John XXIII was elected at seventy-six and widely expected to do very little. Within three months he announced a general council, to the surprise of his own curia, and set as its aim aggiornamento, a bringing up to date, and a pastoral rather than condemnatory tone. He died after the first session, and Paul VI carried the council through three more, with more than two thousand bishops attending and observers from Orthodox and Protestant churches present throughout.
Its sixteen documents changed a great deal. The constitution on the liturgy permitted the vernacular and called for the active participation of the whole congregation, which within a decade transformed the experience of Catholic worship everywhere. The constitution on the church described the people of God before the hierarchy and taught the collegiality of bishops. The declaration on religious liberty stated that no one may be coerced in matters of belief, reversing a long tradition of teaching that error has no rights.
The most striking single act was Nostra Aetate, which rejected the charge that the Jewish people as a whole bear guilt for the death of Christ, condemned antisemitism, and spoke with respect of what the church holds in common with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. For a church that had taught otherwise for centuries, this was a reversal, and its authors knew it.