Documents of Vatican II

Documents of the Second Vatican Council

by Second Vatican Council, Walter M. Abbott (Editor)

With notes and comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Authorities.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Catholic, Reference, Christian, Church History, Nonfiction

794 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

The Second Vatican Council (Latin: Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum Secundum, informally known as Vatican II) addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The council, through the Holy See, formally opened under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8th December 1965.

Several changes resulted from the council, including the renewal of consecrated life with a revised charism, ecumenical efforts towards dialogue with other religions, and the call to holiness for everyone including the laity, according to Pope Paul VI "the most characteristic and ultimate purpose of the teachings of the Council".

According to Pope Benedict XVI, the most important and essential message of the council is "the Paschal Mystery as the center of what it is to be Christian and therefore of the Christian life, the Christian year, the Christian seasons". Other changes which followed the council included the widespread use of vernacular languages in the Mass instead of Latin, the subtle disuse of ornate clerical regalia, the revision of Eucharistic prayers, the abbreviation of the liturgical calendar, the ability to celebrate the Mass versus populum (with the officiant facing the congregation), as well as ad orientem (facing the "East" and the Crucifix), and modern aesthetic changes encompassing contemporary Catholic liturgical music and artwork, many of which remain divisive among the Catholic faithful.

Reviews

[Harry Allagree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I've read various individual documents & parts of others during the year, this is the first time I've read the complete Documents of Vatican II. A handful are sublime in what they express; some are so-so; and a few lack any luster. Having lived through those times as a Roman Catholic seminarian & new priest, as the documents were being discussed & written, I can recall the hope & enthusiasm we felt for the future. The vision is proposed was breathtaking at the time. Unfortunately it pretty much all turned to ashes within a relatively short time. The Council, knowingly or unknowingly, failed to officially terminate Vatican I which had been interrupted, and then to seriously implement Vatican II. These 50 years later we're realizing that they've reaped the wind, to the point where, for the first time in 600 years, a reigning Pope has stepped down, leaving a legacy of a majority of very conservative Church leaders/bishops across the world who are intent on circling the wagons, closing themselves off to the global society for the most part, and keeping things "business as usual".

[Gage Fowlkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woah! So good! Really beautiful and pastoral language, there’s tons of meat on these bones, even for a reformed Protestant like myself. These canons constitutions and decrees have left a bigger mark on my political/social thought than almost any other Christian work as of summer ‘24.

Required reading (no particular order) is Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, dignitatus humanae, Unitatis redintegratio, and nostra aetate.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I'm not a Roman Catholic, I confess that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. I had been more familiar with the declarations of Trent and Vatican I, than with Vatican II. But at the suggestion of another Christian, I read this book, and learned why Vatican II gave hope to so many, both within and without the Roman Catholic Church. I highly recommend this book to all Christians.

[Edwin Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I broke open the pages of this book, the Basic Sixteen Documents of the Vatican Council II (‘Vatican II’), comprising constitutions, decrees and declarations promulgated by the Synod called for by Pope John XXIII with its opening session held on October 11, 1962 and ending in 1965 under the new Pope Paul VI.

It was a fascinating read, and on reflection, what startled me most was its honesty. I complemented my reading by studying a few books about the Council and its inner workings. Two of these I read while on a Jesuit week-long retreat, at which I met a woman who joined me at our first communal dinner before blessed silence was to be imposed – and on whom my leave-me-alone grumpy-old-man emanations seemed to have had no effect. She seemed something of a fish out of water. That is, she was now, as an ex-nun, uncomfortably involved, peripherally and non-threateningly, in Church activities such as this retreat. And in response to reservations I had been forming, she effused about Vatican II as having been and remaining a tremendously positive event, oblivious to the fact that she was living proof that somehow Vatican II had been a dispiriting event, so much so that she had felt forced to leave the religious life and her vows. In a way then, meeting her confirmed those reservations I had been formulating while reading the documents, which I had started way back in January 2020 (that is, almost four years ago), about what had really happened at the Vatican, and of course this mystery helped make the reading all that more fascinating.

By the 1960s the times then had been abounding in change seemingly for the better: We had been victorious in the second world war, and were following Churchill’s advice: magnanimous in victory; good will in peace; we were taking steps to curtail use of the Atomic bomb and nuclear weaponry; we were creating ameliorating institutions such as the United Nations and World Health Organization; humans were exploring outer space and the moon, and in science and medicine research was advancing at a mind-bending scale; computers, clumsy and big (and so warm and huggable) were quietly emerging into the commonplace; world travel (by jet no less) was becoming feasible and affordable; there was even a sense of financial and social equality among mankind; and, democracy was blossoming everywhere, with the emergence of countries finally achieving independence from colonial overlords, joyously culminating for Montrealers, like me, in its 1967 Expo 67 showcasing hundreds of newly created democracies around the world, especially those in Africa and on the Arabian peninsula; and even, for a while, we had President Kennedy. A time full of raw idealism and hope, amid a time of profound political, cultural, social and philosophical transformation.

Probably because of all the turmoil that this transformation brought about I had been oblivious of Vatican II for years, and its conclusion and the release of the documents had no effect on me (which of course says something).

Part of the reason was that the documents seemed to have been, for me, formidably dense. But over the decades following Vatican II I had heard so many good things about the Council that my anticipation and expectations were building, with me thirsting for some time to give it the due I believed it needed, where I might be relatively free of family or work and all those myriad responsibilities and distractions, able to sit down to peruse it reverently and study it in the context of my being an active Catholic Christian. I knew way back that it was going to be a challenging read – the writing still seemed dense and somewhat preachy, displaying an often-uncomfortable translation from the Latin which is more concisely expressive than is English. So, although I went in bracing myself for the complexity of the material, I had not realized that the issue would be the content.

I then developed a sinking and upsetting realization that I had accepted what I was being told about Vatican II – and this is important: in spite of all the contrary evidence – believing that Popes like Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict had simply been dragging their feet in opposition to the changes mandated by the Council. In other words, I felt I had been gaslighted.

In a way then, Vatican II seemed to have violated my, and everyone's, trust, both then and now, in a very fundamental and visceral way: at the risk of sounding Trumpian, it seemed the elites of the Church - its cardinals and bishops – consciously manipulated Catholics into believing Vatican II had been a good thing.

There were a lot of good things promoted by Vatican II of course. It encouraged Catholics to more fully embrace the world; it emphasized a pastoral orientation; it encouraged an apostolate of the laity; it promoted ecumenism and more formally an appreciation of religious diversity. And there were many moments when it was simply brilliant. Lawrence Ryan, for example, Bishop of Kildare, translator of the original Declaration of Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and who updated for this edition says in it ‘truth can impose itself on the human mind by the force of its truth’. And later, on the role of parents, saying that ultimately parents are responsible for their children’s moral and cultural upbringing, something that has recently been lost in the transgender debates. And the document believes implicitly (if not perhaps a little naively) that when people exercise their religious rights, society will enjoy the benefits of justice and peace. It also talks warningly of the tendency among people to idolize the ‘market, ideology, class and technology’.

But at the heart of Vatican II, and invariably seeping in in virtually each of the sixteen documents produced by the Council is the centrality of power. Erasmus, a father of the Renaissance, warned the Church not to succumb to a lust for power (and he was excommunicated for his frankness). That might have been the essence of the struggle the Church fathers faced in responding to Pope John XXIII’s ask that they use the Synod to let in the fresh air of the Holy Spirit to reenergize the Church, with power becoming the key question about which the churchmen pivoted: was the Church an institution or was it a movement? They came down ruthlessly in the decision that it was an institution over which they, in the name of God, had exclusive command. We might be the ‘People of God’ as Lumen Gentium proclaims in chapter 2 but people – priests, religious, lay people – were but putty in their masterful hands, that is, a billion Catholics in the hands of about five thousand bishops, two hundred of which are cardinals. What I found here, then, was a love-letter to ambitious clergy within the institution of the Catholic Church: The elites of the Church, its Bishops, on a power trip.

Sadly then, I began, finally, to understand - which I had not before - why 100,000 ordained priests left in the ten years following the close of the Council, and who knows how many religious brothers and sisters had joined them, as my fellow retreatant had. And also, why good and idealistic young men and woman who I had met and continue to meet daily at work and at home or even casually in my dog-walking - and these are good kids, smart, well-educated, world travelled, idealistic - did not and do not join religious orders and the priesthood in the decades following Vatican II and today. And how could they, really, so full of fire and idealism as they are? But the Church blamed us and them, and still do, for its failure, blaming us for a lack of men becoming priests and for the dearth of religious vocations, blaming us for our desire for what they say is a false freedom, for our individualism, and our selfishness, our materialism.

I understood too how Pope Paul VI had unilaterally overruled a commission that had been created during Vatican II to study birth control, which ultimately advocated a change in the Church’s teaching (to eliminate the ban on artificial contraception), with his abrupt release of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. He was what Vatican II called for: an organization man. I doubt few people have read the Vatican II documents as a whole from beginning to end. It has the potential to crush the human spirit. The first almost one hundred pages – the much praised Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) – is, in excruciating detail, a paean to the centrality of Church power (materialized in the Bishops as successors of the Apostles) and in the maintenance of the purity of the Catholic faith performed by the secretive and all-powerful Magisterium; a position reiterated again in the Decree on the Bishops (Christus Dominus) and again in decrees on priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis (priests) and Optatam Totius (training of priests); and, again in Perfectae Caritatis (those in religious life who with Vatican II now have to report to their local Bishop): that “they should be prepared to submit to the judgment of those who exercise the chief function in ‘ruling’ God’s Church (paragraph 15 on obedience)” - thus a theme that runs through these and all the other Vatican II documents.

Another theme that tortured many of the Catholic prelates participating in the Vatican II sessions – which became for them ‘an existential crisis’ – was whether the Church could err i.e. that the Church could be wrong in some of its approaches to Catholic teaching. As a lay-person, and with much experience in erring, I would conclude yes, absolutely. The Church Fathers though said no, the Church does not err. It was probably one reason Pope Paul VI had had to uphold the ban on contraception. I found that this position reflects a smallness – almost a lack of faith and maturity and courage in these men, and a disturbing lack of faith in God – and one feels it most strongly in the penultimate document (Nostra Aetate – the Declaration of the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions). For one, it has a disturbing absence of any mention of Indigenous culture and religious practices. But it treats quite respectfully those practicing Hinduism and Buddhism (in paragraph 2) and Islam (in paragraph 3). But in paragraph 4, and this is twenty years after the Holocaust, it dances around rhetorically without initially even naming the Jews or the Jewish faith, until it finally lobbies a criticism: ‘even though the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ … and (were responsible for the) crimes committed during his passion”. l found it shameful, and embarrassing. Has our own Magisterium been much different? Would they not – say under Benedict – have persecuted and prosecuted someone they perceived as having undermined the purity of the Catholic faith? Had they been kinder to Galileo than the Jewish leadership to Christ? How many ‘heretics’ and ‘witches’ have members of the Church hierarchy tortured and mercilessly killed in the name of our Catholic Faith?

A couple of years ago TV Ontario interviewed George Weigel, a catholic commentator, on a book he released called The Next Pope. The interviewer, Steve Paikin, expressed his surprised at the title given that Pope Francis was still going strong. Weigel's point is that Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict and even Francis are all products of the thinking that created Vatican II, and all participated in its development and rollout. The next Pope will not be; and the next one will have been molded by different forces, perhaps less by power dynamics and ambition than by things that are fundamental to our humanity and Christ’s teaching and way of life: social justice; the environment and our very existence; imbalance of wealth among the few and poverty among the many; explosive wars occurring everywhere; massive migration of displaced persons; depression and a sense of hopelessness among many of our youth. The worst of times.

Do I recommend reading this, carefully and reverently? Yes. One of the neat things is the references, for example, to Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris. And overall the plethora of references gives a sense of the rich and robust history of the intellectual and spiritual life of the Church. In Vatican II the ambitious thin-skinned politicians of the Church won the battle – and recent history since the close of the Council showed that God was not with them – but the war for our faith and souls rages on. I don’t know what the current Synods run by Pope Francis will produce – likely very little of lasting value – but I do know the world needs more good Catholics and Christians, more dedicated, smart and holy-ish priests and religious.

I can now understand how God is not answering our constant prayers for priests because their presence would simply add fire to the ambitious institutionalists energized by Vatican II – so perhaps He has done a cull – because what we need are faith-filled leaders, full of zeal and on fire for and with Christ, Ezekiels for the modern world, leaders after the mold of Christ in his humility and poverty, not men playing at being gods, vying with one another for power over Catholic minds. God had the Jewish temple destroyed twice and it seems to me that if our Church continues to play God it is conceivable that we too will become irrelevant and our assets expendable.

Edwin

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept on hearing about the Second Vatican Council in my Basic Apologetics Class so I bought and read this book. Now I have a crystal clear idea on what changes it brought to the Catholic Church.

It was the biggest council that got convened inside the Vatican. It was attended by many men of faith not only the cardinals, bishops but even representatives from the other religions like Eastern Orthodox and Protestant denominations. It was also participated by laity more than any other councils in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Second Vatican Council lasted for 3 years, i.e., 1962-1964. That's why when I was a toddler I still was able to attend the Latin Mass every Sunday. This council open the Holy Mass, used to be said only in Latin, to other languages or vernaculars. It also changed the layout of the altar specifically the location of the tabernacle. Also, the priest used to be saying the mass with his back at the audience. The Second Vatican Council made the mass more participatory to the laity. Last year, I was invited by a former friend to hear a Latin Mass. I actually did not appreciate it because I didn't know what's going on. He did not know also but he seemed to enjoy not knowing what's going on. He seemed to be a fanatics and thought probably that he looked more religious if he attends a mass where he does not understand even the gospel. That was a waste of time for me. He seemed to want to return to pre-Vatican II times.

Reading this book can be a struggle if you are not taking up a degree on Theology. It's just that I wanted to learn more about something that I did know anything about.

Thanks to Totus Bookstore for recommending this book to me.

[Ramon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the information. There was a lot of information. The Council happened over 50 years ago and sometimes wonder if we need to do it ago or should we have had this council in the first place. The blueprint for the Catholic Church. I enjoyed Fr. Schneider. He spoke fast but leveled off later in the year. He gave a lot of information. The information helped me to understand why the Church does some things.

[Amicizia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this is a volume that every Catholic should not only own but also study and internalize. In the four decades that have passed since the Second Vatican Council, many theological and liturgical errors have been perpetuated by people who have invoked "the spirit of Vatican II" as justification for their actions and beliefs,
yet a careful reading of the documents makes clear that the teachings of the Council are in total continuity with the previous 2000 years of Church teaching. Yes, Vatican II articulated the ancient doctrines and beliefs of the Church in a way that was meant to be open to the modern world and to dialogue with non-believers, but in no way did the Council "change" or jettison the Church's teachings. Read the documents for yourself and learn what Vatican II REALLY taught.

[Rachael Malfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read. I have a lot to say about this, but do recommend reading for anyone interested in any of the issues within the Catholic Church, especially current ones. For those able to do discern, there are lot of vague passages that seem to contradict much of Catholic doctrine. A lot of it sounds good, but in light of tradition and even long-held biblical ideas, it is a troubling. Admittedly, I'm biased because I am a trad Catholic, however, I do my best to maintain some form of objectivity when I read documents. For non-Cathilics this might be difficult just given the nature of Catholic doctrine, et al.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know what really happened in Vatican II, this is it. You will not find clown masses or a demand to change the language of the mass. There is no call for or raining women or married clergy. This is a explanation of how a 2 thousand year old organization founded by Christ needs to function in the modern world.

[Tony]

This explains alot about ecumenism.

[Anne Roat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read

[Matthew Ferdie Manlangit · Rating 5 out of 5]

To understand the Church of today, this is an essential read not just for clerics, but for all Catholics.

[Gille Liath · Rating 4 out of 5]

*CONTENTS:*
These are English translations of the original texts issued by Vatican II. I was tearing my hair out when looking at buying this, because I couldn't find any specific info about the contents. So, just for your benefit, here they are:
1. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium)
2. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum)
3. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium)
4. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes)
5. Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church (Christus Dominus)
6. Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis)
7. Decree on the Training of Priests (Optatam Totius)
8. Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life (Perfectae Caritatis)
9. Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People (Apostolicam Actuositatem)
10. Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity (Ad Gentes Divinites)
11. Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio)
12. Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches (Orientalium Ecclesiarium)
13. Decree on the Mass Media (Inter Mirifica)
14. Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae)
15. Declaration of the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate)
16. Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis)
...phew, you're welcome!

You're winning at life if you buy this - I suppose! - because it costs less than any one of the individual documents to buy individually.

At the moment the only other comment I have to make is on the use of inclusive language. I am very much in favour of this, it is a shame and disgrace that the English-speaking part of the church has taken so long to set its house in order (in fact it still hasn't, entirely), and that it persisted in using the words 'man' and 'men' not because they were accurate but because it liked the rhetorical sound of them, ironically a legacy of Protestant Bible translations ('it is not good for man to be alone'...'man does not live by bread alone' etc). However, it needs to be approached with a little creativity: not simply to tag on '...and women' whenever it says 'men', or '...and daughters' whenever it says 'sons'. For example, depending on context, you might say 'people' in the first case, and obviously should say 'children' in the second. Or sometimes it would be appropriate simply to say 'all', or 'us'.

[Michael Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up, I often heard about the many changes in the Catholic Church that followed Vatican II. I had come to believe the Council’s documents were beautifully written and faithful to the Church, and that many problems arose from how they were implemented rather than from the Council itself. I decided to read the Vatican II documents to find out for myself.

I found them to be rich, thoughtful, and spiritually fruitful. They are well worth reading and reflecting on. In my view, they are not directly the cause of the difficulties that followed the Council, but they do offer clues about how later developments unfolded, especially where broad principles were left open to practical interpretation.

The four major constitutions, Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and Gaudium et Spes, are especially significant. The universal call to holiness, the treatment of Scripture and Tradition, the principles of liturgical reform, and the Church’s engagement with the modern world all stand out.

One key insight for me was that Sacrosanctum Concilium provides sound principles for liturgical reform while leaving many details to later decisions. Some of the unintended consequences seem to have come more from how these principles were applied than from the text itself.

These documents are not light reading, but they are deeply rewarding. If I were to do this again, I would use an edition with commentary, such as the Word on Fire Vatican II Collection, to help with context and explanation.

A longer version of this review appears on my blog, The Techno Scholar Chronicles.

[Patrick Santino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very excellent. The most important Church event in my parents’ lifetime, a 2nd Pentecost. I had read the Big 4 before, but barely got through them, & absorbed only meager amounts. Now this time around we read the Big 4 in classes, & Lumen Gentium & Gaudium et Spes did indeed still involve a “learning curve,” but as I read through them my comprehension skills improved, either by necessity or by doing the work. And the rest of the docs after that became easy to beautiful reads. All of it was great stuff, especially when reflected upon within the Schema of the Council as a whole. It was indeed a Council responding to the challenges of the Modern World happening amidst such a volatile time of Cultural Upheaval around the Globe. My favorite parts were probably LG laying out the ACTIVE & exciting roles & “job descriptions” for all the people in the Church Hierarchy; & then my especially favorite part is the opening chapters of Gaudium et Spes diagnosing the problems of the Modern World & leading into GS22 which proposes Jesus as the Solution to great questions of life, forming basically a Christocentric Humanism.

[Matt Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! Highly recommend reading the Vatican II documents if you have not. Some common themes that seem to go throughout all the documents:

1. Importance of the Liturgy
2. The laity (universal call to holiness and mission)
3. What it means to be One Body in Christ
4. The Church in the world

I think I will be coming back to these documents many times in the future

[Heather Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gender inclusive translations are needles in the haystack. After reading the popular translations from the Vatican website, I was in tears. This translation helps me feel like I'm a part of this Church.

[Geordie Denholm]

Feel weird rating Church documents.
Read this for my Catholic Theology Class. Lots that - because I'm not Catholic - I don't understand or don't agree with, but a lot of solid theology and exhortations from/to the Church at large.

[Stacy LaClaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

So happy to have read the big 4 documents of V2
Not was I was expecting based on all the controversy - very beautiful.

[Joonas Laajanen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The four constitutions.

[Kari McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating. Very challenging!

[Michael Medlen · Rating 5 out of 5]

reference book

[James Pike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of the material covered in here is fairly commonplace knowledge for a generation growing up in the Church today, 50 years after the Council. I found the Decrees and Declarations dealing with Religious Life, Missionary Life, and Non-Christian Churches to be particularly meaningful and uplifting.

[booklady]

Using this for the class I'm taking

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book for holy traditions that can give you hope

[Bhaktinath Sabhanayak]

i want to read
this book