Second Vatican Council as reflected by French essayists
Abstract
The article is dedicated to analysis of the activities and resolutions of the Second Vatican Council Vatican of the Roman Catholic Church in the historical context of the 1960s and its presentation in the studies of the French authors. The attention paid to the opinion of the French intellectual community representatives concerning issues from the Council agenda is justified: the Catholicism in France searched a lot for the resolution of an institutional crisis, originated in the changed role of religion in the citizens life, so the restart of the relations between Church and society declared at the Council became a base for further activities. Moreover, a significant impact on the Second Vatican Council concepts was made by the ideas of the «new theology» school where the core was formed by a group of French theologians. The article shows that the Second Vatican Council and its resolutions was highly appreciated by the French authors, and that their interest towards it touched a lot of different aspects of the discussions led at the Council: social, political, cultural and theological spheres. The authors of the articles and comments discovered the particularities of key idea of the Council: creation and development of the dialogue between Church and society in the actual political conditions. French authors during many decades studied more and more aspects of the Council documents and resolutions, and it is a proof of the importance of the realized meeting for the Catholic community.
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