The Second Vatican Council and the American Church

Vatican II.

As one observer noted, by the 1960s Catholics in the United States had won their struggle to discover what it meant to be American. But after Vatican II they had to struggle with what it meant to be Catholic.

Widespread Input.

In 1959 the newly elected (in October 1958) pope, John XXIII, announced an ecumenical council to bring the Catholic church up to date (aggiornamento). The council, the first in nearly one hundred years, opened in 1962 and was conducted in four sessions before closing in 1965, with Paul VI now the pope. Americans were active at the council, both Catholics as participants and Protestants as observers. Americans such as John Courtney Murray, Francis Cardinal Spellman, and Joseph Cardinal Ritter of Saint Louis played important roles in framing the documents of religious liberty, the absolution of the Jews for the death of Jesus, and the changes in the liturgy.

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