title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, who was a role model and inspiration for Poe, published the story "Das Majorat" in 1819. There are many similarities between the two stories, including the physical breaking of a house, eerie sounds in the night, the story within a story and the house owner being called Roderich or Roderick. Because Poe was familiar with Hoffmann's works, he knew the story and drew from it using the elements for his own purposes.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: Another German author, Heinrich Clauren's, 1812 story "The Robber's Castle", as translated into English by John Hardman and published in "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1828 as "The Robber's Tower", may have served as an inspiration, according to Arno Schmidt and Thomas Hansen. As well as sharing common elements, such as a young woman with a fear of premature burial interred in a sepulcher directly beneath the protagonist's chamber, stringed instruments, and the living twin of the buried girl, Diane Hoeveler identifies textual evidence of Poe's use of the story, and concludes that the inclusion of "Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae" (Vigils for the Dead according to the Use of the Church of Mainz) is drawn from the use of a similarly obscure book in "The Robber's Tower".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole's "Castle of Otranto" (1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered the best example of Poe's "totality", wherein every element and detail is related and relevant.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the destruction of the human body continues to be a characteristic element in Poe's later work.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically emphasizing feelings of fear, impending doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart", this disease inflames Roderick's hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first "character" that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: Its windows are described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house "dies" along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick's poem "The Haunted Palace", which seems to be a direct reference to the house that foreshadows doom.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: L. Sprague de Camp in his "Lovecraft: A Biography" wrote that "[a]ccording to the late [Poe expert] Thomas O. Mabbott, H.P. Lovecraft, in 'Supernatural Horror', solved a problem in the interpretation of Poe" by arguing that "Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The plot of this tale has prompted many critics to analyze it as a description of the human psyche, comparing, for instance, the House to the unconscious, and its central crack to a split personality. An incestuous relationship between Roderick and Madeline never is explicitly stated, but seems implied by the attachment between the two siblings.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: Opium, which Poe mentions several times in both his prose and poems, is mentioned twice in the tale. The gloomy sensation occasioned by the dreary landscape around the Usher mansion is compared by the narrator to the sickness caused by the withdrawal symptoms of an opiate-addict. The narrator also describes Roderick Usher's appearance as that of an "irreclaimable eater of opium."


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: Usher's library is mentioned to have "formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid [Roderick Usher]". A list of titles is provided in the story, all of which are allusions to real-world works. Several notable examples include:


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: Along with "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat", and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered among Poe's more famous works of prose. As G.R. Thomson writes in his introduction to "Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe", "the tale has long been hailed as a masterpiece of Gothic horror; it is also a masterpiece of dramatic irony and structural symbolism".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" has been criticized for being too formulaic, particularly in how Poe followed patterns established in his own works like "Morella" and "Ligeia", using stock characters in stock scenes and stock situations. Repetitive themes like an unidentifiable disease, madness, and resurrection are also criticized. Washington Irving explained to Poe in a letter dated November 6, 1839: "You have been too anxious to present your pictures vividly to the eye, or too distrustful of your effect, and had laid on too much colouring. It is erring on the best side – the side of luxuriance".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: John McAleer maintained that Herman Melville's idea for "objectifying Ahab's flawed character" in "Moby-Dick" came from the "evocative force" of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". In both Ahab and the house of Usher, the appearance of fundamental soundness is visibly flawed – by Ahab's livid scar, and by the fissure in the masonry of Usher.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The 2022 novel "What Moves the Dead", by American writer T. Kingfisher, is a retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "La Chute de la maison Usher" is a 1928 silent French horror film directed by Jean Epstein starring Marguerite Gance, Jean Debucourt, and Charles Lamy.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: A second silent film version, also released in 1928, was directed by James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: A devout fan of the works of Poe, American director Curtis Harrington tackled the story in his first and last films. Casting himself in dual roles as Roderick and Madeline Usher in both versions, Harrington shot his original 10-minute silent short on 8mm in 1942, and he shot a new 36 minute version simply titled "Usher" on 35mm in 2000 which he intended to utilize in a longer Poe anthology film that never came to fruition. Both versions were included on the 2013 DVD/Blu-ray release "Curtis Harrington: The Short Film Collection".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: In the Roger Corman film from 1960, released in the United States as "House of Usher", Vincent Price starred as Roderick Usher, Myrna Fahey as Madeline and Mark Damon as Philip Winthrop, Madeline's fiancée. The film was Corman's first in a series of eight films inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: The 2006 film "The House of Usher" from Australian director Hayley Cloake, starring Austin Nichols as Roderick Usher, was an update of the tale set in the modern era with a love interest for Roderick in the form of the best friend of his deceased sister.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: In 1979 Italian state channel RAI loosely adapted the short story, together with other Poe's works, in the series "I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe". It was directed by Daniele D'Anza, with Roderick Usher played by Philippe Leroy; music was composed by pop band Pooh.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: A television adaptation was produced by ATV for the ITV network in 1966 for the horror anthology series "Mystery and Imagination". The episode was wiped sometime after broadcast, and no recordings are known to exist.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: From 1908 to 1917, French composer Claude Debussy worked on an opera titled "La chute de la maison Usher".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" is another operatic version, composed by Philip Glass in 1987 with a libretto by Arthur Yorinks, premiered at the American Repertory Theatre and the Kentucky Opera in 1988 and was revived at the Nashville Opera in 2009. The Long Beach Opera mounted a version of this work in February 2013 at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, Los Angeles.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" is an opera composed by Peter Hammill with a libretto by Chris Judge Smith released in 1991 on Some Bizzare Records; in 1999, Hammill revised his work and released it as "The Fall of the House of Usher (Deconstructed & Rebuilt)". This opera has never been performed live.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: In 2002 Lance Tait wrote a one-act play "The Fall of the House of Usher", based on Poe's tale. Laura Grace Pattillo wrote in "The Edgar Allan Poe Review" (2006), "[Tait's] play follows Poe's original story quite closely, using a female Chorus figure to help further the tale as the 'Friend' (as Tait names the narrator) alternates between monologue and conversation with Usher."


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: In 2008, a musical adaptation ("Usher") won the Best Musical award at the New York International Fringe Festival.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: "The Fall of the House of Usher" (2015), narrated by Christopher Lee, is an animated short film which is part of "Extraordinary Tales".


title: The Fall of the House of Usher

text: On October 6, 2021 it was announced that Intrepid Pictures will create an eight episode limited series titled "The Fall of the House of Usher" for Netflix that will be based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Mike Flanagan and Michael Fimognari will each direct four episodes and executive produce the series.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Damián Emiliano Martínez (born 2 September 1992) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Aston Villa and the Argentina national team.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez trained at Independiente's youth ranks before moving to Arsenal in 2010. At Arsenal, he served as understudy, being loaned to various English clubs, before breaking into the starting line-up in 2019, featuring for Arsenal in the Premier League and helping them win a FA Cup and FA Community Shield. In September 2020, Martínez moved to fellow Premier League club Aston Villa in a transfer worth £20 million. In his first season at the club, he kept a club record 15 clean sheets in the Premier League.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez had represented Argentina in junior international matches. He played on under-17 and under-20 levels. He earned his first senior cap for the Argentina team in 2021, helping his nation win the 2021 Copa América, winning the Golden Glove trophy and keeping a clean sheet in the final. Martínez went on to win the 2022 FIFA World Cup, when he also won the best goalkeeper of the FIFA World Cup award, the Golden Glove for his performance in the tournament.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Born in Mar del Plata, Martínez started his career playing for Independiente's youth side, he was invited to trial at Arsenal shortly after his 17th birthday and was offered a youth contract initially.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: After injuries to Ryan Clarke and Wayne Brown, and the termination of Connor Ripley's loan, Martínez went on emergency loan to Oxford United, making his debut in the Football League in their final game of the season against Port Vale in League Two on 5 May 2012; Port Vale won 3–0. Later that year, Martinez was named on the Arsenal substitute bench for their fixtures away at Stoke City on 26 August and against Liverpool on 2 September, as cover for the injured Wojciech Szczęsny and Łukasz Fabiański, respectively. On 26 September, he made his Arsenal debut in a 6–1 home win against Coventry City in the third-round of the League Cup. He made his second Arsenal appearance in the following round in a 7–5 win away at Reading. Martínez subsequently transferred to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday on an emergency 28-day loan on 15 October 2013. He made his debut for Wednesday on 23 November, against Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield Town. Martínez's loan was eventually extended until the end of the season.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: After returning to Arsenal, Martínez was an unused substitute as Arsenal won the Community Shield on 10 August 2014, with a 3–0 win over Manchester City at Wembley Stadium. He made his debut in the Champions League soon after, helping Arsenal defeat Anderlecht 2–1 in the group stage. He then made his Premier League debut as a 2nd half substitute, replacing the injured Szczęsny against Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium on 22 November. With injuries to backup goalkeeper David Ospina, Martínez played his second Champions League game on 26 November, keeping a clean sheet in a 2–0 victory over Borussia Dortmund. His "faultless" performance in the match led to him being named in the UEFA Team of the Week. He made his first Premier League start on 29 November against West Bromwich Albion, and also started against Southampton four days later; he kept two clean sheets as Arsenal won both matches 1–0.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: On 20 March 2015, Martínez joined Championship club Rotherham United on an emergency loan until the end of the season. He made his debut the following day against South Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday, conceding two added-time goals in a 3–2 home defeat. On 2 August, Martínez was an unused substitute as new signing Petr Čech played for Arsenal in the 2015 FA Community Shield, a 1–0 win over rivals Chelsea. On 11 August, he joined Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers on a season-long loan. After making 15 appearances in the opening months of the campaign, he suffered a thigh injury that kept him out of contention for several months and was unable to regain his starting place afterwards. He spent the 2016–17 season at his parent club, for whom he played 5 games during the campaign, including a Premier League appearance against West Ham United.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: On 2 August 2017, he joined La Liga side Getafe on a season-long loan, and on 23 January 2019, he was loaned to Championship side Reading until the end of the season. At Reading, Martínez made his debut on 29 January against Bolton Wanderers, and won the man of the match award against Aston Villa a few days later.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: With Bernd Leno being taken off injured during the first half of Arsenal's defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on 20 June 2020, Martínez came off the bench to make his first Premier League appearance since the 2016–17 season. This led to Martínez seeing out the season as first choice goalkeeper at the club and was highly commended for a string of stellar performances, with former Arsenal striker Ian Wright describing him as "commanding" and as having played "brilliantly" during his extended spell in the team. On 1 August, Martínez was selected to start in the FA Cup Final against Chelsea, he went on to make some crucial saves to help Arsenal win their 14th FA Cup; after lifting the trophy he was visibly emotional and reduced to tears.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez started in the Community Shield clash against Liverpool on 29 August, which Arsenal won on penalties. Following the match, there was much speculation that Martínez would leave the club with Bernd Leno returning and the player himself stated that he either wanted to stay at the club and be first-choice keeper or leave on a permanent basis. With reported interest from a number of Premier League and foreign clubs, including Aston Villa and Brighton & Hove Albion, Martínez was left out of the squad to face Fulham on the opening day of the league season.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: On 16 September 2020, Martínez transferred to fellow Premier League club Aston Villa in a deal worth up to £20 million. He signed a four-year contract. On 21 September, Martínez made his debut for Villa, saving a penalty from John Lundstram in a 1–0 home win against Sheffield United. In his first season at Aston Villa, Martínez equalled Brad Friedel's club record for clean sheets in a Premier League season, with 15. He was also named Aston Villa Supporters' Player of the Season.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: On 21 January 2022, Martínez signed a three-year contract extension which will see him contracted to Villa until the end of the 2026–27 season. On 27 July, ahead of the new season, Martínez was named one of the two Aston Villa vice-captains, alongside Diego Carlos.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez was called up to the Argentina senior squad to replace Oscar Ustari to face Nigeria in June 2011. He received his second senior call up against Germany and Ecuador on 9 and 13 October 2019; he was an unused substitute for both friendly matches.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez made his international debut on 3 June 2021, in a 1–1 draw with Chile in a 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification match. He subsequently made his competitive debut in a major tournament on 14 June, once again in a 1–1 draw against the same opponent in his side's opening match of the 2021 Copa América at the Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos in Brazil. In the 57th minute, he saved a penalty from Arturo Vidal, but he failed to prevent Eduardo Vargas from scoring on the rebound. On 6 July, Martínez saved three spot kicks in a 3–2 penalty shootout victory for Argentina over Colombia in the semi-final of the tournament. He went on to finish the tournament with a clean sheet in the 1–0 victory over Brazil in the final. Martínez was also awarded the 2021 Copa América's Golden Glove award as the best keeper of the tournament for his performances.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: On 1 June 2022, Martínez kept a clean sheet as Argentina won 3–0 against reigning European Champions Italy at Wembley Stadium in the 2022 Finalissima.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez was included in Argentina's squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and played in each of his team's games. He saved two penalties in a shoot-out against the Netherlands in the quarter final, helping his team make it to the last four.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: In the final, Martínez saved a shot from a 1 on 1 with Kolo Muani in the last minute of extra time to force the match to a penalty shootout. He later saved a penalty from Kingsley Coman in the penalty shootout helping them win the tournament via a 4–2 shootout victory after the game had ended in a 3–3 draw after extra time. He won the Golden Glove award for his performances in the tournament. Martínez caused controversy after being presented with the award, when he presented a lewd gesture with the hand shaped trophy, holding it in front of his groin whilst pulling a face. This gesture was done in front of both FIFA and Qatari officials, whilst commentators expressed their disapproval at his behaviour. Online, Martínez's gesture produced divided reactions, varying from calling for him to be stripped of the award, to saying that it was "the best moment of The World Cup."


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: He is nicknamed "Dibu" (abbreviation of "Dibujo", Spanish for "Drawing"), after an animated character in the Argentine telenovela "Mi familia es un dibujo". He was given the nickname while as a young player at Club Atlético Independiente, when the series was highly popular. Martínez signed a sponsorship deal with Puma in 2018.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: Martínez has been married to Amanda "Mandinha" (née Gama) since 2017. The couple have a son, Santi, and a daughter, Ava.


title: Emiliano Martínez

text: After winning Golden glove trophy at FIFA World Cup 2022 award ceremony, Emiliano, touched the trophy to his groin and pointed towards audience and after that emphatically waved in air. It generated a stir and some media outlets reported that he did a vulgar gesture. Reportedly, he did this type of gesture previously when he got "golden glove" after Argentina won the 2021 Copa América. Addressing this Martinez said he did this gesture in Qatar due to French fans who booed him.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 or Composition C-4 is a common variety of the plastic explosive family known as Composition C, which uses RDX as its explosive agent. C-4 is composed of explosives, plastic binder, plasticizer to make it malleable, and usually a marker or odorizing taggant chemical. C-4 has a texture similar to modelling clay and can be molded into any desired shape. C-4 is relatively insensitive and can be detonated only by the shock wave from a detonator or blasting cap.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: A similar British plastic explosive, also based on RDX but with a plasticizer different from that used in Composition C-4, is known as PE-4 (Plastic Explosive No. 4).


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 is a member of the Composition C family of chemical explosives. Variants have different proportions and plasticisers and include compositions C-2, C-3, and C-4. The original RDX-based material was developed by the British during World War II and redeveloped as Composition C when introduced to the U.S. military. It was replaced by Composition C-2 around 1943 and later redeveloped around 1944 as Composition C-3. The toxicity of C-3 was reduced, the concentration of RDX was increased, giving it improved safety during usage and storage. Research on a replacement for C-3 was begun prior to 1950, but the new material, C-4, did not begin pilot production until 1956. C-4 was submitted for patent as "Solid Propellant and a Process for its Preparation" March 31, 1958, by the Phillips Petroleum Company.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: The Composition C-4 used by the United States Armed Forces contains 91% RDX ("Research Department Explosive", an explosive nitroamine), bound by a mixture of 5.3% dioctyl sebacate (DOS) or dioctyl adipate (DOA) as the plasticizer (to increase the plasticity of the explosive), thickened with 2.1% polyisobutylene (PIB, a synthetic rubber) as the binder, and 1.6% of a mineral oil often called "process oil". Instead of "process oil", low-viscosity motor oil is used in the manufacture of C-4 for civilian use.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: The British PE4 consists of 88.0% RDX, 1.0% pentaerythrite dioleate and 11.0% DG-29 lithium grease (corresp. to 2.2% lithium stearate and 8.8% mineral oil BP) as the binder; a taggant (2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane, DMDNB) is added at a minimum of 0.10% weight of the plastic explosive, typically at 1.0% mass. The newer PE7 consists of 88.0% RDX, 1.0% DMDNB taggant and 11.0% of a binder composed of low molecular mass hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, along with an antioxidant and an agent preventing hardening of the binder upon prolonged storage. The PE8 consists of 86.5% RDX, 1.0% DMDNB taggant and 12.5% of a binder composed of di(2-ethylhexyl) sebacate thickened with high molecular mass polyisobutylene.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 is manufactured by combining the above ingredients with binders dissolved in a solvent. Once the ingredients have been mixed, the solvent is extracted through drying and filtering. The final material is a solid with a dirty white to light brown color, a putty-like texture similar to modeling clay, and a distinct smell of motor oil. Depending on its intended usage and on the manufacturer, there are differences in the composition of C-4. For example, a 1990 U.S. Army technical manual stipulated that Class IV composition C-4 consists of 89.9±1% RDX, 10±1% polyisobutylene, and 0.2±0.02% dye that is itself made up of 90% lead chromate and 10% lamp black. RDX classes A, B, E, and H are all suitable for use in C-4. Classes are measured by granulation.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: The manufacturing process for Composition C-4 specifies that wet RDX and plastic binder are added in a stainless steel mixing kettle. This is called the aqueous slurry-coating process. The kettle is tumbled to obtain a homogeneous mixture. This mixture is wet and must be dried after transfer to drying trays. Drying with forced air for 16 hours at 50 °C to 60 °C is recommended to eliminate excess moisture.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 produced for use by the U.S. military, commercial C-4 (also produced in the United States), and PE-4 from the United Kingdom each have their own unique properties and are not identical. The analytical techniques of time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been demonstrated to discriminate finite differences in different C-4 sources. Chemical, morphological structural differences, and variation in atomic concentrations are detectable and definable.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 is very stable and insensitive to most physical shocks. C-4 cannot be detonated by a gunshot or by dropping it onto a hard surface. It does not explode when set on fire or exposed to microwaves. Detonation can be initiated only by a shockwave, such as when a detonator inserted into it is fired.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: When detonated, C-4 rapidly decomposes to release nitrogen, water and carbon oxides as well as other gases. The detonation proceeds at an explosive velocity of .


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: A major advantage of C-4 is that it can easily be molded into any desired shape to change the direction of the resulting explosion. C4 has high cutting ability. For example, the complete severing of a deep I-beam takes between of C4 when properly applied in thin sheets.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Military grade C-4 is commonly packaged as the M112 demolition block. The demolition charge M112 is a rectangular block of Composition C-4 about and long, weighing . The M112 is wrapped in a sometimes olive color Mylar-film container with a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape on one surface.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: The M112 demolition blocks of C-4 are commonly manufactured into the M183 "demolition charge assembly", which consists of 16 M112 block demolition charges and four priming assemblies packaged inside military Carrying Case M85. The M183 is used to breach obstacles or demolish large structures where larger satchel charges are required. Each priming assembly includes a length of detonating cord assembled with detonating cord clips and capped at each end with a booster. When the charge is detonated, the explosive is converted into compressed gas. The gas exerts pressure in the form of a shock wave, which demolishes the target by cutting, breaching, or cratering.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Composition C-4 exists in the U.S. Army Hazardous Components Safety Data Sheet on sheet number 00077. Impact tests done by the U.S. military indicate composition C-4 is less sensitive than composition C-3 and is fairly insensitive. The insensitivity is attributed to using a large amount of binder in its composition. A series of shots were fired at vials containing C-4 in a test referred to as "the rifle bullet test". Only 20% of the vials burned, and none exploded. While C-4 passed the Army's bullet impact and fragment impact tests at ambient temperature, it failed the shock stimulus, sympathetic detonation and shaped charge jet tests. Additional tests were done including the "pendulum friction test", which measured a five-second explosion temperature of 263 °C to 290 °C. The minimum initiating charge required is 0.2 grams of lead azide or 0.1 grams of tetryl. The results of 100 °C heat test are: 0.13% loss in the first 48 hours, no loss in the second 48 hours, and no explosions in 100 hours. The vacuum stability test at 100 °C yields 0.2 cubic centimeters of gas in 40 hours. Composition C-4 is essentially nonhygroscopic.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: The shock sensitivity of C-4 is related to the size of the nitramine particles. The finer they are the better they help to absorb and suppress shock. Using 3-nitrotriazol-5-one (NTO), or 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) (available in two particle sizes (5 µm, 40 µm)), as a substitute for RDX, is also able to improve stability to thermal, shock, and impact/friction stimulus; however, TATB is not cost-effective, and NTO is more difficult to use in the manufacturing process.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: C-4 has toxic effects on humans when ingested. Within a few hours multiple generalized seizures, vomiting, and changes in mental activity occur. A strong link to central nervous dysfunction is observed. If ingested, patients may be administered a dose of active charcoal to adsorb some of the toxins, and haloperidol intramuscularly and diazepam intravenously to help the patient control seizures until it has passed. However, ingesting small amounts of C-4 is not known to cause any long-term impairment.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: If C-4 is marked with a taggant, such as DMNB, it can be detected with an explosive vapor detector before it has been detonated. A variety of methods for explosive residue analysis may be used to identify C-4. These include optical microscope examination and scanning electron microscopy for unreacted explosive, chemical spot tests, thin-layer chromatography, X-ray crystallography, and infrared spectroscopy for products of the explosive chemical reaction. Small particles of C-4 may be easily identified by mixing with thymol crystals and a few drops of sulfuric acid. The mixture will become rose colored upon addition of a small quantity of ethyl alcohol.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: RDX has a high birefringence, and the other components commonly found in C-4 are generally isotropic; this makes it possible for forensic science teams to detect trace residue on fingertips of individuals who may have recently been in contact with the compound. However, positive results are highly variable and the mass of RDX can range between 1.7 and 130 ng, each analysis must be individually handled using magnifying equipment. The cross polarized light images obtained from microscopic analysis of the fingerprint are analyzed with gray-scale thresholding to improve contrast for the particles. The contrast is then inverted in order to show dark RDX particles against a light background. Relative numbers and positions of RDX particles have been measured from a series of 50 fingerprints left after a single contact impression.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Military and commercial C-4 are blended with different oils. It is possible to distinguish these sources by analyzing this oil by high-temperature gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The oil and plasticizer must be separated from the C-4 sample, typically by using a non-polar organic solvent such as pentane followed by solid phase extraction of the plasticizer on silica. This method of analysis is limited by manufacturing variation and methods of distribution.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War era would sometimes use small amounts of C-4 as a fuel for heating rations, as it will burn unless detonated with a primary explosive. However, burning C-4 produces poisonous fumes, and soldiers are warned of the dangers of personal injury when using the plastic explosive.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Among field troops in Vietnam it became common knowledge that ingestion of a small amount of C-4 would produce a "high" similar to that of ethanol. Others would ingest C-4, commonly obtained from a Claymore mine, to induce temporary illness in the hope of being sent on sick leave.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Terrorist groups have used C-4 worldwide in acts of terrorism and insurgency, as well as domestic terrorism and state terrorism.


title: C-4 (explosive)

text: Composition C-4 is recommended in al-Qaeda’s traditional curriculum of explosives training. In October 2000, the group used C-4 to attack the USS "Cole", killing 17 sailors. In 1996, Saudi Hezbollah terrorists used C-4 to blow up the Khobar Towers, a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia. Composition C-4 has also been used in improvised explosive devices by Iraqi insurgents.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mil Mi-26 (, NATO reporting name: Halo) is a Soviet/Russian heavy transport helicopter. Its product code is "Izdeliye 90". Operated by both military and civilian operators, it is the largest and most powerful helicopter to have gone into serial production.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: Following the incomplete development of the heavier Mil Mi-12 (prototypes known as Mil V-12) in the early 1970s, work began on a new heavy-lift helicopter, designated as the "Izdeliye 90" ("Project 90") and later allocated designation "Mi-26". The new design was required to have an empty weight less than half its maximum takeoff weight. The helicopter was designed by Marat Tishchenko, protégé of Mikhail Mil, founder of the OKB-329 design bureau.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mi-26 was designed to replace earlier Mi-6 and Mi-12 heavy lift helicopters and act as a heavy-lift helicopter for military and civil use, having twice the cabin space and payload of the Mi-6, then the world's largest and fastest production helicopter. The primary purpose of the Mi-26 was to transport military equipment such as amphibious armored personnel carriers and mobile ballistic missiles to remote locations after delivery by military transport aircraft such as the Antonov An-22 or Ilyushin Il-76.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The first Mi-26 flew on 14 December 1977 and the first production aircraft was rolled out on 4 October 1980. Development was completed in 1983 and by 1985, the Mi-26 was in Soviet military and commercial service.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mi-26 was the first factory-equipped helicopter with a single, eight-blade main lift rotor. It is capable of flight in the event of power loss by one engine (depending on aircraft mission weight) because of an engine load sharing system. While its empty weight is only slightly higher than the Mi-6's, the Mi-26 has a payload of up to . It is the second largest and heaviest helicopter ever constructed, after the experimental Mil V-12. The tail rotor has about the same diameter and thrust as the four-bladed main rotor fitted to the MD Helicopters MD 500.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mi-26's unique main gearbox is relatively light at but can absorb , which was accomplished using a non-planetary, split-torque design with quill shafts for torque equalization. The Mil Design Bureau designed the VR-26 transmission itself, due to Mil's normal gearbox supplier not being able to design such a gearbox. The gearbox housing is stamped aluminum. A split-torque design is also used in the gearbox assembly on the American three-engine Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: , the Mi-26 still holds the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world record for the greatest mass lifted by a helicopter to – on a flight in 1982.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: In July 2010 a proposed Russian-Chinese development of a 33-ton heavy-lift helicopter was announced. In early 2019, Russia's state corporation Rostec inked a landmark agreement on developing a 40-ton next-generation heavy helicopter.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: Rostvertol, the Russian helicopter manufacturer, was contracted to refurbish and upgrade the entire fleet of Mi-26s serving in the Russian Air Force, estimated to be around 20 helicopters. The upgraded aircraft is comparable to a new variant, the Mi-26T. Contract completion was planned for 2015. The contract also covered the production of 22 new Mi-26T helicopters. Eight new-built helicopters were delivered to operational units by January 2012. Under the 2010 contract, 17 new-production helicopters were delivered by 2014. In all, Rostvertol delivered fourteen Mi-26s to domestic and foreign customers in the period 201214 and six helicopters in 2015. Deliveries to the Russian Air Force were continued in 2016, 2017 and 2019.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: In 2016, Russia started development of PD-12V a variant of the Aviadvigatel PD-14 turbofan engine to power the Mi-26.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The developers of the Buran space vehicle programme considered using Mi-26 helicopters to "bundle" lift components for the Buran spacecraft, but test flights with a mock-up showed this to be risky and impractical.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mi-26S was a disaster response version hastily developed during the containment efforts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. Thirty Mi-26 were used for radiation measurements and precision drops of insulating material to cover the damaged No.4 reactor. It was also equipped with a deactivating liquid tank and underbelly spraying apparatus. The Mi-26S was operated in immediate proximity to the nuclear reactor, with a filter system and protective screens mounted in the cabin to protect the crew during delivery of construction materials to the most highly contaminated areas.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: In October 1999, an Mi-26 was used to transport a 25-ton block of frozen soil encasing a preserved, 23,000-year-old woolly mammoth (Jarkov Mammoth) from the Siberian tundra to a lab in Khatanga, Taymyr. Due to the weight of the load, the Mi-26 had to be returned to the factory afterward to check for airframe and rotor warping caused by the potential of structural over-stressing.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: In early 2002, a civilian Mi-26 was leased to recover two U.S. Army MH-47E Chinook helicopters from a mountain in Afghanistan. The Chinooks, operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, had been employed in Operation Anaconda, an effort to drive al Qaeda and Taliban fighters out of the Shahi-Kot Valley and surrounding mountains. They found themselves stranded on the slopes above Sirkhankel at altitudes of and .


title: Mil Mi-26

text: While the second craft was too badly damaged to recover, the first was determined to be repairable and estimated to weigh with fuel, rotors, and non-essential equipment removed. That weight exceeded the maximum payload of at an altitude of of the U.S. military's Sikorsky CH-53E.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: The Mi-26 was located through Skylink Aviation in Toronto, which had connections with a Russian company called Sportsflite that operated three civilian Mi-26 versions called "Heavycopters". One of the aircraft, aiding in construction and firefighting work in neighboring Tajikistan, was leased for $300,000; it lifted the Chinook, flew it to Kabul, then later to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan to ship to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, U.S. for repairs. Six months later, a second U.S. Army CH-47 that had made a hard landing north of Bagram at an altitude of was recovered by another Sportsflite-operated Mi-26 Heavycopter.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: On 19 August 2002, Chechen separatists hit an overloaded Mi-26 with a surface-to-air missile, causing it to crash-land in a minefield, killing 127 of the people on boardthe greatest loss of life in the history of helicopter aviation.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: As a result of the magnitude 8.0 earthquake in Sichuan province of China on 12 May 2008, many rivers became blocked by landslides, resulting in the formation of so-called quake lakes: large amounts of water pooling up behind the landslide-formed dams. These dams eventually broke under the weight of the water, endangering those downstream. At least one Mi-26 belonging to a branch of China's civil aviation service was used to bring heavy earth moving tractors to the quake-lakes at Tangjiashan mountain, located in difficult terrain and accessible only by foot or air.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: In July 2009, a Moldovan Mi-26 was shot down in Helmand province with the loss of six Ukrainian crew members. The aircraft, belonging to Pecotox Air, was said to be on a humanitarian mission under NATO contract.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: On 14 December 2010, an Indian Air Force Mi-26 crashed seconds after taking off from Jammu Airport, injuring all nine passengers. The aircraft fell from an altitude of about . The Indian Institute of Flight Safety released an investigation report that stated improper fastening of the truck inside caused an imbalance of the helicopter and led to the crash. The Mi-26 had been carrying machines from Konkan Railway to Jammu–Baramulla line project.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: On 11 December 2012, a Westland Sea King from No. 330 Squadron RNoAF experienced undisclosed technical issues and made an emergency landing on Mount Divgagáisá. The landing caused parts of the landing gear to break. The Sea King was prepared by removing rotor blades and fuel before it was airlifted to Banak Air Station by a Russian Mil Mi-26 on 23December 2012.


title: Mil Mi-26

text: During the 2022 Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive, Russian Mi-26s helicopters were involved in transfer of reinforcements on the frontline, namely in the vicinity of towns Izium and Kupiansk.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and 12 weeks, in the autumn of each of the four years 1962 to 1965. Preparation for the council took three years, from the summer of 1959 to the autumn of 1962. The council was opened on 11 October 1962 by John XXIII (pope during the preparation and the first session), and was closed on 8 December 1965 by Paul VI (pope during the last three sessions, after the death of John XXIII on 3 June 1963).


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Pope John XXIII called the council because he felt the Church needed “updating” (in Italian: "aggiornamento"). In order to connect with 20th-century people in an increasingly secularized world, some of the Church's practices needed to be improved, and its teaching needed to be presented in a way that would appear relevant and understandable to them. Many Council participants were sympathetic to this, while others saw little need for change and resisted efforts in that direction. But support for "aggiornamento" won out over resistance to change, and as a result the sixteen magisterial documents produced by the council proposed significant developments in doctrine and practice: an extensive reform of the liturgy, a renewed theology of the Church, of revelation and of the laity, a new approach to relations between the Church and the world, to ecumenism, to non-Christian religions and to religious freedom.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Since the end of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had felt itself under siege by hostile forces and ideas spawned by the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the secular State born of the French Revolution. The reaction to these forces was the centralization of authority in Rome (Ultramontanism) and a fortress mentality which expressed itself in a consistently negative attitude toward the modern world, and regular condemnations of the ideas or individuals that embodied its errors. The 1869-1870 First Vatican Council, with its definition of papal primacy and papal infallibility, represented the high-water mark of Ultramontanism while the Syllabus of Errors, a list of 80 errors of the modern world appended to Pius IX's 1864 encyclical "Quanta cura", was representative of this attitude of condemnation and rejection of the modern world, nicely summed up in the last statement on the list, which condemned the view that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with, progress, liberalism and modern civilization" (#80).


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In such a climate, the only acceptable theology was one based on the twin pillars of Neo-scholasticism and the encyclicals of the recent popes. When this proved insufficient to stop new ideas such as the use of the historical-critical method in Bible studies or new historical studies that cast doubt on the standard narrative of Church history, Pope Pius X issued his 1907 encyclical "Pascendi dominici gregis", which identified and condemned a new heresy called modernism, which was claimed to be the embodiment of all these new ideas. The battle against modernism marked the first half of the 20th century in the Catholic Church.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: 19th-century scholarly research into the liturgy of the first centuries showed how far the current liturgy had departed from the earlier practice, where the congregation was actively involved, responding and singing in its own language. But now the mass was in Latin, a language most people did not understand, and the congregation observed in silence the ritual performed by the priest at the altar. This realization inspired a modest movement to get the congregation involved in the mass, to get them to respond and to sing those parts of the mass that belonged to them. Some even proposed that Latin be replaced by the language of the people. The liturgical movement was greeted with considerable caution by Church authorities. In the early 1950s, there was a significant reform of the ceremonies of Holy Week, but by the early 1960s, little else had changed.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The term “ecumenism” came into use in the 20th century to refer to efforts – initially among Protestants – towards the reunification of Christians. Initially, the Catholic Church was hostile to the ecumenical movement. The traditional position of the Church was that Catholics had nothing to learn from Protestants and the only way Christian unity would happen was when non-Catholics returned to the Catholic Church. Collaboration with non-Catholics was forbidden. By the early 1950s, there was a modest ecumenical movement within the Catholic Church, but it had little support from the authorities.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Divino afflante spiritu gave a renewed impetus to Catholic Bible studies and encouraged the production of new Bible translations from the original languages. This led to a pastoral attempt to get ordinary Catholics to re-discover the Bible, to read it, to make it a source of their spiritual life. This found a response in very limited circles. By 1960, the movement was still in its infancy.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: By the 1930s, mainstream theology based on neo-scholasticism and papal encyclicals was being rejected by some theologians as dry and uninspiring. Thus, was born the movement called "ressourcement", the return to the sources: basing theology directly on the Bible and the Church Fathers. Some theologians also began to discuss new topics, such as the historical dimension of theology, the theology of work, ecumenism, the theology of the laity, the theology of “earthly realities”. All these writings in a new style came to be called “"la nouvelle théologie"”, and they soon attracted Rome's attention.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The reaction came in 1950. That year Pius XII published "Humani generis", an encyclical “concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine”. Without citing specific individuals, he criticized those who advocated new schools of theology. Everyone understood the encyclical was directly against the "nouvelle théologie" as well as developments in ecumenism and Bible studies. Some of these works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, and some of the authors were forbidden to teach or to publish. Those who suffered most were the Henri de Lubac and the Yves Congar , who were unable to teach or publish until the death of Pius XII in 1958. By the early 1960s, other theologians under suspicion included Karl Rahner and the young Hans Küng.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In addition, there was the unfinished business of the First Vatican Council (1869–70). When it had been cut short by the Italian Army's entry into Rome at the end of Italian unification, the only topics that had been completed were the theology of the papacy and the relationship of faith and reason, while the theology of the episcopate and of the laity were left unaddressed.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: At the same time, the world's bishops were facing challenges driven by political, social, economic, and technological change. Some of these bishops were seeking new ways of addressing those challenges. So, when Pope John announced that he would convene a General Council of the Church, many wondered if he wanted to break down the “fortress Church” mentality and make room for these tentative movements for renewal that had been developing over the past few decades.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: John XXIII gave notice of his intention to convene an ecumenical council on 25 January 1959, less than three months after his election in October 1958. His announcement in the chapter hall of the Benedictine monastery attached to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome came as a surprise to the cardinals present.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: He had tested the idea only ten days before with one of them, his Cardinal Secretary of State Domenico Tardini, who gave enthusiastic support to the idea. Although the pope later said the idea came to him in a flash in his conversation with Tardini, two cardinals had earlier attempted to interest him in the idea. They were two of the most conservative, Ernesto Ruffini and Alfredo Ottaviani, who had already in 1948 proposed the idea to Pius XII and who put it before John XXIII on 27 October 1958.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Over the course of the next 3 years, the Pope would make many statements describing the results he expected from the council. They formed something like 3 concentric circles:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: 1. For the Catholic Church, he expected a renewal which he described variously as a “new Pentecost”, a “new Springtime”, a new “blossoming”, “a rejuvenation with greater vigour of the Body of Christ that is the Church”. This would be achieved by the “updating” ("aggiornamento") or “adapting” of Church practices to new circumstances and a restatement of her beliefs in a way that would connect with modern man.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: 3. For the whole human family, he expected the council to contribute toward resolving major social and economic problems, such as war, hunger, underdevelopment.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Two less solemn statements are attributed to John XXIII about the purpose of the council. One is about opening the windows of the Church to let in some fresh air; the other about shaking off the imperial dust accumulated on the throne of St. Peter. They have been repeated over and over, usually without any indication of source.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The source for the second statement is Cardinal Léger of Montréal, as reported by Congar. As for the first statement, it has been repeated so many times that it may be impossible to find out if and when the Pope said it.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Once the officials of the Curia had recovered from their shock at the Pope's announcement of a Council, they realized that it could be the culmination of the Church's program of resistance to Protestantism, the Enlightenment and all the other errors of the modern world. It was the providential opportunity to give the stamp of conciliar infallibility to the teachings of the most recent popes and to the Curia's vision of the role of the Church in the modern world, provided the Pope could be convinced to forget about "aggiornamento".


title: Second Vatican Council

text: On the other side were those theologians and bishops who had been working towards a new way of doing things, some of whom had been silenced and humiliated by the Curia in the 1940s and 1950s. For them, the Council came as a “divine surprise”, the opportunity to convince the bishops of the world to turn away from a fortress-like defensive attitude to the modern world and set off in a new direction towards a renewed theology of the Church and of the laity, ecumenism and the reform of the liturgy.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: So, soon after the Pope's announcement, the stage was set for a confrontation between two programs: continuing the resistance to the modern world or taking seriously the Pope's call for renewal.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The first year was known officially as the “antepreparatory period”. On 17 May 1959, Pope John appointed an Antepreparatory Commission to conduct a vast consultation of the Catholic world concerning topics to be examined at the council. Three groups of people were consulted: the bishops of the world, the Catholic universities and faculties of theology, and the departments of the Curia. By the following summer, 2,049 individuals and institutions had replied with 9,438 individual "vota" (“wishes”). Some were typical of past ways of doing things, asking for new dogmatic definitions or condemnations of errors. Others were in the spirit of "aggiornamento", asking for reforms and new ways of doing things.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The next two years (known officially as the “preparatory period”) were occupied with preparing the drafts, called "schemas", that would be submitted to the bishops for discussion at the council. On 5 June 1960, ten Preparatory Commissions were created, to which a total of 871 bishops and experts were appointed. Each preparatory commission had the same area of responsibility as one of the main departments of the Curia and was chaired by the cardinal who headed that department. From the 9,438 proposals, a list of topics was created, and these topics were parcelled out to these commissions according to their area of competence.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Some commissions prepared a separate schema for each topic they were asked to treat, others a single schema encompassing all the topics they were handed. These were the preparatory commissions and the number of schemas they prepared:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Two secretariats – one the offshoot of an existing Vatican office, the other a new body – also had a part in drafting schemas:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The total number of schemas was 70. As most of these preparatory bodies were predominantly conservative, the schemas they produced showed only modest signs of updating. The schemas drafted by the preparatory commission for theology, dominated by officials of the Holy Office (the curial department for theological orthodoxy) showed no signs of "aggiornamento" at all. The two notable exceptions were the preparatory commission for liturgy and the Secretariat for Christian unity, whose schemas were very much in the spirit of renewal.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In addition to these specialist commissions and secretariats, there was a Central Preparatory Commission, to which all the schemas had to be submitted for final approval. It was a large body of 108 members from 57 countries, including two thirds of the cardinals. As a result of its work, 22 schemas were eliminated from the conciliar agenda, mainly because they could be dealt with during a planned revision of the Code of Canon Law after the council, and a number of schemas were consolidated and merged, with the result that the total number of schemas was whittled down from 70 to 22.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Council Fathers (§1). All the bishops of the world, as well as the heads of the main religious orders of men, were entitled to be "Council Fathers", that is, full participants with the right to speak and vote. Their number was about 2,900, though some 500 of them would be unable to attend, either for reasons of health or old age, or because the Communist authorities of their country would not let them travel. The Council Fathers in attendance represented 79 countries: 38% were from Europe, 31% from the Americas, 20% from Asia & Oceania, and 10% from Africa. (At Vatican I a century earlier there were 737 Council Fathers, mostly from Europe,) At Vatican II, some 250 bishops were native-born Asians and Africans, whereas at Vatican I, there were none at all.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: General Congregations (§3, 20, 33, 38–39, 52–63). The Council Fathers met in daily sittings — known as General Congregations — to discuss the schemas. and vote on them. These sittings took place in St. Peter's Basilica every morning until 12:30 Monday to Saturday (except Thursday). The average daily attendance was about 2,200. Stands with tiers of seats for all the Council Fathers had been built on both sides of the central nave of St. Peter's. During the first session, a council of presidents, of 10 cardinals, was responsible for presiding over the general assemblies, its members taking turns chairing each day's sitting (§4). During the later sessions, this task belonged to a council of 4 Moderators.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Speeches were limited to 10 minutes and had to be in Latin (§28). They were to be written out beforehand, then delivered verbatim and handed in for the record. Thus, proceedings did not consist in spontaneous debate, but in the reading of Latin speeches.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: All votes required a two-thirds majority. For each schema, after a preliminary discussion there was a vote whether it was considered acceptable in principle, or rejected. If acceptable, debate continued with votes on individual chapters and paragraphs. Bishops could submit amendments, which were then written into the schema if they were requested by many bishops. Votes continued in this way until wide agreement was reached, after which there was a final vote on a document. This was followed some days later by a public session where the Pope promulgated the document as the official teaching of the council, following another, ceremonial, vote of the Council Fathers. There was an unwritten rule that, in order to be considered official Church teaching, a document had to receive an overwhelming majority of votes, somewhere in the area of 90%. This led to many compromises, as well as formulations that were broad enough to be acceptable by people on either side of an issue.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: All General Congregations were closed to the public. Council Fathers were under an obligation not to reveal anything that went on in the daily sittings (§26). Secrecy soon broke down, and much information about the daily General Congregations was leaked to the press.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Pope did not attend General Congregations, but followed the deliberations on closed-circuit television.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Public Sessions (§2, 44–51). These were similar to General Congregations, except that they were open to the press and television, and the Pope was present. There were 10 public sessions in the course of the council: the opening day of each of the council's four periods, 5 days when the Pope promulgated Council documents, and the final day of the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Commissions (§5-6, 64–70). Much of the detailed work of the council was done in these commissions. Like the preparatory commissions during the preparatory period, they were 10 in number, each covering the same area of Church life as a particular curial department and chaired by the cardinal who headed that department.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Each commission included 25 Council Fathers (16 elected by the council and 9 appointed by the Pope) as well as consultors (official "periti" appointed by the pope). In addition, the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, appointed during the preparatory period, continued to exist under its president Cardinal Augustin Bea throughout the 4 years of the council, with the same powers as a commission. The commissions were tasked with revising the schemas as Council Fathers submitted amendments. They met in the afternoons or evenings. Procedure was more informal than in the general assemblies: there was spontaneous debate, sometimes heated, and Latin was not the only language used. Like the General Congregations, they were closed to the public and subject to the same rules of secrecy.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Official "Periti" (§9-10). These experts in theology, canon law and other areas were appointed by the Pope to advise the Council Fathers, and were assigned as consultors to the commissions, where they played an important part in re-writing the Council documents. At the beginning of the Council, there were 224 official "periti," but their number would eventually rise to 480. They could attend the debates in the General Congregations, but could not speak. The theologians who had been silenced during the 1940s and 1950s, such as Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac, and some theologians who were under suspicion in Roman circles at the beginning of the 1960s, such as Karl Rahner and Hans Küng, were appointed "periti" because of their expertise. Their appointment served to vindicate their ideas and gave them a platform from which they could work to further their views.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Private "Periti" (§11). Each bishop was allowed to bring along a personal theological adviser of his choice. Known as “private "periti"”, they were not official Council participants and could not attend General Congregations or commission meetings. But like the official "periti", they gave informal talks to groups of bishops, bringing them up to date on developments in their particular area of expertise. Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Küng first went to the council as some bishop's personal theologian, and were later appointed official "periti". Some notable theologians, such as Edward Schillebeeckx, remained private "periti" for the whole duration of the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Observers (§18) . An important innovation was the invitation by Pope John to Orthodox and Protestant Churches to send observers to the council. Eventually 21 denominations or bodies such as the World Council of Churches were represented. The observers were entitled to sit in on all general assemblies (but not the commissions) and they mingled with the Council Fathers during the breaks and let them know their reactions to speeches or to schemas. Their presence helped to break down centuries of mistrust.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Lay auditors. While not provided for in the Official Regulations, a small number of lay people were invited to attend as “auditors” beginning with the Second Session. While not allowed to take part in debate, a few of them were asked to address the council about their concerns as lay people. The first auditors were all male, but beginning with the third session, a number of women were also appointed.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In the very first weeks of the Council proceedings, it became clear to the participants that there were two “tendencies” among the Council Fathers, those who were supporters of aggiornamento and renewal, and those who were not. The two tendencies had already appeared in the deliberations of the Central Preparatory Commission before the opening of the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: John XXIII opened the council on 11 October 1962 in a public session at St. Peter's basilica and delivered his opening address "Gaudet Mater Ecclesia" ("Mother Church Rejoices") before the council Fathers and representatives of 86 governments or international groups. He criticized the "prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster" for the church or world. He spoke of the advantage of separation of Church and state but also the challenge to integrate faith with public life.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men's moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Church "meets today's needs by explaining the validity of her doctrine more fully rather than by condemning," by reformulating ancient doctrine for pastoral effectiveness. Also, the Church is "moved by mercy and goodness towards her separated children."


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The first working session of the council was on 13 October 1962. That day's agenda included the election of members of the 10 conciliar commissions. Each was to have 16 members elected by the Council Fathers and 8 – later 9 – members appointed by the Pope. Most bishops knew very few bishops other than those from their own country, and so did not know whom to vote for. They had been provided with a list of the bishops who had served on the preparatory commissions, as if to suggest that they elect the same people to the conciliar commissions, with the result that Curial forces would dominate the conciliar commissions as they had dominated the preparatory commissions. As the voting was about to begin, Cardinal Liénart, the senior French bishop, rose and proposed that the election be delayed for a few days to allow each national group of bishops to meet and draw up a list of its own members who might be suitable candidates. Cardinal Frings, the senior German bishop, rose to second the motion. There was loud applause and the motion was declared carried. That day's sitting was adjourned after only 15 minutes.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: For the next few days, Council Fathers met in national groups and drew up lists of candidates. The bishops from the 5 European countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria) that spearheaded the renewal movement decided to create a single list, to which a number of renewal-minded bishops from other countries were added, for a total of 109 names. The election took place on October 16. It brought in new blood: 79 of these 109 were elected to a commission seat and 50% of the members of the very important doctrinal commission were among these 79. In addition 43% of the newly elected commission members had not been on any preparatory commission. This was a first success for renewal.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: On 22 October, the first schema to be discussed was the one from the very reform-minded preparatory commission for liturgy. It had 8 chapters:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: It proposed many reforms, including active participation of the congregation, communal singing, a partial replacement of Latin by vernacular languages, communion under both kinds, concelebration, adaptation of liturgy to local cultures and a modest decentralization of liturgical authority to national episcopal conferences. The conservatives objected to all these proposals, especially to the downgrading of Latin. Debate dragged on for 15 days, before the vote was taken on whether the schema was acceptable in principle. To everyone's surprise, only 46 (out of 2,215) voted against. A second win for renewal. The schema was now returned to the liturgy commission to deal with many proposed amendments.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: This schema from the preparatory theological commission took the conservative position on all questions currently being discussed by theologians. Reformers were particularly opposed to two claims: that there were revealed truths in Tradition that were not contained in Scripture and that every assertion in the Bible was free of error. The debate lasted six days. The dramatic vote on acceptance in principle came on November 20. The question was phrased in terms of rejection: Should the schema be rejected? Yes: 1,360. No: 822. This was 102 votes short of the two-thirds majority required by Council regulations, and so the council would have to continue discussing a schema that 62% of the participants rejected. Resolution of the impasse came the next day (November 21): Pope John announced the schema would be revised by a special joint commission made up of members of the Doctrinal Commission (representing the conservative tendency) and the Secretariat for Christian Unity (representing the renewal tendency). A third victory for renewal and a crucial turning point at the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: This innocuous schema could be boiled down to two propositions that had been said many times before: the Church must use the media to further its mission, and people must be protected against immorality and other dangers presented by the media. There was little interest in pursuing the discussion. On November 27, the Council decided the schema should contain only essential principles, leaving detailed practical matters to be dealt with after the council. The schema was accepted in principle and returned to its commission to be abridged.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: This schema, drafted by the preparatory commission on the Eastern Churches, was one of three texts that had been prepared on ecumenism. Conservatives thought the schema downplayed the differences between Catholics and Orthodox, while reformers complained it conceived of unity as a return of the Orthodox to the Catholic Church. The Council Fathers avoided voting on the schema at this point, and simply ordered that the schema be merged with the other two documents on Christian unity.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: On December 1, discussion began on the schema everyone was waiting for, that on the Church. There was only one week left before the scheduled end of the First Session. The schema embodied the legalistic view of the Church to be found in current theology manuals. Some important claims: the Church of Christ is identical with the Roman Catholic Church; bishops have no authority over the universal Church except by participation in the universal authority of the pope; talk of a priesthood of the faithful is metaphorical since only clerics are priests “properly so called”. The criticism of the reformers was unrelenting. Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx wrote detailed criticisms that were circulated among the Council Fathers. Given the renewal tendency manifested in the votes on earlier schemas, the schema on the Church was quite possibly headed for defeat. The day before the scheduled vote on acceptance in principle, Pope John intervened to say there were 2 problems with the schemas so far: too much material and not enough "aggiornamento". So he was appointing a special commission to supervise the rewriting of all the schemas in order to reduce the amount of material and to better reflect the vision he had outlined in his opening address.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: So the First Session ended on 8 December, having made little progress with the schemas: only 5 of the 22 had been examined and none had received final approval. But something important had happened: it had become clear, to most people's surprise, that a majority of Council participants were in favour of some degree of renewal. The prediction of curialists that the bishops would readily approve all of the schemas and that the Council would be over in a matter of weeks was quite mistaken. And as a result, the work of the preparatory commissions would have to be redone in order to better reflect the spirit of renewal the pope had been expecting.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: At the end of the First Session, Pope John created a Coordinating Commission to supervise the conciliar commissions in the task of revising all the schemas in order to make them more open to "aggiornamento" and to reduce the amount of material. The commission's 7 members included 2 curial cardinals (Cicognani, the secretary of state, and Confalonieri of the Consistorial congregation) and 5 diocesan bishops (cardinals Suenens of Mechelen-Brussels, Döpfner of Munich, Liénart of Lille, Spellman of New York and Urbani of Venice. In the course of the next few months, all of the schemas would be rewritten under the Coordinating Commission's supervision. As a result, the number of schemas was reduced from 22 to 15, and they became more renewal-friendly, some of them very much so: "By the time the Council resumed on September 29 [the Coordinating Commission] had accomplished a wonder. It had reduced the number of schema to a manageable size. It had extracted revised texts from almost every commission. [...] In a little more than eight months it had made Vatican II a viable assembly and imparted to it the essential shape by which we know it."


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Pope John XXIII died of stomach cancer on 3 June 1963, and the council was suspended in accordance with Canon Law until the next pope decided whether or not it would continue. Two weeks later, 82 cardinals met in Rome for the conclave, and on 21 June Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan, a moderate reformer, was elected pope, taking the name Paul VI. The day after his election, Paul VI announced that the council would continue and that it would be his “chief work”.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Before the end of the summer, Paul VI decided to reorganize some of the structures of the council. The Coordinating Commission, originally intended to be temporary, was enlarged and made a permanent feature with oversight over the conciliar commissions. Four of its members—renewal-minded Cardinals Suenens, Döpfner and Lercaro (of Bologna), and moderate curialist Cardinal Agagianian—were given the additional task of chairing the daily General Congregations (instead of the 10-member Council of Presidents) with the title of “Moderators”. Because they were members of the Coordinating Commission that supervised the other commissions and they also chaired the daily General Congregations, these four cardinals, three of whom were enthusiastic reformers, became the organizational linchpins of the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Before the beginning of the Second Period of the council, Pope Paul created a new category of Council participants: lay auditors, who sat in on General Congregations, though without the right to speak or vote. He also allowed more information about daily General Congregations to be provided to the press.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In his hour-long Opening Address, Pope Paul reiterated the importance of the council, of Pope John's vision, of aggiornamento, and outlined what he considered to be the council's four tasks:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Five schemas were on the agenda for the Second Period, as well as the two accepted in principle during the First Period: Liturgy and Means of Social Communication.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: It was practically a new schema compared to the one discussed in the First Period. It now contained much more Biblical imagery than legal language (believers were now called the “People of God” rather than the “subjects of the Church”), and there were 4 chapters instead of 11:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The most important issue in this chapter concerned the relation of the Mystical body of Christ to the Catholic Church and to other Christian denominations. Instead of speaking of membership in the Church, the schema spoke of being “in communion with” the Church: this allowed it to say that non-Catholic Christians were in “imperfect communion” with the Church of Christ. Many elements of sanctification are available outside the Church, and the Holy Spirit works for the sanctification of all the baptized.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The question of the relation of bishops to the Pope would be the great bone of contention of the Second Session. The traditional view was that bishops derived their authority to govern from the Pope and their authority was limited to their diocese except during an ecumenical Council. The schema proposed that bishops' authority derived from their ordination, and that all the bishops formed a “College” that, together with the Pope, had authority over the whole Church at all times, but especially during a General Council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Conservatives argued that this diminished the Pope's authority, and therefore went against Vatican I's definition of the Pope's primacy. The schema said the Church was founded on Peter and the apostles, but the conservatives responded that it was founded on Peter alone, and therefore collegiality – the collegial nature of Church authority – had no basis in Scripture.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Another topic of controversy in the chapter was the proposal that the diaconate be restored as a permanent ordained ministry, and especially the suggestion that it might be open to married men. The prospect of ordained ministers who were married shocked some conservatives.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The debate on Chapter 2 lasted from October 4 to 15, as the same arguments were stated over and over again. Seeing that the debate was getting bogged down, the moderators met with the Pope to discuss the way forward. It was suggested to extract from the text a series of propositions and to have the Council Fathers vote on them so as to ascertain the “mind of the Council”. The Pope first accepted, then backed down when lobbied by conservatives, then agreed once again. The vote on 5 propositions took place on October 30:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Again, lop-sided majorities in favour of renewal, though almost 20% of the Council Fathers voted against proposition 4, and almost 25% against proposition 5. Though collegiality was an idea most of the bishops had never heard of before, they had experienced collegiality at the Council itself, and this experience had convinced them of the validity of the idea.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The conservatives said the chapter minimized the difference between laity and clergy, and embraced the Protestant idea of the priesthood of all baptized, when in fact it was only a metaphor.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Unlike the previous version that focused on the call to holiness of members of religious orders, this new version began with the idea that all Christians were called to holiness and it is only after this that the religious life was described as one way of achieving holiness.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: This schema produced by the preparatory theological commission was in line with traditional Catholic doctrine: it reasserted the importance of Marian devotion (against those who thought Marian piety was excessive), her perpetual virginity (against those who questioned this), her universal mediation and her central role in redemption (though not the claim that she was co-redeemer). The reformers thought the schema on Mary should be a chapter of the schema on the Church. The conservatives wanted it to remain separate in order to stress her importance. The vote on 29 October was surprisingly close: the proposal to move the schema on Mary into the schema on the Church won by only 40 votes.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: This was a relatively short document that dealt with practical matters: the relationship of diocesan bishops to the Curia, to their priests and to religious orders; the role of auxiliary bishops; the division or amalgamation of dioceses; national bishops' conferences. The theology underpinning the schema was traditional: stress on the primacy of the pope; episcopal authority as a concession by the pope; and of course, nothing about collegiality. This became the main argument of the reformers in favour of having the schema rewritten. Some of them were arguing for the creation of a council of bishops with a rotating membership that would always be in session in Rome to assist the pope in the governance of the Church.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Most of the discussion was about the relation between bishops and the central government of the Church. In the course of this discussion, Cardinal Frings of Cologne delivered a biting criticism of the Curia, arguing that the central administration of the Church had to be thoroughly reformed, especially the Holy Office. Cardinal Ottaviani angrily responded, defending the Curia and the department he headed. This passionate exchange was the most dramatic moment of the Second Session. Cardinal Frings' speech had been written in part by his personal theologian, Joseph Ratzinger, who would one day become the head of the same Holy Office, renamed in 1967 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Other topics that were touched on during the discussion were the status of national episcopal conferences, and the need for bishops to retire at a certain age. Surprisingly, no one raised the question of how bishops were appointed.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Council then brought to a close the discussion of the two schemas approved in principle during the First Period. For the schema on liturgy, matters proceeded quickly and on November 22, the document that would set in motion the most important liturgical reform in the history of the Church received final approval by a vote of 2,159 to 19.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Many Fathers found the schema on the modern means of communication lackluster and innocuous. Some decided to vote against it for that reason, but many others just wanted to get it out of the way in order to focus on more important matters. So, it received final approval on November 25 by a vote of 1,598 to 503. A quarter of the Fathers vote against it to show their displeasure.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The revised schema on ecumenism from the Secretariat for Christian Unity came before the Council on November 18. It was a hybrid document of 5 chapters, 3 of them on ecumenism, one on non-Christian religions ("especially the Jews") and one on religious liberty. All 3 topics were controversial.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The 3 chapters on ecumenism (a merger of 3 previous documents) took a very positive view of ecumenism, and said things some bishops had never heard before:


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Some conservatives spoke out against the text, repeating the Church's traditional stand that non-Catholics were in error and should simply return to the true Church. Nevertheless, the chapters on ecumenism were surprisingly well received, and were accepted in principle by a wide margin, with only 86 dissenting voices. Discussion of the 3 chapters on ecumenism took up all the time remaining before the end of the second session, and there was no time left to discuss non-Christian religions or religious freedom.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: At a public session on December 4, Pope Paul solemnly promulgated the first two documents of the council: the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy ("Sacrosanctum Concilium") and the Decree on the Modern Means of Social Communication ("Inter mirifica"). At the end of his closing speech, he stunned the Council Fathers by announcing that he would undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the first time in five centuries a Pope had left Italy (except for the time when Napoleon carried off the pope to France as his prisoner).


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In early January (4-6 January 1964) pope Paul went on a three-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he met Athenagoras, patriarch of Constantinople and spiritual head of the Eastern Orthodox churches. It was the first meeting between a pope and a patriarch of Constantinople in 600 years. It broke down centuries of suspicion and estrangement, and gave great hope to the ecumenical movement.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The revision of the schemas continued. By mid-summer, all of the remaining schemas were sent to the Council Fathers in the expectation that the next Session would be the last. The revision of the schema on the Church had been particularly difficult. In mid-summer pope Paul surprised everyone by letting the doctrinal commission know that he would like some changes to the schema. The Commission accepted some changes he wanted but not others, and the pope seemed satisfied. The day before the beginning of the Third Session, the pope received a confidential memorandum from 25 cardinals and 13 superiors-general of religious orders of men, asking him to intervene and prevent the doctrine of collegiality from being accepted at the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Five weeks before the opening of the Third Session, pope Paul published his first encyclical, "Ecclesiam suam", on the Church. Some were annoyed that the pope would issue an encyclical on the very subject that was being discussed at the council.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Following a remark by Cardinal Suenens at the end of the second session that women were absent from the council, pope Paul appointed 15 women to be lay auditors during the third Session. Eventually 23 women, including 10 religious, would sit in on debates as official auditors. While 3 of the male auditors would eventually be asked to address the Council Fathers about their concerns as laypeople, none of the women would be asked to speak.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Third Session opened with a ceremony that most people in the Latin Church had never experienced before: a concelebrated mass. The Pope celebrated mass along with 24 bishops representing 19 different countries. The mass was followed by a long address by the Pope, in which the relationship between the papacy and the episcopal office figured prominently. While granting the importance of strengthening the episcopal function, he defended the authority and prerogatives of the papacy.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Most Council Fathers hoped this would be the final Session of the council. The hope was optimistic since 6 schemas had not finished their course through the conciliar process, and 8 others had not even been examined yet. Seven of these were “practical” schemas whose goal was to update various aspects of the life and practice of the Church. The eighth was the important schema about the Church in the Modern World. It would eventually become clear that a fourth session was necessary.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The chapter on the People of God had been moved from third to second place, so that the unifying factor (of being the People of God) came before the distinction between clergy (chapter 3) and laity (chapter 4). From the previous chapter on the universal call to holiness, 2 new chapters had been extracted: one on the laity with its own theology (chapter 4) and one on the religious life as one way of responding to the call to holiness (chapter 6). A chapter on the Church in heaven had been added, and the former schema on the Virgin Mary had been adapted to become chapter 8.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In order to make sure chapter 3 reflected as closely as possible the wishes of the Fathers, there would be 39 separate votes on various parts of the chapter and various formulations of its provisions. The voting took place over the course of 8 sittings, from September 21 to 30. Every formulation but one was accepted with large majorities, including those on collegiality, on the restoration of the diaconate and on admitting married men to the diaconate. The only one voted down was to allow unmarried permanent deacons to marry after ordination.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The revised schema on bishops was very different from the conservative text discussed at the previous Session. It now began with an affirmation of collegiality, and it proposed, in very general terms, that collegiality be implemented by creating a body of bishops that would meet regularly with the Pope. It also proposed in equally general terms a reform of the Curia.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: On 23 September, the Council Fathers finally got the opportunity to discuss the 2 texts that had originally been appended to the schema on ecumenism and were now separate schemas.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The text on religious freedom proclaimed the right of everyone to freedom of religion. That is, freedom from coercion by the state in matters of religious belief and practice. It was well known that there was strong opposition to this declaration, perhaps even greater than to collegiality. Quite simply, it ran counter to the position the Catholic Church had defended for centuries.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Church's traditional position was that Catholics were entitled to freedom everywhere, but non-Catholics were not entitled to freedom in countries with a Catholic majority. In the mid-20th century, there were still discriminatory laws against Protestants in Spain and some Latin American countries. Protestants claimed the Catholic Church's stance on ecumenism could not be taken seriously as long as it supported such restrictions on religious freedom.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Church's basic premiss before Vatican II was that Catholicism was the only true religion and, since “error has no rights”, no other religion was entitled to religious freedom. If all religions were treated equally, that would imply they were all of equal value, a position labelled “indifferentism”. If the council was to defend religious freedom, it had to do so in a way that did not imply that all religions were of equal value. The text presented to the Council did this by basing religious freedom on the person's duty to obey his/her conscience. From this, it followed that the law must not coerce a person to act against his/her conscience.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The criticism from the conservatives about a declaration of religious freedom was unrelenting: “this represented a reversal of the Church's previous teaching... it fostered indifferentism... it was Modernism... it would cause the ruin of the Catholic Church,” said Archbishop Lefebvre.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Support for religious freedom was strongest among the bishops from countries where it was the normal state of affairs, such as the English-speaking world and most Western European countries. The American bishops, who had not played a particularly important role at the Council up to this point, made religious freedom “their” cause. Religious freedom was also defended by bishops who lived under communist regimes where the Church suffered persecution. In the mind of supporters, the Church's double standard was simply untenable: Catholics could no longer demand freedom for themselves while denying it to others.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Given the ferocity of the opposition, many wondered whether the chapter would ever manage to receive the requisite two-thirds majority.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Pope John had wanted the Church to take a stand against all forms of anti-Semitism. A first statement “On the Jews” had been prepared for the first session, then dropped for political reasons: Arab Christians claimed their governments would interpret it as tilting towards Israel in the Arab-Jewish Middle East conflict, and Christians would suffer for this. A statement on the Jews now returned as part of a broader schema “On the Jews and non-Christians”.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The objective was to reject any theological basis for antisemitism, in particular the centuries-old claim that the Jews were cursed by God because they had refused to accept the Gospel and had killed Christ. Many bishops supported the declaration. As with religious freedom, the Americans were strongly in favour. But some conservatives were unwilling to deviate from the traditional line of thinking. The discussion lasted two days, and on September 30, the chapter was returned to the Secretariat for Christian Unity for further revision.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The normal course of events was suddenly interrupted a week and a half later (19 October). Pope Paul, obviously under pressure from conservatives, let it be known that he wanted the texts on Religious Freedom and on Non-Christian Religions rewritten by a joint commission that would include conservative members of the Doctrinal Commission. The outcry was considerable and eventually the Pope backed down.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: After being rejected in the First Session, the schema on Revelation had not made a return appearance since that remarkable day almost 2 years earlier. A second version had been produced in 1963 but it was considered too bland, and a third version was not ready in time to be introduced during the Second Session. And so on September 30 this third version was presented to the Council Fathers.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Where the original version said there were two separate sources of Revelation – Scripture and Tradition – and that some revealed truths were contained in Tradition alone, the current version took a more nuanced position. It rejected the idea that there were two separate “sources” of Revelation or that Revelation consisted in propositions handed down by God, some in the Bible and others in Tradition. There is only one source, which is God revealing himself. Instead of insisting on the “separateness” of Scripture and Tradition, it insisted on their close connection, without indicating exactly how they were connected. But most importantly, it said nothing about whether Tradition contained revealed truths that were not in the Bible. The conservatives strongly insisted on such a statement. The reformers, on the other hand, thought the issue was not ready to be settled: they wanted to leave it open to further discussion by theologians.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The new text said that Tradition was found not only in the Church's teaching, but in its liturgy and in people's spiritual experiences. The conservatives thought this too subjective. The schema said that Tradition “progresses”. The conservatives would have none of this. The schema did not state clearly whether the Bible was completely free from error. The conservatives insisted the text should clearly state that it was.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: In spite of these objections, it was clear the schema had considerable support. Discussion ended on October 6, and the text was sent to the doctrinal commission for further revision.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: After 3 weeks of dealing with the schemas already moving through the conciliar process, the Council Fathers then turned to examining the schemas they had not yet seen. They were introduced in rapid succession at a rate of about one a week.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The theology of the laity had been set out in chapter 4 of the document on the Church. Now, this 5-chapter schema on the Lay Apostolate was meant as the practical application of this theology. Introduced on October 6, it stated that lay people had their own task of changing the world in accordance with the Gospel, and that this mission was based on their baptism and their participation in the royal priesthood of Christ. They carried out this mission either individually – by bearing witness to the Gospel in their personal lives – or by taking part in Church organizations and movements.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: All of this was relatively uncontroversial. There was one divisive issue. The traditional view was that, in performing their mission in the world, the laity always had to be under the direction of the clergy. The “modern” view was that this should not always be the case. Some speakers thought the schema did not insist enough on the laity's role as subordinate to the clergy; others claimed it insisted too much on this subordinate role and was “too clerical”.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Debate ended on October 13. Before the schema was sent off to be revised according to the bishops' comments, a layman spoke to the bishops about the schema: he was Patrick Keegan, president of the World Federation of Christian Workers. This was the first time a layperson had been asked to express his views on a schema being discussed by the Council Fathers.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: Introduced on 13 October, the schema sought to give a renewed vision of the task of priests, for example, by insisting that priests should act towards laypeople “not only as pastors and teachers but also as brothers dealing with brothers”. The schema also insisted on the importance of clerical celibacy. While most of the speakers at the Council tip-toed around the issue, there was much talk outside the Council hall about the future of clerical celibacy. Some speakers mentioned the lack of priests in Latin America and the decline in vocations that was already taking place in Italy and France, and wondered what measures could be taken to reverse the trend.


title: Second Vatican Council

text: The Eastern Catholic Churches were those branches of Catholicism in Eastern Europe and the Middle East – the Maronites, the Melkites, the Copts, the Ukrainians – whose theological, canonical and liturgical traditions were rooted in ancient Greek Christianity. They represented a very small fraction of the total population of the Catholic Church and in the past often had Latin traditions imposed on them. In these Churches decision-making was usually collegial, and the most important of these Churches were headed by a Patriarch.