approved by what are Executive Orders? the bishops and promulgated by the Pope that contain the official teaching of the Catholic Church. The subject on which I have been invited to share some thoughts can be addressed in various ways: as many as were the issues and problems that the Council considered and on which it pronounced. 11 This sudden announcement, which caught the Curia by surprise, caused little initial official comment from Church insiders. 16 a Contents Chronology edit The interior of Saint Peter's Basilica. According to them, such instruments of the Magisterium as encyclicals should be treated with respect, but Catholics have the option of setting their teaching aside. They suggest that Catholics are bound only by Church teaching that is infallible by dint of being formally and solemnly defined. In fact, while the convocation and holding of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council are rightly regarded as a happy and extraordinary initiative taken for the renewal of the life of the Church of our time by John xxiii, too often one ignores or fails.

In 1956 Don Mazzolari who had already been reproved in 1934 by the Holy Office for La grande avventura The great adventure, his commentary on the parable of the Prodigal Son accepted an invitation from Monsignor Ferdinando Baldelli, president of the Pontifical Benefit Society,. They assert that, since there were no dogmatic proclamations defined within the documents of the council, such documents are not infallible and therefore not canonically binding for faithful Roman Catholics, most notably when such concilliar documents give way, as they say, to loose implementation. Cardinal Tisserant, Dean of the Council Presidents, showed his watch to Cardinal Alfrink, who was presiding that morning. The first business of the fourth period was the consideration of the decree on religious freedom, Dignitatis humanae, one of the more controversial of the conciliar documents. When the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu19 on the renewal of biblical studies was published in 1943, the papal directives appeared even daring. 32 Pope Paul VI was elected on immediately announced that the Council would continue.