While in Rome participating in meetings in preparation for the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council during the early months of 1962, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, archbishop of Milan, wrote a lengthy Lenten pastoral letter to his diocese about the council. He entitled his letter Pensiamo al Concilio, which, translated into English, means Thinking About the Council. This post is the first of several installments of what, as far as I can tell, is the first English translation of this important letter written on the eve of the Council.
Venerable brothers and beloved sons and daughters,
- We begin to write this pastoral letter from Rome where the preparation assemblies for the ecumenical council calls us, indeed we enter these preparatory assemblies for the ecumenical council to be held by the end of this year of 1962, as it was solemnly announced by the Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, with the bull entitiled Humanae salutis, of 25 December 1961. Indeed, we now know from the announcement made by the same pope that Vatican Council II will open on 11 October.
The importance of this event is such that there is no other theme to choose for our yearly principal instruction, even if the singularity and largeness of the announced ecumenical council has already provoked a thousand voices of explanation, comment, and warning, and even if preparations have already filled up the world of news and signals: in omnem terram exivit sonus eorum, “A report goes forth from through all the earth” (Ps. 19 [18]:5).