Posted on 3/4/2013 3:09 PM By Jay
March 11, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
The first session of the Second Vatican Council in the fall of 1962 had opened a deep fissure between the Vatican's Italian-dominated Curia and the bishops and council fathers who had come from around the world.
Posted on 2/25/2013 3:08 PM By Jay
March 4, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
In September 1962, shortly before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII learned that he had inoperable cancer. Throughout the first session of the council, he knew that his life was drawing to a close.
Posted on 2/19/2013 1:21 PM By Jay
February 25, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
At the end of the first session of the Second Vatican Council, the council fathers went home with a mixture of exhilaration and frustration. The bishops had come to understand their authority and responsibility for helping the Church to define itself and its mission to the modern world.
Posted on 2/12/2013 1:57 PM By Jay
February 18, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
In last week's article, I referred to Pope Benedict's analysis that some people have presented the Second Vatican Council as a break with the Church's past. He maintains that the council was a council of reform in continuity with the tradition.
Posted on 2/5/2013 11:54 AM By Jay
February 11, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
In his memoirs, Joseph Ratzinger, a young theologian advising Cardinal Josef Frings at the Second Vatican Council and who is today Pope Benedict XVI, recalled the atmosphere in Germany when he returned home after each of the four sessions of the council:
Posted on 1/29/2013 10:37 AM By Jay
February 4, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
After the great crisis over the status of the document on the Sources of Revelation that Pope John XXIII had deftly resolved, it might have been hoped that the first session of the Second Vatican Council would slowly wind down to its conclusion two and a half weeks later.
Posted on 1/21/2013 12:12 PM By Jay
January 28, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
Most of the more than 2,000 fathers of the Second Vatican Council who arrived in Rome in early October 1962 for the start of the council had no personal agenda. They had not travelled extensively and had had little, if any, exposure to new theological trains of thought.
Posted on 1/15/2013 7:56 AM By Jay
January 21, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
On Nov. 14, 1962, as soon as the fathers of the Second Vatican Council had given overwhelming approval in principle to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, they turned their attention to a schema that had been proposed called the Sources of Revelation.
Posted on 1/8/2013 9:12 AM By Jay
January 14, 2013
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
Before moving on from the topic of liturgy, we might do well to stop and consider what was lost in the liturgical reforms that took place after the Second Vatican Council.
Posted on 12/17/2012 11:48 AM By Jay
December 24, 2012
GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
One could go on at great length detailing the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The magnitude of these reforms was immense, touching virtually every aspect of the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life.