(British-born Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson (2nd L) is escorted by police on his arrival at Heathrow Airport in London February 25, 2009. A Roman Catholic bishop who caused an international uproar by denying the scale of the Holocaust arrived back in his native Britain on Wednesday after the Argentine government ordered him out. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)

A rebel Catholic traditionalist group has expelled British-born Bishop Richard Williamson who deeply embarrassed the Vatican by denying the Holocaust shortly before he was readmitted to the Church three years ago.

(People take part in the annual Gay Pride march in Paris, June 30, 2012. The sign at rear reads “Marriage for All”. REUTERS/Mal Langsdon)

Plans by France’s Socialist government to legalize same-sex marriage are proving harder to enact than first thought after faith leaders and conservatives mobilized against it even as left-wing deputies try to expand it.

(Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu answers questions at a news conference during the 66th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters, in New York, September 23, 2011. REUTERS/Chip East )

Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world’s top diplomat said.

(A procession of Cardinals enters St. Peter’s in Rome, opening the Second Vatican Council. Painting by Franklin McMahon)

When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council half a century ago, he said he wanted to “open the windows” of his almost 2,000-year Church to the rapid changes in the modern world.
Within a few years, Roman Catholicism dropped its ancient language Latin, ended two millennia of hostility to the Jews, made room for lay men and women in the liturgy and called for more consultation between the Vatican and its worldwide flock.
Now, as the Church prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the Council’s opening on October 11, 1962, Latin is making a comeback, female altar servers are being discouraged and inner-Church dialogue is often little more than a formality.
Views on the historic Council divide Catholics to this day. Liberals say the return to tradition betrays its spirit. For conservatives, it corrects errors made in applying its ideas.
The key to understanding this fault line lies in the thinking of Pope Benedict himself, who has gone from being a leading reformer to the main advocate of conservative renewal.
“He says the Council was a good thing, but not a big turn in the road,” said Rev John O’Malley, Jesuit author of the book “What Happened At Vatican II.”
“He defines reform as a blending of different levels of continuity and discontinuity,” O’Malley, a Church historian at Georgetown University in Washington, told Reuters.