Pope says Vatican II shaped his theology, including in social teaching
NCR online article by Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.
“In the history of Latin America in which I was immersed, first as a young Jesuit student and then in the exercise of my ministry, we breathed an ecclesial climate that enthusiastically absorbed and made its own the theological, ecclesial and spiritual intuitions of the council and inculturated and implemented them,” he wrote in the preface to a new book.
“The council became the horizon of our belief, our language and our praxis, that is, it soon became our ecclesial and pastoral ecosystem,” he said. “Quite simply, the council had entered into our way of being Christians and of being church, and throughout my life, my intuitions, perceptions and spirituality were simply generated by the suggestions of the doctrine of Vatican II.”
Pope Francis’ preface to “Fraternity: Sign of the Times” was released Sept. 28 by Vatican News. The book, to be released in Italian Sept. 30 by the Vatican publishing house, is written by Cardinal Michael Czerny and Father Christian Barone, an Italian theologian.
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Perhaps he should have promulgated the Vatican II message on conscience early in his papacy.