Catherine E. CLIFFORD and Massimo FAGGIOLI, Eds. The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II,New York: Oxford University Press, 2023, ISBN: 978-0198813903, $175, hardcover. Reviewed by Patrick J. HAYES, Redemptorist Archives, Philadelphia.

This notable addition to the Oxford Handbook in Religion and Theology series lays out in copious but necessarily selective detail the gestation, event, and aftermath of one of the most significant ecclesial happenings of the twentieth century. Together with the editors, 42 other authors treat the Council’s paradigmatic shifts. They hail mainly from North America and Europe, but a handful come from Africa, Asia, and Australia, too. They are nearly all drawn from university settings and are noted for their particular areas of expertise. Authorial composition is solid.

The editors note that this handbook is situated in a six decades-long history of reception and interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. There have been competing hermeneutics of the Council. This book attempts to strike a balance, both in the historicity of the documents and the theological interpretations that have been accentuated in the last half century. Attention is also given to the politics generated by the Council, developments that have proven divisive to this day—hardly the goal of Pope John’s initial call.

The first three sections of the Handbook reflect on the “context and sources” of the documents, an examination of the key documents themselves, and the Catholic Church’s own reception of the texts. These give overviews of how the documents were constructed, as well as their immediate aftermath. A shift comes in section four, on reception by other Christians and non-Christians. Successively, we learn about Vatican II through the eyes of the Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed, Methodists, Evangelicals, Jews, Islam, and so-called Asian religions. The last section, “Global Reception,” accounts for the regional acclamation toward the Council’s meaning and impact. The Council’s effect on international affairs necessarily draws attention to the Church’s own diplomatic relations, but also the influence its statements made on people in a variety of contexts and trials, from totalitarianism to poverty.

Some of the chapters feel extraneous or detached from the main concerns of Vatican II. A long section in the chapter on Women and the Council delves into the question of women priests. While there were several women in the West who were writing on this topic in the conciliar era, among whom were a select number in attendance at the Council itself, their impact on theological discourse was minimal and highly circumscribed at Vatican II.

Some chapters also tend to give the role of some theologians short shrift. Readers will have to comb through chapters on ecumenism or interreligious dialogue or religious freedom to gauge the contributions of George Tavard, Gregory Baum, or Thomas Stransky. Additionally, one may not find answers to every question, in part because the Handbook simply doesn’t address each and every conciliar text. It is not a priority to address either the Decree on Social Communications or on Religious Life, for instance. Instead, the editors have been concerned to bring out more broad thematic treatments of the Church’s missiological or ecclesiological dimensions.

Among the real values of the Handbook is the attention given to the global dimension of the Council. Insofar as it was the first to assemble bishops from every continent, voices from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Central and South America could now engage freely with those of Europe and North America. This is mimicked in the table of authors selected to contribute. The volume also takes seriously the ecumenical work resulting from the Council, with ten chapters devoted to its reception by other Christians and non-Christian traditions. Within these chapters one can find not only the requisite backward glance to the turmoil of the 1960s, but a helpful examination of resulting trends, movements, or ideas that can trace their being to the Council’s efforts.

Though each contribution is discrete in its own approach or emphasis, the overall project knits them together well. There is balance between theory and the historical record, with proper due given to the Council’s outcomes. Libraries will want to stock this volume in reference collections alongside the Cambridge Companion to Vatican II (2020), which shares many of the same authors.