Spirit of Vatican II

By the spirit of Vatican II is meant the teaching and intentions of the Second Vatican Council interpreted in a way that is not limited to a literal reading of its documents, or even interpreted in a way that contradicts the "letter" of the Council (cf. Saint Paul's phrase, "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"). This has led to a great diversity of understanding of the phrase.

According to peritus Yves Congar, in an address to the council on 3 December 1962, Cardinal Léger "wishes that the spirit of renewal be protected by a committee that will authoritatively protect the spirit of the council in the period between the two sessions".

In an address at Milan Cathedral on 7 June 1963, before the opening of the papal conclave of 1963, papabile Cardinal Montini says of Pope John XXIII who had died four days earlier, "If we still wanted to fix our gaze on the tomb, now sealed, we could speak about his legacy which that tomb cannot contain, about the spirit which he infused into our era and which death cannot suffocate".

On 25 July 1967, Pope Paul VI says in a sermon to the Catholics of Istanbul at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit:

The recent Vatican Council reminded us that this progress is based first of all on the renovation of the Church and on the conversion of the heart. This means that you will contribute to this progress toward unity in the measure in which you enter into the spirit of the council. An effort is demanded from each of us to revise our customary ways of thinking and acting to bring them more in conformity with the Gospel and the demands of a true Christian Brotherhood.

Traditionalist Catholics such as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre distinguish between "Catholic Rome" and the actually existing Rome, as he declares in 1974 that, while he and his followers are faithful to "Catholic Rome", they refuse to follow "the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it".

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