At the start of the period of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, historian Massimo Faggioli published two monographs to stimulate attention about this council among American Catholics. In True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium, Faggioli develops a point that he also makes in Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning, namely, that “liturgy was not only the chronological starting point of Vatican II but also the theological starting point” (103). The latter book starts with an interesting classification of the different stages of the debate on Vatican II. The author's description of the period between 1965 and 1980 as “Vatican II: Acknowledged, Received, Refused” (6) illustrates that much attention in this book goes to the Lefebvrian schism and its rejection of the council. Even if the period between 1980 and 1990 is qualified as “Vatican II: Celebrated and Enforced” (11), Faggioli is highly aware of the limitations of the interpretation of the council imposed by the 1985 anniversary synod under the influence of then Cardinal Ratzinger. By qualifying the period 1990–2000 as “Vatican II: Historicized” (15), Faggioli understandably pays tribute to the John XXIII Bologna Foundation for Religious Sciences, which edited the five-volume History of Vatican II, without forgetting the Tübingen theological commentary on the documents of Vatican II published in the same decade.

As far as the period after the year 2000 is concerned, Faggioli formulates it as an open question whether “a new fight over Vatican II” (17) is taking place. The author speaks in a very nuanced way about Pope Benedict's hermeneutic of reform, which in his opinion was also partially a statement against the traditionalists. Thanks to this pope's interest in the council, “Vatican II has returned as an item of debate in the life of the Church” (96). One can only agree with the author that the 2007 statement on ecclesiology by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is a betrayal not only of the spirit but even of the letter of the council.

Despite its modest size, Faggioli's book gives a very complete overview of different forms of reception (or nonreception) of the council. He not only is attentive to the different factions that were present during the council itself as well as to the observers' reading of the event, but also makes it clear that particular forms of postconciliar theology (e.g., liberation theology, feminist theology, contextual theologies) represent particular forms of reception of the council. Faggioli also dedicates a chapter to the different reception of Gaudium et Spes by neo-Augustinian and neo-Thomist theologians. Even when it is enclosed by brackets, however, one wonders whether the term “progressive” (75) characterizes the theology of neo-Thomists like Congar and Rahner in all respects.

This Italian scholar is able to enrich the Western European and Northern American scholar with his profound knowledge of debates that took place on Italian soil, as was the case for this reader with the pages on Romano Amerio (26–29). If Faggioli had published his book this year, he would surely have added the name of Pope Francis to that of Pope Benedict among the “signs of the times for the Church of the early twenty-first century” (141). One only needs to make a list of the references to the documents of Vatican II in Evangelii Gaudium (starting with the citation of Unitatis Redintegratio's plea for a continual reformation of the church) to realize this.