Hekima Review No. 14 (Jan 1996)

In the years preceding Vatican II, the official understanding of the Church was strikingly hierarchical and rigidly centralized. This was so because the life of the Church, as an institution, was organized and understood in the light of God the Father and God the Son; there was little room or no room for the Holy Spirit. Undoubtedly one of the great achievements of the Council Fathers was the reappropriation of the 
active and crucial role that the Holy Spirit plays in the life of the Church. The council itself was an opportune manifestation of the ever-present activity of the Spirit in the heart of the Church.