Editing Second Vatican Council (section)

=== Preparation ===
[[File:Ioannes XXIII, by De Agostini, 1958–1963.jpg|thumb|Pope John XXIII]]
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Preparation for the council took over three years, from the summer of 1959 to the autumn of 1962.

The first year was known officially as the "antepreparatory period". On 17 May 1959, Pope John appointed an '''Antepreparatory Commission''' to conduct a vast consultation of the Catholic world concerning topics to be examined at the council. Three groups of people were consulted: the bishops of the world, the Catholic universities and faculties of theology, and the departments of the Curia. By the following summer, 2,049 individuals and institutions had replied with 9,438 individual ''vota'' ("wishes"). Some were typical of past ways of doing things, asking for new dogmatic definitions or condemnations of errors. Others were in the spirit of ''aggiornamento'', asking for reforms and new ways of doing things.

The next two years (known officially as the "preparatory period") were occupied with preparing the drafts, called ''schemas'', that would be submitted to the bishops for discussion at the council. On 5 June 1960, ten '''Preparatory Commissions''' were created, to which a total of 871 bishops and experts were appointed.{{sfn|Wiltgen|2014|p=17}} Each preparatory commission had the same area of responsibility as one of the main departments of the Curia and was chaired by the cardinal who headed that department. From the 9,438 proposals, a list of topics was created, and these topics were parcelled out to these commissions according to their area of competence.

Some commissions prepared a separate schema for each topic they were asked to treat, others a single schema encompassing all the topics they were handed. These were the preparatory commissions and the number of schemas they prepared:

{| class="wikitable"
! Preparatory Commission !! Schemas
|-
| Theology ||  9
|-
| Bishops and Dioceses ||  7
|-
| Discipline of Clergy and Faithful || 17
|-
| Religious ||  1
|-
| Eastern Catholic Churches ||  11
|-
| Liturgy ||  1
|-
| Discipline of Sacraments || 10
|-
| Studies and Seminaries ||  6
|-
| Missions ||  1
|-
| Apostolate of the Laity ||  1

|}

Two secretariats – one the offshoot of an existing Vatican office, the other a new body – also had a part in drafting schemas:

{| class="wikitable"
! Secretariat !! Schemas
|-
| Modern Means of Communication ||  1
|-
| Promotion of Christian Unity ||  5
|}

The total number of schemas was 70. As most of these preparatory bodies were predominantly conservative, the schemas they produced showed only modest signs of updating. The schemas drafted by the preparatory commission for theology, dominated by officials of the [[Holy Office]] (the curial department for theological orthodoxy) showed no signs of ''aggiornamento'' at all. The two notable exceptions were the preparatory commission for liturgy and the Secretariat for Christian unity, whose schemas were very much in the spirit of renewal.

In addition to these specialist commissions and secretariats, there was a '''Central Preparatory Commission''', to which all the schemas had to be submitted for final approval. It was a large body of 108 members from 57 countries,{{sfn|Wiltgen|2014|p=17}} including two thirds of the cardinals. As a result of its work, 22 schemas were eliminated from the conciliar agenda, mainly because they could be dealt with during a planned revision of the [[1917 Code of Canon Law|1917 ''Code of Canon Law'']] after the council, and a number of schemas were consolidated and merged, with the result that the total number of schemas was whittled down from 70 to 22.