After the success of its first publication, A Future Full of Hope? the Religious Life Institute celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council with a critical exploration of its influence on religious life. A Future Built on Faith: Religious Life and the Legacy of Vatican II is the work of an international group of religious and scholars, under the leadership of Redemptorist Archbishop Joseph Tobin, formerly Secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life.

Few groups in the church responded so radically to the call of the Council and subsequently experienced such seismic change as its religious congregations. The post-conciliar generations have seen the rise of many new forms of consecration, both lay and religious. In the developed world it is now clear that whatever the future may hold for traditional religious life it will be something significantly different in form and structure from what it has been in the past. Yet what is lasting is still held in trust for the generations to come, though it may find a very different expression.

The question of how this has happened and what can be treasured from the past and carried into an unknown future lies at the heart of this book which offers material for group and personal reflection. Religious with a wealth of pastoral experience and theological insight from orders both old and new have collaborated on this new study of the legacy left behind by a Council that stood at the bridge between the modern and the postmodern age.

The contributors are: Archbishop Joseph Tobin, Dr Mark Barrett OSB, Dr Brian Terry OFMA, Dr Thomas Whelan CSsP, Dr Vivienne Keeley PC, Br Benedicy Foy (de la Salle)