May 17, 2011
The Catholic University of America will host a four-day conference Sept. 26 to 29, 2012, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, known as Vatican II.
The aim of the conference - titled "Reform and Renewal: Vatican II after Fifty Years" - is to shed light on what the council did and how those accomplishments can be applied in the Church today. This conference will explore how the council focused on both reform and renewal, how the council's documents were or were not implemented in Church life, and how the Church in the 21st century can respond to its needs in light of the teachings of Vatican II.
The conference will feature keynote addresses by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Rev. John O'Malley, S.J., author of What Happened at Vatican II and professor at Georgetown University; and Monsignor Paul G. McPartlan, Carl J. Peter Chair of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at CUA and member of the international Roman Catholic-Orthodox dialogue and of the International Theological Commission.
Topics to be addressed at the conference include theological method, religious life, priestly formation, apostolate of the laity, ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, religious freedom, and moral theology.
"This gathering of scholars and Church personnel gives us an unparalleled opportunity to probe the meaning of what Vatican II was and is for the vitality of the Church in our age, a church which is semper reformanda *," says Monsignor Kevin Irwin, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies and Walter J. Schmitz Chair of Liturgical Studies.
Vatican II was a three-year meeting held from 1962 to 1965. During this time, approximately 2,500 bishops met and drafted 16 documents to address relations between the Catholic Church and the modern world.
* "that must always be reformed"