“Unlike with all the previous Councils, this time there was ‘no particular problem to solve’. In a way, it was about the whole thing. ‘Christianity, which had built and shaped the West, seemed increasingly to be losing its defining power’, Joseph Ratzinger thought, as he witnessed the historic moment. ‘It seemed to have grown tired, and the future seemed to be determined by other spiritual forces.’5 It had to catch up with ‘the world of today so that it can again have power to shape tomorrow’.6 Pope John’s word aggiornamento – ‘updating’ – had mobilized a new energy. Everything should become fresher, newer, more vivid. But wasn’t it also clear that the Roman Curia with all its power – and all its guile – would undermine any attempt at reform? Didn’t the prepared schemata bear the stamp, in content, style and mentality, of precisely that Roman neo-scholastic theology which needed to be overcome? Yes, the entry into St Peter’s was impressive. But, Ratzinger wondered outside in the Square, ‘Is it normal that 2,500 bishops, not to mention the many other”