Pope John XXIII convenes an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church—the first in 92 years. In summoning the ecumenical council—a general meeting of the bishops of the church—the pope hoped to bring spiritual rebirth to Catholicism and cultivate greater unity with the other branches of Christianity.
Pope John reached the papacy from simple, peasant beginnings. Born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli in 1881, he was the son of an Italian tenant farmer. He was ordained a priest in 1904, and worked as a professor, part-time historian, biographer, and diplomat. For the first 54 years of his church career he was known as a good-natured conformist who obediently followed orders, and this reputation had more to do with his steady rise than did his intellectual abilities. As papal envoy to Turkey during World War II, he saved thousands of Jewish lives by helping arrange their escape to Palestine.
Roncalli’s first high-profile post came in 1944, when he was named papal nuncio to Charles de Gaulle’s newly liberated France. It was a delicate post; Roncalli’s predecessor had collaborated with France’s Vichy government, leading to a post-occupation backlash against the Catholic leadership in France. Roncalli carried out the assignment with grace and in 1953 was made a cardinal.
Although he was popular, few imagined he would ever be elected pope. After Pope Pius XII died in 1958, however, Roncalli was elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church on the 12th ballot. At 77 years of age, he was regarded as an “interim” pope by the Vatican Curia, someone who would follow the status quo for a few years while a younger prelate was bred to succeed him. However, Pope John XXIII soon surprised the Vatican’s conservative leadership by taking steps to modernize the church.
He met with political and religious leaders from around the world and was the first modern pope to travel freely in Rome, breaking with the tradition that made the pope a “prisoner of the Vatican.” He had a warm personality, and spoke with peasants as freely as he did with the foreign dignitaries he invited to Rome. Adored by the Catholic masses, he gradually became a kind of father figure for Catholics around the world.
The high point of his reign was the Second Vatican Council, nicknamed Vatican II, which opened on October 11, 1962. In calling the ecumenical council, he sought a “New Pentecost,” a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He sought reconciliation for the world’s divided Christianity and invited Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant observers to attend the proceedings.
Pope John XXIII died in June 1963, but the council continued under his successor, Paul VI, until 1965. That year, Pope Paul began the process that could lead to John XXIII’s canonization as a saint. In 2000, Pope John Paul II beatified John XXIII, bringing him a step closer to sainthood.
Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, and was succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005. Proceedures are under way to one day grant him Sainthood.
The opening of Vatican II was the beginning of the catholic church’s abandonment of Catholicism.
The beginning of the end of traditional Catholicism was sealed with the infiltration of the Catholic Church Vatican II Ecumenical Council of the 1960s by Jews and Protestants who were involved in the “modernization” of the Catholic Church.
Much Catholic ritual was discarded, as well as the promotion of the absolution of the Jews for Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and death, despite vitriolic Jewish hatred of Jesus Christ and Christianity which exists to this day. The fact is, the Jews DID get the Romans to crucify Jesus Christ and DID accept full responsibility for the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. As is the case today, they got others (Pontius Pilate) do do their “dirty work” for them…
Abandoning the use of Latin in the Mass destroyed its universality. Previous to Vatican II, one could attend Mass anywhere in the Roman Catholic world and understand the meaning of the Mass.
Prohibition of the celebration of the Tridentine Mass (except by special ecclesiastical permission) pushed many Catholics away from the new Modern Mass and the New Church, in general, It took a brave Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X to push back against Vatican II and re-legitimize the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Tridentine Mass and other Catholic rites.
In pre-Vatican II times, the priest (celebrant of the Mass) was considered to be a part of the congregation, and a representative of the people.
By turning the priest around to face the congregation, the priest was no longer a representative, but an actor, diminishing his status and importance.
One area where the Catholic Church could improve itself involves celibacy, which is NOT Church dogma or doctrine. Celibacy was put in place during the middle ages in order to keep Church property from being inherited by family and relatives of priests and bishops. Celibacy was based on purely financial considerations-nothing more. It is interesting to note that Episcopal (Anglican) priests who convert to Catholicism can bring their families with them to the Church while Roman Catholic priests are denied marriage.
It was a grave mistake by the Church to de-legitimize pre-Vatican II principles.
The very sad and prideful issue with both Catholicism and Protestantism is that neither recognize what God is doing in the world today via the Apostle Paul.
Modern “Christianity” mistakenly focuses its attention on the “red letters” rather than that information which the risen and glorified Lord Jesus delivered to Paul.
Romans 16:25 KJV… “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,“