Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?

For 40 years a battle has been waged over Vatican II between conservatives and liberals, between those who want to go "back to the sources" and those who champion "the spirit of the council." Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? is clearly on the side of those who think something unprecedented happened, that a genie was let out of the bottle that will never be stuffed back. Comprised mainly of a collection of articles, mostly but not all from Theological Studies, that are without qualification some of the best analysis of the council ever written, this book is a long overdue look at one of the most controversial and revolutionary chapters in the history of the Catholic Church.

Table of Contents:
1. Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? John W. O'Malley, SJ 2. Against Forgetting: Memory, History, Vatican II Stephen Schloesser, SJ 3. Vatican II as an "Event" Joseph Komonchak 4. "The Times They Are a'Changin'": A Response to O'Malley, Schloesser, and Komonchak Neil J. Ormerod

About the Author :
David G. Schultenover, S.J., is professor of theology at Marquette University and editor-in-chief of Theological Studies. John W. O'Malley, SJ, is one of the most highly respected and widely read Roman Catholic historians in the United States. He is the author of Four Cultures of the West (Harvard University Press) and The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press), among others. Joseph A. Komonchak holds the John and Gertrude Hubbard Chair in Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America. Neil J. Ormerod is professor of theology at Australian Catholic University, Strathfield, N.S.W. Stephen Schloesser, S.J., was associate professor of history at Boston College.

Review :
America magazine review/analysis "After the Second Vatican Council, Yves Congar was concerned that we might become complacent in our theological endeavors, thinking that texts of council would be viewed as fixing once and for all the aims of the aggiornamento called for by Pope John XXIII.  In this regard, Congar would have welcomed the four essays contained in this book...In the encyclical Tertìo Mìllennìo Advenìente, Pope John Paul II held that the central task of the church in the new millennium would be to work toward an authentic assimilation to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.  What we have in this brilliant and much-needed book are four superb thinkers who are doing just that." —Maureen Sullivan, America The National Catholic Weekly, March 3, 2008 "The essays in Vatican II by John  W. O'Malley, Stephen Schloesser, Joseph A. Komonchak, and Neil J. Ormerod provide vigorous challenges to the so-called amnesiac approach of the restorationists." —Terrence W. Tilley, Commonweal, April 11, 2008 "...With its rich reflections on developments in Catholic religion, world politics, and culture, this is a valuable contribution. Summing Up: Highly Recommended. Upper-level graduates through faculty/research." — H. J. John, CHOICE, June 2008, Vol. 45 No. 10 "This collection of essays deserves the serious attention of all intelligent Catholics who are probably troubled and perplexed by the diverse interpretations that are currently being given to the Second Vatican Council." -Worship "...The title of the book, from Father John O'Malley's article, indicates this preference for "experience" over content. He labours the obvious point that the language of Vatican ll indicates a new openness towards the non-Catholic and secular worlds Stephen Schlosser...accounts for the change by placing it in the context of the 1960s when the threat of a nuclear disaster had produced world-wide feeling of angst...Yes, of course, but we hardly need a book to inform us of notions that over years have become threadbare with use. Everyone knows that the sixties were tumultuous, that the last forty years have been difficult...What we look for in these intelligent and learned Catholics is beyond linguistics and sociology; we want theology...The tepid conclusion of the book—"the Church is now faced with the need to bring about change in itself...while seeking to put the breaks [sic] on the pace of change in the world" (p.176)—should worry these learned gentlemen, given what the Lord said to the lukewarm Christians in Laodicea (Rev 3:16)." -Father Daniel Callam, C.S.B., Catholic Insight Magazine, January 2009 "Overall, this book is a useful teaching tool for examining the historical and theological questions raised by the changes that resulted from the Second Vatican Council. For undergraduate students or even for younger theologians, it offers a fascinating look at a tumultuous time in the history of the Church and the world that they did not experience first hand." -Jason Paul Bourgeois, Horizons, Fall 2008 "Did anything happen at Vatican II? The question is beguilingly simple, but inordinately complex—and yet after reading this work, one cannot help but assert an answer in the affirmative." - Patrick J. Hayes, Catholic Books Review, 2009 "It will remain useful for understanding the interpretation of Vatican II to have such a valuable collection readily available on library and personal shelves." -Michael Attridge, Theological Studies, March 2009 (reviewed with What Happened at Vatican II by John O'Malley. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.)"In the end both these books encourage us not to oversimplify, but at the same time have enough historical sensitivity to see that the claim we often hear that Vatican II was about continuity rather than reform in bunkum. O'Malley makes this clearest, when time and time again without passing judgment he gives chapter and verse for the machinations of the "minority group" (dominated by Curial cardinals) and provides a depressing record of the disproportionate influence they exercised on the council's time and energy, only to be pretty well wiped out in the the overwhelmingly one-sided vote tallies that eventually concluded the debate. The essay collection offers the reader four creative and intelligent reappraisals that cut through the hackneyed terms of debates over Vatican II...The Holy Spirit, evidently, is in the details, as these two fine books make abundantly clear."--Paul Lakeland, American Catholic Studies, Winter 2009 "The initiative to publish these interrelated studies under one cover is to be lauded. This small book should be used as a serious introduction to the study of Vatican II, not that it has become a historical event." --Leo Laberge, OMI, Theoforum Vol. 39 No. 3, 2008 "These thoughtful essays, marshaling arguments from the ecclesiologically progressive perspective, seek to stay the ascendant conservative voices that have risen in response to many clear signs that Vatican II's results have led not to a New Pentecost but to bare ruined choirs, and that efforts to make the Church relevant have instead been disasters. The essays ask important questions and make sophisticated arguments that merit serious attention, and the book should be in all academic libraries." - Daniel Boice, Catholic Library World, September 2008