The Second Vatican Council

    The Second Vatican Council, also called Vatican II, was a series of meetings first convened by Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962 in order to inact massive reforms and modernization efforts to Catholic canon law and practices of the Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII aimed to modernize the Catholic Church and open up a "medieval institution" to the modern world, to let some fresh air into the Church [1]. Vatican II spanned the dominion of two popes, with Pope Paul VI succeeding John XXIII after his passing in 1963.

    Vatican II was comprised of four meetings that occurred around the world from October 1962 until the completed documents were finalized in 1965. The Second Vatican Council was noteable for both the size and scope of its attendees, with the largest meeting hosting 2,540 people, including non-Catholics [2]. These meetings were attended by all of the active Catholic bishops of the time, and select outside observers were invited to view the proceeding via an official invitation from the Pope. Guests attending the Second Vatican Council included authority figures of other religious groups, both Protestant and Orthodox, and representatives of the lay population not affiliated with the Catholic Church.

    The Second Vatican Council resulted in sixteen official documents, including four constitutions, three declarations, and nine decrees [3]. The topics of the published documents included divine revelation, the Catholic Church, liturgy, education, the relationship between the Catholic Church and other religions, and the rights to social, civil, and religious freedom.

    The importance of the topic of education, with which this exhibit is concerned, is neatly expressed in the second paragraph of the Gravismum Educationis or Declaration on Christian Education:

"...the circumstances of our time have made it easier and at once more urgent to educate young people and, what is more, to continue the education of adults. Men are more aware of their own dignity and position; more and more they want to take an active part in social and especially in economic and political life. Enjoying more leisure, as they sometimes do, men find that the remarkable development of technology and scientific investigation and the new means of communication offer them an opportunity of attaining more easily their cultural and spiritual inheritance and of fulfilling one another in the closer ties between groups and even between peoples [4]."  

    Education in the eyes of the Catholic Church had become not only a more accessable option, it had also become one of key importance in the modernized society that the meetings of the Second Vatican Council aimed to align Catholic doctrine and ideals with.