Yet More Light on Vatican Council II

Abstract

Bibliographie du Concile Vatican II. By Philippe J. Roy. [Atti e Documenti, A. Sezione Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche, 34.] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012. Pp. 477. euro35,00. ISBN 97888-209-8892-0.)Les membres du Coetus Internationalis Patrum au Concile Vatican LL. Lnventaire des interventions et souscriptions des adherents et sympathisants. Liste des signataires d'occasion et des theologiens. By Philippe Roy-Lysencourt. [Instrumenta Theologica, XXXVII.] (Leuven: Peeters, 2014. Pp. 484. euro54,00. ISBN 978-90-429-3087-2.)Separati ma fratelli. Gli osservatori non cattolici al Vaticano LL (1965-1965). By Mauro Velati. [Istituto per le scienze religiose, Serie: Testi e ricerche di scienze religiose, nuova serie, 52.] (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014. Pp. 743. euro55,00. ISBN 978-88-15-2477-3.)This review article continues a series of earlier presentations of scholarly publications on the Second Vatican Council.* 1 Presented here are (1) a one-volume bibliography of works published through 2011 on the Second Vatican Council; (2) an inventory of the oral and written interventions at the Council of the Coetus internationalis patrum, a minority oppositional group; and (3) a comprehensive study of the non-Catholic delegated observers and guests who attended the Council.An Essential Instrument: A Bibliography of4000 Works on the Second Vatican CouncilPhilippe Roy provides a valuable tool for many types of study of the Council. For such bibliographical work, he prepared well through his dissertation of 2011 at Laval and Lyon on the international minority group of Council Fathers (which will be discussed later). His mentor at Laval, Gilles Routhier, established a basis for Roy's bibliography through informative reports on Council literature beginning in 1997 in Laval theologique et philosophique. The author made good use of the regular bibliographies given in Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, and Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique. He contacted more than seventy Council scholars who supplied him with lists of their own and others' works. The coverage extends through works published in 2011, with a further volume planned to register the many works, especially on the Council's reception, stimulated by the fiftieth anniversaries in 2012-15 of the Council's opening, completed documents, and passage to the reception phase.The bibliography has six major parts: (1) working tools, (2) published sources, (3) histories of the Council, (4) persons active at the Council, (5) studies of the sixteen Council documents, and (6) reception of the Council. Each part is thoughtfully subdivided-for example, with the third part divided into sections on the pre-preparatory proposals of Council topics in 1959-60 by bishops, Catholic university faculties, and the curial congregations; on developments in 1960-62 as the preparatory commissions prepared the initial drafts of documents; on general studies of the unfolding of the Council's four periods and three intersessions; and on specific aspects of the whole event relevant to different continents. Persons active at the Council fall into thirteen categories, with listings, for example, on the popes, the Fathers, episcopal conferences, commissions and secretariats, periti, and non-Catholic observers.In the subdivisions filled out with ample listings, the works are ordered alphabetically according to their authors, with a total of 4183 entries. Some works are, however, rightly listed in two or more subsections. The placement of entries in the alphabetical order of the contributing authors seems at times questionable, notably in the parts on the archives, Council Fathers, and periti, since researchers usually look for material on persons of interest without initial concern for those who wrote on them. The final name-index of thirty 2-column pages becomes an essential tool for locating treatments of individual Council participants. …