Ref. No. | Quotation | Reference |
| 1. | Let us not fear that truth might endanger truth. | Abbot Christopher Butler; Debate on De Revelatione: Congregatio Generalis XCV, Acta Conc. Vatican II - Periodus III. Translated from the original Latin. |
| 2. | ...the Church should never depart from the sacred treasure of truth inherited from the Fathers. But at the same time she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and the new forms of life introduced into the modern world. | Pope John XXIII, from his Opening Speech to the Second Vatican Council in St Peter's, Vatican, 11 October 1962 |
| 3. | What a treasure there is, dear brothers and sisters, in the guidelines offered to us by the Second Vatican Council..... a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning. | Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, John Paul II, Catholic Truth Society, 2001 |
| 4. | Indeed, it would be most unfortunate if, for lack of information. or for from lack of discretion and objectivity, a religious event of this importance [Vatican II] should be presented so inexactly as to distort its character and the very goals which it has set for itself. | Pope John XXIII, Audience to Journalists, October 1961 |
| 5. | The Roman Catholic people of England.....have only a very shadowy and inadequate idea of what it all means........ preoccupied with little changes in Mass ceremonies..... for others it is the splendour of a tremendous revelation | Christopher Butler letter to his sister Mary A Butler, 26 Oct 1965 |
| 6. | But now the conciliar doctrines must be seen as belonging to the magisterium of the Church and, indeed, be attributed to the breath of the Holy Spirit. | Pope Paul VI in a address to the Curia, Rome, 23 April 1966 |
| 7. | Vatican II ... is a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning. | Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, n.57 2001, CTS |
| 8. | 'I am rather happy about things. I begin to hope that the Council will prove to have a mind of its own.†| Letter from Bishop Butler to Fr. Martin Hancock 17 October 1962 |
| 9. | Whatever were our opinions about the Council's various doctrines before its conclusions were promulgated, today our adherence to the decisions of the Council must be wholehearted and without reserve;…The Council was something very new: not all were prepared to understand and accept it. But now the conciliar doctrines must be seen as belonging to the magisterium of the Church and, indeed be attributed to the breath of the Holy Spirit. | Pope Paul VI, from an address to the Roman Curia, 23 April 1966, demonstrates the high import which he assigned to the Council. Quoted in 'A Concise Guide to the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, Vol. One, Adrian Hastings. DLT 1968. |
| 10. | Catholics believe that the Church cannot perish….in virtue of the guaranteed assistance of God. [but] .the question could have been asked, in the years before Vatican II, whether the fate of the coelacanth was not likely to be the fate of the Catholic Church | Bishop Butler, in his book The Theology of Vatican II DLT 1967-82; pp.6-9 |
