New book offers inside look at Vatican II from late bishop's letters

Published: 2005-12-22

GREEN BAY, Wis. (CNS) -- Want an inside view of what the Second Vatican Council was like, as it happened? Bishop Aloysius J. Wycislo's newly published book, "Letters From Rome During Vatican II," gives just that. The retired bishop of Green Bay, who died Oct. 11 at the age of 97, had been working on the manuscript for years -- in fact, since the 1962-65 council. The book is a compilation of letters that Bishop Wycislo, then an auxiliary bishop of Chicago, wrote from Rome during the sessions of the council. Addressed to his parishioners at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Chicago, the letters contain both tidbits about travel around the Eternal City and insider information about the wrangling between bishops as the various 16 documents of Vatican II were hammered out. For example, during the council's second session in 1963, the bishop wrote, "It would be foolish to deny that there are differences of opinion here, theological and procedural, sometimes expressed with considerable vigor and determination." Yet, he returned home convinced he "saw real development and growth among the bishops, in the consciousness of what Pope John XXIII wanted of the council."

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