A Council That Will Never End: Lumen Gentium and the Church Today

Lumen Gentium, Vatican Ii's Dogmatic Constitution On The Church, Changed How The Church Thinks About The Laity, Holiness, Baptism, And Even The Nature And Purpose Of The Church Itself. In A Council That Will Never End, The Highly Regarded Ecclesiologist Paul Lakeland Marks The Fiftieth Anniversary Of This Document's Promulgation By Taking Up Three Major Themes Of The Constitution, Analyzing The Text, And Identifying Some Of The Questions With Which It Leaves Us. Lakeland Is Convinced That Lumen Gentium Leaves Much Unfinished Business (as Any Historical Document Must), That Attending To It Will Take Us Beyond Much Of The Now Sterile Ecclesial Divisions, And That The Ecclesiology Of Humility It Implies Marks The Way That Theology Must Guide The Church In The Years Ahead. Introduction : The Unfinished Business Of Lumen Gentium -- The Roles Of Bishops In Lumen Gentium -- The Fate Of Collegiality In The Postconciliar Church -- Episcopal Leadership In The American Church Today -- The Laity In Lumen Gentium -- Vocation In The Church -- Lay Ecclesial Ministers : Are They Theological Monsters? -- Salvation And The Religious Other -- Who Is My Neighbor? -- An Ecclesiology Of Humility -- Afterword : In The Age Of Pope Francis. Paul Lakeland. A Michael Glazier Book. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.