Introduction : Revisiting the Complexity of Pre-conciliar Catholicism

In various ways, the present volume is a first. For a start, it marks the launch of a new book series, entitled Brepols Vatican II Studies. The series is dedicated to the study of what is inarguably the single largest and most impactful religious event of the twentieth century. Even after six decades, the Second Vatican Council remains a constant point of reference. While some study it as a past historical event, others regard it as an unfaltering source of inspiration, and still others find the council to be an ongoing stumbling block. The very fact of such lingering and divergent approaches and readings makes it clear that the last word on this council has yet to be written. Research into Vatican II has never ceased, but as new contexts have arisen, scholarly insights into the meaning of this event have changed and continue to evolve. While the academic communis opinio still holds that Giuseppe Alberigo’s History of Vatican II has offered an excellent framework regarding the council’s history, it is also apparent that since the closure of the five-volume project a manifold of studies, inventories and diaries have been made public. Moreover, the increased accessibility of the Vatican II Papers preserved in the ‘Archivio Apostolico Vaticano’ has helped the scholarly community reshape its insights on many of the details regarding the council. All the while, research has focused more attention on the council’s prehistory as well as its continuing influence and its locally diverse and often contested reception. The ongoing project ‘Vatican II: Legacy and Mandate’ is an important example of this kind of research. On an intercontinental scale, this project gathers academics in continental groups and aims at a renewed history and commentary of the conciliar documents and their global reception. Against this horizon, Brepols’s new series has a particular role to play, as it aims to establish an enduring interest in source-based research on Vatican II. It is all the more fitting, therefore, that this first volume presents the proceedings from the first of four conferences resulting from another international academic project on the council, a collaboration between the Australian Catholic University, the Catholic University of Leuven and Tilburg University: ‘The Vision of Vatican II on Revelation, Church, Ecumenism, and Education: Furthering Research on the Drafting Histories, Intertextual Interpretation, and Global Reception of Eight Key
Documents’.

© 2023, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the
publisher.