Vatican II and the Eucumenical Way (Marquette Studies in Theology)

This book was born from the author’s ecumenical experience and theological reflection. Formed in theology in France, where Henri de Lubac was one of his professors, the author also knew Jean Daniélou and Yves Congar well. He is thus well-acquainted with what came to be called the ‘new theology,’ while his doctoral thesis on St. Bonaventure anchored his thought in the great century of scholastic theology.

The member of a religious community with deep experience of the Christian East, especially in Bulgaria and Turkey, but also in Athens and Moscow, he himself developed an expertise in the late Middle Ages and the Protestant Reformation, to which he devoted his first major ecumenical book, Holy Writ or Holy Church. The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (NY: Harper, 1959). Appointed by John XXIII to the Pontifical Secretariat for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians, and then to the Vatican Council as theologian (peritus), he directly contributed to the writing of the Decree on Ecumenism. Since the close of the council he has served in major ecumenical dialogues, both national in the USA and international. He has taught historical theology in colleges, universities, and seminaries. He has also published extensively, in ecumenism, theology, and spirituality.

In the perusal of this new book the reader will be guided through the problems, difficulties, intricacies, and also the hopes, possibilities, and discoveries of the ecumenical way. He or she should be led to see why John Paul II, who also had experienced Vatican II, declared the ecumenical commitment of the Catholic Church to be “irrevocable.”