scholarly journals Conditioning Factors in Simplification of Catholic Temples after Vatican II in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 172-181
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ferreira Rodrigues De Souza ◽  
Mauro Maia Fragoso

Under the influence of the liturgical reform promoted in the 20th century, Catholic temples assumed very simple characteristics, especially after the determinations of the Second Vatican Council. This simplification can be observed both in the construction of new temples and in the adaptation of others built before the period in question, causing the loss of its identity. In order to understand the simplification of these sacred spaces, we chose the case study: the renovation of Santa Maria de Campos dos Goytacazes Parish Church, located in the North of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the architectural intervention of this sacred space, conditioning factors were identified as: impositions of the local community; priests who are unaware of ecclesiastical determinations for liturgical space; and the scarcity of architects familiar with liturgical practices and conciliar guidelines. It is necessary to consider new proposals for the use of space, particularly in the rehabilitation of sacred spaces after the Second Vatican Council.

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 623
Author(s):  
Luca Diotallevi

The aim of this paper is to explore the strong connections between the topics of this special volume of Religions: the current crisis of political Catholicism and religious Catholicism; the new questions posed about the relationship between Catholicism and advanced modernization; the relationship between Catholicism and European institutions; and the importance of the North Atlantic relationships within Catholicism. The paper sheds light on these questions through an analysis of a particular but indicative case study, namely, the “Catholic 68” in Italy. Deconstructing the predominant narrative about the relationship between Vatican II and the events of 1968 (or, better, those of the 2-year period 1967–1969) helps to clarify the connections between the topics of this volume in important ways. In fact, the predominant narrative about the “Catholic 68” still pays undue tribute to both an oversimplified reconstruction of the “parties” who fought one another during the Second Vatican Council and an oversimplified reading of the late 1960s. In this perspective, the Italian case is particularly relevant and yields important sociological insight. The starting point of the paper is the abundant literature on the “long 60s”. This scholarship has clarified the presence of an important religious dimension to the social and cultural processes of this period as well as a (generally accepted) link between the Council-issued renewal and “1968”. At the same time that literature has also clarified that the “long 60s” paved the way for a deep social transition which has also marked the first two decades of the 21st century. The nature of this religious renewal and social change has often been described as the triumph of liberal parties over conservative parties. This paper instead proposes a “three parties scheme” (conservative, progressive and liberal) to better understand the confrontation that occurred at the Council and that at the end of the same decade and its consequences for Catholicism and European politics today.


2017 ◽  
Vol 135 (4) ◽  
pp. 199-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bush

This article examines the hitherto unexplored role of lay Catholics in the tertiary education of Polish exiles in Britain, from the early 1940s to the beginning of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. It will examine the work of the Newman Association, a predominantly lay Catholic graduate society, as a case study to reveal how lay activism towards European exiles was influenced by a range of social, theological and political factors. It will highlight the ways in which support for Polish Catholic education could be manifested, including the establishment of a cultural hub in London, a scholarship programme to assist Polish students in British and Irish universities, and the development of cultural links with individuals and organisations within Poland. Ultimately, this article demonstrates the growing confidence of educated lay Catholics in breaking out of their historically subordinate role within the English Catholic Church in the years prior to Vatican II.


Author(s):  
Shaun Blanchard

This book sheds further light on the nature of church reform and the roots of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) through a study of eighteenth-century Catholic reformers who anticipated the Council. The most striking of these examples is the Synod of Pistoia (1786), the high-water mark of late Jansenism. Most of the reforms of the Synod were harshly condemned by Pope Pius VI in the bull Auctorem fidei (1794), and late Jansenism was totally discredited in the ultramontane nineteenth-century Church. Nevertheless, much of the Pistoian agenda—such as an exaltation of the role of bishops, an emphasis on infallibility as a gift to the entire Church, religious liberty, a simpler and more comprehensible liturgy that incorporates the vernacular, and the encouragement of lay Bible reading and Christocentric devotions—was officially promulgated at Vatican II. The career of Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci (1741–1810) and the famous Synod he convened are investigated in detail. The international reception (and rejection) of the Synod sheds light on why these reforms failed, and the criteria of Yves Congar are used to judge the Pistoian Synod as “true or false reform.” This book proves that the Synod was a “ghost” present at Vatican II. The council fathers struggled with, and ultimately enacted, many of the same ideas. This study complexifies the story of the roots of the Council and Pope Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of reform,” which seeks to interpret Vatican II as in “continuity and discontinuity on different levels” with past teaching and practice.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 545
Author(s):  
Gary Carville

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.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Robert E. Alvis

Despite is global popularity in recent decades, the Divine Mercy devotion has received scant scrutiny from scholars. This article examines its historical development and evolving appeal, with an eye toward how this nuances our understanding of Catholic devotions in the “age of Vatican II.” The Divine Mercy first gained popularity during World War II and the early Cold War, an anxious era in which many Catholic devotions flourished. The Holy Office prohibited the active promotion of the Divine Mercy devotion in 1958, owing to a number of theological concerns. While often linked with the decline of Catholic devotional life generally, the Second Vatican Council helped set the stage for the eventual rehabilitation of the Divine Mercy devotion. The 1958 prohibition was finally lifted in 1978, and the Divine Mercy devotion has since gained a massive following around the world, benefiting in particular from the enthusiastic endorsement of Pope John Paul II. The testimonies of devotees reveal how the devotion’s appeal has changed over time. Originally understood as a method for escaping the torments of hell or purgatory, the devotion developed into a miraculous means to preserve life and, more recently, a therapeutic tool for various forms of malaise.


Author(s):  
Kevin L. Flannery

This chapter presents Catholic teaching on the natural law as the product of a conversation over millennia. After offering some basic conceptual distinctions, the chapter begins by considering ancient non-Christian sources for Christian reflection on the natural law, especially Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The chapter then considers relevant biblical texts and the teachings of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Attention is particularly played to Thomas’s adaptation of Classical traditions, and his argument concerning the unchangeablness of natural law. The final section of the chapter focuses on discussion of natural law after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in the work of Germain Grisez and John Finnis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (157) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Bruce

AbstractIn 1963 the Second Vatican Council voted overwhelmingly to introduce the vernacular into Roman Catholic worship. The Irish hierarchy decided that both Irish and English speakers should be catered for in the reformed liturgy. Within a few years John Charles McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin, had gained a widespread reputation as having gone further than his fellow bishops in the provision of masses in Irish. At the same time he was criticised for his lack of enthusiasm towards other areas of liturgical reform. This dichotomy stemmed from McQuaid’s deep dismay at the church’s new ecumenical direction and the possibility that it would lead to shared worship between Catholics and Protestants. Yet, as a senior prelate in the Catholic Church, he was obliged to implement each of the Council’s decrees, including those concerning the liturgy. McQuaid’s response was to introduce Vatican-approved changes to the mass, while simultaneously protecting the traditional liturgy he cherished. So he tried to re-establish the Latin rite on the same terms as those he had arranged for the Irish mass. Had he succeeded, the result would have been a reduction in the use of an English vernacular which he found offensive to his Catholic sensibilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
João Luís Marques

Since the 1960s, the artistic and architectural interventions carried out in the church of Santa Isabel and Rato Chapel, in Lisbon, brought to the debate the overlap of different narratives in these two different spaces of worship: the first, is a parish church preserved by the earthquake of Lisbon (1755), which had its liturgical space redesigned before the Second Vatican Council; the second, is a private chapel annexed to a 18th century palace that became a symbolic worship space for students and engaged young professionals since the 1970s. Enriched with the work of either well-known artists or, sometimes, anonymous architects, the two case studies show us the life of monuments, where Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture participate in preserving and enhancing their cultural value. At the same time, the liturgical and pastoral activities are shown to be the engine behind successive interventions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 320-340
Author(s):  
James L. Heft

This chapter returns to the contents of the other chapters of the book and draws some tentative conclusions. At the outset, it presents some of the assumptions of the author as he approaches this topic, reviews briefly the literature on the now-outdated classic secularization thesis, and examines several historical factors that contribute to increasing non-affiliation for Catholics, including the impact and evaluations of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and the possibility that we are entering a second axial age. After describing several current ways in which church people are reaching out to the non-affiliated, the chapter concludes on a hopeful note.


Author(s):  
Ormond Rush

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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