Yves Congar – författare

Cardinal Yves Congar is universally known and respected as the great ecclesiologist of Vatican II whose seminal ideas helped to reconfigure the landscape of Catholic theology following the council. Less well known is his role in contributing far-reaching insights to the emerging liturgical movement in the church. This collection represents several of Congar's decisive contributions. Reading them makes possible a deeper and more cogent reception of the key ideas of the council documents. These texts are at once both erudite and exciting, both essential and pastorally incisive. There has never been a better time to disseminate these critically important liturgical insights than the present moment.

Archbishop Angelo Roncali (later Pope John XXIII) read True and False Reform during his years as papal nuncio in France and asked, A reform of the church 'is such a thing really possible?" A decade later as pope, he opened the Second Vatican Council by describing its goals in terms that reflected Congar's description of authentic reform: reform that penetrates to the heart of doctrine as a message of salvation for the whole of humanity, that retrieves the meaning of prophecy in a living church, and that is deeply rooted in history rather than superficially related to the apostolic tradition. Pope John called the council not to reform heresy or to denounce errors but to update the church's capacity to explain itself to the world and to revitalize ecclesial life in all its unique local manifestations. Congar's masterpiece fills in the blanks of what we have been missing in our reception of the council and its call to "true reform."

Yves Congar, OP, a French Dominican who died in 1995, was the most important ecclesiologist in modern times. His writings and his active participation in Vatican II had an immense influence upon the council documents. With a few other contemporaries, Congar pioneered a new style of theological research and writing that linked the great tradition of Scripture and the Fathers to contemporary pastoral questions with lucidity and passion. His key concerns were the unity of the church, lay apostolic life, and a revival of the church's theology of the Holy Spirit. He was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in recognition of his profound contributions to the Second Vatican Council.