Theology and History of Vatican II

Dignitatis Humanae of Vatican II did not contradict previous Catholic teaching on religious liberty. So I have argued, appealing to the teaching on Church and state of Leo XIII. The authority to direct religion coercively always belonged to the Church, not the state. And Dignitatis Humanae says nothing to deny the Church’s authority to coerce religiously. This paper shows that the commission at Vatican II that drafted the declaration gave the very same interpretation as me – from 1964 on consistently invoking the teaching of Leo XIII, admitting that religion is subject to the coercive authority of the Church, and denying that this authority is in any way addressed by the declaration. My interpretation of the declaration was the official interpretation at the Council.

Published in ‘Dignitatis Humanae Colloquium’ Dialogos Institute Volume 1, eds Thomas Crean OP and Alan Fimister, (Dialogos Institute 2017) pp105-46.

A 50 anni dalla promulgazione della costituzione dogmatica Lumen Gentium, il documento più importante del Concilio Vaticano II dal punto di vista dottrinale, è forse possibile cominciare a recepirne senza timori la novità e le potenzialità per una autentica riforma pastorale e missionaria della Chiesa. Piuttosto che un commento capitolo per capitolo, il presente contributo opta per una presentazione tematica e trasversale del documento volta a coglierne le linee di forza teologiche in maniera accessibile e sintetica, con particolare attenzione alla dinamica trinitaria, comunitaria e missionaria. Quest’ultima è completata con un commento del decreto Ad Gentes.

This is a revised issue of REL Issue No. 1

The tomb of the manicurists Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, Fifth Dynasty, Old Kingdom Egypt, is regarded as exceptional either in its size and architecture or most noticeably in its lively portraits of intimacy between the two owners. The portraits confused the Egyptologists as being unprecedented in the Egyptian tombs. They looked for clues either in iconography or texts and came by three explanations; either they are twins, or conjoined twins, or they are in a homosexual relation. The last speculation has been passed to press and since then the issue of discovering homosexuality in ancient Egypt did not cease of popping up in books, journals, media and web-sites. This paper investigates the hidden symbolization rather than the visual interpretation. The intimate relationship shall be ascertained in view of the pictorial narrations of Predynastic Egypt. The spirituality of the scenes shall be judged by the ancient Egyptian conception of the soul. Question: Are they two or one? This question has never been raised in Egyptology and shall be answered for within the sphere of god Khnum.

With their participation in the Second Vatican Council, two German theologians have been instrumental in shaping modern Catholicism like few others, namely Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger. Both were collaborators on a wide array of issues in theology and ecclesiology, but their ways were to part after the Council, and according to many observers, one of them, Ratzinger, was to undergo a significant and absolute change of heart. This change of direction does not cease to puzzle Catholics today, which makes it worthwhile to take a closer look at it. If indeed, Ratzinger not so much abandoned as developed further his already existing views, it would be of considerable importance for how we can think of the reception of the Council and its final documents. If, however, Ratzinger did change completely, the question could be what caused this change and how does the conversion affect the Church. By comparing the development of both theologians before, during, and after the Council, the present study wants to hypothesize that Ratzinger did not change as much as became more rigid in his already existing neo-Augustinian ideas, while Rahner probably underwent a far greater change following the Council.

Como reza el subtítulo, el libro es una «Guía para la animación conciliar de la comunidad cristiana». Es un compendio de la visión y del mensaje del Concilio Vaticano II, en 26 unidades, que contienen cada uma de ellas: - una selección de los textos más importantes del Concilio respecto al tema estudiado, - un conjunto de textos bíblicos relacionados, - unas preguntas para suscitar wl diálogo sobre el tema - una síntesis doctrinal del tema según el Concilio, - unos puntos de examen sobre el tema, - sugerencias para conversión y para las prezes comunitarias, y - una oración comunitaria sobre el tema. Completa el libro un apendice de textos histórico-antológicos para apoyar la exposición y el estudio de los temas.

Even more than in the previous decades, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (occurring on 11 October 2012) will undoubtedly be the start of a period of intensive scholarly interest in the history of Vatican II and in the interpretation of its 16 documents. This contribution will assess a number of recent books on Roman Catholic ecclesiology that were published after 2005, the year marking the end of the commemorations of 40 years Vatican II. Since several monographs on Roman Catholic ecclesiology have been published in English and in German in recent years, this author will pay separate attention to the ecclesiological literature in both geographical areas and draw some conclusions from that.

This paper provides an alternative to the typical  reading of Ratzinger's approach to 'Sacrosanctum concilium' and the liturgy more generally. The standard narrative is that Ratzinger betrayed his earlier views, as expressed in his post-conciliar "Theological Highlights of Vatican II." I argue that Ratzinger's only book-length treatment of the liturgy, "The Spirit of the Liturgy" (2000) stands firmly in the letter and the spirit of the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy as well as Yves Congar's incredibly important commentary on the council document, “The Ecclesia or Christian Community as a Whole Celebrates the Liturgy," first published in French in 1967.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the graduate conference, "The Nouvelle Theologie, Ressourcement, and Contemporary Theology," at Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, IL and was awarded the First Place prize.

“Thomas Aquinas on the Bible and Morality: The Sacred Scriptures, the Natural Law, and the Hermeneutic of Continuity,” in TOWARDS A BIBLICAL THOMISM: THOMAS AQUINAS AND THE RENEWAL OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, edited by Jörgen Vijgen and Piotr Roszak (Pamplona/Navarra: EUNSA, 2018): 173–97.

The establishment of criteria for the selection of the liturgical-musical repertoire needs to pay attention to the integration of music as a coherent set with liturgy, in accordance to the desire of Sacrosanctum Concilium 112. Any approach in this respect cannot be done without knowing in depth the liturgical dynamics, as well as the proper laws of musical language, providing the means at our disposal to encourage formation on both aspects.

A Christian martyr for the gospel of social justice, and a man of deep spirituality and great ethical stature, Óscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador during years of brutal government and paramilitary repression, is a towering figure in the recent history of El Salvador and Latin America. Since his murder on March 24, 1980, while he was celebrating the Eucharist, his legacy and cultural influence have only grown. For decades, in life and after it, he was controversial and often manipulated, branded as both a communist and a conservative, as a provocateur of the Salvadoran civil war (1980–1992), and a leader of people’s liberation and human rights. Many political, military, and ecclesiastical authorities in and outside his country harshly criticized Romero’s attitude and behavior. Salvadoran oligarchs denounced him repeatedly, but not so the hundreds of thousands of peasants who confirmed as true what Romero wrote about his own mission: “The ministry that God […] has given me is, like the one given to Moses, to lead our people to the Promised Land.

The author proposes a critical reading of the accusations that have been made to the historical methods of biblical interpretation at the time (post)modern. So also proposes a review of the same methods considering the abuses that they have reached the blind trust in them when they have been homologated to experimental science. Finally, the article argues for historical criticism as a starting point for a believer non fundamentalist reading of the Word of God and as requisite for dialogue with today’s history from the several contextual hermeneutics in Latin America.

Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae forbids the state to use coercion for specifically religious ends, because the state lacks authority in matters of religion. But the nineteenth-century popes, Leo XIII included, called for the state to coerce for religious ends, to protect religious truth. A contradiction in Catholic teaching? The contradiction is only apparent. Leo XIII called on the state to coerce religiously - but only as an agent of the Church and under her authority. The paper shows that the commission drafting Dignitatis Humanae at Vatican II explicitly appealed to Leo XIII's theology to avoid clashing with nineteenth century teaching, and called on the Council fathers to understand the declaration in terms of Leo XIII's teaching. Far from contradicting the nineteenth century popes, the Vatican II declaration is an application of Leonine teaching for a new situation - where the state is detached from the Church.

The debate can be found on YouTube with the title:

Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom: Revision, Reform, or Continuity?

In this paper I reconstruct the redaction history of the paragraphs dealing with the tria munera in the interconnected chapters two and four of Lumen Gentium. The declarations Presbyterorum Ordinis, Apostolicam Actuositatem and Ad Gentes received their decisive form only after the final debate on De Ecclesia in October 1964. I will pay attention to the discussion on the tria munera in these documents as well, before making it clear that, unfortunately, post-conciliar magisterial documents rely more on the dual scheme of LG 10 than on the tria munera. I start my reflections with discussing three important steps in the reflection on the laity in the threefold office of Christ in the decade prior to the start of the Council.

One striking feature of the documents of the Second Vatican Council is the extent to which liturgical texts and rites are quoted and alluded to in a variety of theological contexts. In this essay, I seek to cast light on this aspect of the conciliar texts by exploring the relationship of theology and liturgy in the writings of Cipriano Vagaggini and Yves Congar, two major protagonists in the development of the texts of the Second Vatican Council. I first describe the life and ministry of Vagaggini and present a synthesis of his articulation of the role of liturgy as a source for theology in Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy. I then describe the life and ministry of Congar, treat of several aspects of his liturgical formation which are significant for understanding his theological work, and present a synthesis of his views of liturgy as a source for theology in La foi et la théologie and La Tradition et les traditions. I conclude by examining the place of liturgical texts within the third chapter of Lumen gentium in light of the theoretical exposition of Congar and Vagaggini, suggesting that the liturgical references provided in this chapter provide an excellent example of the appeal to the liturgy as a monument of Tradition in line with the principles articulated by Congar and Vagaggini.

From amazon.com:
""Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought." This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens new pathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time.

Lehner begins two hundred years before the Enlightenment, when the Protestant Reformation destroyed the hegemony Catholicism had enjoyed for centuries. During this time the Catholic Church instituted several reforms, such as better education for pastors, more liberal ideas about the roles of women, and an emphasis on human freedom as a critical feature of theology. These actions formed the foundation of the Enlightenment's belief in individual freedom. While giants like Spinoza, Locke, and Voltaire became some of the most influential voices of the time, Catholic Enlighteners were right alongside them. They denounced fanaticism, superstition, and prejudice as irreconcilable with the Enlightenment agenda.

In 1789, the French Revolution dealt a devastating blow to their cause, disillusioning many Catholics against the idea of modernization. Popes accumulated ever more power and the Catholic Enlightenment was snuffed out. It was not until the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that questions of Catholicism's compatibility with modernity would be broached again.

Ulrich Lehner tells, for the first time, the forgotten story of these reform-minded Catholics. As Pope Francis pushes the boundaries of Catholicism even further, and Catholics once again grapple with these questions, this book will prove to be required reading."

This article examines Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s grounding of the New Evangelization in the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially in light of critiques that view the Catechism as a reversal of conciliar renewal. By examining the history of modern catechetics through the lens of Benedict’s hermeneutic of reform and renewal, the author concludes that, far from being a reversal of the Council’s aims, the Catechism is, in fact, a fruit of it. Therefore, it remains an essential tool for the New Evangelization.

As a complement to the many studies pointing to tensions, compromises and juxtapositions in Lumen Gentium, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the dogmatic constitution this article by means of a lectio continua aims at defending the document’s profound coherence. In each chapter the Council fathers have made it clear that nothing happens in the Church – whether it pertains to the people of God as a whole or to the laity, the religious, the bishops, the Pope or even Mary – as a merely human act, apart from the will of Christ or the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The first image applied to the Church in LG 1 – that the Church shares in Christ’s sacramental mission – and its explanation in LG 8 that the Church is ‘one complex reality comprising a human and a divine element’, therefore, can be considered as a perfect summary of the entire constitution and of the nature and mission of the Church.

This article gives an account of the reform of the sign of the cross and the imposition of hands over the gifts in the Roman Canon during the post-conciliar period. There follows a consideration of the significance of these gestures in the context of the reformed liturgical text.

This article explores Yves Congar’s contribution to Vatican II and his influence on Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, especially. Author provides an analysis of Congar’s own diaries from the time of the Council as well as other relevant historical sources. The paper is divided into three sections. First section points out short introduction to the main Congar’s pre-Conciliar theological works. Second section refers to general historical information about forma-tion of Gaudium et Spes. Nevertheless, the main goal of this section is to present Congar’s original contribution to Gaudium et Spes regarding his diaries where he summarises the development of the Pastoral Constitution day by day. The analysis of Congar’s diaries discloses difficulties in the course of discussion about the relationship between the Church and the modern world. Third section explores Congar’s theological interpretations of Gaudium et Spes after the Council. The goal of this paper is not only to offer historical information about the origin and development of one of the most important Council documents. Apart from that, the author wants to open the discussion about hermeneutics of Vatican II regarding personal diaries as relevant historical sources for interpreting the Council.

The work of the Peter and Paul Seminar presented in this issue of 'The Jurist' focuses on the role of the bishop in the local church. This contribution focuses on the pattern selected by the council fathers to introduce the teaching of the Catholic Church on the bishop as teacher, liturgical presider, and pastor within the local Church. Vatican II made use of the figure of the tria munera to structure its reflections on the people of God
and its constitutive parts, and thus also paid attention to the bishops’ participation in the threefold office of Christ in both Lumen gentium 25–27 (LG) and Christus Dominus 11–21 (CD). Since it is an essential part of the methodology of the Peter and Paul Seminar to discuss ecclesiological topics from an ecumenical perspective, the author will, in a second step, investigate whether the pattern of the tria munera has been received in the ecumenical dialogue - implicitly or explicitly - to reflect on the ministry of the people of God and of those  xercising episkope in the Church. The author will limit himself to the study of a number of agreed statements from bilateral
and multilateral dialogues in which the Roman Catholic Church
officially takes part. The ecclesiological statements of Faith and Order, and a number of texts from the Roman Catholic-Anglican and the Roman Catholic-Orthodox dialogue seemed most helpful for the question under discussion.

Javier SÁNCHEZ CAÑIZARES El fundamento filial de la moral familiar. Hacia la comunión en la filiación / 279-305 Juan José GARCÍA NORRO El principio del doble efecto en el ius in bello / 307-327 Rodrigo POLANCO Giro hermenéutico en la eclesiología a partir de Lumen gentium / 331-355 NOTAS Pablo BLANCO Las Iglesias orientales católicas y ortodoxas en las enseñanzas del Vaticano II / 357-376 Gregorio GUITIÁN Juan XXIII y la encíclica Pacem in terris: La relación entre bien común y subsidiaridad / 381-399 Marek GILSKI -Robert J. WO<NIAK La teología poética de Karol Wojtyπa: Sus primeros escritos como fuente de su pensamiento maduro / 401-418 Mikel GARCIANDÍA Una luz por descubrir. De Lumen fidei a Evangelii gaudium / 425-442 César IZQUIERDO El anuncio y la transmisión del Evangelio en Evangelii gaudium / 443-459 Ginés GARCÍA BELTRÁN La dimensión social de la evangelización en la Exhortación Apostólica Evangelii gaudium / 461-480 Ramiro PELLITERO El Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica en la evangelización / 481-502 El fundamento filial de la moral familiar. Hacia la comunión en la filiación 279-305 Filially-Based Moral Theology of the Family. Towards Communion in Filiation Juan José GARCÍA NORRO El principio del doble efecto en el ius in bello 307-327 Double-effect Principle in ius in bello CINCUENTA AÑOS DE CONCILIO VATICANO II Rodrigo POLANCO Giro hermenéutico en la eclesiología a partir de Lumen gentium 331-355 Hermeneutical Change in Ecclesiology Since Lumen gentium Pablo BLANCO Las Iglesias orientales católicas y ortodoxas en las enseñanzas del Vaticano II

Reflecting on the reception of Vatican II in the pontificate of Pope Francis is entering an area without borders due to the span and complexity of the possible topics. The present contribution concentrates particularly on two aspects: first, in what one author has qualified as the task of "interpretative silence" to substantiate the frequency with which Francis cites the Council and, secondly, a core point of his ecclesiology —People of God— which brings together a central topic of Vatican II and develops it further.

Resumen: Reflexionar sobre la acogida del Vaticano II en el pontificado del papa Francisco es introducirse en un ámbito sin fronteras por la amplitud y la complejidad de los temas posibles. La presente contribución se concentra particularmente en dos aspectos: primero, en lo que un autor ha calificado como la tarea de " interpretar un silencio " al constatar la frecuencia con que Francisco cita al Concilio y, segundo, en un punto medular de su eclesiología —pueblo de Dios— que recoge una línea central del Vaticano II y la desarrolla ulteriormente.

In this chapter I discuss three different configurations of how both important goals have been articulated in the 1950s, in the first years of the Council and towards its end. In the decade before Vatican II a number of Catholic theologians contributed to a renewal of the self-understanding of the Church by applying the notion of sacrament to the Church. This self-understanding was at the same time a ressourcement since the Dominicans Congar and Schillebeeckx and the Jesuits Lubac, Rahner and Semmelroth engaged in a fresh reading of the third part of the Summa Theologiae to reflect (i) on the incarnated Son of God as mediator of God’s grace, (ii) on the Church as sacrament and (iii) on the ecclesial effects of Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. A difference between these theologians could be observed in view of their openness to modernity and the world. Schillebeeckx, with his use of the terminology of ‘encounter’, Semmelroth, who insisted on the role of the laity in the sacramental mission of the Church and Rahner, who already anticipated his theory of anonymous Christianity, were most interested in this theme.
The views of these theologians have been officially received – often with the cooperation of the same theologians as Council periti – in the central role the notion of Church as sacrament has received in Lumen Gentium. By giving this image a central place the Council fathers wanted to give up the self-centeredness of pre-Conciliar Roman Catholic ecclesiology. The Church has in first instance to be a sign and a modest instrument of God’s offer of grace to humankind. Interestingly, in the Council’s reflections on Christ as sacrament, the Church as sacrament and the effects of the sacraments, the very same key texts from Aquinas were cited that had been used in the works of the mentioned theologians. The term sacramentum mundi is not yet found in the preparation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Lumen Gentium or Unitatis Redintegratio during the first and second session. The German scheme, which had a strong impact on the opening paragraph of Lumen Gentium, was particularly interested in the relationship of Church and world. In distinction from this, the quotations of LG 1 and LG 48 in Ad Gentes and Gaudium et Spes as well as Schillebeeckx’ interpretation of the notion of Church as sacrament as sacramentum mundi reflect a greater interest in the instrumental role of the Church. What Schillebeeckx has learned from St. Thomas, however, is never abandoned. For him Aquinas was an authority, as for his fellow theologians at Vatican II.

Karl Rahner's thesis that Vatican II has constituted the beginning of a World Church affirms that a qualitative leap would have taken place, leaving behind a historical era in which the Church has exported its European cultural model of Christianity. This thesis provides a key to interpret the processes of ecclesial reform under development with the “Francis case”. The article discusses three key conciliar issues that would reveal the transition from a Western Church to a World Church. The liturgical “reform of the reform” has been stopped. In the case of ecclesiology, the category of God's people has “returned”. The reception of Gaudium et Spes, more coherent with the will of the Council Fathers, has reached the Church of Rome.

La tesis de Karl Rahner acerca de que el Vaticano II ha constituido el inicio de una Iglesia mundial afirma que se habría concretado germinalmente un salto cualitativo que deja atrás una época histórica en la que la Iglesia ha exportado su modelo cultural europeo de cristianismo. Dicha tesis puede aportar una clave para interpretar los procesos de reforma eclesial en desarrollo con el “caso Francisco”. El artículo analiza tres asuntos conciliares clave que revelarían la transición de una Iglesia occidental a una Iglesia mundial: se ha frenado la “reforma de la reforma” litúrgica; en el caso de la eclesiología, ha “retornado” la categoría de pueblo de Dios; ha llegado al obispado de Roma la recepción de Gaudium et spes más coherente con la voluntad de los padres conciliares.

This article traces the development of the Roman Catholic understanding of 'extra ecclesiam nulla salus' between the Boston Heresy Case in the early 1940s and the Second Vatican Council. The Holy Office’s condemnation of the virtual limitation of salvation to Roman Catholics by Leonard Feeney and his followers is commonly construed as an important step in the development of an inclusivist understanding of ecclesial belonging. The present article, by contrast, argues that a common Bellarminian theological framework underlies the respective positions of Feeney, the Holy Office, and Joseph Clifford Fenton, the major American expounder of the Holy Office’s position. The real development of the Church’s official position was initiated and partly accomplished in the debates in the preparatory commissions for the Second Vatican Council, and resulted in Lumen Gentium’s non-Bellarminian understanding of ecclesial belonging.

Abstract
The category “signs of the times” symbolizes the introduction of an
important novelty in the history of the conciliar magisterium and of the
theological methodology. This article offers two developments that wish to contribute to the deepening of the subject. Gaudium et spes brought a new form of knowledge, so new that relevant authors hesitated at the time of his authority. A large majority of the German episcopate then lined up around a critical text by Karl Rahner unpublished until recently. In addition to the presentation and commentary of this report, it offers the analysis of a later contribution by Rahner that provides answers to his own questions addressed to the outline of the Constitution. In a second moment, the article considers the subject from a different angle, but complementary. The way of proceeding “no longer deductive and abstract but inductive and concrete” (Congar) raised in the post-conciliar period the question about the theological status of the presence of the Word of God in and through history. In this context, the use of the notion of “theological place” is examined in some Latin American authors,
especially I. Ellacuría, and a further deepening of it understanding is proposed.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

In this study, we have sought to establish if and how the metaphysics of participation can offer a valid instrument for the “hermeneutics of reform in continuity”, which Pope Benedict XVI encouraged for a correct understanding of Vatican II. Using the ontology of Cornelio Fabro and the ecclesiology of Charles Journet as inspiration, we have studied and organized under this light five great novelties of the Council: 1. the “subsistence” of the Church of Christ in the Catholic Church, which alone has the totality of the means of salvation, refers to “ecclesiality per essentiam”; 2. The presence of “elements of sanctification” beyond the visible limits of the Catholic Church manifests the reality of an “ecclesiality per participationem”; 3. the “strains of truth”, at work in the non-Christian communities and denominations are interpreted as means that manifest the participability of the human condition to Christic Revelation; 4. civil liberty in religious matters, results from the transcendence of the human person with respect to the State in this sphere; 5. the existence of a twofold subject of supreme magisterial and jurisdictional power in the Church, constitutes a very particular case of univocal participation in the same perfection.

This article approaches the theme of Salesian pedagogy of life choice and vocation on three levels of argumentation. The first level synthesizes the modifications in Salesian pedagogy of vocation that originate from the post Vatican II youth ministry model. The Salesian Congregation switched from a traditional " state of life " choice education to an approach spinning around unconditional acceptance and personalized planning of life. The consequences of these choices will be interpreted within a changed postmodern context where we point out the need of a new approach suitable for the needs of millennials and digital natives. The second level of the study outlines a set of permanent inspirational pedagogical principles. These are referring to the experience of Don Bosco that constitutes a base for every further update of salesian education theory. The third level offers strategic proposals for the actual education of life choices and vocation is linked to the challenges of the postmodern fluid societies; to the Salesian pedagogical principles of the past and to a transformational model of education, ministry and vocation.

Quand il est à Rome, le pape François déjeune chaque jour au milieu de bonnes soeurs dont il partage le modeste repas. Signe de la vie simple qu’il s’est choisie en référence à François d’Assise, dont il fut le premier pape à adopter le patronyme comme pour inaugurer une ère nouvelle. Mais aussi, dit-on, façon de conjurer le risque d’un empoisonnement, tant sa volonté de réforme heurterait les puissants du Vatican… Pour autant, en faire un pape révolutionnaire reviendrait à ne pas saisir à quel point son action est limitée par la doctrine, le fonctionnement des structures de l’Église et les difficultés contemporaines du catholicisme. Si François, professionnel de la communication et habile jésuite, tient tant à un aggiornamento, c’est avant tout pour tenter d'enrayer le recul, aussi rapide que profond, de la foi romaine partout en Occident.

This study proposes a close historical reading of Dei Verbum 11-13, in order to overcome a false division between scientific exegesis and theology. Two readings of DV 12 are possible: (i) scientific exegesis is complete in its genre, but it has to be supplemented by a theology, to avoid the deadlocks of rationalism; (ii) Biblical exegesis cannot be truly scientific without being ecclesial, in such a way that an integral exegesis demands by itself to be developed in a theology. A careful investigation of the text, its prior history, its redaction and its reception, leads toward the second interpretation.

This paper explores the life and work of Brazilian Catholic nun and leading Latin American feminist liberation theologian Ivone Gebara. The paper aims to examine Gebara’s commitment to social justice based on her calling. I argue that Gebara’s search for liberation has shaped her understanding of what the theological task ought to be, and contend that she serves as an example of a progression from a purely liberationist viewpoint to the ecofeminist perspectives emerging out of localised experiences; and that these in turn largely contributed to the development of her methodology and feminist theological vision. The paper attempts to show that her pioneering feminist work and her own life have inspired Christian women locally and globally to contest the androcentric theology that objectifies and diminishes women’s place within the Church.

In order to better understand the divide which occurred within the “progressive majority” at Vatican II as “Schema XIII” (eventually Gaudium et Spes) was under discussion, this essay considers the contributions and objections of Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, two of the document’s most salient critics. After offering a brief history of Schema XIII, I demonstrate that both theologians reacted to it with very similar concerns which centered upon the issue of “nature and grace.” However, their proposed remedies for the schema’s shortcomings differed significantly. Unlike other of its critics, Rahner did not call for jettisoning the schema’s “outside-in” methodology, which began on common ground and culminated in the person of Christ, but rather sought to imbue that methodology with robust supernatural orientation. Rahner’s (often-overlooked) complex relationship to Schema XIII and his own vision for an ideal version (which was fulfilled in many, though not all, ways in the promulgated version) offers a particularly helpful way forward as we read Gaudium et Spes today.