Too much accommodation of modernity compromised the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, one of the leading experts on the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI told a conference this week.

In a hard-hitting lecture, Professor Tracey Rowland criticised the advocates of aggiornamento, or renewal, for dressing up faith in fashionable packaging. The work of the theologian Edward Schillebeeckx and his followers was particularly criticised by Professor Rowland, who said that their publications in the 1960s and 1970s "were correlating faith with modernity".

Professor Rowland, who is dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, in Melbourne, Australia, was giving the opening lecture at the Vatican II, 50 Years On: the New Evangelisation conference at Leeds Trinity University College, which drew hundreds of delegates including clergy, academics and laity.

Above: Professor Rowland. Photo: John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family