TP O'Mahony: Pope faces formidable opposition in promotion of a synodal Church

The rejection of collegiality has perhaps been the greatest single loss of Vatican II’s legacy, writes TP O'Mahony

Pope John XXIII receives an enthusiastic welcome from the crowds at Loreto, during a pilgrimage to pray at the shrines of Loreto and Assisi in 1962; he opened the most momentous religious event of the 20th century, Vatican II, on this day 60 years ago. Picture: Getty Images

WHEN Sean Mac Reamoinn died in 2007 — he had covered the fourth and final session of Vatican II in 1965 for RTÉ — his friend Neil Middleton, the English Catholic writer and publisher, wrote of Sean’s considerable anger “at the subsequent long process of dismantling, or discrediting, by successive popes and their functionaries, so much of what Vatican II had achieved”.

This betrayal, for it was nothing less, is the real untold story of Vatican II — the most momentous religious event of the 20th century which, while it was in session, captured worldwide interest, and caused immense controversy afterwards.