Abstract
In a broad-ranging and very accessible account of how the Second Vatican Council affected (or failed to affect) the Catholic Church and other Christian bodies in Ireland, Coll has brought together twenty-one other contributors and created a rich, informative volume. A high level is guaranteed by chapters provided by Eamonn Conway (“Vatican II on Christian Education: A Guide through Today’s ‘Educational Emergency’?”), Colin Harvey (“Encouraging Dialogue? Human Rights and Vatican II”), Baroness Nuala O’Loan (“Vatican II: Liberation and Authenticity”), and Oliver Rafferty (“The Catholic Church in Ireland and Vatican II in Historical Perspective”). An ecumenical perspective is supplied by Richard Clarke, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh (“Vatican II Fifty Years On: Some Anglican Reflections”) and Patrick Mitchel, Principal of Belfast Bible College (“The Influence of Vatican II on the Protestant Churches in Ireland”). While Mitchel’s chapter is illuminating, Clarke goes further with promising suggestions about the ecumenical celebration of baptism (51) and shared study of the Scriptures (53).
Personal experiences and memories color almost all the contributions. The autobiographical horizon is strongly present in such chapters as Paul Andrews (“A Whirlwind of Change, New Life: One Jesuit’s Experience”), Juanita Majury (“The Second Vatican Council and the New Religious Movements in Ireland”), and Gerry Reynolds (“Ecumenism: A Personal Pilgrimage”).
Over and over again contributors discuss trenchantly the forces and individuals responsible for the present state of the church and society in Ireland. Rafferty comments on “the magisterial authority” claimed by some in the media: they can pronounce “with an infallibility which would be impossible even in the ecclesiastical sphere” (14). Yet, as Andrews points out, a particular group, the Irish journalists covering Vatican II, proved “a remarkable band” (64) and better attuned to the work of the Council than lackluster bishops.
Some of the challenges that are highlighted belong to the particular history of Ireland, but many face the Catholic Church elsewhere. Andrews recalls the question Cardinal Suenens put in 1964 to the bishops at Vatican II: “Why are we discussing the reality of the Church when half of the Church is not represented here?” (34). More than fifty years after the close of the Council, the minor place of women in the governance of the church remains far from satisfactory—not only in Rome but also around the world. Andrews also underlines a scandalous episode in the liturgical life of the whole English-speaking church: “the new translation of the liturgy has been a catastrophe, both in the manoeuvrings that led to it and in the outcome” (65). Curiously Edward McGee (“Towards a Fuller Participation in the Liturgy: Embracing the Mystery of God”) remains silent about this liturgical scandal, which militates against priests and people participating fully in the liturgy. Sharon Haughey’s proposals about staff and students in Catholic schools developing prayerful and spiritual lives (“Spirituality in School: Encouraging Young Faith”) offer excellent advice for Catholic education anywhere.
In the area of social justice, the post-Vatican II Irish Church invites admiration. But more must be done, at home and abroad. Such contributors as Colin Harvey (see above), Aidan Donaldson (“The Preferential Option for the Poor”), Gerard McCann (“A Philosophy of Hope and Vatican II”), and Pascal Scullon (“A Response to the Violence in the Modern World”) draw on the Council, papal teaching, theological writing, and recent history to make proposals that concern social action in the whole Catholic world. Apropos of Donaldson’s account (162) of two documents on liberation theology issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in 1984 and 1986, respectively), the second offsets somewhat the caricature that was the first. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray drafted the second text (see Gerald O’Collins, On the Left Bank of the Tiber [Brisbane: Connor Court, 2013], 197–98). What Eugene Duffy writes about the failure to practice collegiality and synodality (“Reimaging the Church in Ireland in the Light of Vatican II”) touches the Catholic Church more or less everywhere.
An index of names would have enhanced the value of the volume. But, all in all, this is a valuable contribution to the study of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath. It achieves its goal of evaluating the past impact of Vatican II and its relevance for a promising future.