Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council is the 21st and most recent pastoral council of the Roman Catholic ecumene, met C.E.1962 to 1965.
- It is difficult to realize that three years have elapsed since Your Holiness announced that you planned to convene an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church--the first in almost a hundred years. During these three fateful years, millions of my fellow citizens in the United States, including many who do not belong to the Catholic Church, have followed with lively and sympathetic interest the work of the various preparatory Commissions appointed by Your Holiness to draw up the agenda for this extraordinarily important Council. They have also read, with particular interest and with genuine admiration for your all-embracing concern for the welfare of humanity, the several inspiring statements issued by Your Holiness on the background and purposes of the Council.
- John F. Kennedy; Message to Pope John XXIII on the Occasion of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council Online, The American Presidency Project; 5 October 1962
- In the face of staggering problems which, from the human point of view, seem at times to be almost insoluble, people all over the world have found reason for renewed confidence and courage in the welcome thought that the Fathers of the Council, as Your Holiness indicated in your Radio Message of September 11, will give special attention to the grave economic and social problems which daily press upon suffering humanity in almost all parts of the world but, more particularly, in the economically underdeveloped nations. It is very heartening to know that the Council, in the words of Your Holiness, will strive to deepen the fellowship and love which are "the natural needs of man" and "are imposed on the Christian as rules for his relationship between man and man, and between people and people." We hope that the Council will be able to present in clear and persuasive language effective solutions to the many problems confronting all of us and, more specifically, that its decisions will significantly advance the cause of international peace and understanding.
- John F. Kennedy; Message to Pope John XXIII on the Occasion of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council Online, The American Presidency Project; 5 October 1962
- We have never said that the Council had directly professed heresies. But the wall of protection against error was removed and thus error was allowed to manifest itself. The faithful need protection. This is what the constant struggle of the militant Church to defend the faith consists of. (Bernard Fellay)
- Interview to Mgr. Bernard Fellay at Tagespost, Unavox (June 28, 2018)
- I was a member of the preparatory commissions appointed by Pope John XXIII, and together with the other members—distinguished cardinals and good theologians—we prepared the preliminary outlines that were to serve as a basis for the scholars of the assembly. The preparation of these outlines, which were to be approved and promulgated as authoritative documents of the Church's teaching, required time, reflection, and consultation of ecclesiastical sources and documents. All this had to be taken into account. But then, in the first session of the Council, a group of bishops and cardinals, using modern techniques of pressure, managed to remove the exhaustive work that had been done. Thus, being subject to time constraints and internal regulations, new discussion outlines had to be prepared in other commissions set up in a completely arbitrary manner. Imagine the difficulties this entailed and bear in mind the decisive activity of certain cardinals and bishops, those who were called “coming from the banks of the Rhine,” gathered in the Idoc group, all imbued with modernism and liberalism and who, in addition, could count on a well-financed superstructure of offices, press, distribution, etc.
- Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, quoted in Guillermo R. Zorraquin Vivot, Siete Dias Ilustrados (Argentinian journal), n°. 528, 29 July – 4 August 1977, pp. 4-9 (in Spanish). Quoted in FPPX South America. URL archived on 18 May 2019
- Interviewer: By saying this, aren't we running the risk of undermining the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Council? Mgr. Lefebvre: I said that Vatican II was a purely pastoral council, and for this very reason it is clear that the two popes who presided over its sessions did not intend to commit the dogmatic Magisterium of the Holy Church to the even. It is therefore in this perspective that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the documents produced by the Council must be considered. The liberal orientation of the Council cannot be attributed to the Holy Spirit; it would be blasphemous, sacrilegious.
- Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, quoted in Guillermo R. Zorraquin Vivot, Siete Dias Ilustrados (Argentinian journal), n°. 528, 29 July – 4 August 1977, pp. 4-9 (in Spanish). Quoted in FPPX South America. URL archived on 18 May 2019
- Interviewer: You have a certain tendency to see conspiracies everywhere. Five days before being suspended a divinis, in a letter to Paul VI, you denounced ‘a secret agreement between high-ranking ecclesiastical dignitaries and Freemasons, established before the Council. Mgr. Lefebvre: But all the American newspapers wrote that, before the Council, Cardinal Bea, founder of the Vatican Secretariat for Ecumenism, had met with the leaders of the most influential Jewish-Masonic lodge at the Astoria Hotel in New York and asked them what they expected from the Council. And they replied: "A declaration on religious freedom" .
- Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, quoted in Guillermo R. Zorraquin Vivot, Siete Dias Ilustrados (Argentinian journal), n°. 528, 29 July – 4 August 1977, pp. 4-9 (in Spanish). Quoted in FPPX South America. URL archived on 18 May 2019
- Lately, I have been given documents that appear to be completely true, documents that show the correspondence between Monsignor Bonini and the Grand Master of Freemasonry on the entire liturgical reform. The Grand Master of Freemasonry asks Bonini to apply the reform of the apostate priest Roca, who had already predicted everything that had to be done when the Vatican was occupied by Freemasonry. [...] The Grand Master asks Bonini to apply the principle of “naturalization,” the naturalization of the Incarnation, that is, to de-supernaturalize the Incarnation, and thus we arrive at naturalism, and therefore we must apply the principles of local languages, the multiplicity of rites, the multiplicity of the liturgy, and to make the liturgy totally confused, to instill confusion everywhere, and opposition between the different rites. And Bonini replies that he is in complete agreement, and that it will take some time, perhaps ten years. But that at the end of the ten years we will get there. And that with the trust placed in him by Cardinal Lercaro and Pope Paul VI, he is sure of success, and he names all those in the Curia who are affiliated with Freemasonry. He names them and says he will be able to work with them. But some of them must be placed in certain congregations so that [...], in order for the work to be successful, all the congregations must be infiltrated with members of Freemasonry, whom he names: so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so... “We must get rid of that one because he is against us... we must get him out...” "the Congregation of the Sacraments must be suppressed," and he managed to put everything under the Congregation of Rites, he managed to put everything under his authority. Everything he says in the letter to the Grand Master of Freemasonry. So what should we do? We certainly want to obey. We are the most obedient to the Church, to everything the Church has always taught and wanted. But not to men who want the destruction of the Church. (at min. 6:17-9:00)
- Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, Transcript from Interview of 8 June 1978. URL archived on 18 May 2019
- The Catechism so often refers to it that it might well be called the Catechism of the Second Vatican Council. The conciliar texts constitute a sure "compass" for the believers of the third millennium.
- Pope John Paul II, Address of John Paul II to the International Catechetical Congress (October 11, 2002)
- After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. ... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition... . The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently — on its unspontaneity.
- Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000)
- I would like us to renew today our full commitment to the path that the universal Church has been following for decades now in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis has masterfully recalled and updated its contents in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, from which I would like to highlight some fundamental points: the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation, the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community, growth in collegiality and synodality, attention to the sensus fidei, especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety, loving care for the least, the rejected, and courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities.
- Pope Leo XIV. As quoted in 2025.05.10 Papa Leone XIV incontra i cardinali nell'Aula del Sinodo, Vatican News (May 10, 2025)
