Year of the Council
“I entrust them especially to bishops, priests, catechists, and families so that they may find the best ways of making the teachings of the Council Fathers known and relevant in people’s lives, in preparation for the upcoming Jubilee 2025.”
~ Pope Francis, Letter for the Jubilee 2025, 11 February 2022
In the letter that Pope Francis wrote in preparation for the Jubilee Year of 2025, he said that “The four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, together with the Magisterium of these recent decades, will continue to provide direction and guidance to God’s holy people, so that it can press forward in its mission of bringing the joyful proclamation of the Gospel to everyone.”
In the light of this request, the Dicastery for Evangelization, in Rome, created a series of small, simple volumes called Council Notebooks. These are volumes written in very simple and direct language accessible to everyone. Therefore, these books are not a formal commentary, but rather a short presentation of the richness of Vatican II.
The Council Notebooks from Italian have been translated into English and published by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI ); and into Spanish by the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, in Spain. See below the links to order them directly if you think this would be a good resource for your parishioners or members of your organization.
Click here to order the English Version | Click here to order the Spanish Version
Resources in English
Additionally, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has produced some resources for each of the documents on their website which contains a link to download the document, a reflection with questions to deepen, and a short video summarizing each document. Please click the links below.
Resources in Spanish
In addition to the printing complete texts, the Spanish Episcopal Conference has made available a summary of each of these 34 chapters in text and in downloadable podcast format, as well as a short introduction video.
Contact the Office of Evangelization and Pastoral Planning – Archdiocese of Washington for more information.