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Church and Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

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As yet we know nothing in detail of the agenda, doctrinal and disciplinary, for the deliberations of the Vatican Council to be convoked in the near future by Pope John XXIII. These no doubt will be made known to us as the Commissions go forward during this year with their preparatory work. We can however take the coming Council as a symbol, as all its predecessors have been, of the historical development of the Church's life and teaching. It is a symbol of what may be called the togetherness, in doctrine and life, of all the parts of which the Mystical Body of Christ in the world is made up. Another word for this might be the conciliarity of the Church; both of these are clumsy words for what they are here used to express, namely the living and. spreading of the faith by a society in which by grace every individual person is deeply concerned and closely united with his neighbours in the whole. This holds good of the total hierarchy of its being, from its highest ruling authority down to its humblest member.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1961 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 For a clear account of the different kinds of Council in the Church's history, their Nature and authority, see Ecumenical Councils in the Catholic Church by Hubert Jedin; Introduction on explanation of terms. (Herder-Nelson.)

2 Butler, The Vatican Council II, page 98.

3 ‘And therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves (ex sese) and not from the consent of the Church.’ Denzinger 1839, page 490.