Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 75 No. 3, 2005.
Review article
Reception of Vatican II Among Croats Catholics
Mato Zovkić
; Vrhbosna Catholic Theology, Sarajevo, Bosna and Herzegovina
Abstract
In looking for criteria of the reception of an ecumenical council, the author reminds that Acts 15,1-33 is New Testament foundation for ecumenical councils as synodal way of decision making in the Church. The first level of reception is translation and explanation of the council as a body of official documents of Church magisterium and as an event which took place in concrete circumstances as response to a situation in the Church and society. It takes years for clergy and lay faithful to absorb full meaning of the letter and spirit of the council. Animators of the reception of Vatican II among Croats Catholics were and still are: Glas Koncila, a new Catholic magazine founded in Zagreb in 1962; Kršćanska Sadašnjost, a research center and publishing house in Zagreb, founded in 1966; parish priests with their lay activists in parishes; Schools of theology with their periodicals and conferences for priests and laypersons they kept organizing during these forty years; women and men religious of different orders and congregations; Conference of bishops of former Yugoslavia and new Conferences of Bishops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro; individual bishops like Franjo Seper and Franjo Kuharic of Zagreb, Frane Franic of Split-Makarska, Alfred Pichler of Banja Luka. Sporadic opponents of Vatican II did express their disappointment in oral statements and written articles but they did not form their associations like Marcel Lefebvre 's Fraternity of Pious X. External reforms have been introduced, but an internal acceptance of Council's mentality did not fully take place. Democratic change and pluralistic civil society in newly recognized states issued from former Yugoslavia are a new challenge for Christian evangelization and social activity.
Keywords
Council; reception; renewal; mentality; the Church in communistic regimes; democracy
Hrčak ID:
24443
URI
Publication date:
21.2.2006.
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