Theologians today take for granted that the principal achievement of the Second Vatican Council was its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The central core of this central document – its Vision of Church as communion – is also being taken for granted. But this Vision was hard won – or, rather, recovered – at the Council, and its significance should not be allowed to fade with time or familiarity.

The Church: A Spirited Communion emanates from the ecclesiology of Vatican II as a systematic treatment of this Vision of communion: graced, prophetic, sacramental, spiritual, and ministerial. It is about a Church in communion with the laity, the hierarchy, and with all the Churches. Since Church” is God in communion with the faithful, this book is primarily theo-logical and only secondarily ecclesio-logical. It is primarily about the God who is Triune, who calls the Church into existence, and who seeks in every age a people who adhere to “God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).