Talk:History of the Catholic Church (1962–present)

Title and scope of this article
I have some rservations about both the title and the scope of this article. First of all, as important as Vatican II was, I am not convinced that the title should mention it explicitly. The title suggests that all of the history of the church after Vatican II has been dominated by Vatican II.

As an alternative, the scope could be History of the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century. This would thus allow a series of articles such as

History of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages

History of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century

etc.

Even if we insist on keeping the scope as starting with Vatican II and continuing to the present, a better title might be History of the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II. However, I am still troubled by the focus on Vatican II. As a thought experiment, can you think of another entity for which its history can be demarcated by a single event? Imagine writing an article History of the United States since the Civil War, History of the United States since Watergate or History of the United States since 9/11. Vatican II happened over 40 years ago and many things have happened in the history of the Church that are either unrelated or only marginally related to Vatican II.

--Richard (talk) 22:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have a preference of your suggestion, or perhaps slightly better, Post Vatican II History of the Roman Catholic Church. That said, while I share your concern about the potential weighting issues raised by using VII as an endpoint, it seems a good solution would be to write the article about the entire history after it, including those topics unrelated to VII.  This allows for more detail and fuller exposition, while avoiding burdening the more general articles unduly.  While the lede does not reflect this focus, the article itself currently does, albeit it could use some further work.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed the lede to reflect all of post VII history. But some glaring omissions currently noted: Ecumenicism; Christiology (might be more theological than historical); Human Rights; Science.  All of these have seen profound changes, or at least elucidations, since the beginning of VII.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I created this article a few days ago. it has the following history: It was a part of the article Roman Catholic Church (Vatican Two and beyond). Together with all other history sections it became a part of History of the Roman Catholic Church. As I began to work on the history article, it turned out too big a chunk (almost a third of the article for 40 years). I liberated it and made it a sister article, maining it to the history. It needs more input in several areas. Regarding the name; I have no preference. Please help! Thank's --Ambrosius007 (talk) 18:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If there is no objection, I will rename this article to History of the Roman Catholic Church (post Vatican II) per my proposal above. --Richard (talk) 02:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

US centered
The article, I find, is too focused on American controversies and culture wars. In Canada, Spain, France, Portugal and elsewhere there have been comparatively very few abuse cases, and some conservatives have called it an Irish-American problem and a gay problem.

And too, it must be noted that the article is West-centered, it speaks nothing of the Church in Nigeria, Philippines, China, Syria, India, Lebanon and many other places like Malta and Monaco, which are virtually unaffected by much of the Western-style culture of death that has been frequently denounced by John Paul II. 69.157.229.153 (talk) 12:07, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no agreement on a new name. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 17 April 2011 (UTC) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Post Vatican II history of the Catholic Church → History of the Catholic Church (1962–present) — Using the year of the Second Vatican Council is more in line with Wikipedia naming conventions, e.g. History of Russia (1992–present). I figured I'd solicit opinions since it's been at the present location for several years but doesn't see much activity. --Gonfaloniere (talk) 03:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'd put it at Post Vatican II history of the Catholic Church or History of the Catholic Church post Vatican II, these being most recognizable to readers. But I think they're all unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources, and could argue it many ways. I note that there have been several moves already, so it would be good to have a discussion and hope for future stability. Andrewa (talk) 07:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Always include that Vatican II didn't change traditional teachings
Vatican II said this in it's Constitution Dei Verbum: "Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence."

Vatican II showed that traditions should be kept with loyalty. Not thrown away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThePepel-Eterni (talk • contribs) 19:51, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Overemphasis on communism
The article as it stands now, reads like a Cold War-era shill for American imperialism. It mentions the so-called "communist onslaught" against Catholics, but does not mention the effects of American imperialism in Europe, including an individualistic neoliberal capitalist economics and the promotion of homosexuality, abortion, pornography, feminism, gender dysphoria from Western (Anglo-American led) organisations. Not to mention recent immigration of non-Christians into Europe (especially relevant for France). These things, which have arguably been the biggest challenge for the Catholic Church in the time mentioned are only lightly glossed over in the Humanae Vitae section and whereas "communists" and "evil oppressive communist states" are bashed early on, it doesn't bother to mention the Anglo-Americans by name as the authors and primary sponsors of the (now victorious) liberal alternative. Claíomh Solais (talk) 17:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

This is not a good article
1. While it discusses a number of important developments in the Catholic Church after Vatican II, the article omits others that are just as important, such as the growth of the Catholic Church in Africa and Asia, its decline in Europe and the Americas, the splintering of the Church into various shades of “conservatives” and “progressives” and the constant bickering among them, ecumenical dialogue, the charismatic movement, the increasing role of the laity in intellectual life and in parish leadership. There's a section on the papacy of Benedict XVI but none for the other popes. The article is very uneven. It needs to be rewritten by a historian, not an amateur.

2. What's the point of the first sentence of the article? It's just a tautology: the post-Vatican II history of the Church is the history of the Church after Vatican II.

3. The “Background” section deals with the years before Vatican II. It's not clear what it adds to the article. And it is excessively focussed on communism.

4. Some passages are plain wrong or are so badly written that they are misleading. This is the case with most of the first paragraph of the section on Vatican II. (1) It is not true that the preparatory commissions produced “987 proposed constitutions and decrees (known as schemata)”. (2) The sentence beginning “It was expected that these groups would be succeeded by similarly constituted commissions during the Council itself...” is followed by “what happened, however, was that...” suggesting that the expected did not happen, when in fact it is exactly what happened. (3) The claim that “every single schema was thrown out in the first session of the Council” is wrong; the schemas were revised, not thrown out. The impression given is that the author does not know very much about Vatican II, and misunderstands the sources he/she is using.

5. Some passages are POV, such as the statement in the section on “Capital Punishment” which claims that John Paul II's condemnation of capital punishment was a “prudential judgment” and therefore non-binding on Catholics.

6. The section on Vatican II begins with “See also: Error has no rights”. That article deals with one of the many topics discussed at Vatican II. Why a reference to that topic and none of the others? It should be “See also: Second Vatican Council”.

7. The references in the footnotes are sometimes articles from the daily press, or radio and TV programs. These are not serious references for Church history.

8. The “References” section contains the titles of many worthy works, but a number of them have nothing to do with the Church after Vatican II. Medieval Civilization? The First Crusaders? Church and State in Early Modern England? Missions in the History of the American Southwest? Early Modern Spain? It looks like a student essay that was required to have a certain number of titles in the bibliography and, lacking the required number, the student stuck in a number of unrelated titles, hoping no one would notice.

The article cannot be allowed to stand in its present condition. I can correct some of the glaring errors and muddled sentences – and will do so – but writing a good summary of half a century of Church history with adequate references is a project I am not willing to take on. Is anyone else willing and able? If not, what to do with this article? I see only two possibilities. Either delete it. Or keep the good bits and preface them with the statement that this is an incomplete account of post-Vatican Church history. MDJH (talk) 14:20, 23 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree.
 * It is a necessary tautology, see another example at Federal government of the United States.
 * I trimmed the section.
 * I removed the paragraph, because there is no way to verify the source, since the source cannot be identified precisely.
 * You are right. I removed this part.
 * I added a Main template at the beginnig of the 'Vatican II' section.
 * I removed those and renamed the section.
 * Veverve (talk) 09:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Veverve (talk) 09:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)