Second Vatican Council

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The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly called the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II, was the twenty-first and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It met in four annual sessions in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City between 11 October 1962 and 8 December 1965, spanning the pontificates of Pope John XXIII, who convoked it, and Pope Paul VI, who presided over its final three sessions and promulgated all sixteen of its documents. John XXIII, elected in 1958 at the age of seventy-six and widely expected to preside over a brief, uneventful pontificate, announced the council less than three months into his papacy and described its purpose with the Italian word aggiornamento, "bringing up to date." Roughly 2,900 bishops and the heads of male religious orders were entitled to attend; nearly 2,500 did so at some point, along with theological advisers, non-Catholic observers, and, from the second session onward, a small number of lay auditors. Over four sessions...

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