Ireland Vatican Ii

This book explores the cope, impact, and future implementation of the Second Vatican Council with special reference to Ireland, north and south.

Louise Fuller sets the Church's role in its historical perspective before considering the triumphant institution of the 1950s. It was a Church of piety and ritual: mass attendance, church building, processions, pilgrimages, the erection of crosses, statues and grottos, the widespread dissemination of devotional literature and the cult of indulgences were its distinguishing characteristics. The rising prosperity of the '60s, plus the effects of the Vatican Council, began the liberalisation of Irish society. The bishops reacted defensively. Their conservatism stimulated the emergence of a Catholic intelligentsia, propagating more liberal attitudes and championing the new theology. The '70s and '80s saw a Church more open to liberation theology, to ecumenism and to issues of justice and peace generally, albeit change was gradual and piecemeal. The real revolution did not come until the 1990s, when a succession of clerical sexual scandals fatally subverted the unique moral authority of the Church which had been its greatest strength.

«'Vatican II in Ireland, Fifty Years On' is an important contribution to our understanding of the ramifications of a significant event in the history of the Catholic Church.» (Eamon Maher, The Irish Times, Nov 27, 2015)...

Ireland & Vatican II, whose release coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of the Council, explores the scope, impact and future implementation of the Second Vatican Council with special reference to Ireland, north and south.

This book commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965. A selection of essays by distinguished Irish theologians offers an objective assessment of the historical reception and pastoral implementation of Vatican II in Ireland with the benefit of half a century's hindsight. The authors discuss from a variety of different perspectives the theological significance of the Council for the self-understanding and reform of the Catholic church, both in the past and for the future.

This book opens up a new area of research in the history of the institution of the Irish Presentation Sisters and the impact of Vatican II, 1962–1965 on women religious life in Ireland. The challenges offered by the Council were taken on by the Presentation Congregation and resulted in a trans-national structure known today as the ‘Union of Presentation Sisters’. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Vatican II called for the need for ‘adaptation’ and ‘renewal’ of religious life. This involved not just changes within the structures of religious life, but also meant that, psychologically, religious needed to change how and what they thought religious life in the twentieth century should be. The traditions of centuries had to be examined in the context of the ‘modern’ twentieth-century world and had to adapt to this change. However, the scope of the work is wide-ranging as it also examines issues that surrounded the transformation experienced by the Presentation Sisters. These included relations with the Church at both diocesan level and international level. In their efforts to implement change, they were often hampered by the local Bishops in Ireland but were supported by the Church in Rome. This book explores the whole area of women religious life in Ireland in the post-Vatican II period and examines the implications of these changes in relation to women religious and the Church.

This book of essays will appeal to anyone interested in the dismantling of Ireland's cultural attachment to Catholicism over the past four decades.

The Catholic Church in Ireland invests an enormous amount of time, personnel and money in Catholic schools. Traditionally, these schools have played a major role in the handing on the faith to new generations. Today, however, things are clearly not going as smoothly as before.