Abstract
This article examines the contribution made by the publishing house of Herder to the reception of the teaching and decisions of Vatican II (1962–1965). This input began with the five volumes of Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II (German original 1966–1968), edited by Herbert Vorgrimler and including contributions from twenty-one authors who had played roles in drafting the Council’s sixteen documents and could expound from the inside the authorial intentions (intentio auctoris) of these texts. The subsequent five volumes of the Herders Theologischer Kommentar (2004–2009), edited by Peter Hünermann, could also explore the post-Vatican II history of interpretation and implementation of the conciliar texts (the intentio textus) and the insights of readers with their different questions and expectations (the intentio legentis).
Keywords
Many publishing houses have played their part, frequently with little public recognition, in bringing the origins, proceedings, sixteen documents, and outcomes of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) to a world audience. For English-speaking readers, Geoffrey Chapman was quick off the mark with a translation of the documents, which sold up to a million copies. 1 The same publishers also provided other relevant sources and commentaries: for instance, an English translation of the diary of John XXIII, the saintly pope who called and opened Vatican II. 2 The Vatican Press put out the acts of the Council in 28 volumes. 3 Cerf published in French numerous commentaries on the Council documents. 4 Paulist Press contributed a three-volume work on Vatican II and many smaller works. 5 Orbis Books, as well as producing single-volume books on the Council, collaborated with a Belgian publishing house in putting out a five-volume history of Vatican II. 6
University presses have also helped to spread knowledge of the Second Vatican Council and evaluate its contribution. The Belknap Press of Harvard University, for instance, published What Happened at Vatican II by the acclaimed historian John W. O’Malley. 7 Oxford University Press has put out several volumes on the Council, 8 and will publish more: for instance, The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, which is being prepared under the editorship of Massimo Faggioli and Catherine Clifford. Oxford University Press is also considering Vatican II: A Very Short Introduction for its prestigious VSI series. In 2020, Cambridge University Press published the Cambridge Companion to Vatican II. 9
To illustrate further what publishers have done in disseminating a knowledge of Vatican II, an appendix to this article lists publications on the Council that have come from Paulist Press. Such publishers represent an essential part of the reception history (Rezeptionsgeschichte) and interpretation of the Second Vatican Council that continue today.
This article will concentrate, however, on the contribution made by one publisher, Herder of Freiburg im Breisgau, to the cause of interpreting and disseminating the teaching and decisions of Vatican II. It focuses on two major works in collaboration, the first published immediately after the Council and the second in the first decade of this century.
Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II
Herbert Vorgrimler served as the general editor for the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II. 10 His editorial committee of ten other German speakers included Heinrich Suso Brechter, Bernhard Häring, Josef Hōfer, Hubert Jedin, Josef Andreas Jungmann, Klaus Mörsdorf, Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Karlheinz Schmidthüs, and Johannes Wagner. Vorgrimler himself had not been a peritus or official theological consultor at the Council, but six of his editorial board (Häring, Jedin, Jungmann, Rahner, Ratzinger, and Wagner) had been periti. Jedin, an outstanding church historian who wrote on the Council of Trent, and Wagner, director of a major liturgical institute in Trier, did not, however, contribute articles to the Commentary.
Vorgrimler, his editorial committee, and the publishers brought together 36 contributors for their five volumes. Of these, one had been a “council father” at Vatican II, Johannes Pohlschneider the bishop of Aachen, and 19 had been periti. Thus, 20 out of 36 who wrote for the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II had been official “insiders” in producing the Council’s sixteen texts. We might well speak of 21 out of 36, since Georges Anawati (see below), while not a peritus, served on the drafting committee for article 3 (on Muslims) of Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
Yves (later Cardinal) Congar, who had contributed to the drafting of eight of Vatican II’s texts, 11 was one of the eleven scholars who wrote for the volume dedicated to the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. 12 Rahner 13 and Ratzinger, 14 who had proved effective periti at Vatican II, made notable contributions. So too did another peritus, Aloys (later Cardinal) Grillmeier. 15 Gérard Philips provided the history of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium; he was very well equipped for the task, as he was a major drafter of that document. 16 Also as a peritus, Charles Moeller had been deeply involved in elaborating what became Gaudium et Spes. He was invited to undertake the lion’s share in presenting that longest document of Vatican II. 17
Of the 36 scholars who contributed to the Commentary, 30 wrote only on one document of Vatican II. Four made contributions towards interpreting two documents: Grillmeier (Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum [the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation]), Ferdinand Klostermann (Lumen Gentium and Apostolicam Actuositatem [the Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People]), Otto Semmelroth (Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes), and Vorgrimler (Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes). Two wrote contributions on three documents: Ratzinger on Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, and Gaudium et Spes; and Friedrich Wulf on Lumen Gentium, Perfectae Caritatis (the Decree on the Up-to-date Renewal of Religious Life), and Presbyterorum Ordinis (the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests).
The Council produced four constitutions, nine decrees, and three declarations. In the Commentary, multiple authors expounded three of the constitutions, Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum (the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) and Gaudium et Spes. Only Jungmann commented on Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. His work on the Eucharist made him one of the most acclaimed liturgists of his generation; he played a major role in drafting Sacrosanctum Concilium. 18
Normally only one contributor was assigned to present each of the twelve decrees and declarations; and frequently an outstanding expert was chosen. Thus Pietro (later Cardinal) Pavan, who, with Congar and John Courtney Murray, had been one of the principal drafters of Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Liberty, was the sole commentator on that document. This declaration drew from Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical on the rights and responsibilities of individuals and states, Pacem in Terris. Pavan had been a major drafter of Pacem in Terris.
Only three of the twelve decrees and declarations were presented and interpreted by more than one contributor: the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis), and the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate). In the case of all three documents, at least one of the contributors should be recalled.
For Unitatis Redintegratio, one of the two commentators was Johannes Feiner (1909–85), a Swiss theologian who co-edited with Magnus Löhrer and Hans Urs von Balthasar the seven-volume work, Mysterium Salutis: Die Grundlagen heilsgeschichtlichen Dogmatik. 19 His ecumenical credentials were illustrated by joining Lukas Vischer, the secretary of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, in co-editing The Common Catechism: A Christian Book of Faith. 20
Joseph Lécuyer (1912–1983) was one of four contributors who commented on Presbyterorum Ordinis. French by birth, he taught patristics at Rome’s Lateran University and in 1968 became the superior general of the Spiritans, originally known as the Holy Ghost Fathers. A peritus at Vatican II, he encouraged the sacramental and collegial understanding of the Church enshrined in Lumen Gentium. His widely read publications on the ordained ministry led to his being invited to expound the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests for the Commentary.
Nostra Aetate turned out to be the shortest document to be issued by Vatican II, but, as presented in the Commentary, 21 its growing significance was already appreciated by the editors and publishers. They appointed four commentators, each of them outstanding specialists in their fields: John M. Oesterreicher (1904–1993), Cyril B. Papali (1902–1981), Heinrich Dumoulin (1905–1995), and Georges C. Anawati (1905–1994). Born in Austria of Jewish parents (both of whom died in Nazi extermination camps), Osterreicher became a Catholic. As an ordained priest, he led the way in Jewish–Christian reconciliation in Austria, France, and the USA (where he fled in 1940). He was deeply involved in producing Nostra Aetate, in particular its article 4 (on the Jewish people). Naturally he attended to that article when describing in the Commentary the text’s origins, history, and promise for a healed relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Papali, the one Indian on the team for the Commentary, was born in Cochin (Kerala), became a Carmelite priest, and was appointed a professor at the Urban University (Rome), where he taught courses on Hinduism. Although he worked as a Vatican II peritus on the elaboration of Apostolicam Actuositatem, he was enlisted by the Commentary to expound the section on Hinduism in Nostra Aetate (art. 2). Dumoulin, German by birth, went to Japan in 1935, became a professor at Sophia University (Tokyo), and established himself as one of the foremost scholars on Zen in the twentieth century. He commented on the section in Nostra Aetate concerned with Buddhism (art. 2). Anawati, an Egyptian who became a Dominican priest and professor, was an expert in studies on Islam and dialogue with Muslims. He commented on what Nostra Aetate said about Muslims (art. 3), a section that he had helped to draft.
The majority of the 36 contributors were native German speakers—from Austria and Switzerland as well as from Germany itself. But leading contributors came from Egypt, India, Japan, and elsewhere, e.g., from Belgium (e.g., Moeller and Philips), France (e.g., Congar and Lécuyer), and Italy (e.g., Pavan and Roberto [later] Cardinal Tucci). The editors and publishers put together an appropriately international team.
Interpreting the Council Texts through Authorial Intention
No texts, not even biblical texts, can speak for themselves. Unquestionably, though, the Holy Spirit can “enlighten the eyes of our hearts” (Eph 1:18). Yet, faced with inspired texts and with those produced by members of church councils and other official teachers, we need to investigate the “intention” of the human authors who produced those texts (the intentio auctoris or, more accurately, intentio auctorum)—in our case, the intention of the bishops and their advisers who served on Vatican II commissions and drafted documents which the “council fathers” then voted on, section by section. In the light of proposed corrections and additions, these documents were revised, proposed for a definitive vote, and became the official sixteen texts promulgated by the Pope and the Council.
This is not to deny that we should also interpret each conciliar text in the light of what readers have subsequently made of it and done with it (the intentio legentis or legentium) and in the light of the text itself (intentio textus ipsius). Far from being limited to the authorial intention, interpretation should also attend to the multiple meanings, which emerge when we study the history of the documents’ reception and impact (the intentio textus in the Rezeptionsgeschichte and the Wirkungsgeschichte), and to the insights of the readers with their different presuppositions, questions, and expectations (the intentio legentis). 22
Nevertheless, when Vorgrimler, his fellow editors, 25 further contributors, and the publishers originally produced the Commentary in 1966–1968, the history of the reception and implementation of the sixteen Vatican II texts had barely started. The first of those texts to be promulgated was Sacrosanctum Concilium, and its official publication came on December 4, 1963. In the late 1960s, time was not on the side of those concerned to explore the intentio legentis and the intentio textus of the Vatican II constitutions, decrees, and declarations.
But time was very much on the side of those aiming to report the authorial intention of the Council’s documents. A major part of Vorgrimler’s team was made up of periti who had served on various commissions and sub-commissions, and so were in a privileged position to present and interpret the authorial meaning of texts. At times they were effectively co-authors of these texts (e.g., Pavan for Dignitatis Humanae and Moeller for Gaudium et Spes). They knew the minds of the authors and what they consciously wished to convey, because they had been co-authors of Vatican II documents and in close contact with other co-authors of these and further Vatican II documents.
Given the contributors that he and the publishers had assembled, Vorgrimler was in an excellent position to achieve his goal—“to ascertain precisely what the Council intended to say” (the intentio auctoris) in the sixteen texts it promulgated. At the same time, he recognized that, far from rendering them “superfluous,” the Commentary would serve “as a basis” for “further studies.” 23 Thus, he anticipated work which belongs to elucidating the intentio legentis and intentio textus of Vatican II’s sixteen texts. In fact, he briefly included this work by offering three examples of how the documents had already been systematically “ordered” by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (in a Council speech of December 5, 1962, when he had not yet been elected Pope Paul VI), Karl Rahner (in December 1965), and Aloys Grillmeier (in November 1965). As readers of the documents (or in the case of Montini, a reader of the early drafts of documents being developed and debated by Vatican II), they proposed different (but not mutually exclusive) schemes: (a) the “nature of the Church and activity of the Church” or the “Ecclesia ad intra” and “Ecclesia ad extra” (Montini), (b) an ecclesiological ordering of the sixteen texts that began with Lumen Gentium (Rahner), and (c) incorporating them within “an entire structure of theology” derived from or at least dependent upon Dei Verbum (Grillmeier). 24 These three proposals, while presupposing the meaning communicated by the authorial intention, suggest, albeit briefly, further meaning uncovered by readers attentive to the interrelationship of the texts.
In commenting on the first Vatican II text to be approved and promulgated, Sacrosanctum Concilium (December 1962), Jungmann set himself to elucidate the origins, drafting, and debates that eventually produced the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. He also availed himself of the earliest publications, official and scholarly, that initiated the reception of the Constitution. Thus he could cite the Rite for Concelebration and Chalice Communion of March 7, 1965, which implemented what the constitution taught about those two questions (art. 55, 57). 25 He cited a 1965 article on the pastoral concern of Sacrosanctum Concilium written by his outstanding student, Balthasar Fischer. 26 But, in expounding the Constitution’s instruction on revising the catechumenate (art. 64), 27 he could not know how influential and successful Fischer would prove in elaborating the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, introduced in 1972.
In general, while illuminating much about the origins and meaning of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Jungmann could not know in advance the precise details of the revised Roman Mass promulgated by Paul VI in 1970 and the revised rites of sacraments and sacramentals, mandated by Chapters 2 and 3 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, respectively. Apropos of revising the sacrament of penance (art. 72) and, in particular, the place of general absolution, Jungmann could only remark: “time will teach what can be done.” 28 On the vexed question of the translation (from the Latin originals) of liturgical texts (art. 36), Jungmann recognized how the Council decided that “the decision lay with the bishops’ conferences and Rome reserved the right of scrutinizing and confirming” translations. 29 He might have added that, in less than two months from the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, on January 25, 1964, Pope Paul VI issued Sacram Liturgiam, a motu proprio or personal edict that prescribed submitting translations to the Holy See for an official recognitio or approval. In the event, under the regrettable leadership of Cardinal Medina Estévez, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments went far beyond what the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and Paul VI envisaged by taking unto itself the task of controlling the translations (above all, the English translations) and not merely confirming or “recognizing” them. Respect for Vatican II’s original or “authorial” intentions, among other motives, should have prevented this from happening. 30
All in all, Jungmann’s long chapter on Sacrosanctum Concilium illustrates splendidly what Vorgrimler, his collaborators, and the publishers aimed to bring us in the five-volume Commentary—namely, what the Council intended to teach and decide or, in other words, its authorial intentions. But, as Hans-Georg Gadamer and other philosophers and literary critics have pointed out, all written documents enjoy a potential for development in meaning beyond what the authors expressed in particular situations for specific audiences (the intentio auctoris). Texts can communicate more than their writers ever consciously knew or meant. 31 Thus, the Council’s texts gained a life of their own—a “reception history” and “effective history” in which they distanced themselves from their original authors and addressees (the Church and the world at the end of the 1960s), entered new contexts, and found later readers and hearers. Without the active receptivity of such readers and interpreters and the history of effects, the Vatican II texts would have remained incomplete.
The five volumes of Herder’s immediate post-Vatican II Commentary could avail themselves of numerous “insiders” to present, above all, the intentio auctoris of the Council’s sixteen documents. When the same publishers put out nearly half a century later a work in five volumes on the same texts, the intentio textus ipsius and intentio legentis came strongly to the fore.
Herders Theologischer Kommentar
Peter Hünermann co-edited for Herder the new project on Vatican II. 32 Up to December 7, 1965 (when the Council’s final four texts were approved), its sixteen constitutions, decrees, and declarations were read “diachronically” or one by one in temporal sequence. Now they could all be bound together and invite a “synchronic” or “canonical” reading. Volume 1 of the Herders Kommentar contained all sixteen documents of Vatican, with the original Latin facing a German translation. 33 Published in a single, if diversified, canon, individual texts illuminated the meaning of other texts and were in turn illuminated by them. This is the way in which readers now meet these conciliar texts, physically bound together within a mutually illuminating and enriching canon, in which previously unsuspected associations and fresh meanings can catch our eyes. Later we will examine one such synchronic reading that involves Sacrosanctum Concilium and Nostra Aetate.
Before sampling some of the contributions to the Herders Kommentar, we need to reflect further on the intentio textus and intentio legentis as completing the intentio auctoris. Such an integral view of the task of interpretation will allow us to evaluate adequately the work of Hünermann and his collaborators.
Intentio Textus and Intentio Legentis
With December 1965, the “reception history” of all the Vatican II texts could fully begin. One should also speak of the Wirkungsgeschichte (the effective history or history of effects) of the sixteen documents, which detected and acted upon meanings in the conciliar texts that were previously latent and not (or at least not clearly) intended by the original authors. While valuing, we should also move beyond the original intentio auctoris and respect the operation of the intentio textus ipsius.
Paul Ricoeur, like Gadamer, encouraged this move: “the meaning of what has been written down is hence forth separate from the possible intentions of the authors . . . What we call the semantic autonomy of the text means that the text unfolds a history distinct from that of the authors.” 34 In short, “what the text signifies no longer coincides with what the author[s] meant.” 35 In its now classical The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, the Pontifical Biblical Commission referred with apparent approval to what Ricoeur called a certain “distancing” or distinguishing between author[s] and text[s]. 36 Let me offer three examples of language lodged in the texts of Vatican II, which enjoyed a subsequent usage that went beyond what the original authors meant: a fresh and expanded application of the language of experience (John Paul II), divine self-communication (John Paul II), and beauty (Pope Francis).
The Gospel of John, the letters of Paul, the letters of Basil the Great, the Confessions of Augustine, and other classic Christian works embodied and encouraged an experiential approach to understanding and interpreting the divine–human relationship. A long line of spiritual and mystical authorities has examined this relationship in the light of human experience. William of St. Thierry (1085–1148) was one of many Christians who explored in depth our spiritual experience. Nevertheless, two modern documents of the Church’s magisterium, the First Vatican Council’s constitution Dei Filius in 1870 and Pope Pius’s encyclical Pascendi of 1907, warned against finding the credibility of revelation only in the internal experience of individuals and maintaining that interior, immediate experience of God prevails over rational arguments. 37 An opposition to one-sided versions of religious experience unfortunately encouraged the dangerous delusion that somehow we could encounter and accept the divine self-communication “outside” human experience. In 1965, Dei Verbum helped to set the record straight. Through their special history of revelation and salvation, the Israelites “experienced the ways of God” (art. 14). In the post-New Testament life of the Church, so Vatican II acknowledged, their “experience of spiritual realities” helped believers contribute to the progress of tradition (art. 8). This was an official rehabilitation of the language of “experience,” albeit a modest one. The conciliar authors of the Constitution on Divine Revelation never imagined how the usage of “experience,” both as verb and noun, would flourish in Pope John Paul II’s Redemptor Hominis (1979), Dives in Misericordia (1980), other encyclicals and further texts. 38
The language of divine “self-communication” slipped, only once and almost unnoticed, into what eventually became the text of Chapter 1 of Dei Verbum. Jared Wicks provides details about the “intentions” involved in drafting the teaching on revelation with which this constitution opens. 39 The final form of the constitution would say, “By divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of human beings” (art. 6). This expression in the Council’s text, beyond anything that belonged to the intentions of the original authors, had a rich afterlife in the official teaching of John Paul II and not least in his 1986 encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem. 40 The special value of this term comes from the way it holds together God’s self-revelation and self-giving through saving grace. God’s communication is not merely cognitive but constitutes a real, divine self-communication which not only makes salvation known but also brings it in person.
My third specific example of language, which was lodged in the texts of Vatican II and underwent a seismic shift, concerns the theme of beauty. Herders Kommentar lists only eight occurrences of “pulchritudo (beauty)” and “pulcher (beautiful)” in all sixteen documents of the Council. 41 “Truth (veritas)” occurs 119 times, “verus (true)” 142 times, while “bonum (good)” occurs 366 times. 42 This imbalance in texts of official teaching was set right by Pope Francis, right from his apostolic exhortation of 2014, Evangelii Gaudium. Extolling “the way of beauty (via pulchritudinis)” and “the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty,” he wrote of “a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the risen Christ to radiate within it.” 43 The 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ (on caring for our common home, the earth) began by describing the earth as “a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us” (art. 1) and ended by praying that the outpouring of divine love may enable us to protect the universe’s “life and beauty” (art. 246). Throughout the encyclical, the theme of “beauty” rang out like an antiphon. 44 The history of Vatican II texts has been enriched by further meaning emerging as Pope Francis appeals not only to truth and goodness but also to beauty.
With their various presuppositions, questions and expectations, readers of the conciliar texts (intentio legentis) have detected multiple meanings that go beyond the conscious intentions of their authors. These and other texts do not “have” a meaning before they are read and interpreted. Meaning emerges when they are reflected upon, discussed, and applied, and that meaning is not to be limited to what the original authors expressly wished to communicate. Let me offer an example from the texts of the Second Vatican Council.
Chapter 4 of Sacrosanctum Concilium offered teaching on the Divine Office and began by declaring: “Jesus Christ, the High Priest of the New and Eternal Covenant, when he assumed a human nature, introduced into this land of exile the hymn that in the halls of heaven is sung throughout all the ages. He unites the whole community of humankind with himself and associates it with him in singing the divine canticle of praise” (art. 83). Quoting here but without reference Pius XII’s 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei (art. 144), the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy speaks of one “divine canticle of praise,” led by Christ as the incarnate and risen Cantor and Choir Master, who joins the whole human race in singing together the same heavenly hymn he has brought to earth.
Later Christian readers, who also take up Nostra Aetate in reflecting on the religious situation of others, glimpse in Sacrosanctum Concilium a striking image of Christ’s active presence to the entire human race, no matter what their religious beliefs or lack of them. The unity of all people in him, which began with the incarnation, must be understood to be strengthened and perfected through the resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Spirit. It will be consummated when they reach “the halls of heaven.” This picture of Christ the Cosmic Choir Master symbolizes the (differentiated) unity in him of all the baptized and non-baptized alike. Even those who have never heard of his name are mysteriously but, through grace, also truly in the hands of Christ the world’s Choir Master. For readers raising questions about the saving union of all people in Christ, this passage encourages a thoroughly Christocentric interpretation. 45
The Contributors to the Herders Kommentar
Two German theologians, Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, served as co-editors for the five volumes of the Herders Theologischer Kommentar (2004–2006). They had nine collaborators, all German-speaking. Forty years had elapsed since the original edition of Commentary edited by Herbert Vorgrimler was published by Herder (1966–1968). Vorgrimler himself (1929–2014) was still alive, but most of his collaborators were dead: for instance, Congar (1904–1995); Grillmeier (1910–1998); Häring (1912–1998); Jungmann (1889–1975); Rahner (1904–1984); and Semmelroth (1912–1979). The publishers engaged a completely new and smaller team (nine instead of 36 contributors) to prepare the Herders Kommentar.
In the order of their original publication, the sixteen documents of Vatican II were commented on by the following scholars: Rainer Kaczynski (Sacrosanctum Concilium); Hans-Joachim Sander (Inter Mirifica); Hünermann (Lumen Gentium); Hilberath (Orientalium Ecclesiarum and Unitatis Redintegratio); Guido Bausenhart (Christus Dominus); Joachim Schmiedl (Perfectae Caritatis); Ottmar Fuchs and Hünermann (Optatam Totius); Roman A. Siebenrock (Gravissimum Educationis and Nostra Aetate); Helmut Hoping (Dei Verbum); Bausenhart (Apostolicam Actuositatem); Siebenrock (Dignitatis Humanae); Hünermann (Ad Gentes); Fuchs and Hünermann (Presbyterorum Ordinis); and Sander (Gaudium et Spes). As one can see, Bausenhart and Sander commented on two documents, Siebenrock on three, and Hünermann on four.
In a preface to volume two, Hünermann singled out the five volumes co-edited by Giuseppe Alberigo 46 as exemplary in the research done into the origins and achievements of Vatican II. 47 Over four decades, such research had drawn on further sources (both official documentation and personal items like the diaries of Congar and Semmelroth) to enrich the interpretation of the Council and its teaching and intentions (intentio auctoris). Hünermann and his fellow (eight) commentators dealt with the sixteen conciliar documents in three stages: the background and drafting of each text; a commentary on individual articles of the final text (the intentio auctoris); and an evaluation of its reception and impact (the intentio textus and the intentio legentis).
Kaczynski’s long treatment on Sacrosanctum Concilium exemplifies the style prescribed by the editors and publishers of the Herders Kommentar. After a detailed table of contents and list of abbreviations and principal sources, he presented the background and drafting of the final text, spent well over one hundred pages expounding its articles, offered an evaluative account of its reception, and concluded with an extensive bibliography. 48 By listing significant steps in the reform of the Roman Missal and of the sacraments and sacramentals, 49 he pointed readers towards fuller information concerning the implementation of the final text in the aftermath of the Council. Restrictions of length, however, ruled out discussing the unfortunate guidelines for translating the official Latin texts into the various vernaculars, Liturgiam Authenticam of March 28, 2001. It replaced the excellent guidelines, Comme le Prévoit of January 25, 1969. Curiously, Kaczynski notes the dates for the publication of these two documents but not the names by which they are known, still less the differences between them. 50
In three ways, by preparing and putting out Herders Kommentar, the publishers have contributed to Vatican II studies. First, the nine contributors to the five volumes could elucidate more fully the authorial intentions of the conciliar documents, by taking advantage of many official and unofficial sources that have become available since December 1965. Second, after that date the history of the intentio textus began unfolding, right from the synchronic reading encouraged by all sixteen documents of Vatican II being bound together in a single volume. Herders Kommentar alerted its readers to what happened when those documents were read and implemented in new contexts. Siebenrock offered a striking example of this story of the intentio textus through his pages on the official and theological Wirkungsgeschichte of Nostra Aetate. 51 Sander concluded his treatment of Gaudium et Spes with, for instance, its impact in German-speaking countries, France, Italy, Spain and liberation theology, and the role of Gaudium et Spes 22 in the magisterium of Pope John Paul II. 52 Third, the wide-ranging bibliographies and persistent engagement with other authors fills out the significant and valuable ways in which the events and teaching of Vatican have been read and interpreted over more than four decades (intentio legentis).
In the fifth and final volume of Herders Kommentar, Hünermann and his eight collaborators set themselves to produce a theological summary of Vatican II’s documents and indicate their perspectives. This task resulted in chapters on such themes as “God’s revelation and action in history” (Hoping), “Catholicity ad intra and ad extra” (Hilberath), and “Identity and dialogue” (Siebenrock). 53 The volume ranged over the authorial intentions behind the sixteen documents, the intentio textus, and the intentio legentis, with the nine scholars themselves providing significant examples of professionally equipped readers discovering and elaborating meanings.
In the opening chapter presented as a “hermeneutical reflection,” Hünermann refers twice to some earlier work by Ormond Rush on interpreting the Council. 54 Since the publication of Herders Kommentar, Rush has published The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles. 55 His 24 principles, arranged in three groupings (hermeneutical, theological, and ecclesiological), succeed admirably in presenting the overall meaning of the Council, in all its richness and complexity. This major work stands alongside volume five of the Herders Kommentar as the two outstanding accounts of the integral meaning of Vatican II’s teaching. 56
Prospects
Another major multi-volume work on the Council is being planned to appear in English and German: Vatican II–Legacy and Mandate. Its editorial committee of four includes Hünermann; they work with five continental groups (each of around twenty members). Rush is a member of the group for North America and Oceania. One can only wish this new project every success.
However this fresh initiative turns out, there are already abundant reasons for acknowledging the signal work that publishing houses have done towards the cause of interpreting and spreading the teaching and decisions of the Second Vatican Council. This article has examined in detail what the German publishers Herder, through two five-volume works, have done to promote the cause of Vatican II. Footnote no. 56 and an appendix to this article indicate the contribution to this cause made by two American publishers, Liturgical Press and Paulist Press, respectively. These (and other) publishers deserve recognition and warm thanks for what they have done in bringing Vatican II to a world audience.
Footnotes
Appendix
1.
Walter M. Abbott and Joseph Gallagher, eds., The Documents of Vatican II (London/New York: Geoffrey Chapman/Guild, 1966).
2.
John XXIII, Journal of a Soul, trans. Dorothy White (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965).
3.
Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Oecumenici Vaticani II, 28 vols (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970–80).
4.
Yves Congar et al., eds., L’Église et Vatican II, 3 vols (Paris: Cerf, 1966–67); up to 1977, twenty-one further volumes appeared in this series of commentaries on the Council documents.
5.
René Latourelle, ed., Vatican II: Assessment and Perspectives, 3 vols. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1988–89); that work in collaboration also appeared in French, German, and Italian.
6.
Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, 5 vols. (Maryknoll, NY/Leuven: Orbis/Peeters, 1995–2006); the original Italian edition was G. Alberigo and A. Melloni, eds., La Storia del Concilio Vaticano II, 5 vols. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995–2001).
7.
J. W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press at Harvard University, 2008); this work has been translated into at least six other languages.
8.
See, e.g., Gavin D’Costa, Vatican II: Catholic Doctrine on Jews and Muslims (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); G. O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
9.
Richard Gaillardetz, ed., Cambridge Companion to Vatican II (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
10.
H. Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 5 vols. (London/New York: Burns & Oates/Herder and Herder, 1967–69; hereafter cited as Commentary); the original edition was published as Das Zweite Vatikanischen Konzil (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1966–68). Herder has published other works on Vatican II: for instance, Christoph Böttigheimer, ed., Zweites Vatikanisches Konzil: Programmatik, Reception, Vision (2014); Roger Schutz and Max Thurian, Das Wort Gottes auf dem Konzil: Die dogmatische Konstitution über die gōttliche Offenbarung, Wortlaut und Kommentar (1967).
11.
Y. Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne and Mary Cecily Boulding (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2012), 871.
12.
Y. Congar, “The Role of the Church in the Modern World” [Ch. IV of Gaudium et Spes], Commentary, vol. 5, 202–23.
13.
K. Rahner, “Lumen Gentium, Chapter III, Articles 18–27,” Commentary, vol. 1, 186–219.
14.
J. Ratzinger, “Announcements and Prefatory Notes of Explanation [of Lumen Gentium],” ibid., vol. 1, 297–306; “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Commentary, vol. 3, 155–246, 262 –71; “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Part I, Chapter I,” Commentary, vol. 5, 115–63.
15.
A Grillmeier, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapters I, II, III (art. 28),” Commentary, vol. 1, 138–85, 218–26; “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Chapter III,” Commentary, vol. 3, 199–256.
16.
G. Philips, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: History of the Constitution,” Commentary, vol. 1, 105–37. See G. O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2014), 17–20; G. Philips, Église et son mystère au IIe Concile du Vatican: histoire, texte et commentaire de la Constitution “Lumen Gentium,” 2 vols. (Paris: Desclée, 1967).
17.
C. Moeller, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church,” Commentary, vol. 5, 1–114, 170–73.
18.
See Joanne M. Pierce, “Jungmann, Josef Andreas, SJ,” in Thomas Worcester, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 432–34.
19.
7 vols. (Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag, 1965–76).
20.
London/New York: Search/Seabury, 1975; this was originally published as Neues Glaubensbuch: Der gemeinsame christliche Glaube (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1973).
21.
Commentary, vol. 4, 1–154.
22.
On the “three intentions to respect,” G. O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2014), 58–61; O’Collins, Inspiration: Toward a Christian Interpretation of Biblical Inspiration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 150–65; see also Ormond Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II; Some Hermeneutical Principles (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2004).
23.
Vorgrimler, “Preface,” Commentary, vol. 1, vii.
24.
Vorgrimler, Commentary, vol. 1, vii–ix. Massimo Faggioli and, somewhat differently, I myself have proposed the lex orandi of Sacrosanctum Concilium as a hermeneutical key for Vatican II: see O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council, 57–88.
25.
J. Jungmann, “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” Commentary, vol. 1, 41–44.
26.
J. Jungmann, Commentary, vol. 1, 8, n. 4. Despite his eminent standing, Fischer was not a peritus at the Council.
27.
J. Jungmann, Commentary, vol. 1, 49–50.
28.
J. Jungmann, Commentary, vol. 1, 52.
29.
J. Jungmann, Commentary, vol. 1, 26.
30.
With John Wilkins, I tell the sad story of this takeover and of its unfortunate result, the 2010 Roman Missal, in Lost in Translation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2017).
31.
Gadamer states a universally valid principle: “not just occasionally, but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author.” In repeating this point, he adds that texts also become independent from their addressees: “the horizon of understanding cannot be limited either by what the writer originally had in mind, or by the horizon of the person to whom the text was originally addressed.” Hence, Gadamer argues that “reconstructing what the author really had in mind is at best a limited undertaking” (Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall, rev. ed. [New York: Crossroad, 1989], 296, 373, 395).
32.
P. Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, eds. Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, 5 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2004–09); hereafter Herders Kommentar.
33.
By including an index of Latin words used by Vatican II’s sixteen documents, Herders Kommentar (vol. 1, 860–935) facilitated a synchronic reading of these texts.
34.
P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics, trans. D. Pellauer (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), 12.
35.
P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action, Interpretation, trans. J. B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 139.
36.
Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), 74–75.
37.
Heinrich Joseph Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, eds., Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum, English trans., 43rd edn (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012, nn. 3033, 3484).
38.
For details, see G. O’Collins, “John Paul II and the Development of Doctrine,” in G. O’Collins and M. A. Hayes, eds., The Legacy of John Paul II (London: Burns & Oates, 2008), 1–16.
39.
J. Wicks, “Dei Verbum Developing: Vatican II’s Revelation Doctrine 1963–1964,” in Daniel Kendall and Stephen T. Davis, eds., The Convergence of Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2001), 109–25; see also G. O’Collins, “Dei Verbum,” in Retrieving Fundamental Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1993), 48–62, esp. 52–53. See also Wicks, “Vatican II on Revelation—From Behind the Scenes,” Theological Studies 71 (2010): 637–50, 
, as well as his five articles on the formation of Dei Verbum published in the Gregorianum: 2001 (two articles), 2002, 2004, 2005.
40.
This encyclical on the Holy Spirit spoke of the self-communication of God in art. 13 (twice), 14, 23, 50 (four times), 51 (twice), and 58 (twice).
41.
Herders Kommentar, vol. 1, 930; in fact, it should be pulchritudo twice and pulcher nine times.
42.
These statistics are taken from Xaverius Ochoa, Index Verborum cum Documentis Concilli Vaticani Secundi (Rome: Commentarium pro Religiosis, 1967), 59–62, 511–14.
45.
See further O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions, 64–67.
46.
See n. 6 above.
47.
Hünermann, Herders Kommentar, vol. 2, vii.
48.
Kaczynski, Herders Kommentar, vol. 2, 1–10, 11–52, 53–198, 199–210, 211–27. Unlike Herders Kommentar, Vorgrimler’s Commentary had offered no bibliographies.
49.
Kaczynski, Herders Kommentar, vol. 2, 139–142, 165–67.
50.
Kaczynski, Herders Kommentar, vol. 2, 140, 142.
51.
Kaczynski, Herders Kommentar, vol. 3, 366–77.
52.
Kaczynski, Herders Kommentar, vol. 4, 844–61.
53.
Herders Kommentar, vol. 5, 103–47, 149–209, and 311–79.
54.
Herders Kommentar, vol. 5, 5–101, at 7 n. 2, 15 n. 21.
55.
Ormond Rush, The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2019).
56.
Liturgical Press published Rush’s Vision of Vatican II and works by other scholars on the Council: e.g., Massimo Faggioli, Catholicism and Citizenship: Political Culture of the Church in the Twenty-First Century (2017); Faggioli, True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (2012); Richard R. Gaillardetz, An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis and the Renewal of Catholicism (2015); Gaillardetz, By What Authority? Foundations for Understanding Authority in the Church, rev. and exp. ed. (2018); Gaillardetz and Catherine Clifford, Keys to the Council: Unlocking the Teaching of Vatican II (2012); Paul Lakeland, A Council That Will Never End: Lumen Gentium and the Church Today (2013); Michael G. Lawler, Todd A. Salzman, and Eileen Burke-Sullivan, The Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et Spes Then and Now (2012); G. O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council: Meaning and Message (2014); Ladislaus Orsy, Receiving the Council: Theological Insights and Debates (2009); David Schultenhover, ed., 50 Years On: Probing the Riches of Vatican II (2015); Ronald D. Witherup, The Word of God at Vatican II: Exploring Dei Verbum (2014).