What Was the Point of Vatican II?

The Second Vatican Council, which concluded 60 years ago Dec. 8, was made to order for the lavish photojournalism of Life magazine. It dedicated some 11 large pages of its Dec. 17, 1965, issue to what the cover, a fish-eye view of St. Peter’s from inside its majestic dome, trumpeted as “Catholicism’s Epic Venture.”

The story ran thousands of words, alongside photos of bishops hashing out conciliar documents, bishops at a Roman restaurant, bishops in conversation over coffee and grappa, and bishops streaming into the Piazza San Pietro when their years of work were over. Yet for all the attention to the most important event in the Catholic Church in 400 years—an ecumenical council reshaping the lives of the world’s largest religious community—the pull quote on the article’s last page was a clunker: “To guide man toward a better secular future.”