The Spirit in the Church: Pastoral energy and structure in the Catholic Church in Ireland Forty Years after Vatican II There is perhaps a sense that sooner ot later we're going to have to stop talking about "Vatican Two", at least in the sense that we refer to it in mythical terms: the crucible in which the modern Church was forged, as it were. Our harking back can sometimes seem like reluctance to face the world as the Council had done and into which it sent the Church in the name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. It has been forty years since the Second Vatican Council was in session and the curious thing is that one feels much of what it proclaimed still lies ahead. At last year's annual NCPI conference Fr Don Neumann reminded us that whenever the Church has opened itself to renewal the results are profound and enduring but it takes three generations for the culture to absorb what has happened. If we have appeared to wander for forty years, it would be consoling to think, after all, that we have been guided all along and are closer now to what we had heard was the vision of the Council. It has been forty years...... Editorial from 2003 NCPI Newsletter Ends |