Alfredo Ottaviani, who had already in 1948 proposed the idea to Pius XII and who put it before John XXIII on 27 October 1958. Over the course of the next 3 years, the Pope would make many statements describing the results he expected from the council. They formed something like 3 concentric circles: 1. For the Catholic Church, he expected a renewal which he described variously as a “new Pentecost”, a “new Springtime”, a new “blossoming”, “a rejuvenation with greater vigour of the Body of Christ that is the Church”. This would be achieved by the “updating” (aggiornamento) or “adapting” of Church practices to new circumstances and a restatement of her beliefs in a way that would connect with modern man. 2. Within the wider Christian family, he sought progress toward reunion of all Christians. 3. For the whole human family, he expected the council to contribute toward resolving major social and economic problems, such as war, hunger, underdevelopment. Two less solemn statements are attributed to John XXIII about the purpose of the council. One is about opening the windows of the Church to let in some fresh air; the other about shaking off the imperial dust accumulated on the throne of St. Peter. They have been repeated over and over, usually without any indication of source. The source for the second statement is Cardinal Léger of Montréal, as reported by Congar. As for the first statement, it has been repeated so many times that it may be impossible to find out if and when the Pope said it. Once the officials of the Curia had recovered from their shock at the Pope's announcement of a Council, they realized that it could be the culmination of the Church's program of resistance to Protestantism, the Enlightenment and all the other errors of the modern world. It was the providential opportunity to give the stamp of conciliar infallibility to the teachings of the most recent popes and to the Curia's vision of the role of the Church in the modern world, provided the Pope could be convinced to forget about aggiornamento. On the other side were those theologians and bishops who had been working towards a new way of doing things, some of whom had been silenced and humiliated by the Curia in the 1940s and 1950s. For them, the Council came as a “divine surprise”, the opportunity to convince the bishops