Kritéria recepce II. vatikánského koncilu

Criteria for the reception of the Second Vatican Council have to be manageable for broad segments of the population and not just for scholars. The reception plays a role on many different levels and is being effected by very different protagonists. For this reason four documents are singled out here, each of which bids farewell to historical forms of faith and church life and initiates the emergence of new forms: 1. With the Declaration on Religious Freedom leave is taken from the statechurch system which existed for 1500 years. What new form is emerging? 2. With the Decree on the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite and Unitatis Redintegratio the 1000-year split into an Eastern and a Western Church is rejected and the departure from a mono-cultural understanding of the faith and of the church is announced. 3. I n the Decree of Ecumenism t he emergence f rom a denominationalecclesiastial system is achieved. 4. T he Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World represents the overcoming of the hesitation on the thresholdk of the modern age, a characteristic of the First Vatican Council which lasted about 100 years. In the closing reflections the texts of the Second Vatican Council are recognized as constitutional texts. They mark cornestones of a ‘constitution’ of the church in the modern age. The current crisis is one moment in the major transformation process that is under way.