Congratulations to Professor Faggioli, co-editor of two volumes of research, at the recent presentation of this research to Pope Leo XIV at an event in Rome in December 2025.
Professor Massimo Faggioli is Professor in Historical and Contemporary Ecclesiology in the Loyola Institute at the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies. He is part of an international network of more than 150 scholars which has made a new series of scholarly research of Vatican II in English and by English-speaking historians and theologians. The research volumes are available on open access here.
Professor Faggioli is a steering committee member and co-editor of two of the 12 volumes in the series. The series was presented to pope Leo XIV in an audience in the Vatican on 10 December 2025. Please see the coverage of the event on the Vatical News website here (in Spanish).
Image: Professor Faggioli and his colleagues presenting one of the volumes to Pope Leo XIV in Rome.
Professor Faggioli said that “our scholarly project acquired even more relevance four weeks after this audience, on 7 January, when Pope Leo XIV announced that he will deliver during the general audiences a new series of catechesis on the documents of Vatican II”.
The ‘12-volume project for an "Intercontinental Commentary of Vatican II" is part of Karl Rahner's fundamental theological approach, which saw the events and the documents approved at Vatican II (1962-1965) as the beginning of a new phase in the history of the Church-toward a globalization of the Church beyond the European and Western context. The project envisions twelve volumes: an initial volume of hermeneutical reflections on the interpretation of the council in the global church today; five volumes on the contribution and reception from the perspective of the global church (one volume per continent: Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, with Australia, the Pacific, and North America in a single volume); five volumes of commentaries on the council's documents; and a final volume of perspectives for the church of the future. These volumes are the fruit of a series of annual intercontinental symposia and a series of seminars organized at the continental level by various teams of scholars (about twenty for each continent: priests and religious, lay men and women, of different generations) coordinated by the steering committee.’ Professor Faggioli has been a member of the steering committee from the beginning of the project. The results of this project are available in two languages - English and German - and in open access.
The two volumes co-edited by Professor Faggioli are:
- Vatican II - Event and Mandate Volume 1: General Introduction and Hermeneutics. Volume 1 describes the project and reflects on it from the various continental contexts and perspectives. It deals with a new reception of the Second Vatican Council in the pontificate of Pope Francis under the heading “World Church” and discusses postcolonial perspectives. These questions are linked exclusively to ecclesiological issues and the question of power and authority in the Church.
- Vatican II - Event and Mandate Volume 5: Vatican II in North America, Australia, and Oceania. Volume 5 gathers 34 chapters by authors from North America, Australia and Oceania on the contribution to Vatican II from the local churches and on the reception of Vatican II in these local churches. The first section explores the social-cultural context of the United States, Canada, and Australia at the beginning of the council. The middle section of this volume examines several overarching themes connected to the council’s reception. The final, and longest, section of the volume engages directly with many of the council’s sixteen documents.
Further information and links to download the volumes are available on open access here.
Professor Carmel O’Sullivan, Dean of the Faculty of AHSS, congratulated Professor Faggioli on this achievement, and his highly influential work in his discipline worldwide.