John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council

SERIES: Stories of Rome, Stories of Italy
SPEAKER: Alberto Melloni
DATE: Thursday 22 September, 6 p.m.
PLACE: Sala del Refettorio

Gaudet Mater Ecclesia: with a half quotation from the Easter Exultet John XXIII opens 'his' Council, on 11 October 1962. He spoke for about twenty minutes. It was key to Vatican II, even if only very few understood the epoch-making significance of that speech, of which in the evening he repeated a few points by speaking to the crowd under the moonlight, that "came out tonight", and sending a caress to the children. It fixes in it objectives and distinctions that still today - despite the long slowdown of the post-conciliar papacy and the long acceleration of the Bergoglian one - remain the open challenge for the Catholic church, the Christian churches, the world that looks at them with a disinterest full of unfulfilled expectations.

A Lyncean and Chief Scientific Advisor of the European Commission, he is Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia, holder of the UNESCO Chair on Religious Pluralism and Peace at the University of Bologna and secretary of the Foundation for Religious Sciences. He has written on the Council and the institutions of Roman Catholicism and curated critical editions of sources for the Corpus Christianorum, for the Meridiani, and for the national edition of Pope John's diaries.