(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 01.07.2026).- On Wednesday morning, January 7, Pope Leo XIV presided over the General Audience in Paul VI Hall. The reason for the transfer of the Audience from St. Peter’s Square to Paul VI Hall was due — notwithstanding the great influx of pilgrims –, to the low temperature in Rome and the rain which has caused flooding in various parts of the city. The Holy Father announced a new series of catecheses on Vatican Council II and its Documents. He dedicated the first catechesis of this year to this subject, which can be regarded as an introductory explanation.
Below is the translation into English of the Pope’s catechesis.
* * *
Brothers and Sisters, good morning and welcome!
After the Jubilee Year, during which we reflected on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, we begin a new cycle of catecheses devoted to Vatican Council II and the rereading of its Documents. This is a valuable opportunity to rediscover the beauty and importance of this ecclesiastical event. St. John Paul II, at the end of the 2000 Jubilee, stated: «I feel more than ever obliged to point to the Council as the great grace from which the Church has benefited in the 20th century» (Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, 57).
Along with the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, in 2025 we wrecalled the 60th anniversary of Vatican Council II. Although time that separates us from this event is not a lot, it is also true that the generation of Bishops, theologians and believers of Vatican II today are gone. Therefore, while we feel the call not to extinguish the prophecy and continue to search for paths and ways to implement the intuitions, it will be important to get to know it again closely, and to do so not through «hearsay» or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its Documents and reflecting upon their content. In fact, it’s about the Magisterium which still constitutes today the polar star of the Church’s path. As Benedict XVI taught, «the Conciliar Documents have not lost their relevance over the years; on the contrary, their teachings reveal themselves particularly relevant given the new instances of the Church and of today’s globalized society” (First Message after the Mass with the Cardinal Electors, April 20, 2005).
When Pope St. John XXIII opened the Conciliar Assembly, on October 11, 1962, he spoke of it as the dawn of a day of light for the whole Church. The work of the numerous Fathers summoned, coming from the Churches of all the continents, in effect paving the way for a new ecclesial era. After a rich biblical, theological and liturgical reflection that had traversed the 20th century, Vatican Council II rediscovered the face of God as Father who, in Christ, calls us to be His children; looked upon the Church in the light of Christ, the light of men, as the mystery of communion and the sacrament of unity between God and His people; initiated an important liturgical reform by placing at the center the mystery of salvation and the active and conscious participation of the whole People of God. At the same time, it has helped us to open ourselves to the world and to welcome the changes and challenges of the modern era, in dialogue and co-responsibility, as a Church that wishes to open her arms to humanity, to echo the hopes and anxieties of the peoples, and to collaborate in the construction of a more just and fraternal society.
Thanks to Vatican Council II, «the Church becomes word; the Church becomes message; the Church becomes conversation» (St. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam, 34), committing herself to seek the truth through the path of ecumenism, of inter-religious dialogue and of dialogue with people of good will.
This spirit, this inner attitude, should characterize our spiritual life and the pastoral action of the Church, for we must still carry out more fully the ecclesiastical reform in a ministerial key and, in face of today’s challenges, we are called to continue being attentive interpreters of the signs of the times, joyful heralds of the Gospel, courageous witnesses of justice and peace. Monsignor Albino Luciani, future Pope John Paul I, as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, at the beginning of the Council wrote prophetically: «There is as always the need to create not so much organisms or methods or structures, but deeper and more extensive holiness. [cf. A. Luciani – Giovanni Paolo I, Notes on the Council, in Omnia Opera, Vol. II, Vittorio Veneto 1959-1962. Speeches, Writings, Articles, Padua 1988, 451-453]. Rediscovering the Council, therefore, as Pope Francis affirmed, helps us to «give back the primacy to God, to the essential, to a Church that is madly in love with her Lord and with all the people He loves” (Homily on the 60th Anniversary of the start of Vatican Council II, October 11, 2022).
Brothers and sisters, what St. Paul VI said to the Conciliar Fathers at the end of these works, remains also for us, today, a criterion of guidance; the affirmation that the time had come to go out, to leave the Conciliar Assembly to go to the encounter of humanity and bring it the Good News of the Gospel, in the consciousness of having lived a time of grace in which past, present and future were condensed. “The past, because the Church of Christ is gathered here, with her Tradition, her history, her Councils, with her Doctors, her Saints. The present, because we separate ourselves to go out to the world of today, with its miseries, its pains, its sins, but also with its prodigious successes, its values . . . The future is there, finally, in the imperative call of the people for greater justice, their will for peace, their thirst, consciously or unconsciously, for a higher life: which, precisely, the Church of Christ can and wants to give them» (St. Paul VI, Message to the Conciliar Fathers, December 8, 1965).
The same is true for us. Approaching the Documents of Vatican Council II and rediscovering the prophecy and the present, we welcome the rich Tradition of the life of the Church and, at the same time, we question ourselves about the present and renew the joy of running to encounter the world to bring it the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Love, of Justice and of Peace.
