“John Gehring’s hatchet job on the Roman Catholic Church is easily refuted. Instead of invoking the vacuous ‘spirit of Vatican II,’ he should read its 16 official documents.

(RNS) — Conservatives, reading Vatican II's documents like biblical fundamentalists, miss what it meant to participants.

The debate in the Catholic Church over the celebration of the old Latin Mass is heating up just as Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate is getting under way ...

The council’s enduring significance is not limited to the 16 documents it promulgated, however. There is much the church today can learn from a consideration of the actual conduct of the council.

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.

Vatican II didn’t create confusion in the Church. It made things worse by trying to develop a more coherent doctrine.

The debate in the Catholic Church over the celebration of the old Latin Mass is heating up just as Pope Leo XIV's pontificate ...

Cultural changes in the aftermath of World War II spelled a need to reconsider church practices. These meetings did just that — 16 documents in total came out of it, laying a foundation for the church ...

Leaked documents claim to present results of a worldwide consultation of bishops on restricting pre-Vatican II Latin Mass ...

In the wars within Catholicism that followed the council, the conservatives interpreted Vatican II as a discrete and limited event — a particular set of documents that contained various shifts ...

As the Catholic Church marks 60 years since the start of the historic Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis is launching a reflection that will set the tone for discussion during two major events ...