This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper.

Almost sixty years after Vatican II, the question of its interpretation is as lively as ever. While numerous theologies of renewal are advanced, conspicuously absent is any serious erudition of the text taken by Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI as the hermeneutical key to understanding the Council's goal and method, namely, Paul VI's encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam. This study corrects this inattention and proposes that Pope Paul's "logic of renewal" is so profoundly a dimension of divine revelation and of the Church's life that it is not just one theology of renewal among many, but the theology of renewal. It is thus the key to understanding the Council's authentic pastoral character. The "logic of renewal" sets personal, spiritual metanoia as the center path of renewal, preceded by the path of doctrinal penetration, which assures that renewal is faithful to God, and complemented by the path of reinvigorated mission, which is the fruit of conversion. As the first post-Christendom ecumenical council, Vatican II addressed the question: What does it mean to be the Church of Christ at this point in history? Its answer: Become what you are! Convert into a more perfect realization of your own mystery, vocation, and mission.

The painful reality faced by refugees and migrants is one of the greatest moral challenges of our time, in turn, becoming a focus of significant scholarship. This volume examines the global phenomenon of migration in its theological, historical, and socio-political dimensions and of how churches and faith communities have responded to the challenges of such mass human movement. The contributions reflect global perspectives with contributions from African, Asian, European, North American, and South American scholars and contexts. The essays are interdisciplinary, at the intersection of religion, anthropology, history, political science, gender and post-colonial studies. The volume brings together a variety of perspectives, inter-related by ecclesiological and theological concerns.

Langan (philosophy, U. of Toronto) examines the history of the Catholic Church and the origins of its teachings since the Church's conception. Although committed to the Catholic religion, he does not obscure the Church's failings as he lays out the fundamentals of the faith. He provides insights into the great Christological councils, discusses the differences in the spiritualities of East and West, and portrays the crucial roles that the pope and bishops played during the Middle Ages. Incorporating the thought of Augustine, Acquinas, and medieval Catholicism, he traces the rise and decline of Christian Europe and the issues raised by reform. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book shares global perspectives on Catholic religious education in schools, chiefly focusing on educational and curriculum issues that take into account the theology and the pedagogy which support learning in connection with Catholic religious education. Further, it offers insights into the distinctive contribution that Catholic religious education makes to religious education and education in general across diverse schooling contexts. Bringing together insights from leading scholars and experts on Catholic religious education around the globe, the book offers an essential reference guide for all those involved in researching, planning and designing curricula for Catholic religious education, as well as developing related theories in the field.

A groundbreaking, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary analysis of women’s experiences in World Christianity Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement is the first textbook to focus on women’s experiences in the founding, spread, and continuation of the Christian faith. Integrating historical, theological, and social scientific approaches to World Christianity, this innovative volume centers women’s perspectives to illustrate their key role in Christianity becoming a world religion, including how they sustain the faith in the present and their expanding role in the future. Women in World Christianity features findings from the Women in World Christianity Project, a groundbreaking study that produced the first quantitative dataset on gender in every Christian denomination in every country of the world. Throughout the text, special emphasis is placed on women in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the period of Christianity’s shift from the global North to the global South. Easily accessible chapters – organized by continent, tradition, and select topics – introduce students to the wide variety of Christian belief and practice around the world. The book also discusses issues specifically relevant to women in the church: gender-based violence, ecology, theological education, peacebuilding and more. This textbook: Provides a balanced view of women’s involvement in Christianity as a world religion and how they sustain the faith today Introduces students to female theologians around the world whose scholarship is generally overlooked in Western theological education Discusses women’s essential contributions to Christian mission, leadership, education, relief work, healthcare, and other social services of the church Complements the growing body of literature about Christian women from different continental, regional, national, and ecclesiastical perspectives Explores the contributions of contemporary Christian women of all major denominations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Oceania Helps students become more aware of the unique challenges women face worldwide, and what they are doing to overcome them Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement is an excellent primary textbook for introductory courses on World Christianity, History of Christianity, World Religions, Gender in Religion, as well as undergraduate and graduate courses specifically focused on women in World Christianity.

A magisterial history of the centuries-long conflict between “progress” and “tradition” in the world’s largest international institution. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. Through powerful individual stories and sweeping birds-eye views, Catholicism provides a mesmerizing assessment of the Church’s complex role in modern history: both shaper and follower of the politics of nation states, both conservator of hierarchies and evangelizer of egalitarianism. McGreevy documents the hopes and ambitions of European missionaries building churches and schools in all corners of the world, African Catholics fighting for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics attracted to a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics demanding democratic governments. He includes a vast cast of riveting characters, known and unknown, including the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier; Daniel O’Connell, hero of Irish emancipation; Sr. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun; Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang; French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain; German Jewish philosopher and convert, Edith Stein; John Paul II, Polish pope and opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian founder of liberation theology; and French American patron of modern art, Dominique de Menil. Throughout this essential volume, McGreevy details currents of reform within the Church as well as movements protective of traditional customs and beliefs. Conflicts with political leaders and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the experiences of decolonization after World War II and the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century, and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first all demonstrate how religion shapes our modern world. Finally, McGreevy addresses the challenges faced by Pope Francis as he struggles to unite the over one billion members of the world’s largest religious community.

Throughout their shared history, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches have lived through a very complex and sometimes tense relationship –-not only theologically, but also politically. In most cases such relationships remain to this day; indeed, in some cases the tension has increased. In July 2019, scholars of both traditions gathered in Stuttgart, Germany, for an unprecedented conference devoted to exploring and overcoming the division between these churches. This book, the second in a two-volume set of the essays presented at the conference, explores the ecumenical and practical implications of the relationship between Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Like the conference, the volume brings together representatives of these Churches, as well as theologians from different geographical contexts where tensions are the greatest. The published essays represent the great achievements of the conference: willingness to engage in dialogue, general openness to new ideas, and opportunities to address difficult questions and heal inherited wounds.

The Catholic Church in the United States and Europe has seen declining numbers both in regular attendance and in clergy and religious life.Scandals have torn at people's allegiance, and feelings of disappointment, disillusion, and anger have become widespread. Church authorities have seemed reluctant to acknowledge or address these problems and have responded with vexation to those who raise them from the Right or Left. The Crisis of Confidence in the Catholic Church examines the roots of this crisis in light of the nature of the Church community, its institutional structure, and the historical experiences that have brought it to this pass. Raymond Helmick, SJ, traces the problems of the Catholic Church far back in its history - concentration of Church leadership on control of the Christian population, a requirement of obedience to their rulings rather than on the Gospel values of Jesus, the defensiveness and self-righteousness in the face of any criticism. Helmick also emphasizes the role of the Second Vatican Council as it brought the Church to an awareness of its potentiality for an active life of faith by its total membership. How will the Church revive? Helmick believes that a new growth of Christianity can come now only by a return to the love and care of its original premises, to the things that are redolent of the life of Jesus. The 'new evangelization' can only be done by living a Christian life, giving an example.