Epilogue

Mass Exodus ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 253-264
Author(s):  
Stephen Bullivant
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Humanae Vitae ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Times ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
The Church

Whether and to what extent the Second Vatican Council (either as a whole, or some particular aspect of its teaching and/or implementation) is to blame for the significant declines the Church has experienced in the decades following it is a question of significant dispute. The Epilogue to Mass Exodus addresses the question head on. It emphasizes the range of (non-Catholic-specific) social and cultural factors, discussed at length in earlier chapters, that have undoubtedly impacted upon Catholic retention. The notable declines witnesses by other major denominations over the same period, moreover, strongly suggest that Catholicism would also have suffered, even without the turbulence of Vatican II (and/or Humanae Vitae). Nevertheless, Vatican II cannot be absolved so easily. For a Council explicitly intended to read the signs of the times, to equip the Church to meet the challenges of the contemporary world, and indeed to make the Mass ‘pastorally efficacious to the fullest degree’, then it is very hard to escape that conclusion that, in Britain and America at least, it has failed to live up to its own expectations.

scholarly journals ‘Scrupulous and Timid Conformism’: Ireland and the Reception of the Liturgical Changes of Vatican II

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 545
Author(s):  
Gary Carville
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
The People ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Short Time Span ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Church

The Second Vatican Council and, in particular, its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, changed much in the daily life of the Church. In Ireland, a country steeped in the Catholic tradition but largely peripheral to the theological debates that shaped Vatican II, the changes to liturgy and devotional practice were implemented dutifully over a relatively short time span and without significant upset. But did the hierarchical manner of their reception, like that of the Council itself, mean that Irish Catholics did not receive the changes in a way that deepened their spirituality? And was the popular religious memory of the people lost through a neglect of liturgical piety and its place in the interior life, alongside what the Council sought to achieve? In this essay, Dr Gary Carville will examine the background to the liturgical changes at Vatican II, the contribution to their formulation and implementation by leaders of the Church in Ireland, the experiences of Irish Catholic communities in the reception process, and the ongoing need for a liturgical formation that brings theology, memory, and practice into greater dialogue.

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

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.

Ecumenism, Mariology, and the Papacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Papal Infallibility ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Written Traditions ◽  
The Church

This chapter begins with an assessment of Newman as one of the most important influences behind the Second Vatican Council, before moving on to discuss his contributions to ecumenism, or ‘reunion’ as it was usually called, in his own time. After showing how he remained opposed to what he regarded as the system of ‘papalism’ in his Anglican years, even as late as 1841, the chapter moves on to analyse his contribution to the debates of the 1860s that had been sparked by Edward Bouverie Pusey’s response to Henry Manning’s attacks on the Anglican Church of his baptism. Newman in turn responded to Pusey’s Eirenicon which led to a lengthy correspondence and two further volumes from Pusey. The subject-matter, which focused on the doctrines of Mary as well as papal infallibility, revealed important differences between the two former Tractarians. Where Pusey regarded the teachings of the Church as settled and fixed in the written traditions grounded in the early Church, Newman held that Christian life and practice were equally important and were open to change and development. Although the declaration of infallibility scuppered ecumenism for many decades, the debates between Pusey and Newman reveal an openness and sympathy for one another’s opinion that paved the way for a future after Vatican II in which mutual respect would flourish.

Prophetic Martyrdom in Modern Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-255
Author(s):  
Edward T. Brett
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Religious Sisters ◽  
Church Workers ◽  
Modern Latin America ◽  
The Church

Following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), over a thousand priests and religious sisters and brothers were exiled, imprisoned, tortured, or murdered in Latin America by authoritarian governments. A much larger number of lay Church workers were also incarcerated, brutalized, or killed. Most suffered or died because, following the ideals of Vatican II and the Second Latin American Bishops Conference at Medellín, Colombia (1968), they committed themselves to the amelioration of the marginalized in their countries, even though they were fully aware that to do so placed their lives in great peril. This chapter treats a select number—mostly priests and nuns—who were killed because of their prophetic devotion to the poor. It is limited to the nations of Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Central America. It also touches on the bitter divisions that resulted in the Church as a consequence of this new religious activism. Finally, it demonstrates why the deaths of so many religious-based social justice activists forced the institutional Catholic Church to reexamine its outdated criteria for martyrdom.

The Two Bodies of Christ: Communion Frequency and Ecclesiastical Discourse in Pre–Vatican II Australian Catholicism

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-409
Author(s):  
Gavin Brown
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church ◽  
Two Bodies

Today, most Catholics attending Mass come forward to receive communion as a matter of course. But this fact actually belies a very long history of low communion frequency and an institution's often losing struggle to have Catholics regularly receive the body of Christ. Already by the end of the fourth century, communion frequency in the Church, both East and West, had declined rapidly. Thereafter, outside small circles of especially devout communicants, communion at Mass remained for most Catholics an infrequent act. Yet during the mid-twentieth century, in the space of just a few decades, this situation showed signs of quite dramatic reversal. In the nineteenth century in Australia, average communion frequency among most practising Catholics was relatively nominal—perhaps three or four times a year was typical. On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, however, most Catholics in Australia were partaking of communion fortnightly and even weekly. Why this shift? What happened in the course of a generation which turned around a situation spanning many centuries in the Church's tradition of eucharistic worship?

scholarly journals The Nature and Missionary Role of the Lay People in the Light of Vatican II; Convenience or Conviction?

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
Francis Appiah-Kubi ◽  
Robert Bonsu
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Lay People ◽  
The People ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Church

The nature and the missionary role of the laity in the church is one of the issues currently vital to the church and theologians. From the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) perspective, the word laity is technically understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Catholic Church (LG31). These faithful are by baptism made one with Christ and constitute the People of God; they are sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the church and in the world. However, the distinction between the ordained and the lay is a real one. A great deal of attention has been paid to the ordained ministry of the Church, its nature, its authority and its functions. The laity tends, by way of contrast, to be taken very much for granted, as though in their case no special problems arise. This study discusses the nature, role, and participation of lay people in the mission of the Church as proposed by the Second Vatican Council. It treats succinctly the historical development of the Laity and the challenges and opportunities inherent in their mission.

Marriage and Sexuality

2015 ◽  
pp. 309-328
Author(s):  
David Cloutier
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Family ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
The Church

This chapter considers Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality. It begins by considering tensions concerning marriage in Catholic theology since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Attempts to move beyond primarily juridical accounts of marriage have been fruitful and have led to an overvaluation of modern notions of romantic love and the person. Against this tendency the chapter discusses how theologies of marriage attentive to the teaching of Vatican II—and of prior Catholic tradition—place the notion of marriage squarely within the sacramental life of the Church. Marriage is conceived as revealing and furthering the divine plan for humanity. Within this context the chapter explores recent magisterial pronouncements and work by theologians on the place of the family or the household within the Church. This exploration leads back to a reimagining of the spousal bond.

From Confession to Reconciliation, Vatican II to 2015

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick W. Carey
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Paradigmatic Shift ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Dramatic Decline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Church

This chapter delineates the dramatic decline between 1960 and 2015 in the practice of sacramental penance and other penitential practices and a weakened consciousness of the biblical penitential language associated with the practices. The American cultural revolution of the 1960s and the paradigmatic shift in theology at the Second Vatican Council influenced those developments. The post-conciliar church, however, created new sacramental rites of confession that emphasized the social and ecclesial dimensions of sin and reconciliation, hoping to generate a renewed penitential consciousness. A loss of the sense of sin, though, made it very difficult for popes, bishops, and priests to revive the penitential confessional tradition. In its long history, the church experienced major changes in the theology and practice of penance, but the rapidity of the change in the fifty years after Vatican II was unprecedented, with the possible exception of the changes that took place during the Protestant Reformation.

The First Vatican Council

1971 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 329-344
Author(s):  
E. E. Y. Hales
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Vatican I ◽  
The People ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

Centenaries are supposed to be occasions when we take stock of the event we are commemorating. In the light of developments in the last hundred years how does the work of the First Vatican Council look today? And since it so happens that the hundred years in question includes the Second Vatican Council, recently concluded, it is natural to put the question in this form: how does the work of Vatican I look today, in the light of Vatican II?I think it would be fair to say that it is widely considered that the work of Vatican I was a little unfortunate, and has since proved embarrassing, because its definitions enhanced the authority of the papacy. Vatican II is supposed to have helped to redress that balance by disclosing the nature of the Church as a whole, from the bishops down to the People of God, or perhaps I should say from the bishops up to the People of God, in view of our preference nowadays for turning everything upside down. Such critics of Vatican I are not, of course, denying either the dogmatic infallibility or the juridical primacy of the Pope, which were defined at that Council; but they are saying that it is a distortion to stress the powers of the papacy and to neglect the powers of the college of bishops or the rights of the rest of the Church, and they are saying that the one-sided definitions of Vatican I tended to create such distortion in men’s minds until they were balanced by the pronouncements of Vatican II.

Bishop Vincent McCauley, CSC: Ecumenical Pioneer

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-271
Author(s):  
Richard Gribble
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Ecumenical Dialogue ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church ◽  
Western Portion ◽  
Organization Research

AbstractVincent McCauley, bishop and missionary, was a great champion of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). As Bishop of Fort Portal, Uganda, a new diocese in the Western portion of the country (1961–1971), McCauley was instrumental in the full implementation of the 16 documents of Vatican II, but his principal legacy will be his work in the area of ecumenism. Overcoming significant and long standing hostility between Roman Catholics and Anglicans, McCauley was able to forge ecumenical dialogue and programs on various levels. Beginning simply through prayer services and a vernacular translation of the New Testament, he graduated to be a founder and initial chairman of the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC), an organization which made great strides in removing government opposition to religion and forging dialogue between Christians in areas of sacraments and social justice. Both simultaneously and after his tenure in Fort Portal, McCauley served as chairman and secretary general of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (AMECEA). These positions allowed him to continue his ecumenical work on a broader scope.He was instrumental in setting up numerous conferences to foster ecumenical dialogue, various pastoral programs and certain educational initiatives, including the Interdisciplinary Urban Seminar, for which McCauley served as a member of the Academic Board. He was also integrally involved as a member of the advisory board of the Christian Organization Research and Advisory Trust (CORAT), an organization that sought to train church members in organization and management.Vincent McCauley stands as a significant example of one who implemented the ecumenical teachings of Vatican II on local and regional levels. His contribution continues to serve the church in Eastern Africa today.

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