(Vatican Radio) - Robert Blair Kaiser, a former Jesuit, had a front row seat at the
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in his capacity as Time Magazine correspondent.
Kaiser, a well known author and journalist from the United States, sat down
with Veronica Scarisbrick in Vatican Radio's studios for a lengthy interview in which
he shares an inside look of those landmark years in the history of the Catholic Church.
Shining the spotlight in a special way on the key role the media played in
telling the Church and the world what the Council Fathers were discussing behind the
closed doors of Saint Peter's Basilica.
In Part 1 in this series Kaiser paints
a lively picture of Saint Peter's Square as the participants spilled out from the
Basilica at the end of a morning session producing an image of the universality of
the Church never seen before.
While recounting how at the time journalists
broke the secrecy of the Council, Kaiser recalls how: .." a few of us broke the secrecy
of the Council by our actions and by getting the bishops to cooperate with us.."
Asked
what he believed were some of the most revolutionary ideas discussed at the Council
, Kaiser replies: ..'they wanted to make it a people's Church, it was too clerical
...the people were in Chapter three, they put them in Chapter one... I don't know
how they did it because they were all clerics and here they were trying to give the
power and the responsibility to the people. That's a strain that runs through all
the Council documents.."