It often happens, as we have observed in the performance of our daily apostolic service, that we hear rather offensive voices from some people who, although religiously zealous, still lack objectivity and sound judgment when assessing facts. In the current state of human society, they are unable to see anything other than decline and devastation, asserting that our time, in comparison to past centuries, is continually getting worse. They go so far as to behave as if there is nothing to learn from history, which is the teacher of life, as if everything had gone smoothly and happily before the previous councils, whether it concerns Christian doctrine, morality, or the just freedom of the church. We certainly do not agree with such doomsday prophets who always proclaim only the worst, as if the end of the world were urgently imminent.
(John XXIII, excerpt from the speech at the opening of the Second Vatican Council, December 11, 1962)
