Few expressions are better guaranteed to spark passionate debates among Catholics today than two words: “Vatican II.” Though most Catholics today were born after the Council closed in 1965, the fiftieth anniversary of the Council’s 1962 opening on 11 October this year will surely reignite the usual controversies about its significance.
Much discussion will undoubtedly focus on Benedict XVI’s reaffirmation that Vatican II can only be properly understood if read in light of the totality of Revelation, of which the previous 20 church councils are an integral part. Nevertheless there is another question that’s received far less attention in the lead-up to Vatican II’s anniversary, but which is integral to Catholic exchanges about the twenty-first ecumenical Council’s meaning. And that is the Church’s view of what’s often called “modernity.”
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