Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

Upon Pacelli’s death, his successor Pope John XXIII called a new Vatican Council, to attend to these difficulties and bring up to date the attitudes and practices of the Church. Vatican II, as it became known, convened on October 11th 1962. In the course of its work over the next few years it transformed not only the liturgy and language of Catholic Christianity (quite literally—Latin was no longer to be used in daily Church practice, to the uncomprehending fury of a traditionalist minority) but also, and more significantly, the response of the Church to the dilemmas of modern life. The pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council made it clear that the Church was no longer frightened by change and challenge, was not an opponent of liberal democracy, mixed economies, modern science, rational thought and even secular politics. The first—very tentative—steps were taken towards reconciliation with other Christian denominations and there was some (not much) acknowledgement of the Church’s responsibility to discourage anti-Semitism by re-casting its longstanding account of Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. Above all, the Catholic Church could no longer be counted upon to support authoritarian regimes—quite the contrary: in Asia, Africa and especially Latin America, it was at least as likely to be on the side of their opponents. These changes were not universally welcomed even among the Catholic Church’s own reformers—one delegate to Vatican II, a young priest from C...