FOUR
VATICAN II
AND
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- • • James Ramon Felak
The year 1962 was a crucial year in the two-millennium history of
the Catholic Church. That October, Pope John XXIII opened the
Second Vatican Council. In tune with the pope’s calls to “read the
signs of the times” and apply “the medicine of mercy rather than
of severity,” the Council over the next four years promulgated
comprehensive reform over a broad spectrum of Catholic con-
cerns. The overall goal of those reforms is captured by the Ital-
ian word aggiornamento: updating. The means included, among
others, liturgical reform, greater pastoral sensitivity, a larger role
in the Church for lay people, increased collegiality, greater open-
ness to modern methods of scriptural study, respect for freedom
of conscience, and dialogue with past opponents (non-Catholic
Christians, members of other religions, nonbelievers).
The Church would henceforth seek constructive ways to adapt
to modern society and culture rather than treat them in a purely
adversarial way. It would seek renewal by revisiting its founda-
tional documents, above all the Gospels and the writings of the
fathers of the Church, in an approach termed ressourcement.1 It
99- See, for example, Jürgen Mettepenningen, Nouvelle théologie—New Theology:
Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (New York: T. and T. Clark, 2010).