This year, Creighton University will begin hosting the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.
Creighton’s campus is very excited for the celebration because it marked the beginning of the largest single meeting of the Catholic Church. It also is the first event of the four years of celebration to commemorate when the Council was in session. The anniversary also remembers the largest four-year long, peaceful meeting of any human organization in history.
Pope John XXIII, the founder of the Council, called for an update of the old institution of the Catholic Church. Fifty years ago this fall, on October 11, 1962, the Council of some 2500 Bishops of the Catholic Church, met in Vatican City to discuss plans for the Council.
This meeting changed the practices of traditional Catholicism and other religions by its recognition of other faith truths and practices. Pope John XXIII required three years of the continuation of the meeting by his successor, Pope Paul VI, with a total of four years. Sixteen historical documents were created from the Bishops in Council- the documents that are now used for Catholic teaching and peace-making developments. This council represented a major event in Catholicism, and for this reason it is a fundamental era in universal history. Creighton is honored to host this celebration.
Creighton University invites faculty, staff, students and anyone who is proud of the Legacy of Vatican II, to join the celebration. Since the Council took four years to accomplish, Creighton will take four years to study and discuss the documents the Council created, starting on Friday, November 9th, 2012 and ending on Friday, December 17th, 2015. In
celebration of the Council, Creighton invites experts and scholars from around the world to share their insights into the Council and the documents. From the fall term of 2012 until the fall of 2015, various lectures and events will be taking place to focus on the meaning and impact of the Second Vatican Council. Throughout the four-year celebration, Creighton will host lectures, presentations and insights given my scholars from Creighton and other universities around the world.
Students are invited to be responders to the scholars whether they want to do some sort of research project on the Second Vatican Council or give a presentation on what they learned from the lectures. The Holy Father has also asked all
Catholics around the world to celebrate a year of faith in remembrance of the Council, which will be a chance to study the importance of the documents and how they have impacted Catholicism throughout the years.
The event is scheduled to begin on November 9th and will consist of a welcome speech by Father Lannon, an overview of the four-year celebration by Eileen Burke-Sullivan, and a keynote speaker, Father Thomas O’Meara. A reception will follow these speeches honoring the participants of Vatican II.
On November 10th, there will be an opening liturgy at St. John’s and a keynote speaker, Joseph Komanchak in the Skutt Center Ballroom. A Day of Celebration, and the closing ceremony for the celebration, is scheduled to occur on Friday, December 17th. This event is co sponsored by the Center for Catholic Thought, the Barbara Reardon Heaney Chair in Pastoral Liturgical Theology, and Dr. O’Keefe of Creighton University. Eileen Burke-Sullivan, S.T.D., associate professor of theology, is the inaugural chair holder and has done a wonderful job organizing this event.
What is important to realize about this anniversary is that since Creighton is a Jesuit and Catholic university, this council helped shape Creighton’s Catholic self-consciousness. Creighton University would not be what it is today without the documents and teachings