[The Second Vatican Council has been received in stages in the United States. Pope John XXIII’s opening address and the council’s awareness of the interplay between doctrine and life, between faith and history, shaped the first generation of Church leaders and enabled them to develop a distinctive pastoral vision. Within a contested field of changing practices, they creatively engaged the historical process, balanced contraries and rooted public actions in classic traditions of religious anthropology. A recovery of this now obscured vision might prove helpful in the Church’s present difficulties.]