Vatican II

Opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) Scott 354-352 (1962) Stamp Images: 5L: "Faith", by Rafael 10L: "Hope", by Rafael 15L: "Charity", by Rafael 25L: Coat of Arms of Pope John XXIII 30L: Council Room at Saint Peter's Basilica 40L: Pope John XXIII 60L: Statue of Saint Peter 115L: Holy Ghost in the Shape of a Dove The stamps illustrated above were issued on October 30, 1962, to mark the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, now remembered simply as "Vatican II". To say the impacts of Vatican II on the Catholic Church were huge would be an understatement. Vatican II was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. Preparations for the council took three years, starting in 1959 and culminating in the opening of the Council on October 11, 1962. Pope John XXIII oversaw the preparation for Vatican II and its first session. Following his death in June of 1963, Pope Paul VI managed the last three sessions. Vatican II closed following its fourth session on December 8, 1965. Pope John XXIII proposed the idea of the Council in 1959, shortly after his election as Pope, because he felt the Church was in need of “updating”. He felt a revival or modernization of Church practices was needed in order to improve the connection of the Church to the people living in the 20th-century world, one which had become increasingly secularized. He believed Church practices needed to be improved, and its teachings needed to be made more understandable and relevant to its followers. The participants at Vatican II could be broken into two camps: reform-minded clerics and theologians agreeing with a need to institute change, and conservative members of the clergy who saw little need for change and reform. In the end, "updating" won out over "resistance to change", resulting in Vatican II producing sixteen magisterial documents (broken down into four "Constitutions", nine "Decrees" and three "Declarations") which proposed significant developments in doctrine and practice, including: * Liturgical reform * A renewed theology of the Church, of revelation and of the laity * A new approach to relations between the Church and the world as a whole, including ecumenism, relations with non-Christian religions, and religious freedom. This article barely scratches the surface of the impacts of Vatican II on the Church. Suffice it to say the results of Vatican II are still being debated to this day, and the ramifications of the reforms of Vatican II are still being felt by the Church as a whole. References: Wikipedia.com, "Second Vatican Council" Vatican Philatelic Society website (www.vaticanstamps.org), "Stamp Database Search"