Once again, these words of 1965 apply to 2012:

"A change in attitudes and in human structures frequently calls accepted values into question,
especially among young people, who have grown impatient
 .... and become rebels in their distress.
Aware of their own influence in the life of society, they want a part in it sooner.
This frequently causes parents and educators to experience greater difficulties day by day in discharging their tasks.
The institutions, laws and modes of thinking and feeling as handed down from previous generations
do not always seem to be well adapted to the contemporary state of affairs;
hence arises an upheaval in the manner and even the norms of behavior.

These new conditions have their impact on religion.
On the one hand a more critical ability to distinguish religion from a magical view of the world
and from the superstitions which still circulate
purifies it and exacts day by day a more personal and explicit adherence to faith.
As a result many persons are achieving a more vivid sense of God.
On the other hand, growing numbers of people are abandoning religion in practice.
Unlike former days, the denial of God or of religion, or the abandonment of them,
are no longer unusual and individual occurrences.
For today it is not rare for such things to be presented as requirements of scientific progress or of a certain new humanism.
In numerous places these views are voiced not only in the teachings of philosophers,
but on every side they influence literature, the arts,
the interpretation of the humanities and of history and civil laws themselves.
As a consequence, many people are shaken"

Comment: Vatican II did not cause the above earthquake in society and in the Church! ...as is sometimes claimed.
Vatican II sought to outline a way to understand and serve our earthquake-affected world

Jesus, please help your Church to respond as you would
to a changing world

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