50 years ago...

With these words, 50 years ago, Pope Blessed John XXIII announced his intention to convene the Second Vatican Council

All of this - we mean, this progress - while distracting from the pursuit of higher gifts, weakens the energies of the spirit, leads to the softening of the structure, of the discipline, and of the good ancient order, to great detriment of that which constituted the strength of the resistance of the Church and of her sons to errors, which, in reality, always in the history of Christianity, led to fatal and pernicious divisions, to spiritual and moral decay, to the ruin of nations.

This assessment awakens in the heart of the humble priest, which the manifest choice of Divine Providence led, though most unworthy, to this highness of the Supreme Pontificate, it awakens - we say - a resolution influenced by the memory of some ancient forms of doctrinal affirmation and of wise orientations of ecclesiastical discipline which, in the history of the Church, at times of renewal, brought forth fruits of extraordinary efficacy, for the clarity of thought, for the compactness of religious unity, for the livelier fire of Christian fervor, which we continue to recognize, also in reference to the welfare of life down here, an abundant wealth «de rore caeli et de pinguedine terrae» (Gen. XXVII, 28).

Venerable Brothers and Our Dear Children! We pronounce before you, certainly trembling somewhat out of emotion, but also with humble resolve of purpose, the name and the proposal of the double celebration: of a Diocesan Synod for the City [of Rome], and that of an Ecumenical Council for the universal Church.