Hubert Jedin, the great German historian of the Council of Trent, is supposed to have said once that it takes three or four hundred years before historians and theologians can begin to understand what a general council of the church actually did and what that really means. Maybe so, but this does not prevent scholars from trying anyway in the meantime. For contemporary scholars of Roman Catholicism and indeed of Christianity in general, efforts to identify the essential character and significance of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) have been underway since the moment of its closing ceremonies. For ordinary Catholics, particularly in America, the changes seemed revolutionary, on vivid display every Sunday in their local parish church. The experience of going to Mass was markedly different in 1970 from what it had been in 1960 – or, for that matter, in 1965. With time, however, other observers began to see the enduring continuities that underlay the seemingly radical changes that were so apparent on the surface. Joseph Chinnici, a distinguished and prolific historian, makes two contributions to these discussions with his important new book.

In part one, he readjusts the time frame, arguing that our effort at understanding should begin not with the opening of deliberations in Rome, but farther back in the mid-century struggles against fascism and communism. The challenges from these various forms of totalitarianism opened the church to an embrace of fundamental notions of human rights and democratic participation, and they set in motion “long trajectories” (26) throughout the preconciliar period in which a “reforming impulse was being mainstreamed” (52). Contemporaneous developments at home, most notably the civil rights movement, reinforced the larger trend. Long-established ideas and practices, in both church and society, were neither inevitable nor unchangeable, it became clear, and Chinnici details the sometimes experimental ways in which church leaders and, more importantly, lay Catholic men and women explored new ways of living out their faith. Through participation in a vibrant liturgical renewal movement, in international congresses of lay organizations, in the interfaith response to the civil rights movement itself, and in other ways, Catholics were preparing themselves for broader changes yet to come. Not everyone was persuaded, of course. One thinks of the conservative journalist William F. Buckley's response to Mater et Magistra, Pope John XXIII's 1961 encyclical on the church's social and political role: “Mater si, Magistra no!” But even such internal debates, usually associated with the post-Vatican II church, had their origins earlier. The metaphor that Chinnici has used elsewhere is that of boiling water. The water does indeed boil (in this case, the seemingly revolutionary impact of Vatican II), but not before it goes through the process of coming to a boil. With his emphasis on the earlier decades, Chinnici lets us see that process at work.

In part two, he shifts his attention to the council itself and the drafting and publication of its sixteen major documents. In particular, he highlights the role of Americans in that work, which had its difficulties. All debates were conducted in Latin, and the rules for incorporating suggestions and amendments were arcane. Still, American voices were heard. Some of these stories are already well known, particularly the endorsement of the once-suspect ideas of religious liberty and the separation of church and state as articulated by the Jesuit John Courtney Murray. But the real contribution here comes from the discovery of the impact of bishops and theologians long overlooked as minor players in the larger drama. By drawing widely on diocesan and other archives from around the country, Chinnici can describe the significance of, for instance, Ernest Primeau, the otherwise obscure bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire. He was as responsible as any of his better known colleagues for establishing the American hierarchy as a self-conscious bloc on the council floor and in the preparation of final texts. In another case, we can listen in on what a theologian from San Francisco, attending as an adviser to his archbishop, was saying in letters to his brother back home about the “conversations at night and at lunch” (137) and how these advanced such causes as promotion of the vernacular in most liturgical services. No previous scholar has studied these letters and diaries so comprehensively, and future scholars will be guided by Chinnici's footnotes as they pursue their own work.

The “transformation” of American Catholicism identified in the book's title was inevitably a complex endeavor, and we will certainly understand it differently in a few hundred years, just as Jedin predicted. For now, the exhaustive (more than one hundred pages of notes and bibliography) treatment Chinnici has given the subject will be a sure guide in that ongoing scholarly effort.