To today’s Christians – and I am referring here particularly to Catholics, for we are the ones who make up the Only True Church – it has been granted to live in circumstances in which our resort to hope is a matter of our very survival. There are plenty of reasons for that, for the Church is going through perhaps the gravest moments she has ever known throughout her History.

As far as I am concerned, God has allowed me to know, through a hard life, the vicissitudes of the Church during two quite different periods of her History.

The first period, which embraces the greater part of the twentieth century, was one of relative calm and stability for Catholicism – if one can ever speak of tranquility in the midst of problems which, in reality, have never been completely absent from the life of the Church. This was the period, for example, when the invasion of the Modernist heresy first took place; it was easily and quickly crushed by Popes Pius IX and Saint Pius X. In spite of it, the Church expanded and prospered; conversions multiplied; the number of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life were on the rise; the prestige of the Hierarchy, especially of the Popes was augmented; and the Catholic Faith even enjoyed such a prosperity in great countries, like the United States of America, that it promised a remarkable harvest of conversions to the Catholic Church.

The second period, in which we live today, is of such a different sort that one can consider it totally opposite to the former. It began after the death of Pius XII and is marked by the words which his successor, John XXIII, the new Pontiff, stated: that he had decided to open the windows of the Vatican. In accord with that, John XXIII himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit – according to his own words – saw fit to call the Second Vatican Council.

Many times during these past years, in view of the events that followed, I have thought of the possibility that the Pope, perhaps the victim of some mistake, had unwittingly opened Pandora’s Box instead of the windows of the Vatican. I have also quite often asked myself, understandably without finding any answer, about the possible reasons that could have moved the Holy Spirit – if we must believe the words of the Pope – to inspire the convocation of a Council, considering the situation of the Church at that moment.

I hasten here to caution that I have no intention of carrying on a mission of judging conduct, for that is not my duty; the Church has doctors. Neither is it my place to pass judgment on the possible decisions taken by the Holy Spirit. I limit myself to referring to facts and do not intend to say anything, other than that often times I have asked myself questions about these matters of such great gravity and importance – nothing different from that which any normal person does, who is worried about the events that affect him.

[Translated from the book "Siete Cartas a Siete Obispos" vol. I (pags. 438 - 440) (no yet published)]