Catholics in the Vatican II Era
Local Histories of a Global Event

For the first time, this volume takes a global and comparative approach to the lived local history of Vatican II.

Kathleen Sprows Cummings (Edited by), Timothy Matovina (Edited by), Robert A. Orsi (Edited by)

9781107141162, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 November 2017

318 pages
24.1 x 16.4 x 2.2 cm, 0.58 kg

'… an important and timely volume … Cummings, Matovina, and Orsi have brought together a valuable resource for historians of global Catholicism.' Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, British Catholic History

Debates about the meaning of Vatican II and its role in modern Catholic and global history have largely focused on close theological study of its authoritative documents. This volume of newly commissioned essays contends that the historical significance of the council is best examined where these messages encountered the particular circumstances of the modern world: in local dioceses around the world. Each author examines the social, political, and domestic circumstances of a diocese, asking how they produced a distinctive lived experience of the Council and its aftermath. How did the Council change relationships and institutions? What was it like for laymen and women, for clergy, for nuns, for powerful first-world dioceses and for those in what we now know as the global south? A comparative reading of these chapters affords insights into these dimensions of Vatican II, and will spark a new generation of research into the history of twentieth-century Catholicism as both international and local.

Part I. North American Essays: 1. The limits of reform: rights, change and sexuality in San Francisco, 1962–1987 Jeffrey M. Burns
2. An emotional history of Vatican II: relationships at St John's Seminary, Boston, 1959–1971 John C. Seitz
3. Restructuring pastoral initiatives: the intersection of Vatican II and the quiet revolution in the Archdiocese of Quebec Gilles Routhier
4. Traditionalist Catholicism in Mexico: liturgical renewal and the 'problem' of popular religion in the diocese of Cuernavaca Jennifer Scheper Hughes
5. Through the prism of race: the archdiocese of Detroit Leslie Woodcock Tentler
6. 'A spirituality you can put a handle on': Vatican II, memory, and ministry in rural New Mexico Kathleen Holscher
7. 'You still just can't see us': being black and Catholic in Atlanta Andrew Moore
Part II. International Essays: 8. Catholic mobilization and ecclesial leadership in Santiago de Chile, 1957–1989 Sol Serrano and Luz María Díaz de Valdés
9. Vatican II and the politics of the liturgy in the archdiocese of Bangalore Brandon Vaidyanathan
10. Transformation in the diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, 1960–1985 Marjet Derks
11. Vatican II and the governance of the local church: the diocese of Ferrara, 1959–1976 Massimo Faggioli
12. A fresh stripping of the altars? Liturgical language and the legacy of the reformation in England, 1964–1984 Alana Harris
Afterword: the council and the churches Joseph A. Komonchak.

Subject Areas: Christian institutions & organizations [HRCX], Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church [HRCC7], Christian Churches & denominations [HRCC], Christianity [HRC]