To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II

A leading Catholic intellectual explains why the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are essential to the Church's future--and the world's

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was the most important Catholic event in the past five hundred years. Yet sixty years after its opening on October 11, 1962, its meaning remains sharply contested and its promise unfulfilled.

In To Sanctify the World, George Weigel explains the necessity of Vatican II and explores the continuing relevance of its teaching in a world seeking a deeper experience of freedom than personal willfulness. The Council's texts are also a critical resource for the Catholic Church as it lives out its original, Christ-centered evangelical purpose.

Written with insight and verve, To Sanctify the World recovers the true meaning of Vatican II as the template for a Catholicism that can propose a path toward genuine human dignity and social solidarity.

ISBN-13: 9780465094318

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Basic Books

Publication Date: 10-04-2022

Pages: 368

Product Dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center. The first volume of his biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope, was a New York Times bestseller, and his writing appears in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal. He lives in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Table of Contents

The Documents of the Second Vatican Council xi

Introduction: Reimagining Vatican II 1

Part I Why Vatican II was Necessary

1 Crisis? What Crisis? 11

2 Modernity as Ideology 18

3 The New Thirty Years War 22

4 The End of Christendom 31

5 The Renewal of the Catholic Mind 36

6 What Kind of Church? 63

7 What Kind of Council? To What Ends? 72

Part II What Vatican II Taught

8 The Council's Distinctive Features 85

9 John XXIII's Original Intention 97

10 The Word of God Breaks Through the Silence 112

The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation

11 Sacrament of Authentic Human Community 129

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

12 To Worship the One Worthy of Worship 147

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy

13 Design for a Christocentric Humanism 161

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

14 Truth, Liberty, and the Limits of State Power 177

The Declaration on Religious Freedom

15 Witnesses and Missionaries 196

The Council's Teaching on States of Life in the Church

16 From Plurality to Pluralism 223

The Council's Teaching on the Eastern Catholic Churches, On Ecumenism, And On Non-Christian Religions

Part III The Keys to Vatican II

17 Jacques Maritain's Lament 239

18 The Council Without Keys 243

19 Keys to the Council: John Paul II 253

20 Keys to the Council: Benedict XVI 271

21 The Master Key 284

22 Christ at the Center 290

Acknowledgments 297

Notes 301

Index 341