A Brief History of Vatican II.

Buckley, Thomas E.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF VATICAN II. By Giuseppe Alberigo. Foreword by John W. O'Malley, S.J. Translated by Matthew Sherry. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2006. Pp. xv + 141. $20.

VATICAN II: FORTY YEARS LATER. Edited by William Madges. Annual Publication of the College Theology Society 51. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 373. $30.

Giuseppe Alberigo, the Italian editor of the acclaimed five volume history of Vatican II, has produced an insightful narrative that is both a history of the council and personal memoir. His direct contact with the council came through his collaboration at the Bologna center for religious studies with Giuseppe Dossetti, a progressive politician turned priest who served as a peritus for Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro. A. makes their perspective his own as he provides in five chapters an informative overview of Vatican II from its preparatory stages through its conclusion in 1965. A final chapter evaluates the "new Pentecost" that John XXIII hoped to launch. Overall A. offers an optimistic reading of the council as an "event" in the church's life, though he admits disappointments in enacting the progressive agenda he favored.

These issues and the confusion that followed the council receive full attention in a superb collection of essays edited by William Madges of Xavier University in Cincinnati. The 16 contributors include established as well as promising younger theologians. The editor deserves much credit for producing a book whose essays are remarkably consistent in their high quality. Taking up some of the most important themes from Vatican II, they trace their development, in some cases into the 21st century.

The first seven essays examine various ecclesiological implications of Vatican II. For example, under the rubric of reception/subversion, Peter Phan points out how the Asian bishops moved after the council to place "the kingdom of God rather than the church at the center of Christian life" (37) and to present Jesus Christ to Asia through dialogue with its poor (liberation), its cultures (inculturation), and its religions (interreligious dialogue). Even before the 1998 Asian Synod, the bishops rejected the Roman Curia's proposed discussion of Christology. Focusing instead on the way to "carry out the mission of Jesus today" (44), they insisted on the legitimate autonomy of the local church.

Other essays in this first section include Philip Franco's examination of Joseph Ratzinger's communion ecclesiology before his election as Benedict XVI, Christopher Denny's analysis of John Courtney Murray's advanced understanding of the lay apostolate through Catholic Action, and Harriet Luckman's critique of the position of women in the church since Vatican II. Jason King argues persuasively for applying the Vatican II model of the pilgrim church to the contemporary sexual abuse scandal. Two pieces deal specifically with Scripture. Francis Holland provides a comprehensive evaluation of Dei Verbum: its history, a commentary, and subsequent interpretation, while Alice Laffey makes a strong case for literary criticism's support for faith and urges the need "to reclaim scripture as a theological discipline" (109).

Part 2 includes four essays that focus on the church's engagement with the modern world. Two of them deal explicitly with Gaudium et spes. Christine Firer Hinze argues persuasively that the document enunciates an incarnational solidarity that can contextualize social ethics and Christian mission, while William French pushes the text beyond the boundaries of personalism toward an ecologically sensitive framework that embraces creation. Victor Lee Austin examines John Paul II's development of the relationship between Christ and the state; and John Sniegocki explains the growth of magisterial teaching on war, peace, and non-violence since Vatican II.

The five essays in part 3 treat ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. Elaine Catherine MacMillan situates Vatican II within a century of conciliar activity by Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox churches and points out the severe limitations within which the post-Vatican II synods have operated. Clearly the intentions of the council continue to be frustrated by a powerful Curia. Alberigo would agree. In a particularly fine essay Paul Knitter explores the possibilities for interreligious dialogue set forth by theologians since the council, for a "pneumatological theology of religions," and for a dialogical Christology capable of constructively engaging other religions. At the same time, Reid Locklin reaches back to Peter Lombard's Sentences in the 12th century to support that exchange. Elena Procario-Foley carefully delineates the issues raised in Nostra aetate and explores Catholic-Jewish relations since its passage. The final piece by Phillip Luke Sinitiere examines the relatively recent phenomenon of Catholic Evangelicals--that is, evangelical Protestants who have expanded their theological framework so long contained by "sola scriptura" to examine Christian history and patristic scholarship in the first five centuries after Christ.

This is an exceptional collection of well written, cogent essays. In both books we have fine and helpful discussions of Vatican II and contemporary theological issues.

THOMAS E. BUCKLEY, S.J.

Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley