The article examines critical factors that determined the impact, reception, and implementation of Vatican II in Africa. Drawing on historical accounts, the author identifies and analyzes personalities, contexts, and issues that conditioned and shaped Africa’s participation in the council. Looking back 50 years, he argues that while the continent’s participation was negligible, shaped by a

Central to Vatican II’s deliberations on the church was a fundamental rediscovery: the church’s origin in the mystery of the Trinity. How this rediscovery permeates and shapes the council’s ecclesial vision is what this article addresses. Four leitmotifs exemplify the expanded horizon for the council’s understanding of the church that this rediscovery afforded: church as

The Groupe des Dombes is a unique gathering of French-speaking ecumenists who, over almost 70 years, have provided a distinguished corpus of ecumenical documents addressing a wide range of issues. This article outlines the Groupe’s history and distinctive methodology, then summarizes its document on doctrinal teaching authority, “‘Un seul maıˆtre’: L’autorite´ doctrinale dans l’e´glise.” Finally

The article reviews the impact of Nostra aetate on Christian-Jewish relations and offers a Jewish perspective, including consideration of the Jewishness of Jesus as well as proposing a covenantal theology that grapples with supersessionism. It also explores the implications of the Holy See’s assertion in 1974 that “Christians must strive to learn by what essential

The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra aetate (NA) is regarded as a “watershed” document. NA no. 4, on relations with the Jewish people, is frequently cited as evidence of a turning point in the Catholic Church’s attitudes toward the religious Other. Yet the full significance of NA no. 4 becomes manifest only when it is