The Second Vatican Council

rThe second Vatican council was initiated by Pope John XXIII to renew the church as being an instrument for God’s peace to all people of good will. John XXIII’s fruitfulness led him to bring the church to become less insular to the whole world. During the time period before Vatican II, the world was experiencing changes that affected how the church was seen to the rest of the world. In hopefulness to maintain aggiornamento, the main reasons for the councils initiation was due to the influences occurring such as the outcome of World War II and gender equality as well as many other events that changed the way the church fit in with the world. After realisation of these world changes John XXIII was motivated to bring the church into these ‘signs of the times’ by changing certain traditions and methods for the benefit of all people in the modern world. The implemented changes within the church that occurred during Vatican II resulted in both positive and negative outcomes. Authority and participation restrictions became less closed off to God’s people; spiritual rituals and worship during masses and liturgies drastically changed as well as the church’s relationship with other non-Christian religions.

When Vatican II started in 1959, John XXIII developed it through being a hierarchical model of the ‘Good Shepard’ by caring for all of God’s people over the world. The council wished to open up the church to the world, provide gifts from the spirit and allow the world to be incorporated into the body of Christ, including every single one of God’s people in the world, according to one of the 16 Vatican II documents, Lumen Gentium. When events such as gender equality began to arise, and women were gaining more authority and power, women in the church also began to feel like they deserved more authority, but there were many people who disagreed in changing church traditions.

Before Vatican II, the Catholic Church operated on a hierarchical model with the pope being at