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.
Thomas Roberts (bishop)
Roberts attended the Second Vatican Council ("Vatican II"), held from 1962 to 1965, but he never managed to speak on the council floor. In the secnd period (autumn 1963), Roberts submitted a paper asking for reform in ecclesiastical procedures affecting marriage and divorce which he claimed were cruel and unnecessarily drawn out. 
In the third period (autumn 1964), in the session on "The Church in the Modern World", Roberts submitted a shortened version of his "Continuum" paper and asked for Catholic support for conscientious objection to wars that were immoral. He cited the recently publicised case of Franz Jägerstätter executed by the Germans in World War II. He was not called to speak and conscientious objection and the question of obedience that made World War II possible were not discussed. The statement which eventually emerged in "Gaudium et Spes" fell short of a demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament but left little scope for any real conviction that the use of nuclear weapons could be justified.