Pope Benedict spoke to the Italian priests of his own experience of the Council. “I too lived through Vatican Council II,” he said, “coming to St. Peter’s Basilica with great enthusiasm and seeing how new doors were opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost, in which the church would once again be able to convince humanity.”

The pontiff observed, however, that historically great church councils have always been followed by periods of turbulence. “So it is not now, in retrospect, such a great surprise how difficult it was at first for all of us to digest the Council, this great message,” he said. “To grow is always to suffer as well, because it means leaving one condition and passing to another.”

Benedict XVI went on to discuss the post-conciliar age, which he argued was defined by two great moments in history.

The first was the “explosion” of revolutionary activity in 1968, which the pope said triggered a “cultural crisis” in the West. The “new, healthy modernity” put forward by the Council Fathers found itself facing a violent ideological rupture with the past, he said.

Some Catholics, he added, embraced Vatican II as an invitation to begin a “cultural revolution that wants to change everything”, while others rejected the Council because they understood it in the same terms.

The second turning point came in 1989 with the collapse of Communist regimes across Europe.

“The response was … total scepticism, so called postmodernity,” the pope said. “There was the affirmation of materialism, of a blind pseudo-rationalistic skepticism.”