Church and Culture Since Vatican II, published for the Pontifical Council for Culture, is a valuable introduction to the new dialogue the Church seeks with the world's diverse cultures. This volume of essays discusses the Church's efforts to seriously probe the ethics of the institutions, structures, policies and social forces shaping contemporary society, and includes excerpts from the various documents that fostered the Pontifical Council.
From a theoretical perspective, Herve Carrier, Executive Secretary of the Pontifical Council, and Bernard Lambert, O.S.B., examine how the Church should accommodate changing conceptions of culture. Marcos McGrath, C.S.C., Archibishop of Panama, and Juan C. Scannone, S.J., describe the experiences of the Latin American Church in dealing with dramatic cultural, social and political changes. J. Bryan Hehir, Associate Secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference, and Remi de Roo, Bishop of Victoria, analyze the American and Canadian bishops' treatment of such volatile policy issues as the morality of nuclear war and the structural disorders that induce economic crisis.