Even though the Second Vatican Council was unable to decentralize and reform the Church’s ecclesiastical government, the Council had a profound impact on the Church’s understanding of itself and its relation to the world. In this short essay I shall give three examples to show that Catholics who pay attention to the Council experience their Catholicism in a new way. I have no space, however, to present the biblical and theological foundations for the remarkable doctrinal evolution.   

1. At the Council the Church redefined its relationship to outsiders. Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians were no longer heretics or schismatics; they were now recognized and celebrated as fellow Christians, baptized believers in Jesus Christ, and members of his spiritual body. Jews were no longer deniers of Jesus, exiled into darkness; they were now respected as believers in the true God, heirs of the Mosaic covenant that remains eternally valid. And the followers of other religions were no longer pagans, idolaters, caught in sinful ignorance; they were now recognized as sharing with the Church many truths and values and belonging to traditions illuminated by a ray of the divine Light that was fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The Council even re-evaluated the situation of atheists before God: if atheists were searching the truth, followed their conscience and tried to do good to their neighbour, they did not belong to the damned, but walked in the Light of salvation.
The Church no longer sees itself as the island of truth located in an ocean of ignorance and error; the Church has become grateful that there is truth and goodness in other traditions, religious and secular.

2. The Council acknowledged God’s redemptive presence in the whole of humanity. Reflecting on the prologue of the Fourth Gospel and the writings of ancient Christian authors, the Council recognized that God’s Word, which is God, resounds in the whole of human history and addresses every person born into this world. While sin abounds in human relations outside and inside the Church, divine grace abounds even more. God’s grace is at work in the entire human family, summoning people to acknowledge and repent of their malice, and empowering them to love their neighbour, pursue justice and open themselves to the Spirit. The Council stated specifically that because Jesus Christ is the saviour of the entire humanity, we must hold that every human being is offered the possibility of participating in the Easter Event, the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What emerges in this conciliar teaching is a hopeful view of the world, despite the present crises, and — more importantly — a grander and more marvellous view of God. God is not only creator; God is also the mystery of redemption and reconciliation present in human history, dwelling in the hearts of believers and addressing all human beings without exception. The transcendent God appears here as immanent, as a gratuitous dimension of human history, as the gracious ground of people’s personal existence and the spiritual matrix of their efforts to constitute themselves as communities. The dominant religious image is here not God-in-heaven, but God-with-us, Emmanuel.

3. The Council demonstrated that the Church’s official teaching, the magisterium, can change in response to new cultural conditions. Catholics used to be told that the magisterium is a static reality, semper idem, forever teaching the same truth. Yet the Council replaced the old doctrine ‘No salvation outside the Church’ by the new teaching ‘God’s saving grace is offered to all.’ The most dramatic debate at the Council took place over religious liberty, a claim repeatedly condemned by the papacy in the 19th and early 20th century, that was now to be declared the Church’s official teaching.  As a result of this doctrinal evolution, vast number of Catholics and their theologians now look upon the magisterium in a new way, no longer as an absolute, an ever-unchanging message, but as the Church’s formulation of the Gospel in a particular historical context, formulation that changes as the context changes. Today many Catholics, theologians among them, think that the ecclesiastical teaching on women and human sexuality will eventually change, and for this reason, they are ready follow their own ethical convictions with a good conscience. After the Council, Catholics have come to recognize their right of dissent.