“When Pope John XXIII announced it, to everyone’s surprise, there were many doubts as to whether it would be meaningful, indeed whether it would be possible at all, to organize the insights and questions into the whole of a conciliar statement and thus to give the Church a direction for its further journey,” Benedict observes.
“In reality, a new council proved to be not only meaningful, but necessary. For the first time, the question of a theology of religions had shown itself in its radicality,” he continues.
“The same is true for the relationship between faith and the world of mere reason. Both topics had not been foreseen in this way before. This explains why Vatican II at first threatened to unsettle and shake the Church more than to give her a new clarity for her mission,” Benedict writes.
“In the meantime, the need to reformulate the question of the nature and mission of the Church has gradually become apparent,” he adds. “In this way, the positive power of the Council is also slowly emerging.”
Ecclesiology — the theological study of the nature and structure of the Church — had evolved after World War I, Benedict writes. ”If ecclesiology had hitherto been treated essentially in institutional terms,” he says, ”the wider spiritual dimension of the concept of the Church was now joyfully perceived.”
At the same time, he writes, the concept of the Church as the mystical body of Christ was being critically reconsidered.