Still Interpreting Vatican II: Some Hermeneutical Principles

Walter Kasper, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
I am grateful for Rush’s helpful study of the hermeneutics involved in the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council.


Book Description
In this original book, Ormond Rush makes a significant contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Vatican II. He proposes that a comprehensive interpretation of Vatican II requires that the interpreter not only attempt a reconstruction of the "spirit" of the council emerging during the conciliar debates, but also take into account the various linguistic dimensions of the "letter" of the documents. Attention to genre, structure, rhetoric, intratextuality and intertextuality are all significant in reconstructing the "letter" of the council. In addition, he states that reconstruction of the "spirit" and "letter" must be supplemented by attention to another factor: the post-conciliar reception of the council from different contexts throughout the world over the last forty years. All three of these phases of interpretation must be kept in correlation. The book ends with a proposal for a reception pneumatology that calls for greater recognition of the work of reception as the work of the Holy Spirit of the council. Highlights: --fills a significant gap in the debate regarding Vatican II: clarity in the discussion regarding hermeneutical principles --no book in any language focuses specifically on the principles for interpreting Vatican II --calls for a more comprehensive approach that includes not only attention to the process of original formulation, but also to the texts in themselves --suggests a way through the current impasse in the interpretation of Vatican II


About the Author
An ordained priest, Ormond Rush holds a Licentiate in Fundamental Theology and a doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome. He is president of St Paul's Theological College, Banyo, Australia, where he also lectures in foundational theology, theological hermeneutics, Christology and the theology of creation.


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Finally, Still Interpreting Vatican II concludes with a proposal that believers see the Holy Spirit at work not only in the Council's letter and spirit, but in the continuing act and challenge of receiving the Council at the dawn of the third millennium. By pursuing these three hermeneutics and recognizing that the Spirit is still at work, the current impasse over interpreting Vatican II may yet be broken.


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