Vatican II, Salvation, and the Unsaved: A CWR Symposium

Vatican II, Salvation, and the Unsaved: A CWR Symposium

Introduction by Carl E. Olson, Editor of Catholic World Report

This special CWR symposium, consisting of eight essays, is the result of a promise made earlier this year as well as the desire to address and discuss some timely questions related to the Year of Faith (which concludes this Sunday on the Feast of Christ the King), the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, and the New Evangelization.

In April, CWR published a review by Dr. David Paul Deavel of Dr. Ralph Martin's book, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization (Eerdmans, 2012). It was then decided that the review would be withdrawn until a later time; as Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press and publisher of CWR, explained, CWR wished “to provide a fuller treatment of a difficult subject than the original review, in my opinion, is able to provide. … The goal is to try to understand what’s what, who’s who, and how best to proceed in fulfilling the Great Commission, without overlooking the genuine nuances and insights theological wisdom provides.”

To that end, we asked six theologians to take up one, two, or all three of the following questions:

• What did the Council say about the possibility of salvation for those who do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church?

• What are the reasons for the apparent widespread loss of emphasis on evangelization following the Council?

• How can the directives of Vatican II and recent popes about evangelization be best explained and implemented?

Those theologians are Douglas Bushman, STL, Dr. Nicholas Healy, Father David Meconi, SJ, Tracey Rowland, Father James V. Schall, SJ, and Father Thomas Joseph White, OP.

This symposium includes Dr. Deavel’s original review, as well as essays from the seven authors above. It concludes with the essay, “Did Hans Urs von Balthasar Teach that Everyone Will Certainly be Saved?” by Mark Brumley.

 • “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” by Douglas Bushman

 • Vatican II and the “Bad News” of the Gospel by David Paul Deavel 

 • The Universality of Christ’s Saving Mission – The Teaching of Vatican II by Nicholas J. Healy, Jr.

 • Salvation and Christian Evangelization: Vatican II in Continuity with Tradition by Father David Vincent Meconi, SJ

 • Salvation and Missionary Work after Ad Gentes by Tracey Rowland

 • On Universal Salvation: The Logic by James V. Schall, SJ

 • Who Will Be Saved? The Council and the Question of Salvation by Father Thomas Joseph White, OP

• Did Hans Urs von Balthasar Teach that Everyone Will Certainly be Saved? by Mark Brumley

Comments

[Joe]

I have benefited from all the authors featured here, but the entire discussion on this single topic reminds me of nothing so much as Clinton's "It depends on what your definition of 'Is' is...?"

To encourage hope in the salvation of every single person ever born is to suggest Hell may be empty. In other words, it is to suggest that all *might* be saved. Hundreds of words to the contrary, if that is not quasi-Universalism, I do not know what is. HvB may have been brilliant, but he was not infallible. On this point, his devotees -- whether popes, publishers, pop priests or parishoners -- simply need to let it go. Maybe his early infatuation with Barth can be blamed for such doctrinal novelties, which are not worthy of the bulk of his corpus. A pruning is overdue.