In-depth examination of the Second Vatican Council | DICI

1)    What is the true nature of Vatican II?

2)    What is the relation between its pastoral character (a notion that will have to be explained authoritatively) and its dogmatic character, if any?  Can the pastoral character be reconciled with the dogmatic character?  Does it assume the latter?  Does it contradict it?  Does it ignore it?

3)    Is it really possible to define the Second Vatican Council as ‘dogmatic’?  And therefore to refer to it as dogmatic?  To use it as the basis of new theological assertions?  In what sense?  Within what limits?

4)    Is Vatican II an “event” as the Bologna School understands it, in other words, one that cuts all ties with the past and inaugurates a new era in all respects?  Or does it relive in itself the whole past eodem sensu eademque sententia [in the same sense and with the same purpose]?

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Can Vatican II be exported ? | DICI

The interreligious dialogue promoted by the Second Vatican Council is based on principles that sprang from Enlightenment philosophy.  It would be rash, however, to think that the notion of religious freedom is common to all the religions that are supposed to be involved in this dialogue.  To declare that the writings of the Encyclopedists of 18^th-century Europe are the universal and eternal expression of human aspirations is easy to do in Paris or Rome, but not in Tunis or Tripoli.  Unless you make an imam out to be reluctant Voltairean or an unwitting disciple of Rousseau.

Interreligious dialogue is based on the presupposition that Enlightenment ideas are shared by all the inhabitants of the planet, that they make up a common platform allowing them to engage in a fruitful exchange.  But we must not forget that these ideas themselves are very new in the Catholic Church.  They were condemned by the popes until Pius XII.  And it took Vatican II to bring about what Cardinal Joseph Suenens called a “[revolution of] 1789 in the Church”.

Hence, in order for real interreligious dialogue to take place, it is necessary and sufficient for Islam, for example, to adopt the spirit of the conciliar Declaration Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom.  In plain language, Vatican II must be exported to Cairo !

Father Alain Lorans

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As for the "Difficult interreligious dialogue between the Vatican and the University of Cairo", see http://www.dici.org/en/news/difficult-interreligious-dialogue-between-the-vat...