The 40th anniversary of Vatican II: examining Dominus Iesus,and contemporary issues for inter‐religious dialogue between Muslims and Catholics

Since the Second Vatican Council, Muslim–Catholic relations have taken monumental and historical steps in areas of inter‐religious dialogue, in social and religious cooperation, and in collaborating in protecting human freedom. The 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council celebrated last year highlighted this courageous move towards recognizing each other's unique religious traditions. This paper examines Muslim–Catholic relations in recent history under the leadership of John Paul II, and especially within the context of the controversial Vatican document Dominus Iesus issued in 2000. It explores critical areas of concern in Dominus Iesus for Muslim–Catholic relations, as well as analyzing its merits in terms of inter‐religious dialogue.     

The Indonesian Catholic Church 50 years after Vatican II: seven models of church life

The significance and influence of the Second Vatican Council in respect of the reform of the Catholic Church are no longer in dispute. The issue now at stake is how the Vatican II documents are understood and implemented in each church community. This article is the result of research on the significance and implementation of the Council's thinking in the Indonesian Catholic Church (ICC) in the past 50 years. It begins with observations on ICC's history and social context, then highlights the main use of conciliar documents in the reforms it has undertaken. Seven models of church life, illustrative of the implementation of Vatican II, are described. Although these models cannot comprehensively reveal all the realities of the ICC, they are seen as portraying it as it is today, at the point from which its future course may be worked out.     

Ethical Considerations for Psychologists Screening Applicants for the Priesthood in the Catholic Church: Implications of the Vatican Instruction on Homosexuality

The release of the Vatican instruction on homosexuality in the priesthood and Catholic seminaries poses several challenging ethical issues for the psychologists who conduct psychological screening evaluations for those men interested in religious life as Catholic priests. This brief article reviews some of the key ethical issues associated with these evaluations in light of the new Vatican instruction on homosexuality. The RRICC model based on the American Psychological Association's Code of Ethics (i.e., responsibility, respect, integrity, competence, and concern) is used to highlight some of the ethical challenges for psychologist evaluators.     

The Worker-Priest Archetype

The concept of the worker-priest archetype, in its most recent official form, originated in France's Roman Catholic Church as a missionary attempt to “rediscover the masses” of the industrial class workers in the French factories of the 1940s. This effort was shut down by the Vatican in the 1950s out of fear of Communist influence within the movement. With the advent of the Vatican II Council (1962–1965) of the Catholic Church, new life seemed to have been infused into this archetype. For example, the liberation theology movement in Latin America was strongly influenced by Vatican II. In the United States, many new forms of liturgical celebration were created, and social reform movements, doubtless as part of the 1960s social-revolutionary energy, emerged and were fostered. When the conservative faction within the Catholic hierarchy reacted to what they perceived as dangerous and threatening developments in the church, they acted to stop this liberal movement. One likely consequence of this slamming shut the windows that had been newly opened by Vatican II was a mass exodus of Catholic priests in the United States who left the clergy and entered civilian life.

?This article focuses on interviews with three of the men who were active Catholic priests, two of whom chose to leave the priesthood and one who remained a priest but moved the focus of his work to the “inner city.” There he cared for young black men as an unofficial social worker/priest, operating on his own to serve a population traditionally underserved by the Catholic Church.     

The Catholic Diocese: A Transversalized Institution

The Catholic Church is built, on the one hand, upon a hierarchical structure and vertical relationships, with stratified duties, centered around an organizational culture which is based on strict obedience to institutional directives and which has a monopoly on the administration of the goods and resources concerning salvation. On the other hand, since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has proposed to incorporate lay people into God's Kingdom, a development which represents an opening to the active participation of diverse groups and a redistribution of access to the goods of salvation. Analysts may take a position one way or the other regarding their definition of the Church, and some even state the existence of a dominant church and a people's church. In contrast to both these perspectives, this paper looks at a methodological and theoretical model for studying diversity within Catholic unity. The model is based on the concept of the 'transversalized institution' as it is applied to the way in which Guadalajara's diocese functions.     

The roman catholic church and interreligious dialogue: Implications for Christian‐Muslim relations

At the Second Vatican Council, 1965, the Roman Catholic Church, in the declaration Nostra Aetate, opened a new and more positive relationship with Islam and other world religions. In 1984 the Vatican issued a second document, on mission and dialogue, which strongly encouraged interreligious dialogue and set out in detail the breadth of activities involved. Since then there has been in some Catholic circles a growing fear that the emphasis on dialogue has led to an abandoning of the. Church's missionary obligation to proclaim the full Christian Gospel to non‐Christians and to invite them to Christian faith. At the end of 1990 the present Pope issued the encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio, ’on the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate’. This was followed five months later by another Vatican document on Dialogue and Proclamation. This paper examines these four documents in the light of the wider debate taking place among Christians on the relationship of Christianity to men and women of other faiths. It concentrates on the specific case of Christian‐Muslim relations and concludes that there is even more need for Christians and Muslims to be religiously sensitive and open; to know and esteem each other's values, and to cooperate for the social, moral and religious well‐being of the whole human family.     

Catholic Theological Education in a Religiously Pluralistic Age

Abstract. This article describes the transformation of Catholic theological education over the last fifty years from a highly defensive posture vis‐à‐vis other religions toward dialogical engagement with members of other religions and all persons of good will. Until Vatican II, most Catholic theologians and officials distrusted exploration of other religions as leading to a dilution of Catholic identity. Vatican II condemned anti‐Semitism and called for dialogue among religions in pursuit of common values. Since the Council, there have been developments in interfaith education on three levels: religious studies, comparative theology, and inter‐religious practice.     

The role of successive popes in the process of unification of the Church in China

ABSTRACT

After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Communist Party of China sought to break all ties between the Church in China and Western powers. Since 1957, there have been two distinct Catholic groups within the PRC: the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and the underground church loyal to the Vatican. This may be about to change, however, as in September 2018, the Vatican and the PRC signed a new provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops, which could lead to e?orts towards reuni?cation of the Catholic Church in China after more than sixty years of division. This paper introduces the changing position of the popes with respect to the PRC. The article argues that the new agreement should not be considered an initiative solely of Pope Francis, but rather the result of numerous changes within the Vatican instigated during the papacy of Pope John XXIII.     

Individualism and Community as Contested Rhetorics in the Catholic New Evangelization Movement

This article addresses a new religious movement within one of the oldest ecclesiastical organizations in Christendom??the Catholic Church. The Catholic New Evangelization (NE) is an intra-ecclesial movement articulated and inspired by the late Pope John Paul II. Our analysis of this movement focuses on the emerging tensions between the contrasting individualist and communalist orientations of what we call ??Vatican II Catholics?? and ??NE Catholics,?? respectively. We examine responses to NE rhetoric and its implementation in the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit??s central services, the archdiocesan seminary, and two local Detroit parishes. At these sites, the NE rhetoric, especially in its emphasis on having a ??personal relationship with Jesus,?? has intensified individual versus community tensions among Catholic professionals and lay leaders in the Detroit area.     

The Eastern Catholic Churches and the paradox of Vatican II

The author investigates the challenges to Catholic ecclesiology presented by two Eastern Catholic Churches – the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church – as they assert prerogatives validated by the teachings of Vatican II. In their reception of the Council these Churches highlight the need to develop the Trinitarian and Eucharistic ecclesiology rediscovered by the Council. This practical development is mirrored in the progress of the International Roman Catholic–Orthodox Dialogue and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Although a final resolution still awaits, it is evident in the treatment of the Eastern Catholics by the Vatican that reception of the Council demands a renewed understanding of the mutual interdependence of primacy and conciliarity. Such a development will only hasten Christian reunification.     

Hermeneutics and the Second Vatican Council's Teachings: Establishing Roman Catholic Theological Grounds for Religious Freedoms in Relation to Islam. Continuity or Discontinuity in the Catholic Tradition?

This article examines how the hermeneutical traditions within Roman Catholicism can be employed to address a question regarding Catholic views on the religious freedoms that should be accorded to Islam in any society. The key Catholic documents examined originate from the Second Vatican Council. This particular question was not the focus of the key documents inspected, but those documents can be applied to this question. The first part of the article examines the complex hermeneutics involved in reading Council documents. The second part of the article examines the way in which the ‘Declaration on Religious Liberty’ can be applied to the question of Islamic religious freedoms. The article also attempts to show that the Council's teachings were a real development in Catholic teaching and were also continuous with an earlier stratum of tradition. Attention is given to the serious debate within the Catholic Church regarding the claims made in this document.     

Sharing the faith of Abraham: The ‘Credo’ of Louis Massignon

Louis Massignon (1883–1962) was one of the West's most renowned scholars of Islam in the twentieth century. He was also one of the most influential thinkers in the Roman Catholic community before the second Vatican council on the relationship between the church and Muslims. His religious views on Islam, Muhammad, and the Qur'an were largely responsible for the church's positive approach to dialogue with the Islamic world, as expressed in the document of Vatican II. Massignon believed that Muslims and Christians both worship the God of Abraham; that Muhammad was a sincere spokesman of God; that the Qur'an is in some sense inspired; that Islam has a positive mission in the history of salvation; and that Arabic is a language of divine revelation.     

Toward Common Ground: Catholicism and Pentecostalism in African Christianity

After reviewing the great appeal of Pentecostal/charismatic spirituality as a religious phenomenon that has come to stay on the tapestry of the pastoral ecology of African Christianity, this article suggests a more dynamic and practical interface and collaboration with these movements by the Catholic Church in Africa, using the Vatican Council's embrace of ecumenism and dialogue.     

Sex,gender, and intersex: anthropological,medical, and ethical critiques and proposals

ABSTRACT

The problems of intersex have received little attention from both Catholic Magisterium and theologians. Early in 2019, the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education issued a document intended to be a pathway for a dialogue on the issue of gender in education. This essay responds to that document as a contribution to filling theological gaps in the consideration of intersex. It first explains and critiques the theological anthropology underlying the Vatican document and then analyzes and critiques Western cultural, medical approaches to intersex persons. It dialogues with the experience of intersex persons and the social sciences that document it and concludes by proposing ethical principles to guide intersex persons, their parents, and their physicians in the care and treatment of intersex.     

From "Main Tendue" to Vatican II: TheCatholic Engagement with Atheism1936–1965

Pius XII condemned atheism's "most ignoble corruptions" in his 1956 encyclical Haurietis Aquas , along with its "lethal tenets" in 1958's Meminisse Iuvat . Only six years later, however, in 1964, Vatican II's Lumen Gentium affirmed the possibility of salvation for "those who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God" (article 16). Furthermore, the following year's Gaudium et Spes 19–21, drafted by Paul VI's newly-founded Secretariat for Non-believers , offers, among much else, a sympathetic overview of contemporary atheisms, and invites their contemporary adherents to "a dialogue that is sincere and prudent". These paragraphs, according to Ratzinger, "may be counted among the most important pronouncements of Vatican II".
  Evidently, comparing Pius XII's "lethal tenets" to Vatican II's salvific optimism, profound developments are manifest in the Catholic engagement with atheism. Primarily responsible for this are, I argue, two episodes in French Catholic history in the decades preceding Vatican II: a) the unprecedented dialogue of Catholic intellectuals with modern atheism, following the French Communist Party's main tendue ("outstretched hand") during the period of the Popular Front (1934–38); and b) the 'priest-worker' experiment, initiated by Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel's 1943 publication of La France – Pays de Mission ?     

The Analogia Entis as a Standard of Catholic Engagement: Erich Przywara's Critique of Phenomenology and Dialectical Theology

The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to the twentieth‐century Jesuit, Erich Przywara (1889‐1972), who was arguably the most brilliant and prolific Catholic philosopher, theologian, cultural and literary critic of the 1920s and 1930s, but is known today more by association with his friend Edith Stein or his protégé Hans Urs von Balthasar than for anything he wrote. Rather than focusing on any single work, however, this article focuses on his early understanding of the analogia entis as a synthesis of the teaching of Augustine, Thomas, and the IV Lateran Council, and on his subsequent deployment of the analogia entis as a Catholic standard in response to the dialectical theology of the early Barth and the phenomenology of Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger, respectively. Looking back to Vatican I and anticipating Vatican II, it is clear that Przywara was in the vanguard of the Catholic Church’s engagement with the modern world. What remains to be considered today, aside from his immense contribution to modern theology, is the merit of his responses to Barth and Heidegger at this time, e.g., his claim that dialectical theology, instead of being a corrective to modernity, was only a symptom of its fundamental imbalance, and that phenomenology, rather than overcoming or displacing a Catholic metaphysics of the analogia entis, is fulfilled in the ontological openness signified by it.     

Morality: between Law and Real-life Needs

The investigation that culminated last July in a letter from the Vatican to Professor Curran, criticising the distinction made by him and many others between 'infallible' and 'non-infallible' Church teaching and initiating his removal from his post at the Catholic University of America, has been one of the most hotly discussed events to have happened in the modern American Catholic Church, has been written about throughout the Catholic world, and has troubled many theologians. We are publishing this translation of an article by Bernhard Häring, 'Moral zwischen gesetz und Lebensnot' (which appeared in the German Church magazine Christ in der Gegenwart¹ in August), because its author, who taught Curran in Rome and in March accompanied him to the Vatican for 'informal dialogue', has such a close knowledge of this theologian's thinking, which in some places has been misrepresented. The text has been updated where essential.     

Apostolic Administrator Dr Mihael Toroš and his Connections with the Communist Authorities in Slovenia between 1947 and 1953

Abstract

This article presents the work of Apostolic Administrator Dr Mihael Toro? in the western border areas of Slovenia after the annexation of the Primorska region to Yugoslavia in 1947. When he became administrator his parishes were in ruins. He wanted to rebuild religious life, but this was impossible without the help of the communist authorities. However, the authorities used him to cause a rift in the Catholic Church in Slovenia. He and his priests were given material goods and other benefits to show others how profitable cooperating with the authorities was. In return Toro? had to declare his loyalty to the state in public. After a few years he realised that he was being exploited and he distanced himself from the authorities. His connections with the authorities were criticised by the Vatican, but he achieved a good deal for the Catholic Church in Slovenia (a magazine, a boys' seminary) by cooperating.     

Ecclesial Ethics and the Gospel sine glossa: Sacramental Politics and the Love of the World

This article examines the charge that the approach D. Stephen Long identifies as “ecclesial ethics” is a world-denying approach. The article examines typologies that pit world-affirmers against world-deniers, showing how “neo-Augustinians” end up on both sides of this divide, depending on who is constructing the typology. The article argues that these typologies are inaccurate, distorting, and often self-contradictory. It offers an alternative etiology, making a case that “ecclesial ethics” can be understood as a development of the progressive wing of Catholic thought that surfaced in Vatican II. The article examines Giuseppe Dossetti’s advocacy of a Gospel sine glossa at Vatican II, and argues that this type of ethics has deep roots in a Catholic sacramental theology. Finally, the article examines Henri de Lubac’s work as exemplary of such a sacramental theology. The article concludes that the basis of “ecclesial ethics” is a deeply sacramental view of creation being transformed by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.     

Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum: Reconciling Conflicting Values

This article examines the content of Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum and his accompanying Letter to the Bishops and interprets them as a bold attempt to bring liturgical peace to the Catholic Church by freeing the “Tridentine” Latin Mass for general use and promoting internal reconciliation by reconciling theological values which have been at variance since Vatican II. It also examines how different individuals, writers and groups have reacted to these documents as expressed in periodical literature, books and web sites. A reading of the literature reveals that most responses are strongly and passionately for or against the Pope's decision and reasoning, with relatively few voices advocating a moderate and reconciliatory stance. In general, people have reacted in a predictable way depending on their already established loyalties.