Italy: Viva il Concilio, a promotional site for Vatican II
In its electronic edition of January 26, 2010, the newspaper La Croix undertakes to echo an Italian website consecrated to promoting the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965); the site is “aimed especially at the younger generations, at this time when some desire to reassess the Council”, sums up Fr. Gilles Routhier, vice-dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Laval in Quebec, Canada, and himself member of the said site's supporting committee. Sponsored, among others, by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, former archbishop of Milan, and by Roberto Tucci, president emeritus of the Vatican Radio, Viva il Concilio offers online (in Italian) the four constitutions (Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, Sacrosanctum Concilium and Gaudium et Spes), and the conciliar decrees, as well as a large number of texts and discourses of John Paul II (in particular Tertio millenio adveniente) and of Benedict XVI (his address to the Roman Curia in December 2005 concerning the interpretation of Vatican II). The addition of a French translation is foreseen for March 2010.
Also, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican's cinematheque, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has edited a DVD containing the Vatican II photos found in the archives. For the moment it is available in Italian, and Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli, manager of the Council for Communications, has confirmed that it should be translated into other languages by December 2, 2009, at which time the DVD is to be presented to the press. Under the title Photos from the Council, the film aims to highlight to what extent the coincidence between the birth of this institution desired in 1959 by John XXIII and the announcement of the Council “has marked a new era characterised by a rapid development of the means of communication,” declared the Roman prelate in the December 3, 2009 publication of Osservatore Romano. (DICI n°209, Feb. 6, 2010 – Sources: La Croix/Imedia)
