The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis

by Massimo Faggioli, Edward P. Hahnenberg, Kristin M Colberg, Catherine Clifford

Overview

A renewed approach to the critical study of the event and documents of Vatican II, necessary for responding to the challenges facing today’s church.
 
Packed with new insights from some of today’s most highly regarded voices on the Second Vatican Council, The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis enacts the living tradition of the church by proposing a richer history to be told sixty years from its celebration, and a broader theology to inspire our work today.  
 
Vatican II did not anticipate our contemporary challenges, nor do its documents provide specific guidelines or step-by-step instructions for addressing them. But that does not make the council irrelevant. As a touchstone of the church’s magisterial tradition, the Second Vatican Council remains foundational for the life and mission of the Catholic Church today. However, like any monument of the tradition, the council requires ongoing investigation, critical analysis, and constant reconsideration from a diversity of contemporary perspectives if it is going to contribute to the living tradition of the church.
 
Through historical and theological lenses, the contributors aim to rediscover forgotten voices and overlooked moments of Vatican II that may have something even more important to say today. Each chapter promises to surprise, enlighten, inspire, and teach in fresh and unexpected ways. The contributors offer readers striking insights on the council’s teaching related to the sexual abuse crisis, antiracism, politics, the Synod on Synodality, and much more. By reexamining the teaching of Vatican II from the perspective of our present ecclesial crisis, readers will have a better understanding of how its legacy and limits affect the ongoing reform of the church in a much-changed theological, ecclesial, and social landscape.

Contributors:
Matteo Caponi
Catherine E. Clifford
Kristin M. Colberg
Agnès Desmazières
Massimo Faggioli
Theresa Gardner
Edward P. Hahnenberg
Timothy Hanchin
Tuan A. Hoang
Mary Kate Holman
Jaisy A. Joseph
Florian Klug
William Kuncken
Josephine Laffin
Martin Madar
Evgeniia Muzychenko
William I. Orbih
Bernard G. Prusak
Daniel A. Rober

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814689295
Publisher:	Liturgical Press
Publication date:	04/26/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	804 KB

About the Author

Catherine E. Clifford is professor of systematic and historical theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. She is presently vice president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and serves as a North American delegate to the XVI General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality. Among her recent publications are The Oxford Handbook on Vatican II (2023), co-edited with Massimo Faggioli, and Vatican II at 60: Re-Energizing the Renewal (Orbis, 2024).
 
Kristin M. Colberg is associate professor of theology at Saint John's University and School of Theology and the College of Saint Benedict, and the sole U.S. member to serve on the theological commission for the Synod on Synodality. She received her doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in systematic theology. She is the co-author with Jos Moons, SJ, of The Future of Synodality: How We Move Forward from Here (Liturgical Press, 2025), author of Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition (Liturgical Press, 2016), and the co-editor of Speaking Truth in Love, a festschrift in honor of Cardinal Walter Kasper (Liturgical Press, 2014). Colberg also serves as a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).
 
Massimo Faggioli is professor of historical and contemporary ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin and the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies, and a contributing editor for Commonweal. He is an internationally-established scholar in the area of Vatican II and the papacy especially, and a renowned public commentator on church affairs. Among his books with Liturgical Press are The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis (2025); True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (2012); Pope John XXIII: The Medicine of Mercy (2014); and Sorting Out Catholicism: A Brief History of the New Ecclesial Movements (2014).
 
Edward P. Hahnenberg is the Breen Chair in Catholic Theology at John Carroll University. He is the author or co-editor of seven books—including Theodore Hesburgh, CSC: Bridge Builder (2020); Theology for Ministry: An Introduction for Lay Ministers (2014) published by Liturgical Press. He is a past delegate to the U.S. Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue and former theological consultant to the U.S. Bishops’ Subcommittee on Lay Ministry.

Massimo Faggioli is professor of historical and contemporary ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin and the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies, and a contributing editor for Commonweal. He is an internationally-established scholar in the area of Vatican II and the papacy especially, and a renowned public commentator on church affairs. Among his books with Liturgical Press are The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis (2025); True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (2012); Pope John XXIII: The Medicine of Mercy (2014); and Sorting Out Catholicism: A Brief History of the New Ecclesial Movements (2014).

Edward P. Hahnenberg holds the Jack and Mary Jane Breen Chair in Catholic Systematic Theology at John Carroll University. He is the author of Awakening Vocation: A Theology of Christian Call and Theology for Ministry: An Introduction for Lay Ministers, and coeditor of A Church with Open Doors: Catholic Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium published by Liturgical Press. He is a contributor to Give Us This Day. Dr. Hahnenberg is a past consultant to the US Bishops Subcommittee on Lay Ministry and current delegate to the US Lutheran–Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue.

Kristin Colberg is associate professor of theology at Saint John's University and School of Theology and the College of Saint Benedict, and the sole U.S. member on theological commission for the Synod on Synodality. She received her doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in systematic theology. She is the author of Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition (Liturgical Press, 2016) and the co-editor of Speaking Truth in Love, a festschrift in honor of Cardinal Walter Kasper (Liturgical Press, 2014). Professor Colberg also serves as a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).

Catherine E. Clifford is associate professor of theology at St. Paul University in Ontario. She received an STL from the Universit‚ de Fribourg and a PhD in theology from the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto. She is coeditor of Vatican II: Canadian Experiences (University of Ottawa Press, 2011).

Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction: Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in Our Present Ecclesial Crisis   ix
     Catherine E. Clifford, Kristin M. Colberg, Massimo Faggioli, Edward P. Hahnenberg
Part One: Hermeneutics of the Council in an Age of Crisis
Chapter 1: A Further Reception of Vatican II: Interim Report from the Synod on Synodality   3
     Catherine E. Clifford
Chapter 2. The “Spirit of Vatican II” and the Legacy of the Council Today   21
     Martin Madar
Chapter 3. Integralism and the Reception(s) of Dignitatis Humanae   37
     Daniel A. Rober
Chapter 4. Lumen Gentium and Doctrinal Ambivalence: Abel and the Interpretative Task of Filling the Gaps   53
     Florian Klug
Chapter 5. A Unity Beyond the Human? Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Ecological Crisis   73
     William G. Kuncken
Part Two: Contemporary Crises and the Limits of Vatican II
Sexual Abuse
Chapter 6. Vatican II’s Silence on Child Sex Abuse: Challenges and Limits of a “Pastoral” Agenda   93
     Agnès Desmazières
Chapter 7. The Limits and Legacy of Vatican II’s Teaching on Priesthood: The Bishops’ Responses to Clerical Sexual Abuse in Australia   109
     Josephine Laffin
Chapter 8. Jointly Committed: Examining the Sexual Abuse Scandal as a Case of Institutional Vice in Post-Vatican II Catholicism   129
     Bernard G. Prusak
Sexism
Chapter 9. Glorified and Liberated? Toward a Feminist Ecclesiology of Vatican II   147
     Mary Kate Holman
Chapter 10. The “Synodal Process” and the North American Reception of Vatican II on Women in the Church   163
     Theresa Gardner
Racism and Colonialism
Chapter 11. Disrupting the Idolatry of Blood: Catholic Antiracism as a Necessary Expression of the Council’s Renewed Soteriology   181
     Jaisy A. Joseph
Chapter 12. Conciliar, Postconciliar, and Postcolonial: Vatican II, Paul VI, and the Church in South Vietnam   201
     Tuan Hoang
Chapter 13. Vatican II and Caste in Postcolonial India: Brahminization of the Catholic Church or Catholicization of Brahminical Power?   219
     Evgeniia Muzychenko
Chapter 14. Vatican II and the African Catholic Church: A Decolonial Critique 235
     William I. Orbih
Chapter 15. Becoming Antiracist: Post-Vatican II Catholicism and the “Sin of Racism”   253
     Matteo Caponi 
Part Three: Ecclesial Responses
Chapter 16. Discerning Disciples: Lay Agency Sixty Years After Vatican II   275
     Edward P. Hahnenberg
Chapter 17. Catholic Higher Education at Our Lord’s Tomb: Toward a Pedagogy of Holy Saturday in Our Age of Contempt   295
     Timothy Hanchin
About the Authors   313
Index of Names   317

Editorial Reviews

"This welcome collection aims to bridge the distance between Vatican II and the diverse contexts in which the council unfolded and continues to be received. The essays engage critically with the council as part of the church’s living tradition, which contributes to pastoral, ethical, and ecclesiological questions while also being notably, even disastrously, silent on issues the church continues to face today. The volume insightfully highlights the need to learn from Vatican II’s contributions as well as its lacunae in the hope of responding more actively to concerns such as racism, colonialism, sexual abuse, and misogyny in the church and world today."
Amanda C. Osheim, PhD, Professor of Practical Theology, Loras College

From the Publisher