The Church and the Other: Mediation and Friendship in Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Ecclesiology

Abstract

This essay proposes a development in Roman Catholic ecclesiology following the paradigmatic shift in its self-understanding that occurred at the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The Council represented a major shift in the Roman Catholic Church's attitudes towards other religions, Christian traditions, and cultures (including secular culture) from a previous defensive stance to a more positive one. In an unprecedented manner, the Council officials acknowledged that its Church's own self-understanding is enriched by its interactions with these various faith traditions and cultures. Forty years after the Council, however, there remains a need to account for this shift theologically in terms of what was going forward in the Roman Catholic Church's self-understanding.