Yves Congar

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Yves Congar bigraphy, stories - Catholic cardinal

Yves Congar : biography

8 April 1904 – 22 June 1995

Yves-Marie-Joseph Congar, O.P. (8 April 1904 – 22 June 1995) was a French Dominican cardinal and Catholic theologian.

Priest and POW

In 1925 he joined the Dominican Order at Amiens. Following his theological studies at Le Saulchoir, the Dominican studium and seminary, which at the time was located in Kain-la-Tombe, Belgium, and trained in historical theology, Congar was ordained a priest on 25 July 1930.

He was a faculty member at Le Saulchoir from 1931-1939. In 1932 he began his teaching career, conducting a course on ecclesiology. Congar was influenced by the Dominicans Ambrose Gardeil and Marie-Dominique Chenu, by the writings of Johann Adam Möhler, and by his ecumenical contacts with Protestant and Eastern Orthodox theologians. Congar concluded that the mission of the church was impeded by what he and Chenu termed “baroque theology".

In 1937 he founded the Unam Sanctam series, addressing historical themes in Catholic ecclesiology. These books called for a “return to the sources” to set theological foundations for ecumenism. He wrote for a wide variety of scholarly and popular journals, and published numerous books.

During World War II he was drafted into the French army as a chaplain. While serving as an officer, he was captured and held from 1940 to 1945 as a prisoner of war by the Germans in Colditz and Lübeck’s Oflag after repeated attempts to escape. Later he was awarded the French Legion of Honor (Chevalier), the Medaille des Evades and the Croix de Guerre.

Scholar and ecumenist

After the war, he continued to teach at Le Saulchoir, which had returned to France, and to write, eventually becoming one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century on the topic of the Roman Catholic Church and ecumenism,Doyle, D.M., ‘Journet, Congar, and the Roots of Communion Ecclesiology’ Theological Studies 58 (1997): 461–479. and influenced also the thinking of Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II) from the year 1946 onwards.

Congar was an early advocate of the ecumenical movement, encouraging openness to ideas stemming from Protestant Christianity.Hastings, Adrian, Modern Catholicism (1999, Oxford University Press) He promoted the concept of a ‘collegial’ Papacy and criticised the Roman Curia, ultramontanism and the clerical pomp that he observed in the Vatican. He also promoted the role of lay people in the church. Congar worked closely with the founder of the Young Christian Workers, Joseph Cardijn, for decades.

From 1947 to 1956 Congar’s controversial writing was restricted by the Vatican. One of his most important books, True and False Reform in the Church, and all of its translations were forbidden by Rome in 1952. Congar was prevented from teaching or publishing from 1954, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, following publication of an article in support of the ‘worker-priest’ movement in France. He was subsequently assigned to minor posts in Jerusalem, Rome, Cambridge and Strasbourg. Eventually Archbishop Jean Weber of Strasbourg assisted Congar to return to France.

His reputation recovered in 1960 when Pope John XXIII invited him to serve on the preparatory theological commission of the Second Vatican Council. Although Congar had little influence on the preparatory schemas, as the council progressed he became known as a theological expert. Congar has since been described as the single most formative influence on Vatican II.

He was a member of several committees that worked on the drafting of conciliar texts, an experience that he documented in great detail in his daily journal. The journal extended from mid-1960 through to December 1965. Congar decided that it should not be released until the year 2000. The journal was recently published in Journal d’un theologien 1946–1956 and My Journal of the Council, published in French in 2002 and in English translation in 2012.

After the council, Fr. Congar said “respecting many questions, the council remained incomplete. It began a work which is not finished, whether it is a matter of collegiality, of the role of the laity, of missions and even of ecumenism.” Congar’s work focused increasingly on the theology of the Holy Spirit from this time. He was also a member of the International Theological Commission from 1969 to 1985.

He continued to lecture and write, publishing work on wide ranging topics including Mary, the Eucharist, lay ministry and the Holy Spirit, as well as his diaries. His works include The Meaning of Tradition, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, and After Nine Hundred Years, which addresses the East-West Schism.

Congar suffered from a rare neurological disease from the mid-1930s. This curtailed his writing ability and mobility after 1968, and made his scholarly research difficult. He became a resident at the Hôpital des Invalides in Paris from 1986.

In November 1994 he was made a cardinal deacon by Pope John Paul II, shortly before his death.

Early life

Born in Sedan, in northeast France, in 1904, Congar’s home was occupied by the Germans for much of World War I. During this time he kept extensive, illustrated diaries recording the occupation, which provide a unique historical insight into the war from a child’s point of view, and were later published.

In his early twenties, Congar spent three years in a Carmelite monastery where he encountered Thomistic philosophy through the works of the philosopher Jacques Maritain and the Dominican theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.