Panel at St. Mary's College examines legacy of Vatican II

Published: 2005-09-27

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (CNS) -- The significance of the Second Vatican Council "hit me like a chilling earthquake," Holy Cross Father Robert Pelton told an audience at St. Mary's College in South Bend during a Sept. 23 panel discussion on the legacy of Vatican II. "The church has changed for the good and it will never be the same," said the priest, who was an adviser to Belgian Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens at the council. Father Pelton teaches in the theology department at the University of Notre Dame, is a fellow at the university's Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and directs the institute's Latin American/North American Church Concerns program. Panelist Gregory Baum, who was appointed by Pope John XXIII as a peritus, or expert, at the council, said he viewed the council as a "controversial conversion of the church into modernity." "It was the first time that the church claimed that the joys, hopes and fears of the people everywhere are the same as those of Jesus," he said. The panel discussion was the central event of a Sept. 23-24 conference at St. Mary's on "Vatican II: Legacy, Leadership and Unfinished Agenda." It was moderated by Judy Woodruff of CNN.

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