Description
The great theologian Yves Congar kept, intermittently, a journal of the principal events in the life of the Church in which he was, to a greater or lesser degree, caught up. Gathered together here, these fragments constitute a lively and informed chronicle of the intellectual history of Catholicism in the decade after the Second World War. Father Congar had barely emerged from imprisonment when, on account of some of his publications, he found himself subjected first to the suspicions and then to the disciplinary sanctions of ecclesiastical authority.The journal of a time of trial, this book is thus an exceptional document concerning the relations between theological research and the Roman magisterium at the close of the pontificate of Pius XII. ‘The walls of Colditz, the active, small-war atmosphere of Colditz and of Lübeck had a deep effect on me and made me more determined, more hostile, more defiant. Then, from 1950 onwards especially, because of the historical and theological study that I pursued on the Roman primacy and on ‘Rome’, I felt myself more and more seriously ill at ease with quite a few things; I could no longer, today, honestly defend all ‘Catholic’ (= Roman) positions. It became more and more plain to me that, as I thought right from the beginning, the most urgent work for me was to fight against certain pretensions or exaggerations that are not based upon the Gospel; my ecumenical work was a work for the reformation of a certain ‘state of things’, even when it came to theological thought and the affirmation of principles.’ ‘I cannot and never shall accept the Curia’s point of view, which wants to replace the Holy Spirit with itself alone. This position is false under the threefold point of view of Biblical Revelation, History, and traditional theology.’ ‘I said in passing that I had not submitted the study on the primacy of Peter to the censors, as I did not, myself, want to publish it. Fr General lit up: but it is that that should be published. It would be magnificent, it would be your glory, and that of the Order. I said: no. I do not want to appear to be buying benevolence by something that would curry favour.That for me is a question of honour. I shall possibly only publish this text (which is the writing up of my lectures) when I shall have the liberty to publish the rest. Not before. Fr General was upset… He said:You are not easy. It is true, I said, I am not easy…’
