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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2013
Yves Congar, O.P. (1904–1995) is widely considered the most important Roman Catholic ecclesiologist of the twentieth century and one of the most influential theologians at the Second Vatican Council. His personal diaries Journal d'un théologien 1946–1956 and Mon journal du Concile, recently published posthumously in France, enhance our appreciation for the character and spirituality of this extraordinary theologian. These journals testify to the passion for truth that inspired and sustained Congar's theological vocation through both his difficult years of censure and the exhilarating conciliar period. The witness and example Congar offers can be instructive to our own continuing practice of the theological discipline.
1 Steinfels, Peter, New York Times, 12 August 1995, p. 9.Google Scholar
2 Fouilloux, Étienne, “Friar Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominican: Itinerary of a Theologian,” trans. Dupont, Christian Yves, U.S. Catholic Historian 17 (1999): 63–90.Google Scholar
3 Divided Christendom: A Catholic Study of the Problem of Reunion, trans. Bousfield, M.A. (London: Centenary Press, 1939)Google Scholar; originally published as Chrétiens désunis. Principes d'un ‘Oecuménisme’ catholique, Unam Sanctam, 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1937; Vraie et fausse réforme dans l'Église, Unam Sanctam, 20 (Paris: Cerf, 1950; 2nd ed., 1969). Lay People in the Church: A Study for a Theology of the Laity, trans. Attwater, Donald (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1965).Google Scholar Originally published as Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat, Unam Sanctam, 23 (Paris: Cerf, 1953; 2nd ed., 1954; 3rd rev. ed., 1964). Tradition and Traditions: An Historical anda Theological Essay, trans. Naseby, Michael and Rainborough, Thomas (London: Burns and Oates, 1966).Google Scholar Originally published as La Tradition et les traditions. Essai historique (Paris: Fayard, 1960) and La Tradition et les traditions. Essai théologique (Paris: Fayard, 1963); I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols, trans. Smith, David (New York: Seabury, 1983).Google Scholar Originally published as Je crois en l'Esprit Saint, 3 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1979–80).
4 Congar, Yves, Journal d'un théologien 1946–1956, edited and annotated by Fouilloux, Étienne (Paris: Cerf, 2000)Google Scholar; Congar, Yves, Mon journal du Concile, 2 vols., edited and annotated by Mahieu, Éric (Paris: Cerf, 2002).Google Scholar Translations here of both journals are mine. Topography follows original French text. For bibliographies of Congar's published writings, see Quattrocchi, Pietro, “General Bibliography of Yves Congar,” in Yves Congar: Theology in the Service of God's People, ed. Jossua, Jean Pierre (Chicago: Priory, 1968), 189–241Google Scholar; n Nichols, , “An Yves Congar Bibliography 1967–1987,” Angelicum 66 (1989): 422–66.Google Scholar
5 Étienne Fouilloux, introduction to Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 14.Google Scholar
6 Congar, , Journal d'un theologien, 11 and 25.Google Scholar
7 Fouilloux, , commentary in Journal d'un théologien, 15 and 399.Google Scholar
8 Puyo, Jean, Une vie pour la vérité. Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar (Paris: Centurion, 1975), 38–39.Google Scholar See also Congar, , Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar, ed. Lauret, Bernard, trans. Bowden, John (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 71Google Scholar; Duval, André, “Yves Congar: A Life for the Truth,” Thomist 48 (1984): 505–11.Google Scholar
9 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 363.Google Scholar Fouilloux notes that each of his interviews with Congar since 1966 ended on this note (ibid., 363 n. 357).
10 On the struggle for truth as combat, see Journal d'un théologien, 246, 271, 275.
11 Ibid., 43.
12 Ibid., 35, 43. He did exempt Jacques Maritain himself from the absolutist position held by some members of the circle.
13 Ibid., 221.
14 On truth as an eschatological reality, see Congar, Yves, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 2:34.Google Scholar
15 Congar, Yves, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32 (1972): 169–70.Google Scholar
16 Congar, Yves, Esprit de l'homme, Esprit de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1983), 5.Google Scholar Reference is to the Preface of Bonhoeffer's Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1955).
17 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 238.Google Scholar Reference is to Ps 32:8 (Nones of Monday); trans. NRSV.
18 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 243Google Scholar; see also 139, 242, and 425–26.
19 Ibid., 297.
20 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:145.Google Scholar Congar celebrated the open, dialogical character of the work of Thomas Aquinas, one of the many aspects of the theology of the Dominican master that he greatly admired. See Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 70. Elsewhere he writes: “Every intellectual act, every content of consciousness, has an intentionality which transcends its limits: the intellect seeks a fullness which demands the totality of experience. For this reason, communion with other minds and the dialogue whereby it is achieved are essential to the search for truth.” Dialogue Between Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Loretz, Philip S.J., (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1966), 147.Google Scholar
21 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:145Google Scholar; see also 1:182.
22 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 26.Google Scholar
23 Congar, Yves, Chrétiens désunis. Principes d'un oecuménisme catholique (Paris: Cerf, 1937), 249 and 338.Google Scholar
24 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 156–57.Google Scholar Fouilloux explains that the term “Dissidents” was reaffirmed in Catholic parlance by Pius XI in the 1928 encyclical Mortalium animos (Fouilloux, , “Friar Yves,” 71Google Scholar).
Notably, Congar's emphasis on the importance of personal experience as opposed to a strictly theoretical and deductive competence is comparable to the inductive method Jacques Dupuis describes as foundational to contemporary interreligious dialogue. See Dupuis, , Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue, trans. Berryman, Philip (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 8.Google Scholar
25 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 24, 59, and 70.Google Scholar
26 Congar's childhood diaries recount his experience of the war years and have been published as Journal de la guerre 1914–1918, edited and annotated by Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane and Congar, Dominique (Paris: Cerf, 1997).Google Scholar Congar describes his realization of his vocation in Puyo, , Une vie pour la vérité, 15–16.Google Scholar
27 Guillou, Jean-Marie Le, “Yves Congar,” in Bilan de la théologie du XXe siècle, eds. Gucht, Vander and Vorgrimler, Herbert (Paris: Casterman, 1970), 2:797.Google Scholar
28 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 237 and 237 n. 82.Google Scholar Congar considered his minimal contact with workers and the poor to be one of his limitations as a theologian. See his “Reflections on Being a Theologian,” New Blackfriars 62 (1981): 409. On the worker-priest movement, see Arnal, Oscar L., Priests in Working-Class Blue: The History of the Worker-Priests (1943–1954) (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1986).Google Scholar
29 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:384.Google Scholar
30 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 73.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., 119.
32 Ibid., 95.
33 Ibid., 106.
34 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:31.Google Scholar
35 Ibid., 1:100; see also 1:102.
36 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien., 251.Google Scholar
37 Ibid.
38 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:59.Google Scholar
39 Ibid., 1:57, 59; see also 1:62 and 1:96.
40 Ibid., 1:37.
41 Ibid., 1:106.
42 Ibid., 1:107.
43 Ibid., 1:109.
44 Ibid., 1:115–16.
45 Ibid., 1:217 and 1:362. His journal initially refers to his book by the title L'Église au service des hommes. It is eventually published as Pour une Église servante et pauvre (Paris: Cerf, 1963) and translated into English by Nicholson, Jennifer as Power and Poverty in the Church (Baltimore: Helicon, 1964).Google Scholar Repeatedly throughout his journal, Congar expresses his conviction that the church must become the church of the poor, a concern shared by bishops such as Himmer, LeCaro, and Camera (Mon journal, 1:193, 1:217, 1:484, 1:492). At the same time, Congar is critical of any kind of “class consciousness” and, Fouilloux notes, cannot be considered a social-political “progressive” (Journal d'un theologien, 286 and 286 n. 5). Congar's reservations about appeals to class consciousness are evident in his critique of the use of Marxist analysis by some liberation theologians (Fifty Years, 82–85). Yet, Congar wrote in 1966 that the glaring disparities of wealth in the world were unconscionable and could only be resolved by a voluntary reduction in the excessive standard of living of the rich nations. See his “Poverty in Christian Life Amidst an Affluent Society,” in War, Poverty, Freedom: The Christian Response, Concilium vol. 15, ed. Böckle, Franz (New York: Paulist, 1966), 49–70.Google Scholar
46 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:145Google Scholar and 1:515; see also 1:40 and 1:161.
47 Ibid., 1:170.
48 Ibid., 1:108. See also Journal d'un théologien, 271.
49 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 52.Google Scholar
50 Ibid., 58.
51 Ibid., 57.
52 Ibid., 61. On the broader fraternal network of French theologians at this time, see Wedig, Mark O.P., “The Fraternal Context of Congar's Achievement: The Platform for a Renewed Catholicism at Les Éditions du Cerf (1927–1954),” U.S. Catholic Historian 17 (1999): 106–15.Google Scholar
53 Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Une école de théologie:Le Saulchoir (Kainlez-Tournai, Belgium: Le Saulchoir, 1937).Google Scholar Congar noted in his journal that Chenu had been misread, misinterpreted, and unjustly treated (Journal d'un théologien, 109–10).
54 See Leprieur, Francois, Quand Rome condamne. Dominicains et prêtres-ouvriers (Paris: Cerf, 1989)Google Scholar; OMeara, Thomas F. O.P., Raid on the Dominicans: The Repression of 1954, America 170 (4 February 1994): 8–16.Google Scholar
55 Congar, , Journal dun théologien, 272.Google Scholar Congar interpreted Gal 1:17 and 4:25 as an indication that Paul had gone to Sinai.
56 Ibid., 418.
57 Ibid., 419.
58 Ibid., 419. Reference is to Ps 18:17 and Ps 27:10.
59 Ibid., 420; see also 428.
60 Ibid., 434 and 432.
61 Ibid., 432.
63 Ibid., 422.
64 Ibid., 428.
65 Ibid., 72; for additional references to his work as a “frontier” see also 160 and 221.
66 Ibid., 162; see also 165 and 185.
67 On God as the Truth, see Congar, , La foi et la théologie (Tournai: Desclée, 1962), 75.Google Scholar
68 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 312.Google Scholar See also 211 and 234.
69 Ibid., 196. This is not the only instance in this journal in which he refers to the Holy Office as the “Gestapo.” See also 95, 242, and 246. Fouilloux questions this terminology, which seems to him to be an exaggeration (Fouilloux, , commentary in Journal d'un théologien, 246Google Scholar n. 133).
70 A reference to Jn 13:9.
71 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 270.Google Scholar
72 Ibid., 302; see also 236. He identifies the following as positions of the church that he finds inconsistent with Scripture and tradition and cannot in conscience accept: an ecclesiology that glorifies and absolutizes the Roman Curia and practically eliminates the proper reality of the ecclesia, developments in Mariology that make Mary the object of worship, an anthropology that lacks respect for human persons, and a refusal to have any appreciation at all for Luther or other “Dissidents” (ibid., 303–04; on these points see also 295–96).
73 Ibid., 304.
74 Ibid., 305.
75 Ibid., 306.
76 Ibid.; see also 404.
77 The manuscripts he could not publish were “Études conjointes pour une théologie du laïcat,” “Mission, sacerdoce-laïcat,” Le Mystère du Temple, and a second edition of Chrétiens désunis. The work in progress that he refers to was published in 1970 as L'Église. De saint Augustin à l'époque moderne (Paris: Cerf, 1970). See Fouilloux, , annotations in Journal d'un théologien, 403Google Scholar n. 20 and n. 21.
78 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 401.Google Scholar
79 Ibid., 403–04.
80 Ibid., 404.
81 Ibid., 121, 137, 185, 221, 280, 309, 349, 433.
82 Congar, Letter to Marie-Rosaire Gagnebet, O.P., cited in Fouilloux, , “Friar Yves,” 77.Google Scholar
83 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 304.Google Scholar
84 Ibid., 423.
85 Ibid., 429.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid., 423.
88 Ibid., 430.
89 Congar, , Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 20.Google Scholar
90 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 365.Google Scholar
91 Ibid., 421.
92 Ibid.
93 Congar, , Mon journal, 1:241 and 1:405.Google Scholar
94 Ibid., 1:31.
95 Ibid., 1:61.
96 Ibid., 1:121–24, 1:280, 1:351, 1:419, 1:445, 1:518. 2:59; see also 1:151, 1:180, 1:368, 1:397, 1:399, 1:472, 1:510, 1:516, 1:519, 2:40, 2:49, 2:346.
97 Ibid., 1:529.
98 Ibid., 1:573. He also cites 2 Cor 12:10.
99 See, e.g., Congar, , “Reflections on Being a Theologian,” 406.Google Scholar
100 Congar, , Word and Spirit, trans. Smith, David (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), 5.Google Scholar
101 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 165Google Scholar; see also 275. For further discussion see “The Psalms in My Life,” in Congar, Called to Life, trans. William Burridge (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 11–17.
102 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 273.Google Scholar
103 Ibid., 289.
104 Congar, , Word and Spirit, 5.Google Scholar Reference is to In III Sent. d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, qa 1, obj. 4 and ST IIa IIae, q. 1, a. 6. Congar notes that Albert the Great and Bonaventure also described articles of faith in this manner.
105 Congar, , Word and Spirit, 5.Google Scholar
106 Ibid., 6. He is citing here Geffré, Claude, Initiation à la pratique de la théologie (Paris: 1982), 1:124.Google Scholar
107 Congar, , Journal d'un théologien, 271.Google Scholar
108 On Congar's Thomist and historicist approach to truth, see Henn, William O.F.M-.Cap., The Hierarchy of Truths According to Yves Congar, O.P., Analecta Gregoriana vol. 246 (Rome: Gregorian University, 1987), 29–101.Google Scholar
109 His approach to truth must thus be elucidated, Henn writes, in “an indirect way.” Ibid., 25.
110 Hauerwas, Stanley, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).Google Scholar
111 Congar, , Word and Spirit, 6.Google Scholar
112 Ratzinger, Joseph, “Free Expression and Obedience in the Church,” in The Church: Readings in Theology, ed. LaPierre, Albert, Verkamp, Bernard, Wetterer, Edward, and Zeitler, John; trans. Chang, John and Clements, Justin (New York: P.J. Kenedy, 1963), 212Google Scholar (cited in Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, cover page).