Thursday, January 07, 2016

The Acta Synodalia of Vatican II - Second Session Available for Download

Back in May on NLM, I started a project to make the Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II easily available for anyone who is interested in precisely what was said and discussed at the Second Vatican Council. Diaries and memoirs written by some of those who were periti at the Council have recently been published (e.g. Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Lawrence McReavy), some for the first time in an English translation. But as interesting and valuable as these are in their own right, ultimately they cannot substitute for the speeches and written submissions of the Council Fathers themselves.

My intended schedule has had to be lengthened, but I am happy to announce that the second session of Vatican II (29th Sep - 4th Dec 1963) is now available to download from the links below:

2nd Session, Part 1:
Introductory material
Summary of General Congregations XXXVII-LXXIX
Public Session II (29th Sep 1963)
General Congregations XXXVII-XXXIX (30th Sep - 2nd Oct 1963)
2nd Session, Part 2:
General Congregations XL-XLIX (3rd - 16th Oct 1963)
2nd Session, Part 3:
General Congregations L-LVIII (17th - 30th Oct 1963)
2nd Session, Part 4:
General Congregations LIX-LXIV (31st Oct - 11th Nov 1963)
2nd Session, Part 5:
General Congregations LXV-LXXIII (12th-25th Nov 1963)
2nd Session, Part 6:
General Congregations LXXIV-LXXIX (25th Nov - 2nd Dec 1963)
Public Session III and Conclusion of the 2nd Session (4th Dec 1963)

(The links to the four parts of the first session can be found here on NLM.)

Once again, be aware that the Acta are almost all in Latin, so if your language skills are a little rusty, you may need to brush up before reading or keep a grammar and dictionary close to hand.

Since Sacrosanctum Concilium was promulgated at the end of the second session, this means that all the speeches and written submissions of the Council Fathers regarding the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, as well as all the drafts and modifications made to the text during Vatican II, are now freely available to anyone who is interested!

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