catholic 101- Vatican II VERY simplified

Vatican II is the name of a council of the Catholic Church.

Please note that what follows is MY take on Vatican II, as a young French catholic girl who is obviously biaised to like it.


A council is when all bishops come together and discuss a topic to redefine the direction of the Church. An other word for council is synode from the greek Syn- Odos which means together-way (a "shared path" "common direction" or something similar).
Vatican II was started in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. It is a turning point in the XXth century for the Catholic church, and in my opinion (and of many others) we are not done discovering how much good can come out of this council.

The main change brought by Vatican II is a lot of secularisation (meaning bringing things up to date, living with the century).

In liturgy:
Before: Mass was in Latin, the priest was turned away from the parishionners to celebrate, the churches were full in Europe but few people knew about their faith and lots of practice was motivated by social pressure.
After: Mass is said in the local language, the altar has been moved and turned so the priest can face the parishionners (like Jesus didn't turn his back to his disciples at the Last Supper). Lay people get a lot more participation: readings, songs are more liberally used in liturgy, lay people are involved in several services to assist priests (like CCD, preparing with families for funerals, weddings...)
There is also the possibility of ordaining married men as deacons.

Along with Vatican II came changes in demography, who knows which provoked which.. but there has since been a decline in vocations in Europe (=less priests) and a lot of desertification in churches, but many of my older friends at church say that the people attending now actually understand and know something about their faith.

In theology Vatican II is an amazing opening of mind and spirit. Vatican II contains many founding texts such as Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum and Gaudium et Spes (along with many others).
I know especially of Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) which is a major text about Church in the world. It contains lots of social justice, human dignity and interreligious dialogue topics. Among other memorable lines I know this one : " The Holy Spirit offers to each man, in a way known from God only, a way to be united with the suffering, death and ressurection of Jesus Christ". Which means in other words that, despite holding the Truth, the Catholic Church recognizes that there are ways of salvations outside of her. Karol Wojtyla (soon to become John Paul II) participated actively in the writting of Gaudium et Spes.


Now one last thought about "Tradition".
As you may know the Catholic Chruch relies on "Scripture and Tradition" (as oposed to Sola Scriptura in the protestant world). Tradition means what the centuries taught us about the Bible, all the patristic, all the saints who read it before us and shaped our way of relating to the scriptures and to God. So Vatican II is part of the Tradition of the church, a huge part I'd say.
BUT some catholic people are nostalgic of a pre-council time when mass was in latin, with much more ceremonial around it. They are also denouncing abuses of Vatican II reforms (like mass celebrated almost without care or dignity ; and honestly I have seen some... ) And they call themselves "traditionalist". Our current pope pleased them with autorizing an exceptional rite for mass to be the one of before Vatican II.
But if you look closely the most extreme of them are NOT traditionalists, litterally, because they reject part of THE Tradition, to cling on their memories of childhood and a golden age that existed only in books.

Again I just give my understanding here, which is basically limited to France and USA.