Second Vatican Council

From October 1962 to December 1965 the bishops of the Catholic Church gathered in St Peter's Basilica for the Second Vatican Council, which the Church counts as its twenty-first general, or ecumenical, council and the only one held since 1870. Called by Pope John XXIII and completed under Paul VI, it produced sixteen documents that opened the Mass to local languages, recast the Church's view of itself, and changed its relations with other Christians, with Jews and with the modern state. How far it marked a break with the past remains debated.

John XXIII was 76 when he was elected in 1958 and was widely expected to be a caretaker pope. On 25 January 1959, less than three months later, he told a group of cardinals in Rome that he intended to summon a council. He summed up its aim with the Italian word aggiornamento, "bringing up to date", and gave it three goals: renewing the Church's inner life, furthering Christian unity, and helping the Church address modern social and political problems.

Earlier currents in Catholic thought had prepared the ground. A group of mainly French and Belgian theologians had urged a return to the Bible and the early Church Fathers; several had been disciplined in the 1950s, but John XXIII brought some, such as Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar, to the council as experts. The council also took up unfinished business from the First Vatican Council, which had been cut short in 1870 when Italian troops captured Rome during the unification of Italy. Commissions spent nearly three years drafting texts before the formal convocation on 25 December 1961.

The council opened on 11 October 1962, with some 2,400 bishops processing into St Peter's and observers from other Christian churches present. Of the roughly 2,900 bishops and superiors of men's religious orders eligible to attend, nearly 2,500 took part at some point.

The first session showed a clear divide. A majority wanted the prepared drafts heavily rewritten, while a minority close to the Roman Curia, led by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, preferred to keep them. John XXIII died on 3 June 1963, and his successor, Paul VI, promptly confirmed that the work would continue. Three more autumn sessions followed in 1963, 1964 and 1965, the last of them approving eleven of the sixteen documents. Among the young advisers was Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, and among the bishops was Karol Wojtyła of Kraków, later Pope John Paul II.

The first text completed, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of December 1963, called for fuller participation by lay people, more Scripture at Mass and a wider use of the vernacular, while keeping Latin. Lumen gentium (1964) described the Church as the People of God and taught that bishops together with the pope share responsibility for the whole Church. Gaudium et spes, addressed to all humanity, covered topics from family life to war.

The declarations proved the most contested. Nostra aetate rejected the charge that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Christ's death and condemned antisemitism. Dignitatis humanae based a right to religious liberty on the dignity of the person and, on most tallies, drew the largest vote against any approved text; the final tally before promulgation was 2,308 to 70.

Many changes that Catholics associated with the council came from later implementing rules rather than its texts, including the priest facing the people and the removal of altar rails. Vernacular Masses began on national timetables, in the United States on 29 November 1964. Paul VI promulgated a revised Roman Missal in April 1969, taking effect that November.

Scholars still argue over whether the council should be read mainly as a set of texts in continuity with tradition or as a turning point whose meaning unfolded afterwards. In 2005 Benedict XVI proposed reading it through a "hermeneutic of reform". The strongest rejection came from the Society of Saint Pius X, which Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre set up in 1970; he was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating bishops without papal approval.

Our 1960 map shows Italy and Vatican City, where the council met in St Peter's Basilica.