Christus Dominus

The sixteen official documents—constitutions, decrees, and declarations—of the Second Vatican Council are now available from Liturgical Press in the most popular and widely used inclusive-language edition translated by Irish Dominican Austin Flannery (+October 21, 2008). As the worldwide Church continues to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Council (1962–65), there is a great need in college classrooms and parish faith formation groups—as well as for individuals—to again have access to these documents in contemporary English. As Flannery wrote in his introduction to the 1996 edition, “The translation of the texts of the Vatican documents in the present volume differs from that in the previous publication in two respects. It has been very considerably revised and, in place, corrected. It is also, to a very large extent, in inclusive language. “I say ‘to a very large extent,’ because we have used inclusive language in passages about men and women but not, however, in passages about God, except where the use of the masculine pronoun was easily avoidable.”

Sent Out into the World contains a liturgical theology for a parish community and the new evangelization that is derived from a reading of The Order of the Dedication of a Church. For this reason, its content can be attributed directly to a liturgical rite of the Catholic Church. It is not the creation of any one person, but rather an exercise in lex orandi, lex credendi. It presents a vision of the parish that comes directly from a rite of the church and focuses the parish community, and its members, on the mission that it has within the body of Christ. Applying the content of the ordo to a parish community, it presents a theology for those communities in which most Catholics meet the Lord and practice their faith. The liturgical theology for a parish community that is presented here focuses all parish communities on Christ and his presence in the liturgical celebrations that take place in the parish churches. As this ritual powerfully reminds the baptized, from the liturgical and sacramental celebrations in which they encounter Christ in their parish church, the faithful are to be sent out into the world as ministers of the new evangelization. By reading this book, every Christian who practices his or her faith within a parish community will be reminded of the mission which they are called to live as members dismissed to go into the world at the end of every eucharistic celebration.

«Reflexiones sobre el sacerdocio bajo sus aspectos teológicos, filosóficos, pastorales, morales y litúrgicos, podría ser un subtítulo de la erudita obra: SACERDOTES PARA SIEMPRE del Padre CARLOS MIGUEL BUELA, Fundador del “Instituto del Verbo Encarnado” para misioneros ad Gentes y de las “Servidoras del Señor y de la Virgen de Matará”. Y con decir esto, ya tenemos sobrada presentación para acreditar al autor, como experto en vocaciones sacerdotales y religiosas. Al respetable volumen de la obra, con más de 800 páginas, se agrega la fluidez y calidad de su escritura, constituyendo un arsenal de citas de textos escogidos de la Biblia, los Santos Padres, Mensajes Pontificios y Documentos Conciliares, especialmente de Trento y Vaticano II, síntesis este último Concilio Pastoral, de toda la doctrina católica, compendiada a su vez en el Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica» (Pbro. Victorino Ortego. Tomado del prólogo del libro).

"In [book title], an international team of theologians offers a different reading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting forth a vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in two millennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that Vatican II's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the Roman Catholic Church."--Back cover.

Spanning the gamut from "Aaron" to "Zwingli," this dictionary includes nearly 3,000 entries written by about sixty authors, all of whom are specialists in their various theological and religious disciplines. The editors have designed the dictionary especially to aid the introductory-level student with instant access to definitions of terms likely to be encountered in, but not to substitute for, classroom presentations or reading assignments. - Publisher.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.