Sign of the times is a phrase strongly associated with Roman Catholicism in the era of the Second Vatican Council. It was taken to mean that the Church should listen to, and learn from, the world around it. In other words, it should learn to read the 'sign(s) of the times'. This phrase, though it comes from the Gospel of Matthew was used in a somewhat novel way by Pope John XXIII when he convoked the council, in the statement Humanae Salutis. It came to signify a new understanding that the Church needed to attend more closely to the world if it was to remain faithful to its calling, and marked a significant shift in theological method. The phrase has continued to be used in papal encyclicals by every pope since then.
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Famous quotes containing the words sign and/or times:
“The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“It seems to me that we do not know nearly enough about ourselves; that we do not often enough wonder if our lives, or some events and times in our lives, may not be analogues or metaphors or echoes of evolvements and happenings going on in other people?—or animals?—even forests or oceans or rocks?—in this world of ours or, even, in worlds or dimensions elsewhere.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)