Second Vatican Council
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , addressed relations between the Catholic Church and the modern world. The council, through the Holy See, was formally opened under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and was closed under Pope Paul VI on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December 1965.
History of the Catholic Church in Mexico
Two other major clerics influenced by Vatican II were Adalberto Almeida y Merino, bishop of Zacatecas at the time of Vatican II, and Manuel Talamás Camandari, head of the Mexican Social Secretariat, an entity under the control of the hierarchy that dealt with social issues. Both men attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council and the two drafted a major critique of Mexican social policy. "The Development and Integration of our Country" was a pastoral letter that addressed marginalization of Mexicans and income inequality during Mexico's rapid period of growth, the so-called Mexican Miracle. Bishop Almeida participated in the 1968 meeting of the Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín, Colombia, which Pope Paul VI attended. Significant documents articulating liberation theology were drawn up at the meeting, with Almeida helped draft documents on justice and peace.
The bishop of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz also became an important advocate for liberation theology in his poor, southern Mexican diocese. He attended Vatican II, as well as a 1971 bishops' retreat attended by Peruvian cleric Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote the seminal text on liberation theology; Sergio Méndez Arceo, bishop of Cuernavaca; and Salvadoran bishop Óscar Romero. Ruiz's diocese had a high proportion of indigenous Mayan parishioners. As he came to know his diocese better, he paid increasing attention to the marginalization and oppression of the Maya. In keeping with the move toward the formation of grassroots ecclesial base communities, Bishop Ruiz actively promoted them. In 1989 he founded the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center of Human Rights, as a step to push back against violence against indigenous and poor peasants. When the 1994 rebellion in Chiapas erupted, Ruiz was named as a mediator between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation or EZLN, and the Mexican government. His role was a significant departure from government practice of working with the Catholic hierarchy, but not giving them power.