Vatican II Documents

[Br.Rich_SFO]

How many Vatican II Documents have you actually read? (not somebodys interpretation of them)

And if you care to note which documents?

 

[SeanG]

I’ve read just about most of them except the Decree on Social Communications.

I took a class on Vatican II that, while it had good intentions, was not organized very well overall. The intent was to get the students to look at as many of the documents as possible in one semester. The intention was great, the timeline needed some explanding if we were going to really delve into them.

On top of all that, different professors were brought in to talk about different documents. So there wasn’t much continuity in the presentations.

However, it did get me to look at the documents and it was a good starting point for further study of individual documents.

 

[dcs]

I have only read portions of Lumen Gentium, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and Gaudium et Spes. In truth I find the documents of Vatican II very painful reading and not worth the effort.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I now realize that I messed up and forgot to lead off with “None” as the first option on both polls! Oh well.

 

[Fidelis]

I had to give a talk recently based on Dei Verbum, so I had to read that one pretty in depth. Other than that, I can’t remember reading any other VII documents in their entirety.

 

[Katholish]

Like dcs, I find the Vatican II documents very hard to read, the type of language used, at least as protrayed by the English translations seems to use many words to say very little. I am not sure that I agree they are not worth the effort, though I confess that other conciliar documents maybe more enlightening, such as Florence, 4th Lateran or Trent, just because they are more concise and have a clearer focus in their aim and intent.

I have read Lumen Gentium, Dignitatis humanae, whole I think, and large parts of Nostra Aetate, Dei Verbum, Gaudium et Spes, and a few others, I put down 3 - 5 due to all of the different parts I have read, if put together, they would equal something around there.

 

[Arrowood]

While I will agree that the language of the Vatican documents can be a bit difficult, I find them to be theologically beautiful. There are many parts of the documents that are so theologically packed they offer opportunity for hours of reflection. I lead adult classes on these documents, and invariably get complaints at the beginning about how difficult they are to understand. However, these complaints just as invariably are transformed into praises for how much beautiful truth is packed into the documents that was not apparent upon the first reading. The discussions and “unpacking” are a necessary element of studying the documents of Vatican II, but these documents are extremely fruitful. By no means concise, but incredibly fruitful!

 

[dcs]

dcs:

I have only read portions of Lumen Gentium, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and Gaudium et Spes. In truth I find the documents of Vatican II very painful reading and not worth the effort.

I realized that I left out Nostra Aetate, Dignitatis Humanae, and Dei Verbum. I have read parts of each.

On the other hand, I have read all of Mysterium Fidei, which was promulgated by Paul VI during the Council if memory serves. Sweet, simple, and to the point.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I guess that I will cast my vote to bring it back up to the top. I actually chose a topic area each summer beginning June 1st thru August 15th. Ending while I’m on my annual retreat the week of the 15th. Each year I only read and study the one topic area generally twenty to twenty five books. A few years ago it was Vatican II. Among the reading material were the documents of the Council themselves. I Read thirteen of them the other three I looked at but could not for he life of me read them. The three were the Decree on Social Communication, the Training of Priests, and the Ministry and Life of Priests.

 

[Chris_Burgwald]

How can Vatican II ever get implemented (as JPII and Ratzinger continually ask) until people read the texts?

I’d recommend getting a hold of the edition edited by Doug Bushman (published by Pauline). He teaches for IPS (or whatever it’s called now) at Ave Maria (used to be at U of Dallas), and he has some great introductions to the texts.