Gaudet Mater Ecclesia

The address is named from its first words, “Mother Church rejoices”. John XXIII delivered it in Latin to the assembled bishops on the day the council opened. In section 4 he says he must disagree with those forecasters of misfortune who always announce the worse, as though ruin were at hand. In section 6 he says the council is to hand on Catholic teaching whole and undistorted, and distinguishes the deposit of faith itself from the manner in which it is expressed, the sense and meaning remaining the same. In section 7 he says that the church, which has often condemned errors with great severity, now prefers the medicine of mercy.

It is the primary source for the pope’s own stated purpose in calling the council; Benedict XVI quoted section 6 in 2005 when he set out his reading of the council. See the Second Vatican Council.