John O’Malley on Vatican II and Bernard Lonergan’s Realms of Meaning

Abstract

This article considers John O’Malley’s argument that the Second Vatican Council marks a break with the Catholic past. O’Malley contends that this discontinuity is most evident when one considers the nature of the genre of Vatican II’s documents. O’Malley argues that the shift from the use of the canon to the epideictic genre is representative of the intention of the Council Fathers to act more in a pastoral, than in a juridical, manner. This article is in substantial agreement with O’Malley; however, it introduces Bernard Lonergan’s notion of the realms of meaning as a means of understanding the theological relevance of the shift in genre that facilitates holding the canon and epideictic genre in a creative tension with each other.