Vatican 2 document collection

[jmisk]

I’m looking for a printed copy of all the documents that came from Vatican II. Not an “essential” or collection of the “most important” documents but a volume or collection of volumes that contains every single document from the counsel.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm

 

[EphelDuath]

For a printed edition, I would recommend against the Flannery translation, which is the most common version you’ll find.

Instead I would try to get your hands on:

The Documents of Vatican II With Notes and Comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Authorities trans. S.J. Walter M. Abbotts, Very Rev. Msgr. Joseph Gallagher

 

[Honorius]

For a printed edition, I would recommend against the Flannery translation, which is the most common version you’ll find.

Instead I would try to get your hands on:

The Documents of Vatican II With Notes and Comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Authorities trans. S.J. Walter M. Abbotts, Very Rev. Msgr. Joseph Gallagher

I would also like to look at them, and was wondering why you would prefer one translation over the other.

 

[Abu]

The Abbott-Gallagher Vatican II should be ditched compared with the Flannery Edition.

**EWTN Scripture Forum
The Church’s Teaching & Vatican II
Answer by Fr. John Echert on Feb-10-2004: **
“The Abbot translation is willfully and woefully misleading; one has to ask, how can such an atrocious and unfaithful translation have gained approbation for publication and distribution to the faithful? Among other things, it has been used to contradict the teaching of the Council on absolute biblical inerrancy and to water down the teaching on the historicity of the Gospels. The late Father Most addressed these issues in his work on this topic.”

 

[bcuster]

For a printed edition, I would recommend against the Flannery translation, which is the most common version you’ll find.

Instead I would try to get your hands on:

The Documents of Vatican II With Notes and Comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Authorities trans. S.J. Walter M. Abbotts, Very Rev. Msgr. Joseph Gallagher

I have this on Kindle.

 

[curlycool89]

The Abbott-Gallagher Vatican II should be ditched compared with the Flannery Edition.

**EWTN Scripture Forum
The Church’s Teaching & Vatican II
Answer by Fr. John Echert on Feb-10-2004: **
“The Abbot translation is willfully and woefully misleading; one has to ask, how can such an atrocious and unfaithful translation have gained approbation for publication and distribution to the faithful? Among other things, it has been used to contradict the teaching of the Council on absolute biblical inerrancy and to water down the teaching on the historicity of the Gospels. The late Father Most addressed these issues in his work on this topic.”

I actually heard something similar from the Rector of my Seminary. Something about it being a really quick translation and errors cropping up because of that. He recommended us to go with the Flannery edition.

On the other hand, I would recommend the New Revised Edition (NRE) over the Inclusive Language one. One reason (besides the obvious one) is that the NRE also has some translated post-concilliar documents (especially in the area of liturgy) that really can help you understand how the Church in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II (in some cases, such as liturgy documents after Sacrosanctum Concilium, they were issued before the end of the Council) understood the documents (such as Instructions on Proper Implementation of SC, Inter oecumenici and Liturgiae Instaurationes, along with Musicam sacram regarding liturgical music).

The Flannery one is getting harder to find though. You can find it on Amazon (3rd party, largely used ones). Liturgical Press sells new copies, as does the Book Depository (which is where I got my copy from).

 

[Abu]

curlycool89
My edition is 1988 (Revised) with post conciliar documents.

Further, the contradiction of “the teaching of the Council on absolute biblical inerrancy” in the Abbott translation is this:
**Dei Verbum Chapter 3 **(Abbott)
“Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation.”

The above is from the Abbott-Gallagher translation of The Documents of Vatican II, 1966, #11, and is misleading. This is not the only error in that translation, as Msgr Eugene Kevane exposes in Creed and Catechetics, Christian Classics, 1978, p 279, where he shows that Pope John XXIII’s Allocution opening Vatican II has been “incredibly falsified”.

The correct translation is found in Flannery’s Vatican Council II (Revised 1988), *Dei Verbum *#11:
“Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach (that) “the”], truth [Msgr McCarthy] which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.5” [See CCC #107].

What’s the significance of the correct translation? Msgr George A Kelly explains in The New Biblical Theorists – Raymond E Brown and Beyond: “The Council chose not to say that only the Bible’s ‘spiritual truth’ or its ‘religious truth’ is free from error. The actual sentence of Dei Verbum says that every assertion of the sacred writers – whether it be religious or moral or scientific or historical – is free from error, because God wanted these writers to convey to us unalloyed truth for the sake of our salvation. The Council makes no distinction between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ truths to be covered by inerrancy, nor is inerrancy to be restricted to ‘essential religious affirmations’ as Brown avers.” (p 157).

In Divino afflante Spiritu, after referring to Vatican I’s solemn affirmation of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, Pius XII recalled the continued undermining of that doctrine which prompted his predecessor’s intervention in 1893:
”Subsequently, however, certain Catholic writers dared to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture to matters of faith and morals alone, relegating everything else, whether of a physical or historical character, to the status of “obiter dicta” which (so it was claimed) are in no way connected to the faith. But since this was opposed to [the First Vatican Council’s] solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, which insists that the biblical books, “entire and with all their parts,” are endowed with such divine authority as to enjoy freedom from all error, Our Predecessor of immortal memory Leo XIII responded in the Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus … by justly and fittingly striking down those erroneous opinions, while at the same time laying down very wise precepts and norms for the study of the Divine Books.”
See: rtforum.org/lt/lt61.html

 

[edwest2]

curlycool89
My edition is 1988 (Revised) with post conciliar documents.

Further, the contradiction of “the teaching of the Council on absolute biblical inerrancy” in the Abbott translation is this:
**Dei Verbum Chapter 3 **(Abbott)
“Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation.”

The above is from the Abbott-Gallagher translation of The Documents of Vatican II, 1966, #11, and is misleading. This is not the only error in that translation, as Msgr Eugene Kevane exposes in Creed and Catechetics, Christian Classics, 1978, p 279, where he shows that Pope John XXIII’s Allocution opening Vatican II has been “incredibly falsified”.

The correct translation is found in Flannery’s Vatican Council II (Revised 1988), *Dei Verbum *#11:
“Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach (that) “the”], truth [Msgr McCarthy] which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.5” [See CCC #107].

What’s the significance of the correct translation? Msgr George A Kelly explains in The New Biblical Theorists – Raymond E Brown and Beyond: “The Council chose not to say that only the Bible’s ‘spiritual truth’ or its ‘religious truth’ is free from error. The actual sentence of Dei Verbum says that every assertion of the sacred writers – whether it be religious or moral or scientific or historical – is free from error, because God wanted these writers to convey to us unalloyed truth for the sake of our salvation. The Council makes no distinction between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ truths to be covered by inerrancy, nor is inerrancy to be restricted to ‘essential religious affirmations’ as Brown avers.” (p 157).

In Divino afflante Spiritu, after referring to Vatican I’s solemn affirmation of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, Pius XII recalled the continued undermining of that doctrine which prompted his predecessor’s intervention in 1893:
”Subsequently, however, certain Catholic writers dared to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture to matters of faith and morals alone, relegating everything else, whether of a physical or historical character, to the status of “obiter dicta” which (so it was claimed) are in no way connected to the faith. But since this was opposed to [the First Vatican Council’s] solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, which insists that the biblical books, “entire and with all their parts,” are endowed with such divine authority as to enjoy freedom from all error, Our Predecessor of immortal memory Leo XIII responded in the Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus … by justly and fittingly striking down those erroneous opinions, while at the same time laying down very wise precepts and norms for the study of the Divine Books.”
See: rtforum.org/lt/lt61.html

Thank you,

Ed