#sancrosanctum concilium

[tonreihe]

Sacrosanctum Concilium.

[apenitentialprayer]

The bishops taking part in Vatican II —some 2,860 of them attended some or all of it— came from every part of the world: Europe (39 percent), North America (14 percent), South America (18 percent), Central America (3 percent), Asia (12 percent), Africa (12 percent), and Oceania (2 percent). The council met in four two-month sessions, October to December, from 1962 to 1965. [...] Responses [to the ante-preparatory commision] ranged far and wide, but the 2,150 replies and 76.4 percent response rate suggest a high degree of interest on the part of the hierarchy. [...] Its tangible results were the sixteen documents adopted by overwhelming majorities of bishops (though often after long and occasionally heated debates and significant amendments) and approved by the pope. Totalling a little over 103,000 Latin words, these include four constitutions, nine decrees, and three declarations. The constitutions are most important. They deal, respectively, with the Church (Lumen Gentium — the Light of the World, meaning Christ, not the Church), the Church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes — Joy and Hope), the liturgy (Sancrosanctum Concilium — the Sacred Council), and divine revelation (Dei Verbum —the Word of God).

- Russell Shaw (Eight Popes and the Crisis of Modernity, pages 94-95, 93, 95). Bolded emphases added.