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Dome of St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. (Photo: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA) On December 7, 1965, Pope Paul solemnly promulgated the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, known by its Latin  incipit  (opening words) as  Dignitatis Humanae . The Council thereby turbocharged the Catholic Church’s transformation into the world’s premier institutional defender of basic human rights — which the late Sir Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, o

(Photo by Lothar Wolleh / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0) Sixty years ago, on October 28, 1965, the Second Vatican Council adopted, and Pope Paul VI promulgated, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, known by the first words in the official Latin text as Nostra Aetate  (In Our Age). I chart Nostra Aetate ’s sometimes rocky passage through Vatican II in To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II .  Suffice it to note here that

Vatican II in session, circa 1962-1965. (Photo: Catholic Press/Wikimedia Commons) In a June post at the website Where Peter Is , author...

I want to be someone who matters. I want to make a difference, to do something great. “I have my mission.” This is how St. John Henry...