Bologna School (history)

The Bologna School is a historical school of ecclesiastical history, specializing in the history of the Second Vatican Council, and has edited the standard, authoritative History of Vatican II in five volumes, with Giuseppe Alberigo as founding editor. Alberigo was a disciple of Hubert Jedin, author of the standard history of the Council of Trent. The Alberigo history has appeared in the following languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian.

The Council introduced sweeping reforms in church doctrine and opened the church to reengage itself with the larger world. Groups opposed to the Council and associated notably with the SSPX, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, have attacked this work, and its foremost critic Roberto de Mattei has written a counter-history which has generally received very negative reviews. On these attacks, see Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (2012). Alberigo is "probably the greatest authority of the history of the council," according to Sebastian Karotemprel writing in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. The "History of Vatican II," Adrian Hastings maintained in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, "represents modern Catholic historical scholarship at its most international, open and authoritative. It is likely to provide an understanding of the council with a depth hitherto unattained."

Criticisms of the Bologna School have also come from conservative Cardinals such as Walter Brandmüller and Camillo Ruini, who compared the five-volume History with Paolo Sarpi's takedown of the Council of Trent in the Istoria del Concilo Tridentino (1619).

The conservative Catholic blogger, Dr. Jeff Mirus, sums up the official church position explaining that the hermeneutic of continuity means "...that any new development in Catholic teaching, Catholic devotion, Catholic discipline, and Catholic worship must be understood as a development which corroborates and confirms what has come before, even as it proposes a new and deeper insight, a more precise formulation, or an important emphasis that has either been overlooked or has special relevance to our current situation."[1] This is also the outlook of the editors of the History, though they celebrate the new openness the Council brought, notably in relation to Judaism and Religious Freedom.