Hi there, I made a recent post about this in an existing thread, but thought it might be worth having as its own topic, as I’m stunned that this information is not more widely known, especially in UR circles…
While not a Catholic myself (yet), I recently read through The Documents of Vatican II – documents put together from 1962-1965 during the Second Vatican Council in Rome.
To my surprise, they were over-flowing with references to Universal Reconciliation.
One of the recurring themes that runs throughout the documents produced by this council is “the Gospel’s message that the human race was to become the Family of God” (Gaudium et Spes 32).
These documents are unabashedly hopeful and universal in their breadth: “The Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and ‘serve Him shoulder to shoulder’ (Zeph. 3:9) (Nostra Aetate 4).
And again: “To Him all things are made subject until He subjects Himself and all created things to the Father that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:27)” (Lumen Gentium 36).
I put together a paper listing all the many UR-leaning references in these documents, and it came to 26 pages. I submitted the paper to mercyuponall.org, and it is now up there:
Feel free to email me if you’d care for the paper in pdf or word format too: peterhinners@gmail.com
I guess I feel this is so important because I never thought I would find a mainstream branch of Christianity that – at least in its upper echelons – espoused and actually proclaimed the larger hope. And that it comes from arguably the oldest Christian institution in the world is very interesting to me.