Vatican II Renewal within Tradition

From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of thetwentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for thefuture of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions,and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging fromdivine revelation to relations with non-Christians. In many ways, though, thereal challenges began after the council was over and Catholics began to argueover the interpretation of the documents. Many analysts perceived the Council'sfar-reaching changes as breaks with Church tradition, and soon this became thedominant bias in the American and other media, which lacked the theologicalbackground to approach the documents on their own terms. In Vatican II: RenewalWithin Tradition, an international team of theologians offers a differentreading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting fortha vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in twomillennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that VaticanII's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the RomanCatholic Church. Each chapter contextualizes Vatican II teachings within thatrich tradition. The resulting book is an indispensable and accessible companionto the Council's developments, one that focuses on theology and transcends themass-media storyline of "liberal" versus "conservative."