A fortnight hence in the Vatican, 2,600 bishops of the Roman Catholic Church will meet in a gathering so rare that only 20 others like it have been convened in the 20 centuries of Christian history. The purpose of the Second Vatican Council is what His Holiness Pope John XXIII, who has the Catholic prelate's traditional wariness of words that suggest drastic change, calls an aggiornamento—a modernization. This self-reform will affect the life, the worship and the discipline of every Catholic; just as importantly, it will affect the way the church looks to other Christians, and to the world at large. It is the hope of Pope John, and of many of his bishops, that the Protestant and Orthodox churches will be favorably impressed, and that Catholicism may be pointed toward the far-distant goal of nearly all Christians: their ultimate unity in one church. Almost everything in Catholic life could come up for reexamination. In matters of discipline, the council fathers could modify the church's laws on clerical celibacy, hierarchic pomp, fish on Friday, priestly dress, the use of Latin in the Mass, and the Index of Forbidden Books. The church at the council cannot repeal dogmas pronounced by past Popes or past councils. But the fathers may well formally note that the last word has not been said about the church's revealed truths, and they may attempt to give new dimension to such doctrines as papal infallibility, the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist, the nature of original sin. In the Vatican Council, the Catholic Church will also be measuring itself against what is new in the world: science's burst of knowledge, morality's blurred standards, secularism's indifference to religion, industrialism's urban crowding and automation, politics' wars and swift reapportionments of power. In trying to grapple with such problems, the council may disappointingly settle for a series of revised clubhouse rules, more cautious than venturesome. But millions of the church's faithful—and others, too —are praying that good men will be guided to a larger effort, a renewal of spirit rather than law. Veni Creator Spiritus. The council will open with a splendor to match its high goal. From his throne in the Hall of Benedictions of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, Pope John XXIII will intone the first notes of the 9th century hymn Veni Creator Spiritus . Then the cardinals, patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, abbots and superiors of religious orders, representing more than 90% of the church's hierarchic leaders—some auxiliary bishops and many Iron Curtain prelates will not attend—will begin their solemn procession across Bernini's piazza toward the great Basilica of St. Peter's. Inside the church, after Pope John and the council fathers have been seated, France's red-robed Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, 78, bearded dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in honor of the Holy Spirit. Rome last week bustled with preparations for this opening ceremony. In a hall on the Via della Conciliazione, the 41 priests and seminarians selected as stenographers for the council struggled to master a special Latin shorthand devised by Professor Aloys Kennerknecht of Mainz University. Inside the nave of St. Peter's,
