In his Feb. 14, 2013, meeting with the priests of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI used the occasion to express his thoughts on the Second Vatican Council, for which then-Father Joseph Ratzinger served as theological adviser to the archbishop of Cologne, Germany.

“There was an incredible sense of expectation,” he said. “We were hoping that all would be renewed, that there would truly be a new Pentecost, a new era of the Church.”

However, with the hijacking of the Council by those who sought to change the Church — what he called “this Council of the media” — it created “so many disasters, so many problems, so much suffering: Seminaries closed; convents closed; [there was] banal liturgy … and the real Council had difficulty establishing itself and taking shape; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council.”

But the force of the documents themselves have only recently broken through the distortion. Benedict reminded his 2013 audience that there is renewed hope, for now, 50 years later: “We see that this virtual Council is broken, is lost, and there now appears the true Council, with all its spiritual force.”

With that in mind, the Register offers a symposium analyzing many of the documents that were promulgated in the final year of Vatican II, along with an analysis of the half century since the Council ended on Dec. 8, 1965. Afterward, read the documents for yourself, and see that this sense of hope for our Church shines through.

God bless you!