Fr Arokia Rayappan –
In this write-up, we glance at Congar and de Lubac, the protagonists of the Council seen through their written reports of the Council: Congar’s Mon Journal du Concile My Journal of the Council and De Lubac’s Carnets du Concile Vatican Council Notebooks Volume I and Volume II. The sources show how “with De Lubac, Congar worked assiduously for a reform of the hierarchical and centralized Church that had been dominant from medieval times and, in particular, from the Council of Trent.”
Richard R. Gaillardetz who was the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America (2013-14) and recipient of the Sophia Award for theological excellence in service of ministry and the Yves Congar Award for theological excellence from Barry University, writes about the works of the Conciliar Theologians thus,
“Many had a hand in drafting portions of the Council documents or in crafting the texts of the oral and written interventions of the bishops. Perhaps the most detailed daily account of the inner workings of the Council is to be found in Yves Congar’s My Journal of the Council (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012) (original version: Mon journal dec concile [Paris: Cerf, 2002]). A remarkable document of over 900 pages, his penetrating insights shine a light on the true character of the men around him and on the crushing workload, borne by the commission members in formal meetings, informal lectures, and working groups… The perspectives of Henri de Lubac fill two substantial volumes (Vatican Council Notebooks, 2 vols. [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2015]; original version: Carnets du Concile, 2 vols. [Paris: Cerf, 2007]) …”
It is to be noted that both of the papal condemnations of Congar and de Lubac before the Council were driven by concerns about authority and change within the Church.
Yves-Marie Joseph Cardinal Congar
Yves-Marie Joseph Cardinal Congar was named a consultor of the Preparatory Theologica Commission in July 1960. He was an unassuming person. Yet, his journal of the Council was written with uninhibited and brutal frankness. Journalists had access to Congar during the Council. He possessed a capacity for synthetic thinking that allowed him to honour the irreplaceable foundation of faith and still integrate what was new and creative. His ecclesiology was essentially biblical, patristic, ecumenical, apostolic, and practical. He valued the mission of the lay people in the Catholic Church. For him, missionary activity is an extension of the entire life of the Church. He opted for ecclesiological renewal, and pastoral and missionary opening.
1928 onwards, Congar directed his works on ecumenical vocation as well as an ecclesiological vocation. He sincerely desired reconciliation with separated Christians. His writings portrayed a Church that wanted to renew itself and rejoin the world in a spirit of dialogue and service. This renewal even today becomes a reality by theologizing and by returning to sources in both Scripture and Tradition. Congar spoke of episcopal collegiality in place of Roman centralization. During the Council, he experienced more trusting collaboration between bishops and theologians, and intense collaboration between pastors and theologians paving the way for the intra-ecclesial ecumenism and ecclesial communion. His vision of the renewal of Catholicism was centered more on Christ. At its root, the Church of Congar is Ecclesia de Trinitate, People of God, Body of Christ, and Temple of the Spirit characterized by a transition from an essentially juridical vision to a sacramental one.
He envisioned a Christian human being full of biblical vigour and spoke of the sacrament of salvation in which the people of God are inserted into the history of humankind. He also emphasized on vocation to holiness and apostolic fruitfulness. Evangelical conversion of the Church and concern towards the world of the poor abound in his works. He was for something pastoral, less scholastic.
In his eyes, the draft of schemata at the Council was too much academic and philosophical. Rejection of the schemata, he believed, was a first conciliar act. According to Henri de Lubac, Congar looked very tired during the Council. He was even ridiculed by a distribution of a leaflet against him after a conference that he gave at the Vatican. He devoted himself to ecclesiological research with an increasingly marked interest in the history of the doctrines. According to him, investigating the history of doctrines has a direct connection to ecclesiology, and there was a relation between doctrinal questions and pastoral concerns.
Cardinal Congar has words of appreciation for our Delhi Archbishop Angelo Fernandes’ for his “good English pronunciation” (then co-adjutor Archbishop of Delhi) commenting on his intervention in the Second Vatican Council in his book My Journal of the Council, p.406. Our Archbishop intervened in the Council session on Wednesday – Oct. 30, 1963, saying, “One should not speak of the holiness PROPER to the hierarchy and to priests, in dependence on MEANS THAT ARE PROPER to the PASTORAL life.”
Henri-Marie-Joseph Sonier Cardinal de Lubac
Henri-Marie-Joseph Sonier Cardinal de Lubac was one of the principal thinkers and inspirers of the Council. He himself appeared to be astonished at his nomination as a consultor to the Preparatory Theological Commission in July 1960, and council expert (peritus) on Doctrinal Commission in 1962. Because of the theological controversy of the 1940s due to his involvement in the Nouvelle théologie, he suffered much in the 1950s and put up with grave consequences. In his time, there was a sharp tension within French Catholicism. According to him, the Nouvelle théologie was in no way formed on a school of thought. De Lubac was closely involved in the Council’s work. During World War II, he got involved in the spiritual resistance and the Cahiers du Témoignage chrétien (Notebooks of Christian witness). In his view, the central conception of religious thought was the close link between the natural and the supernatural. In his notebooks, he places greater emphasis on the evolution of the conciliar situation. His works, now published in two volumes, contribute to a better understanding of the work of the Council.
De Lubac “was an active participant in or witness to all the diverse aspects of the Council i.e., the general congregations, the Doctrinal Commission (which met in the afternoons during the sessions but continued its work during the intersessions as well), meetings of the French bishops, private encounters between French and foreign bishops on the fundamental questions, various conversations, preparation and clarification of interventions at the council at the request of the numerous bishops, lectures in front of audiences of bishops or of seminarians studying in Rome. He was always present, except for a brief interruption due to illness at the beginning of the second session.” At the Council, he confronted future conciliar schemas prepared by his adversaries. In the end, his theology had the upper hand in the formulation of Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum. He firmly and persuasively defended “…, particularly one on which he insisted: the orthodoxy of the Catholic Faith of Father Teilhard de Chardin.”
He observed that French bishops had little desire to consult Congar and were non-cooperative during the Council. According to him, presence of the personalities from outside Europe the Melchite patriarch Maximos IV and the presence of other Churches particularly the African Church “brought out in a striking manner the universality of the Church, her catholicity.” De Lubac also observed the “the nearly equal ignorance” of the well-qualified theologians, the exegetes, and the bishops of the traditional doctrine on Scripture. He pointed out that some excellent formulae were set aside by them.
In his writings, De Lubac has kind words for Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict XVI. According to him, Ratzinger was a “theologian as peaceable and kindly as he is competent”. He also observed the assertiveness of Archbishop Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, “whose interventions struck him because of the seriousness, the rigor, and the solidity of his faith.”
In his book Vatican Council Notebooks Volume One on p.220, Cardinal De Lubac mentions the Late Archbishop Angelo Fernandes of Delhi (who was an incardinated member of the Archdiocese of Bombay) as a member of the Commission for Bishops and the Government of the Dioceses, who “laid stress on the homily” on Tuesday – Oct. 30, 1962. He also mentions Archbishop Angelo Fernandes’ intervention on Friday – April 2, 1965. According to De Lubac, our Archbishop spoke on the role of evil and suffering stressing the necessity of the contemplation of God in his book Vatican Council Notebooks Volume 2, p. 326.
Reference
Congar, Yves. My Journal of the Council. Translated by Denis Minns. Minnesota: ATF Press, 2012.
Daly, Bernard. M. Beyond Secrecy: The Untold Story of Canada and the Second Vatican Council. Ottawa: Novalis, 2003.
de Lubac, Henri. Vatican Council Notebooks: Volume One. Translated by Andrew Stefanelli and Anne Englund Nash. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2015.
Vatican Council Notebooks: Volume Two. Translated by Anne Englund Nash. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2016.
Dulles, Avery. Models of the Church. Northport, New York: Image, 2013.
Faggioli, Massimo. Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning. New York: Paulist Press, 2012.
Flannery, Austin. ed. Vatican II Constitutions Decrees Declarations. New York: Costello Publishing Company, 2007.
Gaillardetz, Richard R. Ecclesiology for a Global Church: A People Called and Sent. New York: Orbis Books, 2008 and Hahnenberg, Edward P. eds. A Church with Open Doors: Catholic Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium. Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2015.
ed. The Cambridge Companion to Vatican II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Kasper, Walter. The Catholic Church: Nature, Reality and Mission. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. 2015.
Madges, William. ed. Vatican II Forty Years Later. New York: Orbis Books, 2006.
Rayappan, Arockia. “Conciliar Ecclesiology.” Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 87, no.11 (November 2023): 843-862.
Shortall, Sarah. Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth- Century French Politics. London: Harvard University Press, 2021.
Arockia Rayappan is a priest of Delhi Archdiocese and a Ph.D. student at Concordia University, Canada. His doctoral research explores practical, resourceful, and sustainable ways to foster social and religious harmony through Basic Ecclesial Communities in the contemporary Indian multi-cultural, pluri-religious, social, economic, and political milieu. He dedicates the articles on Vatican II and Jubilee 2025 to the friends, teachers, professors, formators and spiritual guides at College Platon, Jnana Deepa – Institute of Philosophy and Religion, Papal Seminary, Vishwa Jyoti Gurukul, Vinay Gurukul, Saint Jude Thaddeus’ School, to the victims of the Covid-pandemic, particularly to the late Fr. Isaac who died on April 30, 2021 , during the first wave of Covid-19. The author’s contributions have been published in Indian Catholic Matters, The New Leader, The Voice of Delhi, Dilli Vaani, JDV Times, The Indian Currents, The Herald, The Examiner, News and Views, Ishvani, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection – VJRT, (Vidyajyoti College, Delhi), The Tablet (Brooklyn, USA), Golden Key – GKA, (Atlanta, USA), and Journal of the Council for Research on Religion – JCREOR, (School of Religious Studies, McGill University, Canada).