{"id":4550,"date":"2025-04-14T07:32:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T11:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2025-04-14T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T11:32:59","slug":"the-second-vatican-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/the-second-vatican-council\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Vatican Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0<\/em>

What a difference a century makes.

In 1869, a pope called a special council in order to steer the Catholic church in a more conservative direction.

In 1962, another pope called another special council in the hope of majoring in mercy instead of judgment.\u00a0

Well into the 21st<\/sup> century, Catholics are still having a vigorous discussion as to which of those councils most closely reflects the heart of God.

Italy was just a patchwork quilt of competing territories during the mid-1800s. Radicals hoped to forge the pieces into a single nation. What would become of the Vatican? After centuries of exercising some degree of political power, would there be anything left for Catholic officials to do?\u00a0

Pope Pius IX decided to be proactive. Even as liberals within the church were expressing doubts concerning his ultimate authority, Pius issued a series of proclamations that made it clear he had no intention of retreating into the shadows.

In 1854, he declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception \u2013 the notion that the Virgin Mary herself had been conceived without sin. Catholics had entertained this idea for centuries, but now there was official endorsement that she was almost \u2013 almost<\/em> \u2013 as special as her famous son.

Nine years later, Pius published the Syllabus of Errors \u2013 books that faithful Catholics must never read and ideas they must never embrace if they cherished any realistic hope of heaven. Those ideas included socialism, civil marriages, and tolerance of other religions.

Rome was declaring in no uncertain terms that Jesus was the only pathway to God. And the only pathway to that pathway was Catholicism.

The biggest step for Pius was the First Vatican Council, an international assembly of ecclesiastical officials and theologians, which he summoned in 1869.

Its most important declaration was the absolute supremacy of papal authority. As the Vicar (or earthly representative) of Christ, the pope was infallible when speaking ex cathedra<\/em> (that is, \u201cfrom the chair\u201d). Pius and his successors might go astray in the course of ordinary conversations, but they were incapable of making mistakes whenever they spoke in their official capacity.

During the heyday of Christendom, medieval popes had had some degree of temporal authority. That was long gone in the 19th<\/sup> century. But the spiritual<\/em> authority of the papacy was suddenly stronger than ever.

A century later \u2013 after two world wars and modernism\u2019s relentless assault on the West\u2019s most cherished values \u2013 fresh breezes began to blow through the Vatican.

They were embodied by Angelo Roncalli, the archbishop of Venice (seen in the image above), who became the pontifex maximus<\/em> in 1958 and took the name Pope John XXIII.

As we noted in a reflection last year, he quickly became known for his warmth, social conscience, simplicity, and tongue-in-cheek Italian wisecracks.

A reporter once asked him how many people worked in the Vatican. \u201cOh, about half of them,\u201d he sighed. When visiting a hospital ward, he asked a boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. The youngster said either a policeman or a pope. \u201cI would choose to be a policeman if I were you,\u201d said John. \u201cAnyone can become a pope. Look at me!\u201d

Concerning his peasant upbringing, he noted, \u201cThere are three ways to face ruin: women, gambling, and farming. My father chose the most boring one.\u201d\u00a0

He admitted, \u201cIt often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about the serious problems afflicting the world and I tell myself, \u2018I must talk to the pope about it.\u2019 Then the next day when I wake up I remember that I am the pope.\u201d

This happy, humble, seemingly na\u00efve man became, against all expectations, one of the most transforming spiritual leaders of the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0

Within three months of his election, John called the Second Vatican Council. When told it would be \u201cabsolutely impossible\u201d to launch such a global gathering by 1963, he replied, \u201cFine, then we\u2019ll open it in 1962.\u201d Somehow he pulled it off.

The council\u2019s express aim was aggiornamento<\/em>, \u201cbringing the church up to date.\u201d

The church had long been dominated by the rigid spirit of the First Council.

John led with open hands and an open heart. When he addressed the more than 2,000 cardinals, bishops, and abbots in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, he declared that condemnation and withdrawal must not be what the world sees when it looks for the face of God. The church must \u201crule with the medicine of mercy rather than severity.\u201d People everywhere, he insisted, were hungry for pastoral care.

What followed were three years of focused deliberations that transformed the Catholic Church.

The council declared that all people \u2013 not just priests, monks, and nuns \u2013 have been commissioned to carry out God\u2019s work in the world. Harvesting cucumbers, working as a realtor, acting in a stage production, and taking care of preschoolers are divine callings that are just as valid as pursuing ordination.

The council\u2019s document On Divine Revelation<\/em> surprised observers with the assertion that while church tradition is important, Scripture is the primary way that God speaks to and through his children. All of a sudden, Catholics and Protestants were talking to each other from a similar starting point.

Furthermore, non-Catholics were no longer regarded as lost souls who would have to return to Rome in order to be saved. Those outside the Catholic flock were now \u201cseparated brethren\u201d \u2013 different, to be sure, but still authentic followers of Jesus.

This was nothing less than a spiritual earthquake.

Start up a conversation with any Catholic who was alive in the 50s and 60s and their most powerful memory of Vatican II is likely to be what happened on Sunday mornings. Mass, which had been conducted exclusively in Latin for more than a thousand years, could finally be experienced in every one of the world\u2019s languages.

In 2021, Pope Francis doubled down on that new direction, declaring that priests could not celebrate the \u201cold rite\u201d unless they received special permission. And parishes that do provide the traditional mass cannot advertise it in their bulletins.

When the dust settled, not everyone was celebrating. To this day, traditionalists still ache for the church of the past.

But one thing can\u2019t be denied.

Younger generations of Catholics have been granted new eyes and new ears to sample the truth of God\u2019s Good News \u2013 primarily because a pope with the soul of a pastor and a keen sense of wit opted for mercy instead of severity.\u00a0

That should give all of us hope that 100 years from now, in every corner of Christ\u2019s church, things might be better still.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0 What a difference a century makes. In 1869, a pope called a special council in order to steer the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[895,884,911],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholicism","tag-church-history","tag-vatican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4552,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions\/4552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}