Please don’t yell at me or think I am stupid.
But could someone please explain to me what changed regarding Vatican II? When I went through RCIA it was briefly touched upon, but I never really understood it. I have tried to search for explanations in this forum and on the internet, but it just seems so confusing (ie: why do some people get so upset about how things were vs how things are now). Please know I’m really not a moron, I just want to learn more about my faith.
Thanks and God Bless!!!
Laudatur Iesus Christus.
Let me begin by noting that the following is my COMMENTARY on Vatican II and not a teaching of the Church.
No new dogma was pronounced and no previous teaching was renounced by the Second Vatican Council. Hence, with regard to the substance of the Faith nothing changed. However, two significant things did change: the way in which the Church speaks to the Faithful and the world and the level of sophistication and effort required of the laity.
The Holy Spirit convened the Second Vatican Council to address important changes in the world. The two worldly changes that demanded response were the emergence of instantaneous, global communications and the acquisition of the power to destroy life and civilization on a global scale. Consider these timelines:
***Communications: *** The telegraph was first publicly demonstrated in Baltimore in 1844. The first telephone was rented for business use in 1877. The first commercially successful long distance line (45 miles) was opened in 1881. The first transatlantic radio signal, a letter “S,” was sent in 1901 and the first radio message was sent a year later. During World War I, the first “radio telephone” was demonstrated allowing communication between an airplane and the ground, in 1917. A public demonstration of television and the first wire transmission of color pictures occurred in 1927. The first telephone was installed on the desk of the President of the United States in 1929 (previously he had used a phone booth outside his office). The fist public demonstration of color television also occurred in 1929.
Plans for the first transatlantic telephone cable were announced in 1953 and the cable was completed in 1955. Application for approval of the first experiments with telecommunication satellites was made in 1960. The first international communications satellite, Telstar, was launched in 1962.
(See,
webbconsult.com/hist-time.html.)
The Second Vatican Council opened that year, 1962, and continued until 1965.
Destructiveness: In 1941, a research study concluded that an atomic weapon was possible to build. The first and second atomic bombs were used in war in 1945, by the American army. The Soviet Union achieved its first nuclear chain reaction on the last day of 1946. The United Kingdom authorized its development of nuclear weapons in 1947. The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949. The first British atomic bomb was detonated in 1952.
The first “true” hydrogen bomb was detonated by Americans in 1954; the Soviets followed in 1955 and the British in 1957.
(See,
atomicarchive.com/Timeline/Time1960.shtml.)
On 25 January 1959, Pope John XXIII announced his intention of calling the Second Vatican Council.
The Council was pastoral, adjusting the Church’s practices and methods of speaking to such a changed world.
The Church’s form of speaking had to change, because for the first time in history her statements and declarations were no longer heard only by the Faithful and those experts outside of the Church familiar with her language and intensions. With instant, global communication, every statement made by the Church became liable to be communicated without context around the world within hours of its being verbalized. This in contrast to the previous situation where communication was by written statements published through the Church’s own network of communication and read primarily by those sympathetic to the Church and eager to understand her message. In the modern context, the Church must speak to her children, dissenters, friends, enemies, and members of other religions simultaneously and with the same words. This has required extreme changes in the tone and form of her speech, even though her message has not and cannot change.
Continued . . .
Ecumenical Councils are usually a Very Bad Thing, if one wants peace & quiet in the Church.