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The Second Vatican Council (official name: Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican), also known as Vatican II, addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. The council was opened by Pope John XXIII on October 11,1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. Over 500 Latin American bishops participated in the different sessions of the council, and the Vatican II reforms had a significant impact on the Catholic Church in Latin America through their implementation by the second general conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellín in 1968.

Second Vatican Council

On January 25, 1959, 3 months after his election, Pope John XXIII surprisingly announced a new ecumenical council for the Catholic Church. Apart from the intention of an aggiornamento(“updating”) of the Church, Pope John XXIII had been deliberately vague in the determination of the content of the upcoming council and had kept himself out of the planning. October 11,...

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Thorsen, J.E. (2018). Vatican II. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_240-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_240-1

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Vatican II
    Published:
    22 August 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_240-2

  2. Original

    Vatican II
    Published:
    21 June 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_240-1