second vatican council

January 11, 2016

Ralph Hauenstein (1912-2016)

The Acton Institute lost a great friend and staunch supporter on Sunday with the passing of Ralph Hauenstein at the age of 103 years. In a truly remarkable life, Hauenstein was by turns a journalist, a war hero, an entrepreneur, and a major philanthropist. Continue Reading...

December 07, 2015

6 Quotes: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae)

Fifty years ago today, on December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae). This document produced by the Second Vatican Council clarified the Catholic Church’s views on religious liberty, changed the way the Church interacted with states, and helped foster ecumenical relations with other faith traditions. Continue Reading...

March 05, 2013

Samuel Gregg: Catholicism, True Reform and the Next Pope

On the website of Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at the “tsunami of unsolicited advice from pop atheists, incoherent playwrights, angry ex-priests, and celebrity theologians that has erupted since Benedict XVI’s abdication.” Continue Reading...

January 15, 2013

Vatican II and Religious Liberty

Of all the documents that came out of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae (Declaration on Religious Liberty) was, says Omar F.A. Gutierrez, the most revised, debated, and controversial. Continue Reading...

November 07, 2012

Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI and the Pathologies of Religion

Over at Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg has an analysis of a recent, and little noticed, article that Pope Benedict XVI published on, among other things, “the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.” Continue Reading...

October 30, 2012

The Timeliness of Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom

Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom is just as timely today as it was fifty years ago, argues Joanna Bogle: Religious freedom is the issue of the hour: in America, in Europe, in what we (used to?) Continue Reading...

March 08, 2012

Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI and the Irrelevance of ‘Relevance’

In a new analysis in Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg examines “the shifting critiques” of the pontificate of Benedict XVI including the latest appraisal that the world is losing interest in the Catholic Church particularly because of its declining geopolitical “relevance.” Continue Reading...

May 06, 2011

Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI in ‘No One’s Shadow’

In a special report, the American Spectator has published Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg’s new article on the “civilizational agenda” of Pope Benedict XVI. Special thanks also to RealClearReligion for linking the Gregg article. Continue Reading...

March 23, 2011

Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI, Hans Kung and Catholicism’s Future

New books from Pope Benedict XVI and Fr. Hans Kung, two theologians who worked as contemporaries and whose careers were nurtured on the same German soil, show them to be worlds apart in their understanding of the Catholic Church. Continue Reading...

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