RIGHT AND WRONG CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOMMichael Davies writes that St. Thomas Aquinas summed up the fundamental principle upon which the traditional Catholic teaching of the Church is based in this quotation from the Angelic Doctor: " Now the end of human life and society is God." From this fact our author draws the conclusion: "The State, therefore, has no right to be "secular." It must, as a State, recognize the Kingship of Jesus Christ and do Him homage; and, of course, so act that there is no contradiction between the laws it passes and the laws of God.BECOME AWARE OF THE RECENT CHANGES IN THE CHURCHThis book deals with the right and wrong conceptions of religious freedom. Special emphasis is placed on the weaknesses and confusions of the (non-infallible) Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican II, which contains a number of questionable assertions which have greatly added to the confusion of Catholics and others since it was approved by Vatican II in 1965. This makes The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty indispensable for any Catholic who is aware of the recent changes in the Catholic Church.Michael Davies is an author of amazing industry and power. Between the years 1976 and 1983, he published "Cranmer's Godly Order"; a two-volume Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, "about an Archbishop unpopular in his time but with views well worth pondering today;" "Pope John's Council," "Pope Paul's New Mass," "The Order of Melchisedech," on the priesthood, "Partisans of Error," on Modernism, and "Newman Against the Liberals," besides nine pamphlets - all written when he was still quite young, teaching school in England, and supporting a growing family. Today these volumes are as readable and useful as they were then - and uncomfortably prophetic.

The late Pope John Paul II frequently invoked Dignitatis Humanae as one of the foundational documents of contemporary Church social teaching. In this timely new edited collection, Catholicism and Religious Freedom: Contemporary Reflections on Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty, Kenneth L. Grasso and Robert P. Hunt have assembled an impressive group of scholars to discuss the current meanings of one the Vatican's most important documents and its place in Catholic social thought. The theological issues brought forth in Dignitatis Humanae go to the heart of the contemporary debate about the nature, foundation, and scope of religious liberty. Here, the contributors to this volume give these considerations the serious and sustained attention they deserve.

In this Book David L. Schindier and Nicholas J. Healy Jr. promote a deeper understanding of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom - Dignitatis Humanae - which Pope Paul VI characterized as one of the greatest documents of Vatican II. In addition to presenting a new translation of the approved text of the Declaration, they make available for the first time in English the five schemas (drafts) of the document that were presented to the Council bishops leading up to the final version. The book also includes an original interpretive essay on Dignitatis Humanae by Schindier and an essay on the genesis and redaction history of the text by Healy. Book jacket.

"This book presents and explores Vatican II's developments in doctrine about divine revelation; the nature, mission, and collegialilty of the Church; religious freedom; and the divine grace that reaches all human beings. It takes up the profound significance of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which opened the way for the Council's subsequent teaching." -- back cover.

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.”

Wondering what to think about the doctrinal deviations of Vatican II? "The laity cannot remain silent in the face of the errors that threaten their Faith. While remaining in their place as laity, they must fight these errors and, at the same time, know well, profess, and defend the truths to which these errors are opposed."-Fr. Arnaud De Lassus The Layman's Guide to Vatican II is a summary of the need-to-know essentials from the Second Vatican Council. It offers a concise outline of events, an explanation of the Council origins and a breakdown of its key documents. Using accessible language, it proceeds with astounding clarity to define and explain each of the errors of Vatican II. Topics of interest for the curious Catholic:* History of Vatican II* Documents produced by Vatican II* What are Religious Liberty, Collegiality, and Ecumenism * Protestant-inspired shift from a God-focused Church to a man-focused Church * Departure of the Second Vatican Council from the traditional teachings of the ChurchThis brief, easy-to-read text is an aid for Catholics to better understand Vatican II and today's modern crisis. If you're looking for quick access to the facts, or simply trying to help others understand what really happened at the Second Vatican Council, this book is for you!

A lively debate continues in the Roman Catholic Church about the character of the teaching provided by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Did it represent a decisive rupture with previous doctrine, or the continuation of its earlier message under new conditions? Much depends on whether the Council texts are read in the light of subsequent events, which shook and sometimes smashed the life, worship and devotion of traditional Catholicism – rather than considered for themselves, in their own right as documents with a prehistory that historians can know. In this work Dominican scholar and writer Aidan Nichols maintains that the Council texts must be interpreted in the light of their genesis, not their aftermath. They must be seen in the light of the public debates in the Council chamber, not the hopes (or fears) of individuals behind the scenes. On this basis, he provides a concise commentary on the eight most significant documents produced by the Council, documents which cover pretty comprehensively all the major aspects of the Church’s life. Nichols describes the Council as a gathering where the Conciliar minority – guarded, prudent, and concerned for explicit continuity at all points with the preceding tradition – played a beneficial role in steadying the Conciliar majority, enthused as the latter was by the movements of biblical, patristic and liturgical ‘return to the sources’ and a desire to reach out to the world of the (then) present-day in generosity of heart. The texts that emerged from this often impassioned debate remain susceptible to a reading of a classically Christian kind. That is precisely what Nichols offers in this book.

On an otherwise ordinary Sunday morning in 1964, millions of Roman Catholics around the world experienced history. For the first time in centuries, they attended masses that were conducted mostly in their native tongues. This occasion marked only the first of many profound changes to emanate from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Known popularly as Vatican II, it would soon give rise to the most far-reaching religious transformation since the Reformation. In this groundbreaking work of cultural and historical sociology, Melissa Wilde offers a new explanation for this revolutionary transformation of the Church. Drawing on newly available sources--including a collection of interviews with the Council's key bishops and cardinals, and primary documents from the Vatican Secret Archive that have never before been seen by researchers--Wilde demonstrates that the pronouncements of the Council were not merely reflections of papal will, but the product of a dramatic confrontation between progressives and conservatives that began during the first days of the Council. The outcome of this confrontation was determined by a number of factors: the Church's decline in Latin America; its competition and dialogue with other faiths, particularly Protestantism, in northern Europe and North America; and progressive clerics' deep belief in the holiness of compromise and their penchant for consensus building. Wilde's account will fascinate not only those interested in Vatican II but anyone who wants to understand the social underpinnings of religious change.