Abstract
This valuable collection of lectures, articles and interviews is a rare introduction to an octogenarian scholar and a decisive leader in the new development of ecumenical theology, who is revealed at work immediately preceding the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Cardinal Bea has shown a notable talent for lucid explanation in public as well as quiet insistence upon basic principle in the sympathetic appreciation of the endemic divisions among Christian believers, which inevitably blur the image of Christ for thinking non-Christians. In correction the creative example of Pope John was ‘intended to read the lesson of a new approach’ which the Introduction of the late Apostolic Delegate to Britain succinctly notes