by Paul Graham

PAUL GRAHAM recalls a remarkable decade and the impact it had on religious belief

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on 11 October 1962. It was one of the most significant events in a remarkable decade that saw change in so many fields: socially, culturally, scientifically, politically, and religiously. Callum Brown, the Scottish social historian, in The Death of Christian Britain (2000) traced the beginning of the marked decline of church-going in Britain to the 1960s. But for me as a teenager it was not only the decade of the Beatles, mini-skirts and student unrest, it was also the decade of Bishop Robinson’s challenge to traditional Christian belief, as well as the Second Vatican Council, both of which events are an indelible part of my awakening as a Catholic Christian.