DESCRIPTION: Generally, Evangelicals have a view of the Catholic Church that is strongly rooted in events of the 16th and 17th centuries, stories of the Inquisition, the Council of Trent, views of Catholic popular religion, and accounts of persecution by the Catholic Church from missionaries. Few Evangelicals have paid attention to Vatican II and the changes that resulted from the Council. The profound nature of some of these changes for the church, ecumenism, liturgy, Scripture, clergy, spirituality, human rights, etc. deserve greater scrutiny. This course will allow students to read the primary documents from the Second Vatican Council and to follow a variety of the subsequent debates and discussions in Roman Catholic circles. Certain lectures may be given by Roman Catholic professors in the Los Angeles area. This is a CATS doctoral seminar (for which students at the 800 level will register Winter and Spring, CH884A and CH884B), open in the Fall to a limited number of master's students (CH584).

LEARNING OUTCOMES: This course should (1) help students gain a new and informed appreciation for the Catholic Church, (2) provide students with an understanding of Catholic theology and culture, and (3) enable those students who enter full-time pastoral ministry to build bridges between their ecclesial communities and the Roman Catholic Church in such a way as to enable greater ecumenical cooperation between the two.

RELEVANCE FOR MINISTRY: This course is designed for students who will pursue a teaching ministry and for students who wish to serve as a local bridge-builder between Evangelicals and Catholics. It has also proven useful to Catholic students who want a better understanding of their church.

D'Antonio, William B., James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge, and Mary L. Gautier. American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church. Rowman & Littlefield 2007.

Flannery, Austin, O.P., ed. The Basic Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations. Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996.

Rausch, Thomas P. Catholicism in the Third Millennium. 2d ed. Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 2003.

Weigel, George. God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church. Harper, 2005.

Wilde, Melissa J. Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change. Princeton University Press, 2007.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Donders, Joseph G., Ed. John Paul II: The Encyclicals in Everyday Language. 3rd ed. Orbis, 2005.

Dulles, Avery, S.J. The Reshaping of Catholicism: Current Challenges in the Theology of Church. Harper & Row, 1988.

Komonchak, Joseph A., Mary Collins, and Dermat A. Lane, eds. The New Dictionary of Theology. Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 1991.

Rusch, William C., and Jeffrey Gros, eds. Deepening Communion: International Documents with Roman Catholic Participation. Washington, DC: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1998.