The Vatican yesterday celebrated the 50th anniversary of a Council that changed the face of Catholicism, as it tries to rekindle the religious fervour of the time amid rising secularism.

Hundreds of bishops from around the world held a solemn procession through St Peter’s Square, after which Pope Benedict celebrated an open-air Mass to announce a new global “Year of Faith” for the first time in 45 years.

“If today the Church proposes a new Year of Faith and a new evangelisation, it is not to honour an anniversary, but because there is more need of it, even more than there was 50 years ago!” the Pope told gathered crowds.

“Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual ‘desertification’. We see it every day around us. This void has spread,” he added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople also attended along with 14 of the original ‘fathers’ from the 1962 Council. In those dramatic days of 1962, the Beatles had just released their first single and James Bond had just hit the silver screen when 2,250 Catholic bishops from 116 countries met in Rome to reform rituals and beliefs that appeared increasingly anachronistic.

Pope John XXIII hailed the crowds of faithful on the night of October 11, 1962, with a famous heartfelt speech in which he called on believers to pursue “faith, hope, charity, love of God, love of brothers and the common good”.

The Second Vatican Council – dubbed Vatican II – only wrapped up in 1965 after adopting key reforms, including the chance to celebrate Mass in other languages than Latin and the idea of opening dialogue with other faiths.

Pope Benedict was then Joseph Ratzinger, a 35-year-old German priest and among the most reformist voices at the Council.

He has defended the achievements of Vatican II against traditionalist voices in the Church that still question it. (AFP)