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Vatican II: 40
years later
Story of council in books, tapes
By ARTHUR JONES and RICH
HEFFERN
Vatican II, said Fr. Joseph Komonchak, is often presented as
battle between the good guys and the bad guys. In fact, said the co-editor of
the five-volume History of Vatican II, a 15-year project, “there
was a good deal of diversity on both sides.”
In Australia in July, Komonchak was pressed by Catholics to
explain what he thought remained unfilled in the pastoral program the council
set out. He said its call for co-responsibility at all levels of the church had
not been adequately realized, not at the level of episcopal collegiality or at
the grassroots level of church life.
The American priest, who has been editing the English-language
edition of the “History,” said the fourth volume will be published in
English in the spring. English translation of the fifth volume is “well
underway,” he said. Volume V is already available in Italian.
The volumes in the History of Vatican II, are: Vol. I:
Announcing and Preparing Vatican Council II. Toward a New Era in
Catholicism (1995); Vol. II: The Formation of the Council’s
Identity: First Period and Intersession, October 1962-September 1963
(1997); Vol. III: The Mature Council: Second Period and Intersession,
September 1963-September 1964 (2000); Vol. IV: Church as Communion:
Third Period and Intercession, September 1964-September 1965. (2003); and
Vol. V: Council of Transition: The Fourth Period and the End of the
Council (2004).
Giuseppe Alberigo is general editor of the entire project and of
each volume. The works, published by Peeters in Leuven, Belgium, and by Orbis,
are $80 a volume.
Komonchak holds the John C. and Gertrude P. Hubbard Chair in
Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America.
A viewer-friendly parallel to Komonchak’s richly documented
five-volume history is the late Richard C. Leach’s five-hour,
five-cassette video project, “The Faithful Revolution,” and its
companion CD-ROM.
At the outset, Leach was convinced that his on-screen reflections
on the council would save “the good guys from the bad guys.” He began
the project, he said, “like a crusade -- to defend Vatican II against
conservative movements that seemed to be more interested in reversing the work
of Vatican II.”
Leach’s team set out to interview all the major Vatican II
figures -- participants, periti (experts) and observers, and then to
travel the globe to film examples of conciliar implementation at work.
Leach told NCR in September 2000 that when he sat
down to listen to the hours and hours of interviews, “I listened for
invective and betrayal, and when I didn’t find any, I had to reorient
myself and say, ‘Forget the good guys-bad guys, go to the work, focus on
the work.’ The sources where I expected to find hostility did not have
that hostility.”
Leach’s five-cassette project -- he died at 73 in 2001 --
grows in stature. With most of Vatican II’s participants now elderly or
deceased, its value to the church of today and tomorrow -- along with its
encyclopedic CD-ROM -- becomes, in the words of Thomas More editor-in-chief
John Sprague, “genuinely historic.”
“Dick’s commitment to the vision and energy of the
council brought him to produce the documentary and the CD-ROM. And he remained
committed to that vision all his life.”
“The Faithful Revolution,” the five videocassette set,
and the CD-ROM, “Destination Vatican II,” are available from Thomas
More.
Other books, audiotapes and a video on the council include:
- Council Daybook (three volumes), Floyd Anderson, editor.
National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1966.
- The Council: Reform and Reunion, by Hans Küng.
Sheed & Ward, 1961.
- Even Greater Things: Hope and Challenge after Vatican
II, by Bernard Daly, Mae Daly and Bishop Remi J. De Roo. Novalis,
1999.
- Journal of a Soul: The Autobiography of Pope John XXIII.
Doubleday, Image Books, 1980.
- Pope John: Shepherd of the Modern World, by Peter
Hebblethwaite. Doubleday, 1985.
- 101 Questions and Answers on Vatican II, by Maureen
Sullivan. Paulist Press, 2002.
- “Reforms of Vatican II: How Have We Done, Where Are We
Going?” by Bishop Kenneth E. Untener. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1996.
Audiotape.
- Roman Catholicism After Vatican II, Robert A. Burns, OP.
Georgetown University Press, 2001.
- The Runaway Church: Post-conciliar Growth and Change, by
Peter Hebblethwaite. Seabury Press, 1976.
- The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism, by
G. Berkouwer. Wm. Eerdmans, 1965.
- Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar
Documents, Austin P. Flannery, editor. Costello Publishing Co., 1996,
paperback.
- Vatican II in Plain English: The Constitutions, by Bill
Huebsch. Thomas More, 1997, paperback
- Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, John Miller,
editor. University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.
- Vatican Council II, by Xavier Rynne. Orbis, 1999,
paperback.
- “A Woman’s View of Vatican II and the Modern Church:
A Visit with Mary Luke Tobin,” by Sr. Mary Luke Tobin. Inner Explorations,
video and audiotape.
Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large. His e-mail address
is arthurjones@attbi.com
Rich Heffern is NCR opinion editor. His e-mail address
is rheffern@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, October 4,
2002
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