Vatican II lectures invite Catholics to respond to needs of modern world

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By Celine Klosterman

Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, FSPA, answers a question from the audience as Jamie Manson and Bishop Daniel Turley look on at Prince of Peace Church in Clinton April 21. The Catholics had delivered lectures earlier on “The Church in the Modern World: Vatican II’s Challenge for Our Time.”

CLINTON — Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church must continue to respond to the signs of the times, a Sister, a bishop and a theologian told more than 180 people at Prince of Peace Church on April 21.
Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, FSPA; Bishop Daniel Turley, OSA; and Jamie Manson challenged the Church to foster dialogue, listen to the poor and marginalized, and respond to the needs of young people. The presentation “The Church in the Modern World: Vatican II’s Challenge for Our Time,” sponsored by the Catholic Sisters of the Upper Mississippi River Valley, wrapped up a four-part lecture series commemorating Vatican II’s 50th anniversary.
The 1965 document “Gaudium et Spes” (“Joy and Hope”), promulgated during Vatican II, noted that “the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.” Today, those signs include tension among members of various religions, a sense of spiritual rootlessness, an entitlement-driven culture, media addiction, violence, promiscuity and infidelity, said Sr. Weisenbeck, former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. “An illness of spirit seems to have spread across our land.”

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1 thought on “Vatican II lectures invite Catholics to respond to needs of modern world

  1. An illness of spirit does not SEEM to have spread across our land. It HAS spread across our land. Legalized abortion has caused much of this illness.

    I don’t see where Weisenbeck talks about our country’s love of abortion in her list of signs.

    “A Nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.” – Pope John Paul II.

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