What Happened at Rome?

Mr. MacEoin's new book is the first one-volume account to be published of the entire course of events of the Second Vatican Council. Though it is certain that many similar works will appear in the near future, it is difficult to see how the present work may be bettered as a popular presentation and synthesis of the great events which began a new era in the Church. The book is not a chronological narrative of first one session then another, but an analysis of the central themes of the Council and an ""extrapolation"" from them of the resulting changes that one may expect particularly in the American Church -- the re-defining of traditional attitudes toward other religions, the reform of the liturgy, the conferring upon the layman of more status and more freedom, the decentralization of church structures, the recognition as Catholic responsibility for the fragmentation of Christianity, and the emphasizing of the Church's responsibility in the attainment of a good life for all men. The author isolates each of these main themes of the Council, and then discusses each one from the stage of its initial expression, through debate and negotiation, to decision and promulgation. His language is pleasingly journalistic, his observations incisive, his reporting unbiased, and his prognostications reasonable. Here, at last, is the book for the layman on what happened at Rome and on what it all means for him.