The reception of the Second Vatical Council between process and product. An historical-critical approach to the contemporary hermeneutical debate.

Throughout the history of Christianity, councils have served as benchmarks in the development of Christian thought. Conciliar pronouncements are perceived as an authoritative conclusion to a period of theological discussion, yet on each occasion they likewise serve as the beginning of new theological debate. This interplay of discontinuity and continuity was also a feature of the Second Vatican Council (1959-1962). Councils constitute an extraordinarily complex form of the exercise of authority, characterised by a continuous tension between the dynamic process of evolving conciliar documents on the one hand, and the coagulated final product in the form of constitutions, decrees, declarations on the other. This very tension between process and product, event and text, represents a source of difficulty in contemporary research into Vatican II (cf. in this regard the remarkable study of Hünermann 2007). Surprisingly enough, scholars working with the same available literature regularly arrive at conflicting interpretations of the same conciliar events. It is also striking that the interpreters themselves were often personally involved in the Council itself. Vatican II expert G. Routhier notes that lenseignement du concile peut-être repris à nouveaux frais et être reçu par une génération qui n'est pas prisonnière des conflits qui ont marqué le moment du concile. Young historians who study Vatican II today from an historical-critical perspective are not interested parties and have, in addition, new source material at their disposal. Precisely on such an historiographical basis, the current project aims at developping a scientifically sound critique of contemporary approaches on the issue of reception and hermeneutics of the latest council.

Keywords:Vatican council

Disciplines:Theology and religious studies