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Cultural Challenges during Vatican II

John XXIII himself, in his opening speech, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, stressed that Vatican II was not convened – as had been the case with the twenty previous Councils – to condemn heresy or to define a truth of faith or to heal schisms. The purpose of Vatican II was, instead, to restate and almost redefine Christian identity and Church identity in a profoundly changed historical and cultural context: how to proclaim the Gospel amidst the contradictions of modernity, in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious world.