What Vatican II Accomplished ... The Second Vatican Council, which opened 60 years ago on Oct. 11, 1962, was the most important Catholic event in half a millennium.

For those wishing to understand the council, there is no better place to start than “What Happened at Vatican II,” by the Jesuit historian the Rev. John W. O’Malley.

ANALYSIS: Sixty years after its opening, the meaning of the Second Vatican Council is still contested, as interpretations sidelined by John Paul II and Benedict XVI experience a revival under Francis.

But this point does not vindicate the council, let alone the ever-evolving liberal interpretation of its spirit. The church has to live with Vatican II, wrestle with it, somehow resolve the ...

Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, was a framer of the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican II), which began in 1962 and ended in 1965.

But the drafts that blew into and out of that open “window” are still felt today, 60 years after that the council, popularly known as Vatican II, commenced.

Thanks to these 23 “mothers of the council,” Vatican II’s teachings on women are, for the most part, incorporated into its larger treatment of human dignity, not segregated into separate ...

As Pope John XXIII said in his speech at the opening of the council on October 11, 1962, “by bringing herself up to date where required, and by the wise organization of mutual cooperation, the ...

Pope John XXIII officially convened the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962—sixty years ago this month. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Many Catholics consider Vatican II ...

Vatican II was strikingly different from the 20 other ecclesiastical assemblies that Roman Catholicism ranks as ecumenical. It is the first council that did not face, or leave in its wake, heresy ...

Unlike his two predecessors, St. John Paul II and retired Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis was not present in Rome for any of the sessions of the council, which met from 1962 to 1965.