Vatican II was an important step in the journey, not the be all and end all.
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Also, despite the Vatican II council of the 1960s, popes kept expanding their authority.
Vatican II brought forward radical thought on issues from poverty and war to workplace justice and the family.
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One of the key barometers of how traditionalists view Francis concerns his take on the pre-Vatican II Latin Massachusetts.
Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th.
The new pope attended Vatican II and supported it at the time, but has since come to think that it may have gone too far.
At last month's synod, Bustros repudiated the teachings of the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council and embraced the discredited supersessionist theology that Vatican II denounced.
Some hoped that the new pope would be a progressive figure, perhaps like John XXIII, who surprised many by convening the liberalising Vatican II council in the 1960s.
He traveled, though less extensively than John Paul, and presided over Masses that were heavy on Latin, Gregorian chant and the silk brocaded vestments of his pre-Vatican II predecessors.
Pius X, who split from Rome precisely over the Vatican II reforms, in particular its call for Mass in the vernacular and outreach to other religions, especially Judaism and Islam.
Vatican II made fundamental changes in the environment of the Mass in having services conducted in the language of each congregation (instead of in Latin for all), and having the Mass celebrants turn around and face the congregation.
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Although objections came from some of his fellow cardinals, the pope did not restrain Ratzinger, in part because their friendship went back four decades, to the time when the two were young priests at the Vatican II meetings in Rome.
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In his desire to bring dissident Catholics back into the mainstream Church, Pope Benedict has been negotiating with a traditionalist Catholic Group based in Switzerland, known as the Society of Saint Pius X, which roundly rejects the reforms of Vatican II.
Since his election as Pope seven years ago, Benedict has consistently tried to correct what he regards as a misinterpretation of Vatican II, insisting that it did not mark a revolutionary break from the past, as liberal Catholics would have it, but rather a renewal of the best traditions of the ancient Church.
This included setting up a spy network (known as The Sodality of Pius) to report any scholars and scientists suspected of believing things that most Catholics after Vatican II take for granted: freedom of religion, as well as respect for the traditions of non-Catholic faiths, and of course acceptance of the theory of evolution.
Francis also raised traditional eyebrows when he refused the golden pectoral cross offered to him right after his election by Monsignor Guido Marini, the Vatican's liturgy guru who under Benedict became the symbol of Benedict's effort to restore the Gregorian chant and heavy silk brocaded vestments of the pre-Vatican II liturgy to papal Masses.
While Pope Emeritus Benedict lived a secluded life inside the Vatican (and plans to live an even more secluded existence in the former convent which is being prepared as his new home in a corner of the Vatican Gardens), Pope John Paul II lived a more gregarious existence, often inviting personal guests to attend his early morning mass and to share his breakfast.
The butler, Paolo Gabriele, has worked at the Vatican since 1998, first for John Paul II.
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The public silence of the Vatican during the widespread atrocities of World War II is arguably the most controversial issue in the Catholic Church's wartime history.
Pope John Paul II had wanted a residence inside the Vatican walls to host contemplative religious orders, and over the years several different orders have come for spells of a few years, said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
Cardinal Sodano, a powerful Vatican cardinal who ran the Roman Curia under John Paul II, framed his homily by citing writings by the Apostle Paul.
But Vatican coins featuring the smiling face of Pope John Paul II are more likely to be snapped up by collectors than to be used for mundane transactions.
The presence in the Vatican at the time of Polish-born Pope John-Paul II was also a significant influence on the movement throughout the 1980s, as the Catholic church had remained a very potent force in Polish life.
"I think there are many bishops around the world who agree with John Paul II on his policies but have not really liked the way some of the Vatican bureaucrats have implemented them, " he says.
Downstairs in the Vatican grottoes are the papal tombs, among them the simple marble slab that Pope John Paul II now calls home.
He rose to prominence as a young theologian in the wake of World War II, calling for modernization in the church, and decades later cemented his influence as the Vatican's chief of doctrine, championing church tradition and reining in Catholics who challenged it.
The Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), was created during World War II to administer accounts held by religious orders, cardinals, bishops and priests.
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