Fifty years after Vatican II, Catholics are still hoping for a new vision
October 11, 2012
Paul Collins
Catholicism today is incomprehensible without some knowledge of the Second Vatican Ecumenical or General Council. It was the 21st such gathering of Catholic leaders in the history of the church. It opened 50 years ago today in Rome's St Peter's Basilica. The effect of Vatican II on the world's 1.96 billion Catholics has been tumultuous.
It was a genuinely worldwide gathering of 2500-2800 bishops from almost every country. It met over four sessions between 1962 and 1965.
It had been called by Pope John XXIII who realised Catholicism had become stultified, turned in on itself and cut off from the modern world. He wanted ''to throw open the windows'' and was critical of ''the prophets of doom, who are always forecasting disaster''. He wanted the church to reach out ''fearlessly'' to the world. The Vatican II theologian Yves Congar said the church was being challenged ''by the world to rejoin it in order to speak validly of Jesus Christ''.
For four decades before 1962, Catholic scholars had been evolving a renewed approach to theology, the Bible, worship, religious formation, spirituality and faith which during Vatican II gradually influenced the views of the majority of the bishops. They developed a vision of the church open to the contemporary world, ministering to its needs, speaking of faith and spirituality in terms that made sense to people, and emphasising the priority of peace, social justice and equity.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fifty-years-after-vatican-ii-catholics-are-still-hoping-for-a-new-vision-20121010-27d7w.html
