It was the first council in the history of the Church in which electric light was used. It was also the first from which we have videos like these.
Vatican II began in 1962 and ended in 1965. Convened by Pope John XXIII and closed by Pope Paul VI, it was the last great event the Church experienced in terms of magisterial authority.
Almost 2,500 council fathers gathered at various times in the Vatican, and of all the councils that have ever been held, Vatican II was the one with the greatest diversity of languages and ethnicities. The universality of the Church had rarely ever been on such clear display.
The predecessor of the Second Vatican Council was, of course, the First Vatican Council, convened during the later half of the 19th Century. It was a reform opportunity that remained largely suspended due to the historical events that followed.
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in Italy forced the prelates to leave the Vatican. They never reconvened. As such, Vatican I was never formally closed.
The Second Vatican Council therefore sought to take up everything that had been left unfinished by its predecessor almost a century earlier.
When Vatican II concluded in 1965, it released four Apostolic Constitutions: Sacrosanctum Concilium, regarding the liturgy; Dei Verbum, understanding the Word of God; Lumen Gentium, outlining Catholic ecclesiology; and finally, Gaudium et Spes, which examined the role of the Church in the contemporary, fast-changing world.
AM/CA/JRB
