The Diary of the Second Vatican Council by Loris Francesco Capovilla ( 11-25 October 1962) Introduction and Critical Edition

Monsignor Loris Francesco Capovilla (1915‑2016), private secretary of Pope John XXIII, wrote a brief journal of the first days of the Second Vatican Council. It is a source of great interest and importance both to see how this Venetian priest, placed in a very particular position, reacted to the beginning of the conciliar debates, as well as to see from inside some aspects of the functioning of the conciliar machine. This diary is in addition to the others that have been published in recent decades and that allow us finally to reconstruct in all its complexity the course of the Second Vatican Council, dropping the entirely ideological and misleading distinction between official and private sources.