Pope Benedict XVI marked the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council on Thursday with a Mass and the re-enactment of the great procession into St. Peter’s Square that launched the council in 1962. A report by the Associated Press said the anniversary comes as the church is fighting what it sees as a wave Read more
Catholics have been arguing about the Second Vatican Council—about what it did and didn’t do, about what it meant and still means or what it never meant and could never mean—for half a century. Many reform-minded Catholics today are disappointed by what they see as a retreat, under the papacies of John Paul II and Read more
The Vatican II council, which began 50 years ago next month, was the most momentous religious event in 450 years. On January 25, 1959, the newly elected Pope John XXIII invited 18 cardinals from the Vatican bureaucracy to attend a service at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. He told them Read more
The teachings of the Second Vatican Council have emerged as the main obstacle to reconciliation between the Society of St Pius X and the Holy See. Three conditions for SSPX reconciliation with Rome have been revealed in a letter from its secretary-general, Father Christian Thouvenot, to regional superiors. Part of the first condition is “The Read more
In this fiftieth anniversary year of the opening of Vatican II, a number of interviews on Eureka Street TV have featured critical reflections from prominent Catholic thinkers and activists on various aspects of the Council. This interview is with journalist, author and broadcaster, Clifford Longley, who is one of the UK’s leading lay Catholics. He was invited Read more
Rome is not requiring total acceptance of the teachings of Vatican II a condition of the traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX). Accepting the Council’s teaching is no longer “a prerequisite for the canonical solution” according to Superior General of SSPX’s Bishop Bernard Fellay. Fellay made his remarks in an interview published on the Society’s website. Read more
It is almost instinctively that one reaches, when attempting to explain what is going on today in the Catholic church, for metaphors out of the natural world — storms, earthquakes, seismic shifts — to get at the magnitude of events. We search for the terms that explain what we’re experiencing: phenomena beyond the ordinary disturbances Read more
In 1962, I moved from the Brigidine Convent at Indooroopilly in Brisbane to St Joseph’s College, Nudgee Junior, under the care of the Christian Brothers. I was an impressionable eight-year-old and was in grade 3. I well recall one of the brothers taking the class up to the top floor of the school. We gathered Read more
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Even with the passing of half a century, among Catholics there is still contention and ambivalence about the legacy of this momentous meeting. Many of a conservative bent see the need for reforms to be reigned in, and a Read more
The new translation of the Mass is now up and running, and, in his parish, its launch seems to have passed off without any awkwardness at all according to Dr William Oddie. He wonders how many priests said for the first time that the people’s response in that opening exchange between priest and congregation does not mean “and the Read more