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Vatican II: A 50th Anniversary Review of Resources: Fathers & Councils

This LibGuide is aimed at supporting student research on the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which has had an enormous, but not comprehensive or undisputed, effect on the Catholic Church since it began to be implemented.

Church Fathers and Mothers

There are a number of Reference books and sets on post-Biblical Christian authors.  These include:

Patrology   Quasten's compendium on the Church Fathers in four volumes.  Comprehensive listing of their writings, author by author, with summaries and bibliography. Next to this set is a more recent addition, on the Eastern Fathers from the Council of Chalcedon (451) to John of Damascus (750).

Handbook of Patrology  Patrick J. Hamell's bio-bibliography on the Church Fathers.

Check both the Encyclopedia of the Early Church and the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity for good information on the early Fathers.

Search LINUS by Keyword, Subject or Author to find additional monographs and sets on particular church Fathers, historical periods, and theological issues.  Try using the Subject Heading Fathers of the Church, for a start.  Look also at the list of variants on that subject heading, and the related subject headings in each book record.

Depending on your interests, you can also check the subject headings Apostolic Fathers , Cappadocian Fathers, Church history Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 or Desert Fathers.

You can also check books to see which Fathers wrote about what topics or commented on what biblical books; for example,  A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More Than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers.

 

Use article databases for additional information. Ask for help in identifying and locating the best resources for the materials you need.

Featured Resources

For a little balance, in an unbalanced world ...

Texts of the Fathers

There have been many editions of the texts of the early Church Fathers over time.  Some of the ones available at LMU:

The Routledge series Early Church Fathers includes monographs on specific Fathers and genres; 26 volumes to date.

The Fathers of the Church series (1947-1964 and Medieval Continuation) was a standard translation for the 20th century.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers is an older but very substantial set on the earliest Fathers.

If you read French and/or Latin, you can use the prestigious Sources Chretiennes series, which contain both Latin texts and new French translations.

If you know Latin, you can use the Patrologia Latina; if you know Greek, you can use the Patrologia Graeca.  But don't be downhearted if you don't know Latin or Greek.  Good translations work just fine for most purposes.  And, if you like, you can take classes here at LMU to learn either or both of these languages, which are keys to opening centuries of Western and Eastern scholarship.

First Jesuit-educated Pope

Tomb of Gregory XV Ludovisi

Sant'Ignazio, Rome

photo: T.Amodeo 2006

 

Among his accomplishments
in his short, 2 1/2 year papacy,
Gregory completely reformed the
method of electing a Pope, instituting
procedures that remained unchanged
until John Paul II.
Ahead of his time, against some
aggressive missionary practices of his
time, he also allowed converts to keep
their names,clothing and social rank,
as long as they kept to Christian
values, including charity toward
the downtrodden (i.e. the
Dalit./"untouchables" in India).
He also forestalled the start of the
Thirty-Years' War, using papal
commands and the Vatican army
to keep the warring parties apart.

Councils of the Church

The earliest Councils are recognized by almost all Christians; later Councils are recognized by different branches of Christianity; and some Councils are specifically held by other denominations to be only of and for the Roman Catholic Church, though the Church thinks otherwise.  Some of the tools available for this area are:

Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils  A newer edition in 2 volumes of the Councils through Vatican II. 

Encyclopedia of the Vatican and Papacy .   Includes substantial information about Roman Catholic councils from the Renaissance onwards.

The Vatican Web site (The Holy See) has a page of links to the Documents of Vatican II in English -- and also in Byelorussian, Czech, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

Both the first and second editions of the New Catholic Encyclopedia cover Church councils and synods.  You can use the articles to get started, and for brief bibliographies of additional source materials. 

To gain some background for medieval councils, check the Dictionary of the Middle Ages and its Supplement

For the documents of the Council of Trent see the CT Site put together at Hanover College.

For more books on the Councils, try using the Subject Heading Councils and synods, Ecumenical to get started.

For journal and magazine articles on specific topics, use keyword and/or subject searching in the Catholic Periodical & Literature Index (CPLI), or other relvant indexes (see the Articles Tab).

 

Featured Resources

Here are a couple of books covering the Church Councils.  Check LINUS to find a lot more!