Abstract
Contemporary Church recordkeeping has been an area all too often ignored by historians and archivists. There were two significant events in the last 140 years that defined the types of records created and maintained within the Church namely: Vatican I and Vatican II. After the suspension of Vatican I and the promulgation of Pastor Aeternus, we begin to see a centralization in ecclesiastical governance structures, due in part to interpretations of papal primacy. This centralization of Church authority eventually impinged upon the recordkeeping processes of dioceses. However after Vatican II the pendulum shifted with the promulgation of the Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of the Bishop and the re-introduction of the tenet of collegiality. The promulgation of this document and others caused a de-centralization of Church recordkeeping practices. Using the Archdiocese of Vancouver as a case study this paper will attempt to show recordkeeping changes that occurred after Vatican I and Vatican II and the impact these councils had on archdiocesan administration.
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Seles, A. What are these among so many? Pre and post Vatican II recordkeeping. Arch Sci 6, 393–405 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9034-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9034-2