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Books about Vatican II
Yves Congar OP.
My Journal of the Council.
Translated by Sr. Mary John Ronayne OP and Mary Cecily Boulding OP. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2012.
Trust me, My Journal of the Council is one hefty book, coming in at just under 1,000 pages, but for anyone interested in an insider’s view of Vatican II, its personalities, problems and possibilities, this is a book for you. Yves Congar OP was one of the most important and influential theologians of the twentieth century. Much of this influence came as a result of his role as theological advisor to the bishops who participated at the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Congar was, from beginning to end, an influential day-to-day participant in the Council’s work. He also managed to keep detailed personal notes throughout the time. The material in this book is a treasure trove of information and insight for anyone interested in the history of that Council and its remarkable and historic teaching.
William Madges and Michael J. Daley, eds. Vatican II: Fifty Personal Stories.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, (2003) 2012.
Vatican II: Fifty Personal Stories is a very readable book. The essays are short, varied and informative. Most were written to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Vatican II, but there are some new essays for this new edition of the book. Dennis Doyle’s Foreword to the book offers an insightful, clearly written, “interpretive introduction” to Vatican II and to the fifty memoirs collected here. In one especially engaging memoir, Redemptorist Fr. Francis Xavier Murphy recounts using the pseudonym Xavier Rynne to protect himself from the Roman Curia, so he could cover the Council for The New Yorker and let the world in on the Council’s secrets. In another, Fr. Joseph Komonchak, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America, notes somewhat wistfully that many of those involved in the tense drama of the Council are deceased, while most Catholics today wonder what the fuss was about.
Greg Tobin.
The Good Pope: John XXIII & Vatican II: The Making of a Saint and the Remaking of the Church.
New York: HarperOne, 2012.
The Good Pope: John XXIII & Vatican II may be the single best book about the man who, with the help of the Holy Spirit, set in place a revolution in the Roman Catholic Church. Called a “gentle revolutionary,” John XXIII was not a typical pope, nor was he a typical revolutionary. Born near the Italian Alps, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881–1963) was the son of a sharecropper. He joined the priesthood at an early age and rose to become a papal diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey and France, and later, a patriarch of Venice. He was elected pope in 1958, and because of his age was seen as a caretaker pope – good for a few years until someone younger and better suited came along. But his abilities were seriously underestimated, as can be seen in Greg Tobin’s biography, The Good Pope. The book offers an engaging profile of the man who convened the 21st ecumenical council, which, depending on one’s interpretation, either threatened centuries of Roman Catholic tradition or enlightened them.