others, but because they were both writers and therefore are responsible for their own memorials. What is more, they both followed Newman in publishing an account of the circumstances of their conversion. This is a genre which continues to hold interest. The two works demonstrate, among other things, the continuing influence of Newman’s writings about the identity of the Church.

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Local Music Making and the Liturgical Renovation in Minas Gerais

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859993.013.003 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Suzel Ana Reily

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Vatican Ii ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Minas Gerais ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Musical Aesthetics ◽

Music Making ◽

Local Practices ◽

Musical Practices ◽

Local Traditions

Suzel Reily’s essay discusses the implication of the universalist thrust of the Roman Catholic Church upon local traditions. While in Brazil local music making has been historically linked to Catholic practice, the clergy’s understandings of “the popular” derive from their interpretations of Vatican II directives along with a preoccupation with liturgical fidelity. In this setting, lay religious repertoires are being discouraged in favor of folk-like musics rooted in imagined local traditions. But alongside a clash in musical aesthetics, Reily shows how the musical practices associated with the new repertoire actually mitigate against collective singing, whilst threatening to shift local practices from the religious sphere to, at best, a secular folklorized arena.

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Zur Frage der Toleranz in der Epoche zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung

International Dialogues on Education Journal ◽

10.53308/ide.v4i2.103 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Hein Retter

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Mutual Recognition ◽

Historical Context ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

The Reformation ◽

Early Modern Era ◽

Modern Era

This article deals with the origins of religious tolerance in the modern era. It goes back to the early modern era, when intolerance by the Roman-Catholic church towards new reformative movements showed itself to be particularly pervasive. At the same time, the Roman-Catholic church faced opposition from regional princes and free imperial cities who had become powerful and frequently tended to lean towards the new faith. They demanded the acknowledgment of the reformative faith by the pope and the emperor. However, they could hardly be called tolerant towards other faiths in their own territories, especially in the case of minorities seeking public recognition of their alternative beliefs and religious practices. Stark intolerance eased off only when tolerance functioned as an inherent political necessity, in hopes of gaining large economic benefits, especially under secular rule yet hardly ever under that of the church. The results from an international conference presented here show that tolerance in the age of the Reformation cannot be confused with the mutual recognition of religious and cultural idiosyncracies, in the way these are often claimed nowadays when advocating for a peaceful coexistence of different groups in a pluralistic society. In the historical context of the early modern era, tolerance was a one-sided act –in hopes of political and economic advantages – towards gaining a kind of freedom which, in its overall effect, definitely involved risks of conflict. In this context, differing political structures such as the personal beliefs of the ruling prince influenced the different climates regarding tolerance in 16th- to 19th-century Europe.

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Monastic and Lay Life in the Roman Catholic Church in the Light of Decisions of Vatican II

Вопросы богословия ◽

10.31802/pwg.2020.4.2.006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 136-145

Author(s):

Антоний Борисов

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Vatican Ii ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Second Vatican Council ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Consecrated Life ◽

Vatican Council

Второй Ватиканский собор (1962-1965) поставил перед монашескими орденами задачу обновить принципы жизни, вернувшись к корням понимания монашеского делания и аскезы. В дальнейшем реформа фактически приравняла монашеский путь спасения к пути мирянина, что послужило причиной неоднозначных изменений в католических обществах посвящённой Богу жизни. В статье проводится анализ последствий этих изменений, произошедших в жизни Католической церкви с инициативы Второго Ватиканского собора. В частности, отмечается, что собор запустил процесс административного и прежде всего смыслового реформирования католического монашества. Этот процесс идёт до сих пор и периодически принимает форму кризиса. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) challenged the monastic orders to renew the fundamentals of their way of life returning to the original understanding of monastic practice and asceticism. Later the reform virtually equated the monastic way of salvation to the layman’s way, and this caused ambiguous changes in catholic societies of consecrated life. The article analyzes the consequences of these changes brought into the life of the Roman Catholic Church due to Vatican II. In particular, it is indicated that the council started the process of administrative and, above all, conceptual reforms in the catholic monasticism. This process is still ongoing and periodically takes the shape of a crisis.

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