Global Catholics – Yves Congar, a once controversial theologian

As we are in the midst of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, I have recently been reading Yves Congar’s journal notes on Vatican II, which have been collated and published in English in a hardcover, difficult-to-carry-around-town 978-page volume. They provide a fascinating glimpse into the figures, procedures, discussions and texts of what is unquestionably the most important religious event of the 20th century.
Congar is one of the primary thinkers, along with Rahner, Ratzinger, Bea, Philips, and a few others credited with driving the reforms of the council. His views on ecclesiology (the study of the church), pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit), ecumenism (the relationship between different branches of Christianity), the role of the laity, and the reform of some of the excesses of what he called “baroque theology” continue to reverberate in our day.
Congar was born in Northern France in 1904. Christened Yves, from the Latin for “yew-tree,” he took the names of the Holy Family upon his entrance into the Dominicans. Thus, he is often referred to as Yves-Marie-Joseph Congar. He was drafted as a chaplain during the Second World War and held as a POW by the Nazis for five years.
In the post-war period, he and other scholars of the period began to write on themes and in manners that broke with the “traditional” neo-scholastic theology of what was called “the manuals.” This “new theology” (nouvelle theologie) was viewed with hesitancy and suspicion in some circles.
Father Timothy MacDonald explains: “Perhaps no other theologian had contributed as much as he to the work of Vatican II. However, the general acceptance that his theology now enjoys should not cloud the fact that for much of his theological career, suspicion and doubt had pursued him in his theological endeavours, particularly on the part of the Roman authorities, because of the provocative and original nature of his thought. Vatican II was the culmination of an effort throughout his career to overcome a narrowly juridical view of the church and to replace it with an understanding of the church as mystery and as an eschatological reality through a profoundly biblical approach which interprets the church through such themes as Body of Christ, People of God, and Temple of the Holy Spirit.”
As an ecclesiologist by training – that is, one who studies the nature, history, structure and future of the church as a mysterious and spiritually edifying reality – I continue to remain intrigued by Congar’s substantial contributions to the field.
His emphasis on the church’s essential nature as that of communion is central to the thinking of both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, two obviously quite distinct personalities. His work toward building bridges between the differing branches of Christianity, deeply influenced by Jesus’ priestly prayer to the Father in chapter 17 of John’s Gospel, “that they may be one, as we are one” (ut unum sint), has profoundly impacted the last half century. And his ideas about true reform as opposed to false corruption, the development of doctrine, and the importance of the laity as more than a negative reality (those who are “not-clergy”) are indispensable for any contemporary Catholic theologian.
Congar’s importance to his day and ours cannot be overestimated. In recognition of his service to the church, Pope John Paul II named him a cardinal shortly before Congar’s death in 1995. Many viewed this decision as an ultimate vindication for the man now rightly recognized to be a loyal and influential son of the church.

Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., of Collingswood, is a Research Associate at Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies in Northeast England.