Vatican II offered nothing less than an utterly new dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. [MORE: Buy the LIFE book, Pope Francis The Vicar of Christ, From Saint Peter to ...

In October 1962 the Second Vatican Council opened the doors of an isolated, ancient Roman Catholic Church to the modern world ... grew up in the post Vatican II years when lay people had to ...

While the post-Vatican II Church was growing on paper ... have made him unpopular with progressives seeking a more modern Church. Similar to Benedict, Pope Francis has not been afraid to pick ...

When Pope Paul VI formally closed it last week, church ... modern times and bringing it into closer contact with all men — Catholic or not, Christian or not, religious or not. Vatican II ...

I watched a live video feed as flames engulfed the lead-and-wood roof of the church. As Notre-Dame ... into something much more pedestrian. Vatican II might seem worlds away from discussion ...

The archbishop of Luxembourg added that he believes that if Vatican II had not taken place the Church “would have ... who curiously are also a postmodern phenomenon.” “They choose only ...

The left argues that the council did not go far enough in its stated purpose: updating the church for the modern world ... Believing that the post-Vatican II church was in chaos, John Paul ...

In the modern era, beginning with the 16th-century Reformation and escalating with the French Revolution and culminating with Vatican II, church leaders have struggled to adapt to life after ...

From this perspective, a key obstacle to getting modern Catholics ... It’s that the church is in competition with a million other urgent-seeming things, and in its post-Vatican II form it ...

His supporters within the Church judge these overhauls as his greatest achievement. But those who relished the Vatican as a refuge from the modern world were appalled. One group accused him of “ ...

The image above is of the cathedral of Köln after World War II ... Vatican Council failed on the terms its own supporters set. It was supposed to make the church more dynamic, more attractive to ...

For several years when I was a boy, I was the organist at a small Catholic church where I played two and sometimes three Masses a week. The architecture was modern, post-Vatican II, with the organ ...