Vatican Council II

17 Pages 4169 Words

XXIII announced his plan to the public that he would call the 21stecumenical council. An Ecumenical Council is different than a regular council because it includes both the Eastern and Western Rites of Catholicism in its dialogue. Pope John XXIII stated that this was would “happily lead to the desired and awaited modernization of the Code of Canon Law.” He knew his decision to call forth an ecumenical council was a very large one, especially since he had only been an elected Pope for less than three months. To immediately try to validate such an audacious decision he said that correcting the Code of Canon Law would be of the “more noteworthy aspects of apostolic activity that these three months of presence in and contact with the Roman ecclesiastical world have prompted [him] to undertake.” This
Decision was formed by the reconciliation of certain ancient ways of making doctrinal statements and certain wise practices of ecclesiastical discipline that in ages of renewal in the Church have yielded especially effective results for the strengthening of religious unity and the kindling of a more intense Christian fervor. (HOVII, 1-2)
Pope John XXIII’s decision to call such a large council was very much a shock to the entire world. Cardinal Roncalli, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli on November 25, 1881, was elected on October 28, 1958 and took the name Pope John XXIII (WEB 1). He was elected under a general understanding that his reign would allow a slow transitional period to let the Church cool down after a long dramatic time in power by Pope Pius XIII (HOVII, 2). In 1959 when he introduced the plan for the creation of the 21st Ecumenical Council, the world was burdened by the Cold War and the expansion of Communism (WEB2). Many people did not think that this was the time nor the place to call such a large assembly of churchmen (HOVII). Some, like French theologian Yves Congar, thought that the calling of,
The Council was 20...