This recovery was given further impetus by Dei verbum, the Second Vatican Council's "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation", and consolidated in the section on scripture Catechism of the Catholic Church (nos.
In the modern period, the Patristic tradition of spiritual exegesis was overshadowed by scholarly focus on the literal sense using historical-critical techniques.
[citation needed] In its "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" of 1965,[10] the Second Vatican Council taught that Scripture should be "read and interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written" (Dei verbum, 12), a Patristic formula associated with spiritual exegesis.
[11][page needed] The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994, 1997) confirmed this teaching and specified that the necessary spiritual interpretation of Scripture should be sought through its four senses (nos.
[12][13][page needed] Encouraged by these developments, covenantal theology has been vigorously pursued from the 1990s onward; a good example of recent work is provided by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in Many Religions – One Covenant.