Change is not easy in the Catholic Church, whether Vatican II or Pope Francis

(RNS) — Sixty years ago, about a month after I entered the Jesuit novitiate in Los Gatos, California, the Second Vatican Council opened in Rome. No one bothered to tell the novices about it. The council went on for three years, during which I took vows and studied Latin and Greek without knowing what was happening at the council.
In those pre-Vatican II days, the novitiate was what sociologists call a “total institution,” completely isolated from the rest of the world, with no access to newspapers, radio or television. Except when I went to the dentist, I did not talk to a woman outside my family for four years. The idea was to insulate us from the world so we could devote ourselves to our Jesuit formation.
For example, we were on retreat during the Cuban missile crisis, and no one bothered to tell us what was happening. During one break in our studies, I found a discarded copy of U.S. News & World Report and read it from cover to cover before I realized it was a year old.
Somehow, I …