What Happened at Vatican II

This is JUST the kind of book I've been wanting for years - a popular history of Vatican II - what happened, with lots of juicy bits, and enough historical background for it all to make sense, and not pushing a particular agenda - just the facts, with enough storyline to make it a joy to read, which it was.

4626. What Happened at Vatican II, by John W. O'Malley (read 6 Oct 2009) This is an excellent short account of the Second Vatican Council, telling the story from before its beginning up to the end. The perspective is from almost 50 years later, but the analysis of how or if the Council's work has fared and figured in the life of the Church since 1965 is almost non-existent. In other words, the book is a perceptive account of the happenings at the Council, but how the work of the Council has been used or diminished since 1965 is not a theme of this book. So I didn't feel I learned a lot new but it is an excellent refreshing review of the most exciting religious event of the 20th century.

O'Malley's history sheds light not only on what happened at the Vatican II Council but what happened in decades before it (much of the first part of the book is not about the Council at all but about events and trends beginning sometimes centuries before it)and on the ongoing debate in the Church about what happened and what it means.

characters & workings

IQS-2/6