Benedict XVI: 'Vatican II was meaningful and necessary'

Source: Vatican News

The Second Vatican Council was "both meaningful and necessary" Pope emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in a letter to Father Dave Pivonka, president of the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, which hosted the 10th International Symposium on the 'The Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger' on 20-21 October.

Fr Federico Lombardi, President of the Ratzinger Foundation, read the letter at the event which was sponsored by the Foundation.

In the letter, Benedict said it was "a great honour and joy for me that in the United States of America, at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, an International Symposium is dealing with my ecclesiology, thus placing my thinking and effort in the great stream in which it has moved."

He said: "When I began to study theology in January 1946, no one thought of an Ecumenical Council. When Pope John XXIII announced it, to everyone's surprise, there were many doubts as to whether it would be meaningful, indeed whether it would be possible at all, to organise the insights and questions into the whole of a conciliar statement and thus to give the Church a direction for its further journey."

"In reality, a new council proved to be not only meaningful, but necessary... For the first time, the question of a theology of religions had shown itself in its radicality."

The same is true, the Pope emeritus said, for the relationship between faith and the world of mere reason.

"Both topics had not been foreseen in this way before...This explains why Vatican II at first threatened to unsettle and shake the Church more than to give her a new clarity for her mission."

The Pope Emeritus expressed his sincere hope that the International Symposium "will be helpful in the struggle for a right understanding of the Church and the world in our time."

LINK

Ratzinger Foundation - www.fondazioneratzinger.va/content/fondazioneratzinger/en.html