The German theologian Karl Rahner in 1979 called the attention of the theological community to an important shift that has occurred within the church. The dramatic growth of the Christian community in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania during the twentieth century was already evident at Vatican Council II where, for the first time, a significant proportion of the world's Roman Catholic bishops were coming from outside the North Atlantic community. For Rahner this meant not only a shift in population, but a dramatic shift in outlook; the church found itself moving from a predominantly Hellenistic world view into the era of a world church, characterized by a pluralism in world view and multiplicity of new pastoral and theological problems unprecedented in Christian history.