Upcoming Posts - A Vatican II Theme

Beginning on August 19th, Deacon Mike Lewis and I will begin a series at St. Patrick's Parish in the Northland on the Second Vatican Council.  Each Sunday from 9:30am to 10:45am we will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Vatican II by exploring the council documents and seeing how the Church changed from the days before the Council and the days following the Council.  I will post our session notes and reflections each week as we explore the most monumental event in religion in the 20th century.

The American contribution to Vatican II was the Declaration on Religious Liberty, known by its Latin name "Dignitatis Humanae".  On Saturday October 6th I will present a workshop at the Missouri Catholic Conference Annual Assembly on the Vatican II teaching on this topic and how it was a significant departure from the Church's previous positions on the religious liberty.  We will then discuss the global dimensions of religious liberty to see how the teachings of the Council can have great impact on various events around the world.  I will post the notes and discussion from that day as well.

On Saturday October 27th Community of Christ in Independence, MO will have a major Peace Conference that will be an interfaith conversation on issues of peace and justice.  Brad Martell, the Social Justice Director for Community of Christ, has put together an outstanding program for the day, the link for which I will post in the coming days.  Brad has asked me to present a workshop on the Catholic tradition on peace, another area that has seen major developments in the past fifty years.  I'll post the notes and discussion we have from that workshop as well.

In the past few years there has been a conversation about the Second Vatican Council regarding its legacy and impact in the Church.  Very often the dividing line has been those who see the Council from the perspective of a hermaneutic of continuity and those who see the Council in terms of a hermaneutic of rupture.  As is the case in so many areas of Church life, the reality is more complex than these two choices.  Certainly there are many aspects of the Council that shows a great continuity with the long Catholic tradition in terms of faith and practice.  However, there are elements of the Council that represent a departure from Catholic practice, although this departure is more a return to a more ancient tradition and understanding of the Church that had been lost for many generations due to a number of historical factors.  Consequently, the Council's legacy is not one of an either/or position of continuity versus rupture, but rather one of and/both where some of the continuity is more evident in Catholic faith and life while other elements of continuity are ruptures from historical departures from the more ancient tradition and understanding of Catholic life and practice.

As we will see, the concepts of religious liberty and the Catholic position on war and peace have both returned to a more ancient tradition and hence the continuity of our rediscovered understanding is found in a continuity with the early Church.  At the same time, these rediscoveries represent a rupture with a historical departure from the early Church's understanding of these concepts that came to dominate the Church's life and practice up until the time of the Second Vatican Council. 

The anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council will be celebrated within the context of the celebration of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.  As we explore the great treasures of Vatican II we hope to grow in our faith and come to appreciate the great tradition we have as the People of God.