Monday, October 9, 2022 marked the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, it’s good to remember what the Council accomplished. And the best summation comes from the late John W. O’Malley, SJ, the dean of church historians, in his magisterial book, “What Happened at Vatican II.” At the end, he sums up the legacy of Vatican II.
In short, the church moved from:
commands to invitations,
from laws to ideals,
from definition to mystery,
from threats to persuasion,
from coercion to conscience,
from monologue to dialogue,
from ruling to serving,
from withdrawn to integrated,
from vertical to horizontal,
from exclusion to inclusion,
from hostility to friendship,
from rivalry to partnership,
from suspicion to trust,
from static to ongoing,
from passive acceptances to active engagement,
from fault-finding to appreciation,
from prescriptive to principles,
from behavior modification to inner appropriation.”
