to the larger considerations of the Catholic Church. Whereas the previous Vatican Council in 1869–70 had tried to defend the role of the church in an increasingly secular world, the Second Vatican Council focused on updating the role of the Church in the modern world. Gaudium et spes was adopted after Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church, and it reflects the ecclesiological approach of that text. It also recognized and encouraged the role of the laity in the life of the Church in the world. The decree was debated at length and approved by much the largest and most international council in the history of the Church. The ecumenical constitution created by the Second Vatican Council focused on the role of the church within the modern world. It was the last document promulgated during the Second Vatican Council and the first church document to place the church within the significance of the world. Gaudium et spes illustrated the church is aware of problems within the world and its responsibilities toward them. While world problems are a focus of the text, it also brings to light the human person and their orientation toward God as well as the mission of the church itself. The mission of the Church needed to recognize the realities of secularization and pluralism. Bishop Christopher Butler points out that a key principle behind the "audacious change" in this and in several earlier outward-looking documents of the council was that the Church was Christ himself using us as his instruments to bring salvation to all, and in charity we must presume that those who differ from us are nevertheless people of good will. As a whole, Gaudium et spes represented an inner looking of the Church on itself so that it may take responsibility and comment on issues affecting the world. Such issues of responsibilities in the world are highlighted by the cardinals of the council such as Leo Joseph Suenens of Belgium, urged the council to take on social responsibility for Third World suffering, International peace and war, and the poor, sentiments echoed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan and Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna. Additionally, Thomas Rosica points out that the Council Fathers "... were men who had experienced two world wars, the horror of the Holocaust, the onset of the nuclear weaponry, the hostility of communism, the awesome and only partially understood impact of