History of Vatican II, vol. 1.

Writing from Bulgaria in 1936, the papal representative, Angelo Roncalli, remarked that the world was undergoing an "anthropological revolution." Twenty-five years later John XXIII, the septuagenarian pope, justified that observation by inaugurating Vatican Council II--a program to update the church in keeping with the signs of the times and to prepare the world for the restoration of Christian unity.

Based on the official acta of the council, innumerable studies, and the availability of diaries, notes, and recollections of prominent council prelates and advisers, Professor Guiseppe Alberigo of Bologna and a group of scholars including Joseph Komonchak of The Catholic University have inaugurated a five-volume history of the council of which this is the first.

On the background of the world's religious situation in 1959 the authors describe the vast preliminary work, the intrigues and skirmishing, that characterized the three-year preparation for the gathering of over 2,500 prelates, their advisers, and critics as well as the media. While Pope John had explicitly excluded the papal curia from participating in the debates, he confided the preparations to his secretary of state, Cardinal Domenico Tardini, whose organizing ability in analyzing the proposals of the world's episcopates and in turning Saint Peter's Basilica into a vast conciliar hall accommodating well over 3,000 participants was phenomenal.

Despite his age and somewhat garrulous appearance, the pope was a highly experienced man of the world with a peasant's faith, and deep spirituality. As a young priest he served as secretary to the social-minded bishop of Bergamo, traveled widely, meeting many of the church's hierarchy. As military chaplain, journalist, and professor he lived in the modern world. A historian, he served in the Vatican's diplomatic corps in Bulgaria and Greece, was the papal nuncio in Paris after World War II, and was created a cardinal and patriarch of Venice in 1953. On his way to Rome for the conclave, he was editing the proofs of his recent diocesan synod. Just when and how he determined to hold a council is still a mystery.

In organizing the council, Tardini followed the pattern of the curial congregations or offices, gradually employing their prelates and advisers--conservatives to a man--in proposing some seventy schemata for debate and excluding forward-looking cardinals and theologians. Thus the preparatory stages revealed a fundamental split in the church's thinking between the static, juridical theology of the curia and the mindset of prelates who accepted Pope John's challenge to consider the church as the people of God rather than the political entity suggested by the traditional phrase of a "perfect society."

With the exception of the octogenarian Jesuit cardinal, Agostino Bea, charged with a secretariat for Christian unity, and a handful of previously censored theologians, such as Yves Congar, Jean Danielou, and Henri de Lubac, the curial prelates controlled the organization. But with the providential death of Tardini in July 1961, residential cardinals such as Suenens of Belgium, Leger of Canada, Koenig of Vienna and their advisors gradually took control, reducing the schemata to a manageable seventeen, and suggesting that the council deal with the church ad intra and ad extra.

Meanwhile an abortive attempt was made by the curia-controlled Lateran seminary to get control of theological teaching in Rome and presumably round the world. This program was inaugurated with an attack on the Jesuit Gregorian University and on the Biblicum that greatly angered the pope. Unperturbed by the intransigence of many of his curial advisors whom he would label "prophets of doom who knew no history," the pope issued a series of documents including the encyclical Pacem in terris indicating the direction in which he wanted the council to proceed.

Upon the death of Tardini, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, prefect of the Congregation of the Holy Office, assumed full charge of the proceedings, eventually turning out to be l'enfant terrible of the council. A man of considerable wit and benevolence, he nevertheless considered himself all but omniscient in doctrinal matters.

Tardini had likewise endowed the council with the services of Archbishop Pericle Felici, a brilliant Latinist with a mordant wit who was to function as the council's secretary general, keeping order in the gathering while definitely favoring the conservative faction, a grouping of some 400 prelates whose opposition to the pope's desire for an aggiornamento gradually forced the reform-minded cardinals and prelates to undertake a serious participation in the proceedings. Pope John meanwhile played the role of Jacob silently observing the quarreling of his sons. Informed of his incurable cancer, the pope set the date for the opening of the council for September 11, 1962, and rejoiced to preside over its first session.

This is a formidable volume, well-written, slightly repetitious with innumerable footnotes detailing the published acta and their commentaries, as well as the diaries, notes, and recollections of numerous participants. While it neglects some of the humorous and bizarre incidents that marked the preconciliar activities, it is a worthy monument to the twentieth century's most startling religious event.