Books in Brief

The Council, Reform and Reunion, by Hans Küng (Sheed and Ward, $3.95). A brilliant German theologian introduces a note of realism into the rather Utopian attentions the new Ecumenical Council has thus far received. Dr. Küng sees the Council in the context of history. He presents a brief sketch of the twenty previous Councils, and suggests that they indicate certain tasks and disciplines for the new meeting. Pope John XXIII may want to balance the emphasis on Papal centralism inherited from the last Council, the Vatican Council of 1870, by shifting power back toward the Bishops in their dioceses (their “Churches,” as Pope John has begun to call them, in keeping with the apostolic practice). Dr. Küng hopes that Newman’s hopes will prove prophecies: after the Vatican Council’s disappointments, Newman wrote “Future popes will explain and in one sense limit their own power… a reassembled Council may trim the boat.” (Criticism of Papal emphasis was safer in Newman’s and Acton’s day; America had not been founded.)

g. wills

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The Council, Reform and Reunion, by Hans Küng (Sheed and Ward, $3.95). A brilliant German theologian introduces a note of realism into the rather Utopian attentions the new Ecumenical Council has thus far received. Dr. Küng sees the Council in the context of history. He presents a brief sketch of the twenty previous Councils, and suggests that they indicate certain tasks and disciplines for the new meeting. Pope John XXIII may want to balance the emphasis on Papal centralism inherited from the last Council, the Vatican Council of 1870, by shifting power back toward the Bishops in their dioceses (their “Churches,” as Pope John has begun to call them, in keeping with the apostolic practice). Dr. Küng hopes that Newman’s hopes will prove prophecies: after the Vatican Council’s disappointments, Newman wrote “Future popes will explain and in one sense limit their own power… a reassembled Council may trim the boat.” (Criticism of Papal emphasis was safer in Newman’s and Acton’s day; America had not been founded.)

g. wills