Editing Second Vatican Council (section)

=== Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation ===
{{Main|Dei verbum}}The council's document ''Dei Verbum'' ("The Word of God") states the principle active in the other council documents that "The study of the sacred page is, as it were, the soul of sacred theology".<ref>[''Dei verbum'', 24]</ref> It is said of ''Dei Verbum'' that "arguably it is the most seminal of all the conciliar documents," with the fruits of a return to the Bible as the foundation of Christian life and teaching, evident in the other council documents.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2013/10/31/gift-word-achievements-and-challenges-vatican-ii-scripture|title=The Gift Of the Word: The achievements and challenges of Vatican II on Scripture|date=31 October 2013|website=America Magazine|language=en|access-date=25 September 2019}}</ref> Joseph Ratzinger, who would become [[Pope Benedict XVI|Benedict XVI]], said of the emphasis on the Bible in the council that prior to Vatican II the theology manuals continued to confuse "propositions about revelation with the content of revelation. It represented not abiding truths of faith, but rather the peculiar characteristics of post-Reformation polemic."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2014/09/09/sacramentality-scripture-dei-verbum-and-biblical-insights-joseph-ratzinger|title=The Sacramentality of Scripture: "Dei Verbum" and the Biblical insights of Joseph Ratzinger|date=9 September 2014|website=America Magazine|language=en|access-date=25 September 2019}}</ref> In spite of the guarded approval of biblical scholarship under [[Pius XII]], scholars suspected of [[Modernism in the Catholic Church|Modernism]] were silenced right up to Vatican II.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/100/biblical-scholarship-50-years-after-divino-afflante-spiritu|title=Biblical Scholarship 50 years After Divino Afflante Spiritu: From September 18, 1993|date=18 September 1993|website=America Magazine|language=en|access-date=25 September 2019}}</ref> The council brought a definitive end to the [[Counter-Reformation]] and, in a spirit of ''[[aggiornamento]]'', reached back "behind [[Thomas Aquinas|St. Thomas]] himself and the Fathers, to the biblical theology which governs the first two chapters of the Constitution on the Church."<ref name="butler2">{{Cite web|url=http://vatican2voice.org/3butlerwrites/aggiorna.htm|title=Aggiornamento of Vatican II|website=vatican2voice.org|access-date=25 September 2019}}</ref> "The documents of the Second Vatican Council are shot through with the language of the Bible. ...The church's historical journey away from its earlier focus upon these sources was reversed at Vatican II." For instance, the council's document on the liturgy called for a broader use of liturgical texts, which would now be in the vernacular, along with more enlightened preaching on the Bible explaining "the love affair between God and humankind".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Francis J. Moloney|first=sdb|date=23 November 2016|title=Sacred Scripture at Vatican ii|journal=Toronto Journal of Theology|volume=32|issue=2|pages=183–200|language=en|doi=10.3138/tjt.4202a|s2cid=171337874}}</ref> The translation of liturgical texts into vernacular languages, the allowance of [[communion under both kinds]] for the laity, and the expansion of Scripture readings during the Mass was resonant with the sensibilities of other [[Christian denomination]]s, thus making the Second Vatican Council "a milestone for Catholic, Protestants, [and] the Orthodox".<ref name="Kennedy2011"/>