This is an unusual, though highly valuable publication – one that Schillebeeckx never intended to be published. It aptly takes the form of ‘notes’ which he penned during the first two sessions of Vatican II. It mixes short staccato comments with lengthy annotations on the theological implications of debates held during sessions. It is quite unlike the council diaries of Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar, which are more extensive and were thoroughly refined for publication. Part of the value of these notes is that they are bilingual: they include Schillebeeckx's original jottings in Flemish-Dutch, and a very able English translation that relies on a translating principle of dynamic equivalence (using an approximate English term wherever there is no exact Flemish counterpart). The editor's exceptionally informative and detailed footnotes regarding a host of the council's participants are a substantial and useful part of the text. Schillebeeckx's wry sense of humour suffuses these pages as he observes frequently fraught interchanges during conciliar debates, as in the comments: ‘Spellman and McIntyre proclaim that Latin is the only liturgical language, but pronounce it in such an Americanised fashion that no one understands them: the worse one's spoken Latin the more one is inclined to favour it’ (p. 13); and again ‘the apostles knew and spoke only one language and everyone understood them. The Dutch speak every language, but no one understands them!’ (p. 31). Two of the ecclesiological issues that most preoccupied the participants of Vatican II were the exercise of authority in the Church, and the most appropriate manner for the Church to relate to the modern world. The first of these receives most attention in these notes. The second bore fruit in Vatican II's most significant constitution, Gaudium et Spes – The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which is not treated in these pages since it was debated in the Council's fourth session. The highpoint of these notes is reached when Schillebeeckx reacts to the unanticipated majority vote by the Council's participants to accept as a divine right (ius divinum) collegial government of the Church. After the vote, Schillebeeckx commented that ‘Christ did not give responsibility over the entire church to one person, the Pope, but to an Apostolic College with Peter by divine right at its head' (p. 36). For him, episcopal collegiality thus became the fountainhead for all other matters relating to leadership, renewal and authority in the church: ‘Collegiality as ius divinum! Such a markedly unanimous declaration by a Council is in fact a dogma. By virtue of divine right, the collegial leadership of the church is the doctrinal fundament of pastoral aggioramento in our days. All the rest ensues from this’ (p. 37, emphasis in the original). The axial issue at play during conciliar debates concerning collegiality was decentralisation, which Schillebeekx observes in his notes is ‘an urgent necessity for the church and there is a real need for the effective participation of the particular churches in the life of the universal church’ (p. 36). Yet he also notes a lurking danger regarding the theologically defeated Roman Curia: ‘There is also a fear that the Curia will only get back to business after the Council. But that is why new structures are necessary, to make this impossible in advance. As a matter of fact, there is still a great deal to be done. The cards have been dealt, but the game itself has yet to begin’ (p. 31). The result of the game was that the Curia did in fact ‘get back to business’ countering decentralisation with centripetal activities, much to Schillebeeckx's chagrin while he was alive.