Mystery of The Church, People of God - Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology As A Path To Vatican II-The Catholic University of America Press (2014)

• Mystery of the Church, People of God
Rose M. Beal
M Y S T E RY O F T H E C H U R C H ,
PEOPLE OF GOD
Yves Congar’s
•
Total Ecclesiology
as a Path to
Vatican II
The Catholic University of America Press • Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2014
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beal, Rose M.
Mystery of the church, people of God : Yves Congar’s total
ecclesiology as a path to Vatican II / Rose M. Beal.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2699-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Congar,
Yves, 1904–1995. 2. Church—History of doctrines—20th
century. 3. Vatican Council (2nd : 1962–1965 : Basilica di
San Pietro in Vaticano). Constitutio dogmatica de ecclesia.
I. Title.
BX1746.B425 2014
262’.02092—dc23 2014018255
• For my parents,
John and Mickey Kennelly,
my first teachers in faith
• CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Getting to Lay People in the Church 13
2 Yves Congar’s Treatise De Ecclesia, 1931–1954 57
3 Integration of Speculative and Biblical Methods 105
4 The Unified Pursuit of a “Total Ecclesiology” 169
Conclusion 201
Appendixes
1 The Archives of the Dominican Province of France 217
2 Outlines of Documents in the De Ecclesia Series 221
3 Bibliographies from the De Ecclesia Documents 245
4 Texts from the Writings of Thomas Aquinas 256
Bibliography 259
Index 277
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I take this opportunity to thank the many people who have supported
me professionally and personally as I wrote this book. The project began
as a doctoral dissertation at the Catholic University of America. No doc-
toral student could hope for a better director than Msgr. Paul McPart-
lan, who gave generously of his time and expertise in helping me learn
how to execute a project of this magnitude, shared enthusiastically in
the challenges and excitement of archival research, and actively support-
ed the publication of this book. Likewise, I benefited greatly from the
thoughtful critique made by my readers, Fr. Joseph Komonchak and Fr.
John Galvin. I thank all the faculty of the School of Theology and Re-
ligious Studies at the Catholic University of America who contributed
to the success of my doctoral program, and note with special apprecia-
tion their support in the form of the school’s Hubbard Fellowship while
writing my dissertation. I am also indebted to Dr. Julie-Ann McFann for
her advice and support.
The value of this project is in large part a product of the access I
was given to Yves Congar’s unpublished papers in the Archives of the
Dominican Province of France. In particular, I thank Frère Michel Al-
baric and Frère Jean Michel Potin, archivists of the Dominican Prov-
ince of France, for granting that access, as well as for their kind assis-
tance during my research at the archives. The insights into Congar’s
work process shared by Dominican theologians Père Hervé Legrand
ix
x A cknowledgments
and Père J.-P. Jossua while I was at the archives also informed my ap-
proach to this study.
I thank also my colleagues at Saint Mary’s University of Minneso-
ta for their support of my scholarly work. In particular, Dr. Ken Sten-
strup’s willingness to engage Congar’s theology in the classroom as
well as to read and respond to this manuscript has been a source of en-
couragement and practical assistance. Interaction with Lasallian part-
ners at the Buttimer Institute has likewise furthered my conviction that
Yves Congar still has much to say to the contemporary church.
Throughout my work, I have been sustained by the encouragement
and prayers of my family and friends. My parents, John and Mickey
Kennelly, were my first teachers in faith and instilled in me a deep love
of learning, which together have led me to my theological vocation. My
friends, particularly Kathy Gerjets and René Sykes, made my work eas-
ier through their presence and their understanding of my too-frequent
absence and distraction during the years of research and writing. Last,
but by no means least, I thank my husband, Dave, for the love, sup-
port, and patience he has shown me since encouraging me to begin my
theological studies in 1995.
In closing, I must acknowledge my debt to Père Congar himself,
whose dedication to the pursuit of a “total ecclesiology” led him to ar-
gue for the full appreciation of the role of the laity in the church. His
work and its influence on Roman Catholic ecclesiology in the twen-
tieth century contributed to fostering ecclesial and academic cultures
in which lay people like me are able to participate in the theological
conversation in and about the church today.
• Mystery of the Church, People of God
• INTRODUCTION
The French Dominican theologian Yves Congar (1904–1995) coined

the term “total ecclesiology” in his groundbreaking outline for a theol-
ogy of the laity, Lay People in the Church. “At bottom there can be only
one sound and sufficient theology of laity,” he wrote, “and that is a ‘to-
tal ecclesiology.’”1 In subsequent years, he used the term to describe
the necessary context for a theology of the laity and to characterize the
ecclesiology emerging from the Second Vatican Council’s debate on the
church. Variants on the phrase appear throughout Congar’s published
work, describing an ecclesiological synthesis that does justice to the
mystery of the church “in its totality and under all its aspects.”2
In Lay People in the Church, Congar described a “total ecclesiolo-
gy” as “a whole ecclesiological synthesis wherein the mystery of the
Church has been given all its dimensions.”3 This insight was the cul-
mination of more than twenty years of theological reflection. Congar
1. Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church: A Study for a Theology of the Laity, rev. ed.,
trans. Donald Attwater (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1965), xvi, originally published
as Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat, Unam Sanctam 23 (Paris: Cerf, 1953). All quotations
are taken from the revised edition English translation unless otherwise noted.
2. Yves Congar, “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” in Sainte Église: Études et
approches ecclésiologiques, Unam Sanctam 41 (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 450. See also Yves Congar,
“Laïc,” in Encyclopédie de la Foi, ed. H. Fries (Paris: Cerf, 1965), 2:44, and Yves Congar,
“Vers une ecclésiologie totale,” in Le Concile au jour le jour, vol. 2, Deuxième session (Paris:
Cerf, 1964), 107.
3. Lay People in the Church, xv–xvi.
1
2 I ntroduction
had repeatedly praised the work of theologians participating in what he

saw as the movement toward ecclesiological synthesis and stated the
importance of the method of synthesis as the only adequate approach
to ecclesiology. By his frequent repetition of the theme of totality in
ecclesiology, Congar demonstrated the importance he attached to an
integral ecclesiological synthesis for achieving a true theology of the
church. Thus, a reading of his early published ecclesiological texts in-
vites a perception of “total ecclesiology” as the fundamental goal from
which Congar’s theology of the church springs.
This aspiration for an integral ecclesiological synthesis is also ev-
ident in his unpublished papers from the period 1931–1954, in which
Congar developed his own treatise De Ecclesia (On the Church). These
documents include his Thèse du Lectorat; lecture notes for ecclesiology
courses given at the French Dominican House of Studies, Le Saulchoir,
and in German prisoner-of-war camps; and the incomplete manuscript
of the treatise De Ecclesia that he began to draft in 1948. Congar ceased
drafting the treatise after his removal from Le Saulchoir during the Do-
minican purge of 1954, in which several Dominican theologians whose
work had raised suspicions in Rome were exiled from Paris. While the
documents have a provisional quality (given their varying degrees of
completeness and formality and the fact that Congar never published
their content), the texts nonetheless effectively chronicle the develop-
ment of his intended treatise De Ecclesia over nearly twenty-five years.
For much of his career, Congar pursued an integral ecclesiologi-
cal synthesis, not just as the product and goal of theological reflection
on the church, but also as the method for carrying out that reflection.
From as early as 1929, he planned to write a treatise De Ecclesia encom-
passing the full mystery of the church.4 In fact, however, he never pub-
lished his De Ecclesia, and he admitted in 1970 that it would “probably
never be written.”5 Nonetheless, the unpublished texts from the first
half of his career give witness to the seriousness and persistence with
which he pursued his intended goal and reflect the close relationship
4. Yves Congar, Journal d’un théologien: 1946–1956, ed. and annotated by Étienne
Fouilloux (Paris: Cerf, 2001), 56 and 134–36.
5. Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” Jurist
32 (1972): 169, originally published as “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et
des ministères,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 9–30 (text dated
1970).
I ntroduction 3
between Congar’s teaching activities and his preparations for writing

his treatise.
The notion of a “total ecclesiology” is often invoked by scholars of
Congar’s work, but with no real consensus as to what Congar himself
meant by the term. Some scholars interpret it to signify an ecclesiology
of communion. For example, Jacques Dupuis described “total ecclesiol-
ogy” as “the communion of all the baptized and of their common par-
ticipation in the mission of the Church.”6 Others suggest it points to a
pneumatological ecclesiology. In this vein, Elizabeth Groppe, without
specifically using the term “total ecclesiology,” concluded in her study
of Congar’s pneumatology that his comprehensive systematic theol-
ogy of the church “would have surely been the ecclésiologie pneuma-
tologique he ultimately advocated,” which is “an account of the action
of the Spirit in the ecclesial communion.”7 Yet others consider it to be
a compendium of various aspects of theology related to the church. For
example, Gabriel Flynn equates total with “comprehensive in nature”
and lists elements of such an ecclesiology (pneumatology, Christology,
anthropology, and a theology of creation).8 Similarly, Ramiro Pellitero,
while offering no explicit definition for the term, seems to understand
a total ecclesiology as one that incorporates both the hierarchy and the
laity.9 In each of these cases, the author’s interpretation of what Congar
meant by a “total ecclesiology” is a secondary or incidental element in
research that takes as its primary purpose the investigation of other
aspects of Congar’s theology. As a result, the interpretation of “total ec-
clesiology” is substantially colored by each scholar’s principal research
objective.
This study focuses specifically on the meaning of “total ecclesiol-
ogy” and its significance for Congar’s ecclesiological program so as to
argue that the pursuit of a total ecclesiology is an appropriate interpre-
tive lens for a comprehensive reading of Congar’s early ecclesiology.
6. Jacques Dupuis, “Lay People in Church and World,” Gregorianum 68, no. 1–2
(1987): 390.
7. Elizabeth T. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 101.
8. Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Burlington,
Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 214.
9. Ramiro Pellitero, La Teología del Laicado en la Obra de Yves Congar (Pamplona: Uni-
versidad de Navarra, 1996), 131.
4 I ntroduction
In presenting and analyzing for the first time the content of Congar’s
unpublished course materials and draft texts for his treatise De Ecclesia,
this study demonstrates that the aspiration for ecclesiological synthesis
that he expressed numerous times in his published writings from 1931
to 1954 was accompanied by substantial unpublished efforts to develop
a comprehensive treatise that would accomplish that aim.
Yves Congar: A Life in Service of the Truth

Yves Congar died on June 22, 1995, at the age of ninety-one. His career
as a theologian priest had been long and illustrious, despite many years
during which he was held in suspicion by the Roman curia and by his
Dominican superiors. Congar was born in 1904 to a Catholic family in
Sedan, France. As a youth, he experienced cooperation and friendship
between Catholics and Protestants that would foster his personal voca-
tion to work for ecumenism. In the First World War, when the Catho-
lic parish church to which Congar’s family belonged was destroyed by
invading forces, the pastor of the local Protestant community offered
their chapel to the Catholic community for worship.10
Congar’s theological training began in Sedan under the tutelage
of the local parish priest, Canon R. Tonnel, and then-subdeacon (lat-
er Canon) Daniel Lallement, who subsequently taught Congar at the
Institut Catholique in Paris. He began to discern his vocation to the
priesthood in 1918 and the following year entered the minor seminary
in Reims, where he completed his baccalaureate. In 1921, he entered
the Seminaire des Carmes and studied at the Institut Catholique in
Paris until 1924. Congar had been introduced to the work of Thom-
as Aquinas by Daniel Lallement as a young student in Sedan, and a
retreat preached in 1922 by Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, the not-
ed Dominican Thomist, had impressed him greatly. During his years
10. Many studies of Congar’s work include useful accounts of his life and the influ-
ences on his theology. This review draws primarily on autobiographical accounts found
in Dialogue between Christians, trans. Philip Loretz (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press,
1966), originally published as Chrétiens en dialogue: Contributions catholiques à l’Oecumé-
nisme (Paris: Cerf, 1964); Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar: “Une vie pour la vérité” (Paris:
Centurion, 1975); Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar, ed. Ber-
nard Lauret, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), originally published
as Entretiens d’automne (Paris: Cerf, 1987); and Journal d’un théologien; and Jean-Pierre
Jossua’s book, Le Père Congar: La théologie au service du peuple de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1967).
I ntroduction 5
at the Institut Catholique in Paris, he studied Thomism with Jacques

Maritain for three years. His incorporation into the Maritain circle ini-
tially influenced him to accept a neo-Thomist interpretation of Aqui-
nas’s theology. Later, exposed to the historical renewal in Thomist
studies pioneered, in part, by Marie-Dominique Chenu, a Dominican
priest and faculty member at Le Saulchoir during Congar’s years first
as a student and then as a young faculty member, Congar rejected the
Thomism of Garrigou-Lagrange, Lallement, and Maritain, but he re-
tained a lifelong regard for Aquinas’s work itself. Throughout his life,
Congar would approach theology more from the perspective of history
than from that of philosophy. This choice of perspective was a prod-
uct both of his personal inclination and of his theological education.
He acknowledged that his philosophical training had been less than
rigorous. At the same time, he recognized in himself a lifelong love of
history, starting in early childhood. That predilection was fueled by his
association with Chenu.
Congar’s years at the Institut Catholique were followed by a year of
compulsory military service, toward the end of which his religious vo-
cation became clearer. In November 1925, he entered the Dominicans
as a novice, and he was ordained as a priest in July 1930. The motto of
the Dominican order is Veritas, and Congar would later summarize his
life according to that motto: “I have devoted my life to the truth.”11
Congar studied at Le Saulchoir, the Dominican house of studies
located at that time in Kain-la-Tombe, Belgium, from December 1926
to June 1931, when he was awarded his lectorat. In 1929 and 1930, as he
was preparing for ordination, he discerned the vocation to ecumenism
that would shape his life’s work. His Thèse du Lectorat was his first at-
tempt to fashion a treatise on the church, which he undertook so as
to be able to address the question of church unity. Congar based his
research almost entirely on the works of Thomas Aquinas because, as
he noted in the thesis, ecclesiology had not been part of his academic
training.12
11. Yves Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar, ed.
Bernard Lauret, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 71.
12. Yves Congar, Thèse du Lectorat (1931), Archives of the Dominican Province of
France, 1. In later recollection, Congar described the topic of his thesis as The Beginnings
of a Treatise on the Unity of the Church (Journal d’un théologien, 22) and The Unity of the
Church (Yves Congar, Dialogue between Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism,
6 I ntroduction
The lectorat qualified Congar as a teacher within the Dominican or-

der. After a summer trip to Germany during which he was introduced
firsthand to German Protestantism, he joined the faculty at Le Saul-
choir in the fall of 1931, teaching apologetics in his first semester. In
January 1932, Congar went to Paris for a semester of “complementary
studies,” including courses with Daniel Lallement, Étienne Gilson, and
various members of the Protestant Faculty of Theology. Returning to
Le Saulchoir in the Fall of 1932, Congar taught the treatise De Ecclesia
for the first time, giving a nine-month course that ran from October
1932 to June 1933. His lecture notes for the course are extensive (more
than 300 pages) and show the young theologian’s early efforts to work
out a theology of the church that would be attentive to both the social
and spiritual aspects of the church. He taught the course again in 1934
and 1937, revising it each time. Congar remained at Le Saulchoir until
1939, when the house of studies returned to France. On September 1
of the same year, Hitler invaded Poland; Britain and France responded
with a declaration of war against Germany, and Congar deployed with
the French army. He would not return to Le Saulchoir until July 1945.
Congar later described his years as a student and young professor
at Le Saulchoir as “our happy years.”13 He was busy with many proj-
ects: teaching at Le Saulchoir, meeting with counterparts in the Prot-
estant and Orthodox communities to initiate ecumenical dialogue, de-
livering conferences to religious and lay groups, and constantly writing
and publishing theological texts. In 1937, he published his first book,
Divided Christendom. The book was the first volume of the series Unam
Sanctam, which Congar founded with the support of the publishing
house Éditions du Cerf to promote ecclesiological renewal. Congar’s
exceptional work ethic is reflected in the number of conferences he
gave between 1932 and 1939 (nearly 150, by his own count) and the
number of texts he published (also nearly 150).14 Congar drew part of
trans. Philip Loretz [Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1966], 2). The actual manuscript
of his thesis, however, is simply labeled Thèse du Lectorat—1931.
13. Journal d’un théologien, 62.
14. Yves Congar, Prédications et Conférences faites (1930–1968), Archives of the Do-
minican Province of France; Jean-Marie Vezin, “Présentation raisonnée de la bibliogra-
phie d’Yves Congar,” www.catho-theo.net 5, no. 2 (2006): 168–69; Jean Puyo, 45–47; and
Journal d’un théologien, 24. Many of the “conferences” Congar gave consisted of a number
of lectures over the course of several days.
I ntroduction 7
the motivation for his work from his partnership with M.-D. Chenu
and Henri-Marie Féret, another Dominican priest on the faculty at Le
Saulchoir. The three men planned to overcome the hegemony of the
neoscholastic theology that they labeled “baroque” for its excessive dis-
section of aspects of the church and its overelaboration of individual
parts, particularly concerning the hierarchy. Thus, the theme of renew-
al and ressourcement pervades Congar’s work from these years.
The French army, in which Congar served from September 1939,
generally did not have official chaplains in its ranks. Instead, pastors
and priests served as officers with military duties, which allowed them
to minister to other members of the military. Congar was assigned as a
lieutenant charged with the administration of a fuel depot north of Al-
sace, France. In May 1940, the German army flanked the Maginot Line
and entered France. Congar and his unit were captured in late June
after two days of combat. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of
war held at German officer camps. As an évadé (a prisoner who had
attempted to escape from the German camps) and a prisoner identified
as an agitator, he was held in high security camps, including Colditz.
After the war, Congar acknowledged the depth to which his war experi-
ence, especially his imprisonment at Lübeck and Colditz, had affected
him. While in the camps, he expanded his contact with members of
other Christian communities, and the friendships he developed with
laymen in the camps provided him with concrete images of lay life that
would influence his preaching in years to come. Later, Congar would
interpret the restrictions he experienced at the hands of the Roman
curia and his Dominican superiors in terms derived from military im-
prisonment (for example, referring to members of the Roman curia as
the “gestapo” and to the need to avoid “collaboration” with the curia).15
In the camps, officers were allowed to organize academic cours-
es for one another. Congar gave courses in ecclesiology at Lübben in
1941 and at Lübeck in 1945, as well as many other lectures and talks,
to mixed groups of clerics, seminarians, and laymen. Although he felt
keenly the loss of these years of isolation from the larger theological
world, his theology of the church developed substantially during his
15. Journal d’un théologien, 242 and 270. See also Lauro-Aimé Colliard, Patrice de La
Tour du Pin, Jean Guitton et Yves Congar entre barbelés et miradors (Paris: Editions Don Bos-
co, n.d.), 149–50, and Jean Puyo, 86–88 and 94.
8 I ntroduction
time in the camps, resulting in a fuller incorporation of biblical theolo-

gy and a reduced reliance on scholastic formulations.
Congar was liberated from German captivity by British troops in
May 1945. He was repatriated to France and returned to Le Saulchoir in
time for the Dominican conventual retreat in July 1945. In his absence,
Chenu had been replaced as regent at Le Saulchoir after the book he
had written on the new program of theological formation at the school,
Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir, had been placed on the Index of For-
bidden Books by the Holy Office. The “happy years” were over. In the
years following the war, Congar renewed his engagement with reli-
gious and lay groups, but found that the speaking engagements, added
to his teaching commitments, made it difficult to make progress in his
theological scholarship and writing. In 1946 or 1947, Congar complet-
ed a first draft of True and False Reform in the Church. He circulated
it to his colleagues for comments. Their responses led him to redraft
the text in 1949 and publish the final manuscript in 1950. At the same
time, he was developing his theology of the laity, and his initial studies
on the laity appeared as articles in 1946 and 1948.
In 1946, Congar spent a month in Rome with Henri-Marie Féret.
The two Dominicans were commissioned with business on behalf of
the Order of Preachers. Congar hoped also to use the opportunity to
talk to people in authority in Rome about ecumenism and to discover
the reason for Chenu’s removal as regent of Le Saulchoir, but his efforts
were unsuccessful. In 1948, Congar began to work in earnest on the
treatise De Ecclesia that he had planned to write from as early as 1929.
His drafting and revisions of the text coincided with the courses De Ec-
clesia that he taught in 1948, 1951, and 1954. From 1949 to 1951, he
wrote Lay People in the Church. Beginning in 1952, Congar was required
to submit his writings to Roman as well as French Dominican censors.
He, like many theologians, came under close scrutiny following the
promulgation by Pope Pius XII of the encyclical Humani Generis in Au-
gust 1950. Lay People in the Church was published in 1953 after lengthy
but uneventful review by Roman and French Dominican censors.
In February 1954, the French Dominican Province underwent a
“purge.”16 The purge was the culmination of tensions that had been
16. For a historical account of the purge, see François Leprieur, Quand Rome con-
damne: Dominicains et Prêtres-Ouvriers (Paris: Cerf, 1969).
I ntroduction 9
growing between the French Dominicans and the Roman curia for
nearly twenty years. Chenu and Féret were removed from their teach-
ing positions at Le Saulchoir, and Fr. Pierre Boisselot, the director of
the Cerf publishing house, was removed from Paris. Congar was al-
lowed to complete his teaching assignment for the semester, which
included the course De Ecclesia, but was removed from Paris after the
semester ended in April. At his own suggestion, he went first to L’École
biblique de Jerusalem, where he wrote his book, The Mystery of the Tem-
ple. In November 1954, he was summoned to Rome by the Holy Office;
he stayed until February 1955, but no decisive resolution of his situa-
tion was reached. He returned to Le Saulchoir with his situation still
uncertain.
In February 1956, Congar was sent to Cambridge, England. The
months there were hard for him, particularly because his ecumenical
and academic contacts were severely constrained. In December 1956,
he returned to France to take up residence at the Dominican priory
in Strasbourg. There he was able to resume public activity, including
participation in the week of prayer for Christian unity. He remained
based in Strasbourg until the beginning of 1968, when he returned to
Le Saulchoir.
On January 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII announced that he would
convene an ecumenical council. As abruptly as the Dominican purge of
1954 had begun Congar’s exile, his naming to the council’s preparatory
commission in 1960 ended it. Congar still felt he was under suspicion,
but as an expert (peritus) to the council, he was soon in great demand
by the bishops and the committees with which he worked. The work of
the council was a vindication of Congar’s earlier theological work. Con-
gar reported at the end of the council that many of those participating
in it thanked and congratulated him, telling him that the council was
in large part due to Congar’s work. Some theologians have gone so far
as to refer to the Second Vatican Council as “Congar’s Council.”17 In
all, he participated in the drafting of eight of the documents promul-
gated by the council, including three of its four constitutions. In the
decades after the council, Congar worked to promote its reception by
17. Étienne Fouilloux, “Frère Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominicain: Itinéraire d’un
théologien,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 79 (1995): 396, and Avery Dull-
es, “Yves Congar: In Appreciation,” America 173, no. 2 (1995): 6.
10 I ntroduction
offering an ongoing theological interpretation of its documents. In his

later years, he turned his attention to the theology of the Holy Spirit,
particularly in relation to ecclesiology. His last major work was I Believe
in the Holy Spirit (3 vols.) published between 1979 and 1980.
In 1984, the sclerosis from which Congar had suffered since the
1930s worsened dramatically, requiring him to enter a skilled-care fa-
cility. After a period of temporary arrangements, he was received as a
permanent resident at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris in acknowledge-
ment of his service to his country as a soldier and évadé during the
Second World War. He continued to work, although his physical lim-
itations made writing very difficult. In November 1994, he was named
a cardinal by Pope John Paul II. His status at the time of his death—a
cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a decorated hero resident at
the French military hospital, and a member of the Order of Preach-
ers—reflected the service that had shaped his life: to his church, to his
country, and, always, to the truth.
In Search of a Comprehensive Reading of

Congar’s Ecclesiology
Congar’s ecclesiological work is vast in every sense, spanning many
years, numerous topics and voluminous publications. In Congar’s
later years, scholars began to attempt to assimilate his ecclesiological
thought into a concise, coherent theology of the church that would re-
spect both the development that his thought underwent over the course
of his life and the continuity of fundamental perspectives that persisted
over time. Given the breadth and diversity of his published works, this
has been no easy task. Scholars such as Timothy MacDonald, Joseph
Famerée, Douglas Koskela, and Gabriel Flynn have faced the challeng-
ing task of seeking within Congar’s varied writings a common thread
that would provide the basis for a coherent, if not entirely consistent,
ecclesiology through a unified reading of his many books and articles.18
18. Timothy I. MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes (Lan-
ham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984); Joseph Famerée, L’ecclésiologie d’Yves Con-
gar (Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 1992); Douglas M. Koskela, Ecclesiality
and Ecumenism: Yves Congar and the Road to Unity (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University
Press, 2008); and Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief.
I ntroduction 11
Their books offer useful analyses of Congar’s work and the issues he
addressed. Their efforts reveal the importance of examining Congar’s
texts both individually and in relationship to one another, of placing his
writings within their historical context, of recognizing the development
and the continuity manifested in his work, and of studying both his
major and minor works for the fullest possible understanding of his
ecclesiology as a whole. These are the principles that also guide the
study presented here, with the major additional benefit of reference to
Congar’s unpublished writings, which the earlier studies do not incor-
porate. The explicit focus of the present study is the idea of total ecclesi-
ology, the pursuit of which can truly be seen as Congar’s primary aim.
This study explains the meaning of “total ecclesiology” and the
role of this idea in Congar’s early theology of the church as found in
his published texts and in his unpublished papers dating from 1931
to 1954. In considering the possible meaning and significance of Con-
gar’s vision of a total ecclesiology for his theology of the church, chap-
ter 1 focuses first on various statements by Congar in Lay People in the
Church. His brief but dense description of a total ecclesiology in Lay
People in the Church is examined in order to identify its crucial features.
Next, a close reading of his published books and articles pertaining to
ecclesiology prior to Lay People in the Church demonstrates the place of
integral ecclesiological synthesis in Congar’s early work. The idea ap-
pears in a number of methodological statements that Congar included
in texts addressing specific ecclesiological questions as early as 1932.
Although he did not always describe the method he considered neces-
sary and appropriate for ecclesiology in these studies, when he did so
he used the idea of a total, integral ecclesiology to explain the required
approach. Chapter 1 then places the development of Congar’s vision
of an integral ecclesiological synthesis within the context of the events
and influences of his early career, with particular attention to the tes-
timony given by his journals, interviews, and autobiographical texts.
Chapter 2 introduces the unpublished papers in which Congar de-
veloped his treatise De Ecclesia from 1931 to 1954. These documents
are examined for statements that describe the purpose and method by
which Congar approached the treatise. The methodological statements
in these documents are consistent with those found in his published
texts, all of which reveal his vision of and desire for an integral ecclesi-
12 I ntroduction
ological synthesis, that is, a total ecclesiology. In chapter 3, the content

of the unpublished documents is analyzed in order to trace Congar’s
implementation of his method and the development of that implemen-
tation over time.
After studying Congar’s published and unpublished texts as two
separate data sets, these respective bodies of texts are considered in
light of one another in chapter 4. Through this process, their mutu-
al complementarity is recognized and a more comprehensive under-
standing of Congar’s ecclesiological program in the first half of his ca-
reer is reached. Lastly, in the conclusion, the ultimate disposition of
Congar’s unpublished treatise and the outcome of his pursuit of a total
ecclesiology are considered in light of his assessment of the achieve-
ments of the Second Vatican Council.
Several appendixes are included to provide a fuller understanding
of the archives from which the unpublished texts used in this study
have been taken and of the unpublished texts themselves. Appendix 1
provides a general description of the Congar papers in the Archives of
the Dominican Province of France. Appendix 2 gives an outline of each
of the texts in the De Ecclesia series. These outlines have been assem-
bled from the outlines, tables of contents, and section headings that
Congar included in his own course notes and treatise manuscripts.
Appendix 3 provides the bibliographical listings that Congar included
with his respective ecclesiology courses. Lastly, Appendix 4 reproduc-
es a list of texts relating to ecclesiology from the writings of Thomas
Aquinas that Congar presented during the ecclesiology course that he
taught in 1934.
• 1
G E T T I N G T O L AY P E O P L E I N
THE CHURCH
When Yves Congar coined the phrase “total ecclesiology” in the intro-
duction to Lay People in the Church, he expressed the ecclesiological
vision that had underpinned his theological reflection for more than
twenty years.1 An investigation of his previously published ecclesiolog-
ical texts reveals that the notion of ecclesiological synthesis was fun-
damental to Congar’s theological method long before he coined the
famous phrase. This chapter begins with a close examination of the
phrase in its context in Lay People in the Church, giving a preliminary
understanding of Congar’s meaning. Next, it seeks the beginnings of
Congar’s instinct for a total ecclesiology as revealed in his early writ-
ings as a theologian, prior to Lay People in the Church. Lastly, consid-
eration of the published evidence of the circumstances and influenc-
1. Lay People in the Church, xvi, first edition originally published as Jalons pour une
théologie du laïcat (Paris: Cerf, 1953). The introduction to the first edition is dated Decem-
ber 1951.
13
14 G etting to Lay People in the C hurch
es surrounding Congar’s early theological development will help to

show how and why he considered ecclesiological synthesis a necessary
method.
“Total Ecclesiology” in Lay People in the Church

(1953)
Congar used the term “total ecclesiology” in the introduction to Lay
People in the Church to describe the necessary context for addressing a
number of pressing theological questions about the laity in the church.
With regard to a theology of the laity, Congar wrote:
Its central problem goes beyond the sum of these big questions: the real dif-
ficulty is that such a theology supposes the existence of a whole ecclesiological
synthesis wherein the mystery of the Church has been given all its dimensions, in-
cluding fully the ecclesial reality of laity. It is not just a matter of adding a para-
graph or a chapter to an ecclesiological exposition which from beginning to
end ignores the principles on which a “laicology” really depends. Without those
principles, we should have, confronting a laicized world, only a clerical Church,
which would not be the people of God in the fullness of its truth. At bottom
there can be only one sound and sufficient theology of laity, and that is a “total
ecclesiology.”2
In other words, specific theological questions about the role of the laity
in the church can be answered properly only within an adequately artic-
ulated ecclesiological framework—a framework that in Congar’s judg-
ment was lacking. In describing the immediate task of setting forth a
theology of the laity, he pointed to a larger ecclesiological challenge: the
formulation of a total ecclesiology, that is, an ecclesiological synthesis
of the mystery of the church in all its dimensions. His statement thus
reveals both the object of such a total ecclesiology and the method nec-
essary to achieve it.3
The object of a total ecclesiology is “the mystery of the Church . . .
[in] all its dimensions.”4 Congar here contrasted the “clerical Church”
2. Lay People in the Church, xv–xvi (emphasis mine). See also xvii. While theologians
appealing to Congar’s notion of “total ecclesiology” generally quote only the final sen-
tence, Congar himself repeats nearly the entire text of this fuller quotation in his 1970
reflections on the development of his theology of the laity. See also “My Path-findings in
the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” Jurist 32 (1972): 169.
3. Lay People in the Church, xvi. 4. Lay People in the Church, xv.
G etting to L ay P eople in the C hurch 15
with “the people of God in the fullness of its truth.” In his judgment,
the dominant Catholic ecclesiology of the day equated the church
with its hierarchical institution and with the members of the hierar-
chy.5 Congar rejected that understanding of the church. In Lay People
in the Church, he was intent upon asserting the rightful place of the
laity within the church. He used the term “hierarchology” to refer to
“the theology de Ecclesia [that] was elaborated rather one-sidedly as a
theology only of her institution and hierarchical power of mediation.”6
In contrast to a hierarchology, a total ecclesiology rejected the exclu-
sive identification of the church with any one dimension of the church.
Congar’s proposed total ecclesiology was a striking alternative to the
dominant Catholic ecclesiology of his time.
Congar proposed “a whole ecclesiological synthesis” as the meth-
od for achieving a total ecclesiology. He intended this synthesis to cor-
rect the fractured approach characteristic of ecclesiology beginning in
the twelfth century, which he described as “excessively analytical and
dialectical.”7 In contrast, synthesis would embrace and hold together
diverse aspects of the church as a single reality. In the introduction to
Lay People in the Church, Congar did not give a comprehensive list of
what he meant by all the dimensions of the church. He mentioned only
one, “the ecclesial reality of the laity,” referring to the specific topic of
that particular text. In the body of Lay People in the Church, he also in-
troduced the idea of a synthesis between the life and structure of the
church. He said that the church was the body of Christ under two as-
pects, namely, “as community of the faithful and as institution or order
of the means to salvation, at the same time.”8 Although he did not refer
5. Lay People in the Church, 38, 47, and 51.

6. Lay People in the Church, 38 (italics in the original). It is important to note that al-
though at times Congar characterized “hierarchology” in extreme terms as exclusively at-
tentive to the hierarchy and its authority, he more generally criticized neoscholastic theol-
ogy for an imbalanced, rather than exclusive, emphasis on ecclesiastical authority and for
“a tendency to identify the Church with the hierarchy” (Lay People in the Church, 48–50).
7. Yves Congar, “The Human Person and Human Liberty in Oriental Anthropolo-
gy,” in Dialogue between Christians, 244, originally published as “La personne et la liberté
humaine dans l’anthropologie orientale,” Recherches et Débats 1 (May 1952): 99–111. Else-
where, Congar described this development from previous patterns of thought in terms of
the “difference between the attitude of synthetic perception in the quest of the relation of
the parts to the whole, and an analytic attitude.” (Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years
[New York: Fordham University Press, 1959], 40.)
8. Lay People in the Church, 37 (italics in the original).
16 G etting to L ay P eople in the Church
to life and structure specifically in his statement about total ecclesiolo-

gy, it seems likely that he had them also in mind when envisioning an
ecclesiological synthesis.9
Congar’s earliest text explicitly describing a total ecclesiology, there-
fore, provides an understanding of the object of a total ecclesiology—
the mystery of the church in all its dimensions—and of the method by
which a total ecclesiology is to be achieved—ecclesiological synthesis.
The demand for a total ecclesiology manifests his opposition to the
dominant ecclesiology and theological method prevailing in the first
half of the twentieth century. The meaning of total ecclesiology, an idea
that developed over two decades of theological reflection, and its place
in Congar’s theology is best understood through an examination of the
ecclesiological approach he developed in the early years of his career
and the factors that influenced that development. It is in those years
that Congar’s ecclesiological object and method began to take shape.
Integral Ecclesiology prior to Lay People in

the Church
Because Lay People in the Church was such a monumental text with
far-reaching effect, it may be surprising to find in Congar’s theological
publication in the two decades prior to Lay People in the Church numer-
ous appeals for ecclesiological integration and synthesis. He introduced
the idea of a synthesis of the mystery of the church in all its dimen-
sions—the same language he used later to describe a total ecclesiolo-
gy—in his first major article on the theology of the church in 1932.10
In subsequent years, his published texts reflected a progressively more
defined understanding of the ecclesiological synthesis necessary for the
task. In 1946, he introduced the term “integral ecclesiology” to describe
such a synthesis of the mystery of the church in all its dimensions.11
9. See Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, trans. Paul Philibert (Col-
legeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2011), 296, on the ecclesiological synthesis of structure
and life. The English text is a partial presentation of Congar’s book Vraie et fausse réforme
dans l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1950, 2nd ed. 1968). For references to passages not included in
the English translation, citations will be given for the 1950 French edition.
10. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 450.
11. “Bulletin d’Ecclésiologie” (1947), in Sainte Église, 554, originally written in October
1946 and published in Revue des sciences philosophiqes et théologiques 31 (1947): 78–96 and
In the 1930s, Congar was a young theologian, writing and teach-

ing ecclesiology for the first time. During these years, he perceived a
burgeoning renewal taking place in ecclesiology, which he described
as a new ecclesiological thrust “to consider the Church in all its dimen-
sions.”12 Since the Reformation, Roman Catholic theology had overem-
phasized “the visible and juridical elements of the ecclesiastical body”;
theologians had failed to take into account the mystery of the church
“in its totality and under all its aspects,” as he wrote in 1932.13 As a re-
sult, the theology of the church had narrowed to focus on the hierarchi-
cal structure of the church rather than presenting a true ecclesiology.
But in the years following the First World War, Catholic theologians
had begun “looking to return to value the richest categories: those
which themselves defined the total mystery of the church, its most in-
terior, most collective, most religious elements.”14 Congar pointed to
the work of theologians such as Karl Adam, Humbert Clérissac, Henri
de Lubac, Arnold Rademacher, and Anscar Vonier, as well as his own
work, Divided Christendom, to illustrate the emerging drive for renew-
al in ecclesiology.15 The necessary task was to achieve “a truly integral
synthesis” that would incorporate both the hierarchical structure of the
church and the mystery and life of the church.16
In the 1940s, after his return from the German prison camps of
272–96. For clarity, references to Congar’s numerous bulletins will include the year in
which they were published.
12. Yves Congar, “Bulletin de théologie” (1932), in Sainte Église, 457, originally publi-
shed in Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 21 (1932): 680–86. The language
here clearly foreshadows Congar’s description of a “total ecclesiology” in Lay People in the
Church.
13. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 452 and 450.
14. Yves Congar, “Autour du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie: La collection ‘Unam Sanc-
tam,’” in Sainte Église, 514, originally published in Vie intellectuelle 61 (10 January 1939):
9–32. See also “Bulletin de théologie” (1932), 457.
15. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 452; “Bulletin de théologie” (1932),
457; “Ecclésiologie,” in Sainte Église, 483, first published as “Bulletin de théologie,” Revue
des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24 (1935): 727–34; and “Autour du renouveau de
l’ecclésiologie,” 516–18 and 521–23. Congar refers to K. Adam, Das Wesen des Katholizmus
(1924), H. Clérissac, Le Mystère de l’Église (Paris, 1918), H. de Lubac, Catholicisme: Les as-
pects sociaux du dogme (Paris, 1938), A. Rademacher, Die Kirche als Gemeinschaft und Ge-
sellschaft (Augsburg, 1931), and A. Vonier, The New and Eternal Covenant (1930) and Das
Mysterium der Kirche (Salzburg, 1934).
16. Yves Congar, “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” Irenikon 12
(1935): 328.
World War II, Congar resumed his commentary on the ecclesiologi-

cal renewal being undertaken in parts of the theological community.
Participants in that renewal continued to call for an ecclesiological syn-
thesis that recovered a more complete theology of the mystery of the
church, which Congar labeled an “integral ecclesiology.”17 He began
to contrast integral ecclesiology sharply with the particular theology of
the church that was inaugurated early in the second millennium and
had dominated Roman Catholic ecclesiology since the Protestant Ref-
ormation, which he called “hierarchology.”18 In his early description of
hierarchology, Congar noted that it reduced the theology of the church
to “a theory of the hierarchical functions of mediation.”19 In contrast,
the contemporary renewal movement sought integration on the basis
of ressourcement. Its goal, to use Congar’s language, was “to recover, be-
yond a too-exclusive consideration of the human reality and terrestrial
mode of the church, a deeper and more total truth.”20 Congar felt the
work of his generation was to move beyond the hierarchology that was
“partial and insufficient” to recover the fullness of the Christian tradi-
tion for ecclesiology.21
The pursuit of an integral ecclesiology in the modern day was
marked by the inclusion of dimensions of the church other than sim-
ply its hierarchical structure. Congar saw his generation rediscovering
and reaffirming “within the mystery of the Church, a mystery of the
Holy Spirit and a mystery of the laity, a pneumatology and a ‘laicolo-
gy.’”22 His own work for ecclesiological renewal illuminated the need
for a theology of the laity. He came to realize that a theology of the la-
ity comprised “a certain dimension of the entire theological treatise on
the Church, not just particular affirmations on a number of points.”23
The difficulty in elaborating a theology of the laity, he wrote in 1948,
17. “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie” (1947), 554.

18. Yves Congar, “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work: The Priest as Head of His People
and as Apostle,” in A Gospel Priesthood, trans. P. J. Hepburne-Scott (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1967), 198, previously published as “Sur deux aspects du travail apostolique: le
prêtre, chef de peuple et apôtre,” Prêtres diocésains (February 1949): 81–89.
19. Yves Congar, “Sacerdoce et laïcat dans l’Église,” Vie intellectuelle 14 (1946): 7.
21. “Sacerdoce et laïcat dans l’Église,” 8.
22. Ibid., 8.
23. Yves Congar, “Pour une théologie du laïcat,” Études 256 (January and February
1948): 45.
resides in its presupposition of “an entire ecclesiological synthesis where

the mystery of the Church receives all its dimensions, to the point of
including fully the ecclesial reality of the laity. Without which, facing
a secular world, there would be only a clerical Church, which would
not be in all truth the people of God. The true theology of the laity is a
truly complete ecclesiology.”24 In fact, in Congar’s view, no such “truly
complete ecclesiology” existed to serve as the framework for the theol-
ogy of the laity. The similarity of phrasing between this text from 1948
and the description of a total ecclesiology in Lay People in the Church is
clear; a “truly complete ecclesiology” is obviously an earlier expression
for a total ecclesiology.
In the 1940s, Congar saw that ecclesiological renewal was inspired
and fueled by a ressourcement. To return to the sources was “to rethink
the situation in which we find ourselves in the light and in the spriit of
everything that the integrity of the tradition teaches us about the mean-
ing of the church.”25 In his later years, Congar reflected that he had
been inspired by Johann Adam Möhler to take it as his goal “to renew
ecclesiology from tradition, which is an entirely different thing from a
repetition of the past.”26 Congar took a broad view of what constituted
the sources, adding to the traditional elements (scripture, liturgy, the
Fathers and the teaching of the church) “all the great works of Chris-
tian thought capable of deepening and feeding theological reflection,”
also including the work of non-Catholic Christians.27 From Congar’s
earliest days as a theologian, a return to the sources in their broadest
sense was an essential aspect of the ecclesiological synthesis he later
called “total ecclesiology.”
Congar’s writings from the 1930s and 1940s suggest that his appre-
ciation for ecclesiological synthesis was due in part to the influence of
the Fathers of the early church, whose ecclesiology he summarized as
follows: “The Church is contemplated as a Spirit-centred reality, as the
Body whose soul and principle of unity is the Holy Ghost. The Church
is contemplated in Christ, as Christ is contemplated in the Church.
And the inward Church is not separated from the outward Church, so-
24. Ibid. Emphasis mine. The French phrase is une ecclésiologie vraiment plénière.
25. True and False Reform, 295.
26. Jean Puyo, 82.
20 G etting to L ay P eople in the C hurch
cial, hierarchical and sacramental.”28 This, he wrote, is “the full, large

and undefiled Catholic tradition.”29 He had found in the Fathers “the
presence of the totality of the principles of faith and the living relation-
ship of the object of which they speak to the essence of Christianity.”30
Congar’s early writings demonstrate his understanding of ecclesio-
logical synthesis as a true integration of the dimensions of the church.
Synthesis is more than simply giving each dimension a place within
the whole. It requires an appreciation of the relationships among all
the aspects of the church as mutually contingent realities. For example,
Congar explained that “in the Church there are always two irreducible
aspects to which there correspond two different characteristics, that of
a social institution and that of communion, organisation and organ-
ism.”31 These aspects, however, pertain to the church in their union.
Institution and communion are not separate characteristics within the
church; they are, together, the integral reality that is the church. Thus,
Congar asserted that “a truly Catholic ecclesiology affirms and unites
the two.”32
Congar’s explanation of the integral reality of the episcopal hier-
archy and the life of the people of God offers another example of the
mutual contingency of the dimensions of the church:
There is, in the Church, an aspect of hierarchical mediation and there is an as-
pect of immanence; there is an aspect of exteriority and of social structure, and
there is an aspect of personal life, a life the source of which is interior to us. But
the second aspect feeds on the first, which only exists for it [the second]: as the
ear of corn feeds on the stalk, which only exists for it.33
28. Yves Congar, “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in The Mystery of
the Church, 2nd rev. ed. (Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press, 1965), 74, originally published as
Esquisses du mystère de l’Église, Unam Sanctam 8 (Paris: Cerf, 1941). Previously published
in Thomist (October 1939): 331–59. In this article, Congar referred to the Latin and Greek
Fathers, specifically naming Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, and John Damascene.
29. “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” 74.
30. Yves Congar, “L’esprit des Pères d’après Möhler,” Supplement to La Vie Spirituelle
55 (April 1938), 15.
31. Yves Congar, “The Eucharist and the Church of the New Alliance,” in The Revela-
tion of God, trans. A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968),
173, originally published as “L’Eucharistie et l’Église de la Nouvelle Alliance,” La Vie Spiri-
tuelle 82 (1950): 347–72; a paper read to a gathering of priests at the Eucharistic Congress
of Nancy, 9 July 1949.
32. “Pour une théologie du laïcat,” 46, referring to the integration of the aspects of
the church as institution of salvation and community of salvation.
33. “Sacerdoce et laïcat,” 39.
It is clear, then, that integral interrelationship, and not just a balancing

of opposing elements, is characteristic of ecclesiological synthesis.
What, then, are these dimensions that require synthesis? In his ear-
ly writings, Congar presented the dimensions of the church in a mul-
titude of dialectical pairs requiring a synthesis in which both terms are
preserved.34 Ecclesial structure and life, which are the primary dialecti-
cal poles in Lay People in the Church, are not the only pair to be synthe-
sized.35 Other pairs cited by Congar include: institution/communion,
institution/mystical body, hierarchical structure/active and living com-
munity, heavenly/human, heavenly/temporal, gift of God/active col-
laboration of humans (donné/agi), transcendence/immanence, means
of salvation/fruit of salvation, institution of salvation/community of
saved humans, organism of grace/organism of salvation, constructed
from above/constructed from below, and constructed from Christ/con-
structed from human beings.36 A properly integral ecclesiology would
also include aspects of anthropology, pneumatology, and christology.37
The mission of the church, particularly in its contemporary response to
unbelief, would likewise be an element.38 Congar also introduced the
motherhood of the church, taken as the motherhood exercised for and
by all the faithful, into the synthesis.39
Moreover, the dimensions of the church calling for integration
were not exclusively those pertaining to the church ad intra. Ecclesio-
34. Yves Congar, “The Mission of the Parish,” in A Gospel Priesthood, 164, originally
published as “Mission de la Paroisse,” in Structures sociales et Pastorale paroissiale (Paris:
National Conference, Lille, 1948), 48–65.
35. Responding to a systematic assessment of his writings, Congar described the dia-
lectic between structure and life as only “occasional” in his work. See also his foreword to
MacDonald’s The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes, xxii. While the theme is
important in its place, it is mistaken to see it as the crux of Congar’s ecclesiology.
36. Yves Congar, “L’Église: Corps Mystique du Christ,” La Vie Spirituelle 64 (1941),
248; “Ecclesia ab Abel,” in Abhandlungen über Theologie und Kirche, ed. Marcel Reding
(Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1952), 98; “Trois livres de Pentecôte,” in Sainte Église, 540,
originally published in Vie Intellectuelle 15 (June 1947): 37–43; “Mission of the Parish,”
166; “Le sacerdoce chrétien. Celui des laïcs et celui des prêtres,” Vocation 236 (1966), 59,
written in September 1953; “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work,” 198; “The Human Person
and Human Liberty in Oriental Anthropology,” in Dialogue between Christians, 52; True
and False Reform, 9; and Yves Congar, Divided Christendom, trans. M. A. Bousefield (Lon-
don: Geoffrey Bles, 1939), 82 and 87, originally published as Chrétiens désunis (Paris: Cerf,
1937).
37. “Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” 73–74.
38. “Autour du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie,” 515.
39. “Pour une théologie du laïcat,” 52–53.
logical synthesis also included the church ad extra: “the Church in it-
self, in its sacred reality” and “the Church in its relation to the world.”40
Ecclesiology is not simply an in-house affair; it must incorporate con-
sideration of the church’s mission, which is essentially external, in re-
lation to the world. The mission of the church is to call people to disci-
pleship through living contact with God’s kingdom, revealed through
the church. This aspect of Congar’s ecclesiology was influenced by the
patristic awareness of the church as the place where people are brought
to Christ, that is, the locus of what he later called “the religious rela-
tionship.”41 The church is a means more than an end and so cannot
be considered entirely in and of itself. The ecclesiological framework
must therefore incorporate the dimension of the church’s activity in
the world and avoid separating the church from its mission.
Congar was also attentive to the integration of the historical dimen-
sion of the church. Thus, he wrote:
A classical theological method would suffice for a study of the church in its
structural aspects and simply as an institution, taking a two-step approach in-
volving as full an awareness as possible of the “revealed facts,” [donné] and as
rich and as rigourous as possible an elaboration of those “facts.” However, in
order to study the church according to its life as a communion, the insights of
history as well as those of experience must be integrated along with insights
from doctrinal sources.
My work remains theological, but its object, taken from the life of the
church, makes it necessary to add to the bare theology of the church a consider-
ation of present and historical facts.42
The historical dimension was essential to an integral ecclesiology be-

cause the church exists concretely in history. “All God’s work is a his-
tory and a development. This holds true not only for God’s work of
creation, where it is so obvious, but also for the work of grace and sal-
vation. God did not do all this in a timeless heaven of ideas, but rather
within our history and our time, thus giving meaning and value to time
itself.”43 Thus, “the final reality is only the development of what had
40. Ibid., 45. See also 196.

41. Yves Congar, “Église II: Histoire dogmatique,” in Encyclopédie de la Foi, ed. H.
Fries (Paris: Cerf, 1965), 1:421, originally published as “Kirche: Dogmengeschichtlich,” in
Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, ed. H. Fries, 1:801–12 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1961).
43. Ibid., 117.
been given and foreseen from the beginning.”44 Congar concluded that
“the church, the reality of the promises that became fulfilled in Jesus
Christ, is still awaiting its last and definitive fulfillment.”45 An integral
ecclesiology, therefore, must reflect the historicity of the church by in-
corporating both the already and the not-yet of the ecclesial reality.46
Although “total ecclesiology” came to be associated with Congar’s
theology of the laity by virtue of the term’s first appearance in Lay Peo-
ple in the Church, Congar believed that the theology of the laity was not
the only pressing issue demanding an integral ecclesiology. For exam-
ple, he made a claim on behalf of ecumenism similar to the one he
made with regard to the theology of the laity in Lay People in the Church:
A “laicology” cannot be a sort of appendix, an extension, a simple chapter fur-
ther added to a study of the Church which is in itself entirely “clerical,” but
should represent a certain dimension of the entire treatise. Similarly, a Catholic
“ecumenism” is not so much a specialty added from the exterior to apologetics
or ecclesiology, as it is the life itself of the Church, the theological consideration
and the justification of that [life], when they would be integrally true, authentic,
profound, and carried out to their fullest.47
Congar also saw ecclesiological synthesis as part of the necessary

response to questions raised by the modern world. He came to his ear-
ly sense of the need for an integral ecclesiology at the time in which he
was also becoming aware of the challenges posed by modernity. The
failed modernist movement had not adequately responded to those
challenges. Congar’s response to the challenges of modernity is ex-
plored more fully below.
In the texts that have been cited here from the 1930s and 1940s,
phrases and themes that anticipate Congar’s description of a total ec-
clesiology in Lay People in the Church are found repeatedly: “the Church
in all its dimensions,” ecclesiological synthesis, “integral ecclesiology,”
“an ecclesiology truly complete,” and the word “total.” These many in-
stances support the claim that the notion of a total ecclesiology devel-
oped in Congar’s work over time, although he did not use the specific
phrase “total ecclesiology” until Lay People in the Church. These texts
44. Ibid., 118. 45. Ibid., 119.

46. “Sacerdoce et laïcat,” 11–13.
47. Yves Congar, preface to F. Dvornik, Le schisme de Photius, Unam Sanctam 19 (Par-
is: Cerf, 1950), 8 (emphasis in the original).
24 Getting to Lay P eople in the C hurch
enable a fuller understanding of the object and method Congar asso-

ciated with the notion of total ecclesiology and of the dimensions to be
encompassed by ecclesiological synthesis, particularly insofar as they
extend well beyond the content of a laicology. The circumstances and
influences that contributed to Congar’s theological development prior
to Lay People in the Church will now be considered, in order to develop
a clearer sense of his commitment to the pursuit of a total ecclesiology.
Circumstances and Influences

Books and articles, of course, are not written in a vacuum. Congar’s
writings reflect the circumstances and influences of his professional
life in his first twenty years as a theologian. An appreciation of the con-
text in which Congar thought and wrote will enable a more accurate
understanding of his theological project as a whole. The years prior to
the writing of Lay People in the Church were interrupted by World War
II. The war itself and events in the church during the war years divide
Congar’s early adult life into two distinct periods. He spent the period
before the war working optimistically with his colleagues at Le Saul-
choir, establishing himself as a theologian devoted to ecclesiological re-
newal. After the war, Congar experienced the personal cost associated
with being a prophetic voice in the church. His work drew the criticism
of the Roman curia, and he was eventually exiled from Le Saulchoir
in 1954. The events and theological influences in Congar’s life during
the prewar years will be considered first; attention will then turn to the
period after the war.
Le Saulchoir (1931–1939): “Our Happy Years”

Congar looked back upon the 1930s, spent at the Dominican house of
studies Le Saulchoir, first as a student and then as a young professor,
as “our happy years.”48 In these years, he established the theological
foundations that would shape his work throughout his career. He very
quickly became aware of the necessity of theological synthesis, partic-
ularly with regard to the theology of the church. He appreciated that
ecclesiology is never simply about “the machinery of an institution”: “It

is the body of Christ that the hands of the theologian touch.”49 Consid-
eration of the context in which Congar’s early theological development
occurred must begin with the challenge of modernity and the failed
modernist response that formed the backdrop to all Catholic theolo-
gy in this period. Against that backdrop, several important factors that
contributed to Congar’s instinct for totality will be considered. First,
as a young professor at Le Saulchoir, Congar established himself as
part of a team intent on theological renewal. Second, in those years, he
entered into the work of ecumenism and dialogue with non-Catholic
Christians. Third, he immersed himself in the ecclesiological renewal
movement already underway in the interwar years. Lastly, the centena-
ry of the death of German theologian Johann Adam Möhler prompted
Congar to study Möhler’s theology of the living church, which the cele-
brated German theologian had developed in response to the challenges
of modernity in the nineteenth century. Examination of each of these
factors will contribute to an understanding of the development of Con-
gar’s ecclesiological method in his first decade as a theologian.
The Challenge of Modernity and the Modernist Response Congar’s ear-

ly theological development was inevitably shaped by the larger context
of French Catholic theology in the 1930s, a time in which theologians
were struggling once again with the challenges of modernity. Moderni-
ty was not a new phenomenon. Emerging from a worldview inaugurat-
ed by Renaissance humanism in the fourteenth century and brought to
maturity in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, modernity had long
posed a challenge to religious faith and religious structures.
In the nineteenth century, the Christian response to modernity
had taken two distinct paths. The first path sought some degree of con-
structive engagement with the philosophy and worldview of modernity,
which were increasingly dominating modern culture. In the Catholic
world, the path of constructive engagement was taken by theologians
such as Ignaz von Döllinger, Felicité de Lamennais, Johann Adam
Möhler, and John Henry Newman.50 The second path, which was re-

50. See Joseph Komonchak, “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholi-
cism,” Cristianesimo nella Storia 18 (1997), 374; Gabriel Daly, “Catholicism and Moder-
nity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53, no. 3 (1985), 775, and “Doctrine as
Symbol: Johann Adam Möhler in Dialogue with Kant and Hegel,” in The Legacy of the
flected in the magisterial documents of the Catholic Church, rejected

the possibility of such engagement and established the church as a dis-
tinct counterculture in opposition to modernity. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, members of the hierarchy understood the Catholic Church itself
to be waging a battle against modernity. The enemy was seen as “a sin-
gle great rationalistic system . . . the essence [of which] was the repu-
diation of authority and tradition, the self-proclaimed independence or
autonomy believed to be enshrined in Luther’s private judgment and
in Kant’s definition of Enlightenment.”51 In 1864, Pope Pius IX issued
the Syllabus of Errors, condemning eighty propositions concerning the
relationship between the church and the modern world. The final prop-
osition condemned in the Syllabus was the assertion that “the Roman
Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with
progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”52 In other words, there
would be no Catholic accommodation of modernity.
The First Vatican Council (1869–1870) offered a two-pronged re-
sponse to modernity. First, it established the church’s theological-phil-
osophical position against the claims of modernity, rejecting any so-
called scientific conclusions that were contrary to the doctrine of faith.53
Second, the council defined papal primacy/sovereignty and infallibility.
Those definitions constituted “a culminating moment in the Church’s
self-constitution as a distinct and autonomous ‘counter-society.’”54 Thus,
the council formally separated the church philosophically and institu-
tionally from the demands of modernity. Shortly after Vatican I, in the
encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879), Pope Leo XIII mandated Thomism as the
philosophical and theological system to be used by the Catholic Church
in response to the philosophical perversions initiated by “the struggling
innovators of the sixteenth century” and continuing to the present day.55
Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nineteenth-Century Theology for the Twenty-First Century,
ed. Donald J. Dietrich and Michael J. Himes, 130–43 (New York: Crossroad Publishing
Company, 1997).
51. Komonchak, “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholicism,” 358, with
reference to T. G. Calvetti, “Congruenze sociali di una definizione dogmatica sull’Immacola-
to Concepimento della B. V. Maria,” in La Civittà Cattolica 3, no. 8 (February 1852): 377–96.
52. Pope Pius IX, Syllabus Errorum §80.
53. First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, chapter 4, “On Faith and Reason.” See also Ko-
monchak, “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholicism,” 376.
54. Komonchak, “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholicism,” 376–77.
55. Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris §24 and 31.
As a result, Thomism became the test of orthodoxy for Catholic intellec-

tual engagement with modernity. Any hint of antischolasticism, particu-
larly anti-Thomism, was taken as grounds for suspicion.
At the turn of the twentieth century, various Catholic philosophers
and theologians again attempted a constructive engagement with the
challenges posed by modernity. Collectively, many of their efforts came
to be labeled within Roman Catholicism as “modernism.” The era of
modernism opened in 1893 when the French philosopher Maurice
Blondel introduced a new philosophical method of immanence in his
book L’Action.56 Blondel’s new approach to immanence and transcen-
dence reopened questions about the relationship between philosophy
and theology and the relationship between faith and reason. In subse-
quent years, Catholic scholars such as Alfred Loisy, Friedrich von Hü-
gel, and George Tyrrell joined Blondel in his attempts to engage with
modernity. Their work shared certain qualities, such as an opposition
to neoscholasticism, an appreciation for the historical dimension of
philosophical and theological enquiry, a call for reform in the church,
and the desire for an effective Catholic response to modernity.57
The reengagement with modernity inaugurated by Blondel drew
criticism from those in the Catholic Church—particularly Pope Pius X
—who warmly approved of the rejection of modernity formalized by Vat-
ican I and Aeterni Patris. They countered what they called “modernism”
with “integralism,” a system that “insisted on the ‘integration’ of all fac-
ets of life into an indivisible organic unity, hierarchically ordered beneath
the Roman Pope.”58 It was crucial that an adequate philosophy under-
56. Blondel’s method of immanence claimed that “action is the ‘perpetual point of
junction between belief and knowledge.’ . . . It is the means whereby the transcendent
interpenetrates the immanent by supplying a dynamic thrust to life” (Daly, Transcendence
and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1980), 33.
57. Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
1991), 332; Darrell Jodock, “Introduction I: The Modernist Crisis,” in Catholicism Contend-
ing with Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context, ed.
Darrell Jodock, 1–19 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3 and 8; and Gabriel
Daly, “Modernism,” in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Col-
lins, and Dermot Lane, 668–70 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1987).
58. Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris,
1919–1933 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 55. See also Daly, Transcendence
and Immanence, chapter 8 “The Integralist Response (1): Prelude to the Roman Condem-
nation of Modernism,” 165–89.
28 Getting to L ay People in the Church
pin the integrated system; only Thomas Aquinas and his use of Aristotle
were deemed able to meet the demand.59 Thus, the Catholic theologi-
cal-philosophical system mandated in the nineteenth century by Aeterni
Patris was seen to constitute an irreducible integral whole supporting the
entire structure of Catholic life, which was itself an irreducible integral
whole. With Catholicism interpreted in such monolithic terms, no en-
gagement with other intellectual or social systems was possible.
The clash between modernism and integralism reached crisis pro-
portions when Alfred Loisy published L’Évangile et l’Église (1902) in re-
sponse to the liberal Protestantism of Adolf von Harnack’s Das Wesen
des Christentums (1900). Loisy’s book was seen as a rejection of Cath-
olic doctrine regarding Christ, the church, and the nature of doctrine
itself and was soon placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. L’Évangile et
l’Église prompted a concerted antimodernist publishing crusade spear-
headed by the Roman integralists. Critics of Loisy’s historical biblical
theology quickly identified in it an underlying philosophy—Blondel’s
method of immanence—that in their judgment smacked of the Kan-
tianism that was antithetical to Thomism. They concluded that because
Kantianism was irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine, so, too, were the
modernists.60
Integralists were convinced that they detected an orchestrated move-
ment to impose modernity on the Catholic Church through a cohesive
system (as integral as their own) that they called modernism. On July 3,
1907, the Holy Office issued the decree Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemn-
ing the errors perpetrated by those pursuing the “novelties” of the age.61
Loisy’s propositions comprised the vast majority of the condemned
statements in this new syllabus of errors. Two months later, Pope Pius
X condemned the modernist system as “the synthesis of all heresies” in
his encyclical Pascendi Domenici Gregis.62 The encyclical described mod-
ernism as a comprehensive, deliberate system of thought founded on
59. Jean Baptiste Lemius, lecture entitled “Le basi filosofiche del sistema Loisiano,” 2
May 1907, as cited in Daly, Transcendence and Immanence, 184.
60. James M. Connolly, The Voices of France: A Survey of Contemporary Theology in
France (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 37; M.-J. Lagrange, M. Loisy et le Modernisme: À pro-
pos des “Mémoires” (Juvisy, France: Cerf, 1932), 137; and Daly, Transcendence and Imma-
nence, 55–56, 71 and 166–71.
61. Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, Lamentabili Sane Exitu.
62. Pius X, Pascendi Domenici Gregis §39.
an agnostic/atheistic philosophy of immanence. Its characterization of

modernism was so comprehensive as to describe no specific individual,
but to cast suspicion on anyone who challenged the Roman neoscholas-
tic hegemony. Pascendi thereby effectively prohibited the engagement of
Catholic theology with modernity and initiated an antimodernist period
rife with suspicion and anonymous accusations against any Catholic in-
tellectual suspected of consorting with modernity.
In France, the integralists found a home in the national integral-
ism of the right-wing monarchist movement, Action Française. How-
ever, in 1926, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of the present
study, Pope Pius XI condemned Action Française and its national inte-
gralism. Thus, in the early 1930s, French Catholic intellectuals were re-
interpreting the notions of integration and synthesis in theology.63 This
is the milieu into which Congar stepped as a young theologian in 1931.
The Young Professor at Le Saulchoir As a new professor at Le Saulchoir in

1931, Congar found himself immediately confronted by the unanswered
questions of modernism. The condemnation by the Catholic Church of
the ideas set forth by scholars such as Blondel and Loisy had suppressed
but failed to resolve the inescapable challenges of modernity that gave
rise to the modernist movement in the first place. Although the solu-
tions proposed by the modernists were sometimes problematic, men
such as Blondel and even Loisy were responding to authentic religious
questions intrinsic to the life of faith in the post-Enlightenment Western
world. In reading Loisy’s newly published memoirs in 1931, Congar was
confronted by the lingering questions of modernism: “From that time
on, [along] with a very strong critical reaction, the conviction formed in
me that our generation had the mission of successfully bringing about,
within the Church, that which was sound in the demands and the prob-
lems posed by modernism.”64 Congar’s appreciation for what he called
“the legitimate demands of modernism” (distinguishing them from the
modernists’ unreasonable claims) and his sense that his generation had
a mission to respond to them were shared by two friends and colleagues
at Le Saulchoir: Marie-Dominique Chenu and Henri-Marie Féret. To-
63. Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism, 50 and 189.

64. Journal d’un théologien, 24 (emphasis in the original).
30 Getting to L ay P eople in the Church
gether, they formed “a team conscious of a common mission,” namely

that of theological renewal in response to the demands of the modern
world.65
Congar believed that, despite its errors, modernism made two valid
theological demands. First, the historical dimension of theology need-
ed to be acknowledged and historical-critical methods of scholarship
used. Second, subjective perspective had to be recovered. In ecclesi-
ology, Congar saw this demand in terms of “the insertion of the be-
liever into the Church” in an ecclesiology attentive to communion and
community (rather than one focused exclusively on the church as in-
stitution), but without the individualism to which the modernists had
fallen prey.66 It is worth noting that Congar found these two demands
not only in the work of the twentieth-century modernists, but also in
the work of theologians such as Möhler and Newman, who tried to re-
spond to the challenges of modernity in the nineteenth century. Both
of these “legitimate demands of modernism” were rooted in the en-
during challenge of modernity and could not be dismissed among the
errors of modernism. They comprised “the great intellectual problem
that presents itself to the Church in modern times.”67 Thus, Congar,
Chenu, and Féret began their mission of theological renewal. Their
goal was “to restore theology’s historical dimension and its dimension
of living religious knowledge.”68
The team used the term “baroque theology” to describe the theol-
ogy they opposed in their mission for theological renewal.69 Baroque
theology designated post-Tridentine scholasticism and neoscholasti-
cism, characterized by rationalism based on a priori propositions. In
ecclesiology, baroque theology manifested itself in an inordinate em-
phasis on the hierarchy of the church, which was seen primarily as in-
stitution, with little attention given to the life of the church. In gener-
al, baroque theology ignored both the believing person as theological
65. Ibid., 24 and 59. Congar maintained his conviction of a mission to respond to
these two demands in his reflections on the theological task, specifically at Le Saulchoir,
after the war (see 70).
66. Ibid., 59. 67. Ibid., 70.
68. Ibid., 60.
69. Ibid., 24n32. Congar was here recounting an extended conversation he had with
Chenu on the margins of the Dominican chapter meeting at Le Saulchoir in August 1932.
Féret apparently joined the effort shortly after the initial conversation between Congar and
Chenu. See also 60.
subject and the historical dimension of theology. Thus, the necessary

response to modernism and the rebuttal of baroque theology called for
the same basic recoveries: first of the historical dimension of theology,
and second of the living, human subject of theology.
Congar understood that the religious challenges of modernity were
not limited to the academic, intellectual realm of theology. Modernity
introduced a barrier to belief in the lives of ordinary individuals. In
1935, he participated in an extensive inquiry into the reasons for un-
belief in contemporary France.70 One of his major conclusions from
the study was that the separation imposed between faith and life in
the modern world inevitably strangled faith. In the French context, pro-
gressive secularization had relegated faith to a limited, private domain
within the larger whole of life, forcing faith into an unnatural constric-
tion. “Faith is, of its nature, total,” wrote Congar. “It tends of itself to
invade the whole of life.”71 Being compartmentalized as just one part of
life was contrary to the very nature of faith. Thus, faith could not exist
in its fullness in a secularized world. As a result, unbelief was prevail-
ing in the modern secularized world.
Secularization, however, did not receive all the blame for the con-
temporary state of unbelief. Congar also blamed the church itself, in
part, for the state of unbelief in the modern world. The defensive po-
sition taken by the church, with the imposition of what he called “se-
curity measures” in response to the modernist crisis, had indeed ac-
complished the preservation of the deposit of faith.72 An unintentional
consequence of erecting a bastion of defense, however, had been a
failure on the part of the church to make Christ present in the world.
The church had disengaged from the world when, in fact, it should be
the very salvific presence of Christ in the world. In Congar’s view, the
church had emphasized its role as defender of the faith at the expense
of its mission of evangelization in and to the world. By withdrawing
behind its defenses, the church had abetted the relegation of faith to
a small corner of life. The necessary corrective was for the church and
70. Yves Congar, “The Reasons for the Unbelief of our Time,” Integration 2, no. 1
(1938): 13–21, and no. 3 (1938): 10–26, originally published as “Une conclusion théologique
à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles de l’incroyance,” Vie intellectuelle 37, no. 2 (1935):
214–49.
71. Ibid., 14.
72. Ibid., 20.
32 G etting to L ay People in the C hurch
faith to regain “the totality of their visibility, i.e., of their expression, of

their radiation in life.”73
In the context of the challenges posed by modernity, the lingering
demands of modernism, the contemporary situation, and the shared
mission launched with Chenu and Féret, Congar developed his first
course as a professor of ecclesiology. He later described that first effort:
Having to create a course De Ecclesia, I had to choose a point of view and a plan.
I decided to construct the mystery of the Church by applying to it the categories
of the Thomist philosophy of society. As I moved forward, I realized that these
categories, despite their rigor and depth, were inadequate to render a complete
account of the reality of the Church and that they should be surpassed.74
From the first, Congar’s concern was to give “a complete account of

the reality of the Church,” that is, of “the mystery of the Church.” Dis-
satisfied with ecclesiological approaches that failed in this regard, he
applied himself to finding a better approach.
As a young professor, Congar had an initial instinct for ecclesio-
logical wholeness. The emphasis on the hierarchy found in baroque
theology was objectionable not because of what it included—the hier-
archy—but because of all that it failed to include, particularly in the
realm of the life of the church. Thomist social philosophical categories
eventually proved inadequate because they, too, failed to accommodate
the fullness of the mystery of the church. Awareness of these deficien-
cies led Congar to work toward a theological method that would “ren-
der a complete account of the reality of the Church.”75
Early Ecumenical Encounters As Congar prepared for ordination to the

priesthood in 1929 and 1930, he came to recognize in himself a special
vocation to work for Christian unity. In response to that vocation, he ac-
tively sought opportunities for ecumenical contacts in the 1930s. Trips
to Germany in 1930 and 1931 exposed him to a richer sense of the his-
torical roots of division in the church, especially through contact with
the places and texts associated with Martin Luther, in whom he took
great interest. The following year, he began to develop ecumenical con-
tacts in earnest through his studies in Paris. These ecumenical encoun-
73. Ibid., 25. 74. Journal d’un théologien, 29.

75. Ibid., 39.
ters contributed to the notion of catholicity that became an important

element of his understanding of an integral ecclesiology.76
When Congar went to Paris in January 1932 for further studies in
his area of specialization, he took a course on Luther with Étienne Gil-
son and several courses with the Protestant Faculty of Theology. From
his work with the Protestant faculty, he came to the conclusion that in
ecumenical affairs “nothing replaces direct, concrete, living contact.”77
In addition to building contacts with the Protestant faculty, Congar es-
tablished relationships with Protestant and Orthodox counterparts at
gatherings of the ecumenical Franco-Russian circle active in Paris at
that time. Through the circle, he was introduced to Catholic ecumenical
pioneers such as Abbé Albert Gratieux (a devotee of Russian Orthodox
theologian Alexei Khomiakov) and Dom Lambert Beauduin (founder
of the bi-ritual Latin-Byzantine monastery at Amay-sur-Meuse). Congar
followed his studies in Paris with a trip to Amay, where he met Paul
Couturier, whom he later called “the father of spiritual ecumenism.”78
Congar’s theological reflection on the need for unity given the sepa-
ration of the churches led to his early formulation of a theology of cath-
olicity as “the universal capacity for unity.”79 Congar explained that the
catholicity of the church is a manifestation of the catholicity of Christ,
just as the oneness of the church manifests the oneness of God. Cath-
olicity is the dynamic quality of integration: “Catholicity means the in-
tegration of multiplicity within unity; or, more exactly, (since her unity
is something already existing and not something to be attained), it is
unity as assimilating multiplicity. Unity comes first; and it is in relation
to this unity that multiplicity must be understood and appraised.”80
Thus, catholicity is a vital characteristic of the church; it is the essential
way in which the church lives out its oneness. The church embodies
the oneness of God by actively exercising its catholicity as a function
that integrates the many into the one. The practical effect of Congar’s
76. Ibid., 20–23, and Dialogue between Christians, 6.

78. Sister Teresa Burke, CP, “The Abbé Paul Couturier: Pioneer of Spiritual Ecu-
menism,” in The Unity of Christians: The Vision of Paul Couturier, ed. Mark Woodruff, 2nd
ed. (London: Catholic League, Tufton Books, 2005), 3. The author does not include a cita-
tion for Congar’s use of the title “father of spiritual ecumenism” for Couturier.
79. Divided Christendom, 101. See also 48 and 98.
80. Yves Congar, “Rome, Oxford and Edinburgh,” Blackfriars 18 (September 1937): 657.
34 G etting to L ay People in the C hurch
theology of catholicity was that it opened the way for participation by

the Catholic Church in ecumenical dialogue, because that participation
could be seen as a constructive and even necessary expression of the
church’s very nature rather than as a series of negotiated concessions
undermining the catholicity of the church.81
For Congar, catholicity was not merely an ecumenical principle re-
lated to the unity of the Christian churches; it entailed the integration
of everything human. The integrative capacity of the church extends to
“all the human values lying scattered in all their variety throughout the
world.”82 Congar described the church catholic as follows:
This is the Church, this is catholicity. The Church is not a special little group,
isolated, apart, remaining untouched amidst the changes of the world. The
Church is the world as believing in Christ, or, what comes to the same thing, it
is Christ dwelling in and saving the world by our faith. The Church is religious
humanity; it is the universe as transfigured by grace into the image of God.83
In Congar’s view, the catholicity of the church encompassed the whole

world. This insight into the true universality of the church explains
his later insistence that an ecclesiological synthesis should incorpo-
rate both the church in and of itself and the church in relation to the
world.84
Congar’s appreciation of catholicity as the integrative capacity of
the church held significant consequences for his approach to eccle-
siology. If the church is the integration of multiplicity into unity and
the dynamic embracing of multiplicity by unity, then it is reasonable
to expect that ecclesiology must reflect that same integration. An ec-
clesiology that does not present fully the multiplicity in unity that is
the catholic (universal) church fails in its theological task. As Congar’s
direct experience of the non-Catholic Christian communities grew and
his theological appreciation of the catholicity of the church developed
in the 1930s, the failure of ecclesiology to reflect adequately the totality
of the church became increasingly troubling to him.
81. Divided Christendom, 101.

82. Yves Congar, “The Life of the Church and Awareness of Its Catholicity,” in The
Mystery of the Church, 101, originally published as “Vie de l’Église et conscience de la cath-
olicité,” Bulletin des Missions 18 (1938): 153–60.
83. “Reasons for Unbelief,” 21.
84. “Pour une théologie du laïcat,” 45.
The Movement for Ecclesiological Renewal When Congar began his

theological career in the early 1930s, an ecclesiological renewal was al-
ready underway, Congar described the aim of that renewal as “a resto-
ration of the supernatural and mystical elements of the church, a hum-
ble and religious effort to envision in all her divine depth the ‘mystery
of the Church.’”85 He aligned himself with that renewal movement, as
can be seen in his many positive reviews of texts contributing to the re-
newal. In 1932, he wrote, “The efforts are still limited, but they proceed,
in sum, from a common inspiration, the shared desire to consider the
Church in all its dimensions. . . . Contemporary Catholic theologians
seek to return attention to the richest categories: those which them-
selves define the total mystery of the Church, its most interior, most
‘collective,’ most religious elements.”86 In 1934, Congar noted, “we
have many times indicated the movement [ for ecclesiological renewal]
that brings souls to contemplate the mystery of the Church and to en-
vision it truly as mystery, in all its depth.”87 One of the products of this
ecclesiological renewal was “the rediscovery of the Church by the laity
and of the laity by the Church,” which brought with it the theological
task “of making known to the world the mystery of the Church in all its
depth and of defining the true status of the laity within the Church.”88
This was the task to which he later applied himself in Lay People in the
Church and in his writings on the theology of the laity that preceded it.
One of the essential ecclesiological insights that Congar valued in
the renewal movement was the revival of the notion of the church as
community as well as institution. For example, Arnold Rademacher’s
use of the terminology of Gesellschaft (that is, the organizational and in-
stitutional dimension of the church) and Gemeinschaft (that is, the di-
mension of the church as organism and communion) prompted Congar
to appreciate the integral relationship between the church’s dimensions
of institution and communion. In the language of German philosophy,
he explained, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are similar terms in that
they both reflect the interaction between parts that comprise a whole.
Gemeinschaft refers to “the spiritual life of the collective” and describes

86. “Bulletin de théologie” (1932), 457.
87. Yves Congar, “Bulletin de théologie,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
23 (1934): 681.
88. “Bulletin de théologie” (1935), 730–31.
36 G etting to Lay P eople in the C hurch
the community as an organism, while Gesellschaft refers to “the visi-

ble society amongst individuals” that assembles the various members
into a single whole.89 Although the two concepts attend to different di-
mensions of the church, they are integrally united: “The Gemeinschaft
[collective spiritual life] manifests itself in Gesellschaft [visible society]
and thus finds its form of life; such that there exists nothing of Gemein-
schaft that does not present itself in some fashion in Gesellschaft, nor of
the Gesellschaft that does not have, at its interior, something of the Ge-
meinschaft.”90 Thus, the communal and institutional dimensions of the
church comprise a single whole. Congar concluded, “the Church is at
once plainly Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, organism and organization:
organization because [it is] organism.”91 At the same time, the church
as organism depends on the church as organization for its realization.
In conjunction with his praise of ecclesiological renewal, Congar
criticized ecclesiologies that fell short of recognizing and accounting
for the church “in its totality and under all its aspects.”92 In an early
indictment of what he later termed hierarchology, he critiqued post-
Reformation Catholic ecclesiology in particular as overly concerned
with “the visible and juridical elements of the ecclesiastical body.”93 Al-
though he sympathized with the Catholic response to the challenges
posed by the sixteenth-century Reformation, acknowledging that the
position taken preserved the truth of the faith, the demands of the six-
teenth century were not the demands of the twentieth century.94 He
perceived in the current day an urgent need for renewal, balance, and,
above all, integration in ecclesiology. While he in no way rejected the
institutional, societal aspect of the church, he could not tolerate an ec-
clesiology attentive only to the church as institution.
One dimension of ecclesiological renewal in the 1930s was the at-
tention to the image of the church as the mystical body of Christ that
developed in Catholic circles. Congar approached that ecclesiology, set
forth by theologians such as Émile Mersch, with caution. On the one
hand, he was wary of the inclination to see the doctrine of the mystical

90. Ibid. (emphasis in the original).
91. Ibid., 460–61.
93. Ibid., 452.
94. “Reasons for the Unbelief,” 20.
body of Christ as “the center of all theology,” as Mersch did, and gen-
erally expressed concerns about an excess of enthusiasm that would
replace the mystery of God with the doctrine of the mystical body.95 On
the other hand, Congar valued the integrative capacity of the doctrine
of the mystical body of Christ. The complexity of the image required
theologians to bring together multiple theological issues if they were to
engage seriously with it. Thus, he acknowledged an argument in favor
of Mersch’s approach: “It is the impossibility, well known to ecclesiol-
ogists, of speaking of the mystical Body without speaking of the holy
Trinity, of grace, of the sacraments, of the Virgin, in short of all materi-
al revealed and capable of theological reflection.”96
Congar saw that an ecclesiology drawing on an understanding of
the church as the mystical body could be a powerful corrective to the
excessively institutional ecclesiology characteristic of baroque theology.
Given the new prominence of the image of the church as the mystical
body of Christ, he wrote that “the task is now imposed of reintegrating
the notion of the mystical Body with the realities which, from within,
constitute and define the Church; of seeing how, by the unique manner
in which she is a society, the Church-society is intrinsically the mystical
Body.”97
In Congar’s estimation, an additional benefit of an ecclesiology
built on an understanding of the church as the mystical body of Christ
was that it “obviously serves to give the lay members their organic place
within the Church.”98 Thus, the approach to ecclesiology taken by theo-
logians exploring the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ illuminat-
ed and resisted the inclination of the ecclesiology of the day to overem-
phasize the clerical members of the church.
In the early 1930s, Congar served as a herald of the movement
for ecclesiological renewal. By the end of the decade, he was taking a
much more active role in the movement, contributing his own scholar-
95. “Bulletin de théologie” (1934), 682 and 684–85, in a review of Émile Mersch, “Le
Christ mystique, centre de la théologie comme science,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 61
(1934): 449–75.
97. Yves Congar, “Bibliographie critique,” in Sainte Église, 473, originally published in
Bulletin Thomiste 3 (July–September 1933): 948–56. Congar brought together the images
of the church as society and as mystical Body in the ecclesiology courses he taught in 1934
and 1937. See below, chapter 3, at 156.
38 Getting to L ay P eople in the Church
ship and leading publishing efforts to support ecclesiological renewal.

In 1932, Congar published his first major article on ecclesiology, “En
marge de quelques études sur l’Église.” As noted above, in the arti-
cle, he announced a renewal underway in ecclesiology seeking “a res-
toration of the supernatural and mystical elements of the Church, a
humble and religious effort to envision in all its divine depth the ‘mys-
tery of the Church.’”99
Five years later, Congar founded a new book series, Unam Sanctam,
to provide a publishing forum devoted to ecclesiological renewal. He
had been inspired to establish the series in large part by the conclusions
he drew from his 1935 study of the causes of unbelief in the modern
world and by his desire to offer a “positive response” to the challenges of
modernity, rather than simply a negative response to the juridical eccle-
siology of the manuals.100 The purpose of the series was to advance the
renewal by “making better understood the true nature of the Church, in
order to restore to her mystery all its dimensions.”101
Congar’s book on ecumenism, Divided Christendom, was not only
the first book of the series, but also his own first book. In it, he pre-
sented a sincere and informed comparative analysis of the theologies
of the church held by the Catholic Church and by other Christian com-
munities. He approached the comparison in a spirit of dialogue rather
than of condemnation. Most importantly for Catholic participation in
ecumenical engagement, he introduced the notion that catholicity, as a
mark of the church, could be understood as the church’s capacity to in-
tegrate multiplicity into unity.102 He described catholicity as the “axis”
of Divided Christendom and central to the second and third volumes of
Unam Sanctam as well.103 With regard to the second volume, a French
translation of Johann Adam Möhler’s Unity in the Church, Congar ac-
knowledged that it was not a perfectly balanced text, but he valued its
identification of the gift of the Spirit as the “principle of Catholicism”

101. Preface to Le Schisme de Photius, 7. This book, by Dvornik, was volume 19 of the
Unam Sanctam series. Congar wrote the preface, in which he set forth the purpose of
the series as a whole. See also Dialogue between Christians, 23.
102. Divided Christendom, 101. The influence of Divided Christendom is seen in the
Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio §1–4.
103. Preface to Le Schisme de Photius, 516.
as a response to shortfalls in contemporary theology. The third book

in the Unam Sanctam series, Henri de Lubac’s Catholicism, spoke to a
“restoration of humanity and all things in Christ,” that is “the Church
itself.”104 In different ways, therefore, the first three volumes of the se-
ries each contributed to an ecclesiology that sought to integrate the full
mystery of the church in all its dimensions.
In this way, Congar took his place within the movement for ecclesi-
ological renewal in the 1930s, first as enthusiastic observer and then as
active participant. His initial attraction to the emerging movement for
renewal is significant. It suggests that he had an instinct for totality and
wholeness in ecclesiology from his earliest days as a theologian, an in-
stinct that allowed him to feel at home in the renewal movement that
was opening the way to consideration of the church in all its dimensions.
The Influence of Johann Adam Möhler Reading the works of Johann

Adam Möhler in preparation for the 1938 centenary of his death, Con-
gar found inspiration for a true response to the current challenge of
modernity and to the lingering demands of modernism. Congar saw
that Möhler had himself confronted the challenge of modernity in the
nineteenth century. The primary attractions of Möhler’s ecclesiology
appear to have been its foundation in the life of the church, “a life with-
in the fraternal communion of love” that was for Möhler “the essential
law of Catholicism,” and Möhler’s retrieval of the framework for eccle-
siology found in the Fathers.105
Congar found support for his campaign to respond to the unan-
swered challenges of modernity in Möhler’s organic view of the church
as “a living whole, realized by the Holy Spirit,” a view drawn in large
part from the Greek Fathers.106 An appreciation of the dynamic reality
of the living church, infused by the Spirit, countered the hierarchical,
institutional focus Congar attributed to neoscholasticism and baroque
theology. Möhler’s work reflected “a living reference to the concrete re-
104. “Autour du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie,” 518–22.

105. Congar noted that he did not really read Möhler until 1937, in preparation for
writing about the German theologian for the centenary of his death (see Journal d’un théol-
ogien, 60). See also Yves Congar, “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” in Sainte Église, 12–13, orig-
inally published in Revue des Jeunes (January 1938): 85–92.
106. “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” 13. See also Yves Congar, “La pensée de Möhler et
l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” 326–27, and “L’esprit des Pères d’après Möhler,” 3–4.
40 G etting to Lay P eople in the C hurch
ality of Christianity which is the Church in the continuity of its devel-

opment and its current state.”107 This living reference correlated well
with the program of theological renewal underway at that time at Le
Saulchoir. The idea of the church as a living whole suggested a notion
of unity that corresponded to Congar’s developing idea of ecclesiologi-
cal wholeness. Attention to the life of the church combated the dialec-
tical divisions typical of scholastic theology and opened pathways for a
more integrative approach to ecclesiology.
Möhler’s ecclesiology also offered grounds for responding to the
modernists’ call for a return to the human subject. Congar found in
Möhler the principle that “far from being constituted or explained by
its members, the Church is a living whole which constitutes and ex-
plains its members.”108 As a living whole, the church itself is a subject;
indeed, the church is the primary theological subject. The individual
is understood and understandable as subject only within the church
that gives the individual meaning. Employing Möhler’s ecclesiology,
Congar was able to accommodate the modernists’ demand that the
perspective of the subject be given full attention without falling into
the trap of individualism. While the modernists’ tendency might have
been to identify each individual as the subject, and thereby fragment
theological reflection, Congar identified the church as a whole, that
is, as a living community, as the subject. If the church gives life and
meaning to its members, then surely those members are alive and
meaningful within the church. In this way, Congar joined Möhler’s
ecclesiology of the living church with the communion ecclesiology of
Arnold Rademacher described above.
One hallmark of Möhler’s theology of the church is the differing
orientations found in his two works, Unity in the Church (1825) and
Symbolism (1832). Congar primarily appealed to the ecclesiology of Uni-
ty. He particularly praised Möhler’s accomplishment in Unity, in which
he gave “in the spirit of the Fathers, a grand synthetic vision of the
essence or, as he says, of the principle of Catholicism, which is also, in
the Church, the principle of unity.”109 In Unity, Möhler developed an
107. Yves Congar, “La signification œcuménique de l’œuvre de Möhler,” Irenikon 15

(1938): 114.
108. “L’esprit des Pères,” 3.
109. “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” 12 (italics in the original).
organic view of the wholeness of the church, based on the Holy Spirit
as the principle of the church’s life and unity. Thus, Möhler’s ecclesiol-
ogy offered an essential counterpoint to the neoscholastic emphasis on
institution and hierarchy that Congar and his colleagues sought to cor-
rect. Congar also found in Möhler a useful foundation for ecumenical
dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Church on the unity of the church.
Because Möhler drew so heavily on the Greek Fathers who stood at the
heart of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, his writings had an eastern
sensibility that was appealing to the Eastern church.110
Congar was, however, by no means unaware of Möhler’s later ec-
clesiology, and saw a complementarity between the two phases of
Möhler’s ecclesiology. In Unity, Möhler took as his starting point the
life of the church and offered an organic view of the church, reflecting
on its internal principle of life, the Holy Spirit, which was manifested
externally as the institutional church: thus Möhler moved “from the
soul to the body.”111 In Symbolism, Möhler reversed the direction of his
reflection, taking a structural, institutional perspective as his starting
point: “The Church as visible society is no longer only a product of an
interior and mystical Christianity: it is the divinely instituted means
of its transmission, realization, and development.”112 Taken together,
Unity and Symbolism present the church as both life and structure.
Möhler’s work was also useful for Congar in that it introduced,
from within the Roman Catholic tradition, an appreciation of the mys-
tery of the church that had been lacking in Western theology’s empha-
sis on the visible church. Nonetheless, Congar was not entirely uncriti-
cal of Möhler’s theology of the church. Möhler’s shortcoming was that
he failed to integrate his two views of the church. The organic and the
institutional aspects of the church remained separate because he pre-
sented the dimensions of the church’s life and structure in separate
texts (Unity and Symbolism, respectively). Congar insisted that this fail-
ure was not a reason to reject Möhler’s work, but rather a call to pursue
Möhler’s line of thought to its completion in “a truly integral synthe-
110. “Signification oecuménique de Möhler,” 123, and “L’esprit des Pères d’après
Möhler,” 3.
111. Yves Congar, “Note sur l’évolution et l’interprétation de la pensée de Möhler,”
Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 27 (1938): 210.
112. “Note sur l’évolution et l’interprétation de la pensée de Möhler,” 212.
42 Getting to Lay P eople in the C hurch
sis.”113 What Möhler lacked, Congar sought, namely, a “perfect treatise

on the Church” that would be “a theological synthesis” of the church
as both visible, hierarchical society and the mystical body of Christ.114
Möhler was not the only nineteenth-century theologian in whom
Congar found inspiration for the movement toward an integral ecclesi-
ology. In an article praising efforts at integration in ecclesiology, Con-
gar highlighted the Russian Orthodox theologian Alexei Khomiakov,
with whose work he became familiar through ecumenical contacts,
who presented the Eastern idea of sobornost that Congar later used in
Lay People in the Church to describe the communitarian wholeness of
the church.115 Both Möhler and Khomiakov moved toward an integral
ecclesiology with their incorporation of the pneumatological and an-
thropological dimensions of the church—admittedly, sometimes to
the detriment of other dimensions. Congar noted that Matthias Schee-
ben, influenced by Möhler, also had contributed to an early synthesis
of the idea of the church as both mystical body and visible society in
his Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik. He additionally praised Schee-
ben’s awareness of the Greek Fathers and placed him at the “head of
the line” in the effort to move beyond counter-Reformation theology.
Of John Henry Newman, Congar wrote, “He succeeded, not perfectly,
but exceptionally, at synthesis . . . faith and reason, spiritual life and
intellectualism, history and thought, psychology and dogma, prophe-
tism and life in the Church, subject and object, progress and tradition,
reflection and poetry.”116 All four theologians—Möhler, Khomiakov,
Scheeben, and Newman—contributed to an initial shift away from de-
fensive post-Reformation Catholic theology toward a more integral the-
ology incorporating multiple aspects of the church.117
In summary, in the 1930s, Congar began to establish the principles
that would underpin his theological work throughout his career. Those
principles included an enduring commitment to an approach to ecclesi-
ology that integrated the full mystery of the church in all its dimensions.
Congar’s instinct for an integral ecclesiology was shaped and reinforced
by the circumstances in which he lived and worked as a theologian. The
113. “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” 328.

114. Ibid., 321–22. 115. Lay People in the Church, 282–83.
117. Ibid., 564–67.
four influences examined here—his early years at Le Saulchoir, his in-

volvement in ecumenism, his association with the movement for eccle-
siological renewal, and his study of the nineteenth-century ecclesiology
of Johann Adam Möhler and others—show that the pursuit of an inte-
gral ecclesiology was part of Congar’s theological consciousness from
his earliest days; it was (and would remain) the means to ecclesiological
renewal that was demanded by a fidelity to the reality of the mystery of
the church.
From Captivity to Exile (1939–1954)

Both during and after the Second World War, Congar continued his
theological work committed to the pursuit of an integral ecclesiology
despite the shift in circumstances that took him from the happy years
at Le Saulchoir into the drama of war and then into a decade of es-
calating tensions with Rome. Congar spent most of World War II in
German camps.The time was not entirely without theological develop-
ment for him, however. There, Congar was able to teach courses on
theological topics, including two long courses on ecclesiology. He was
also able to interact with non-Catholic Christians in a direct way that
strengthened his ecumenical vocation. He found that his contact with
other prisoners gave him “a certain realism.”118 Nonetheless, war ser-
vice left Congar disengaged from the theological community, and he
later lamented the loss of potentially fruitful years of labor.119
Congar spent the years immediately following the war involved in a
whirlwind of engagements that brought him into close contact with the
dynamic pastoral realities of French Catholicism. He later asserted that
“anyone who did not live through the years 1946 and 1947 in the history
of French Catholicism has missed one of the finest moments in the life
of the Church.”120 A month spent in Rome with his friend Féret brought
him into contact with the bureaucratic realities of the Roman curia as
well. Congar returned from the war with a substantial agenda of theo-
logical projects, including writing the treatise on the church, L’Église,
peuple de Dieu et mystiquement corps du Christ, that he had planned since
1929. In 1948, he realized he needed to curtail his public engagements
118. Jean Puyo, 86 and 94–96. 119. Jossua, Le Père Congar, 29.
120. Dialogue between Christians, 32.
44 G etting to L ay P eople in the Church
if he was to advance his theological writing, and subsequently he re-

duced the number of engagements he accepted. Thus, after an initial
burst of activity following his release from captivity, Congar applied
himself assiduously to his theological task and wrote prolifically.121
Three aspects of Congar’s experience in the postwar years signifi-
cantly shaped his vision of an integral ecclesiology. First, his contact
with the Catholic community beyond the theological academy gave
him a pastoral awareness of the realities of church life. Second, the
growing tensions between Congar and Roman officials uneasy with his
ecclesiological approach led him to assess his theological stance and
ultimately to strengthen his commitment to ecclesiological renewal
and a total ecclesiology. Lastly, Congar’s work as a writing theologian,
producing texts such as True and False Reform in the Church (1950) and
Lay People in the Church (1953), brought new refinement and precision
to his ecclesiology. These three aspects of Congar’s postwar experience
will now be considered in turn.
Popular and Pastoral Engagement In the postwar years, Congar fre-

quently addressed conferences for varied audiences, many with pasto-
ral concerns. The realism that entered Congar’s consciousness during
his years of imprisonment would not allow him to isolate himself
from the reality of the life of the church. He spoke at many private
and public gatherings, addressing clerics, religious, and lay people. His
speaking engagements included events for parish priests and groups
of chaplains of the Young Christian Workers and the Workers’ Cath-
olic Action as well as meetings of the leadership of various men’s and
women’s religious congregations. He addressed events organized by
the Catholic Center of French Intellectuals and participated in national
and international ecclesial congresses. He gave presentations at more
than forty-five events related to the week of prayer for Christian unity,
the latter including public conferences as well as meetings with stu-
dents and lectures to groups in houses of study, religious houses, and
121. Journal d’un théologien, 56–57. According to Congar’s course notes, the title for
the treatise was actually L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ. Congar obviously had
high expectations of himself as a writing theologian. In 1946 and 1947, the two years
he considered insufficiently productive, he wrote nearly sixty articles, including ten full-
length journal articles, nearly forty Témoignage Chrétien articles, and the first draft of his
lengthy work True and False Reform in the Church.
seminaries.122 Interaction with parish priests, lay people, and members

of religious orders gave Congar an appreciation for the reality of the
life of the church—its challenges, its questions, its limitations, and its
possibilities—across the breadth of the church’s membership. As a re-
sult, in the postwar period, Congar’s writing took on a new richness as
he drew on his experience of the diverse life of the church and strove
for a synthetic understanding of the church in all its dimensions.
Congar was not entirely new to popular and pastoral engagements
in the postwar years. Before the war, he had participated in days of re-
flection for the chaplains and members of the Young Christian Work-
ers and in various other conferences as part of what he called his “in-
tellectual apostolate.” At that time, his friend and colleague Féret had
chided him for the time he spent on such endeavors, seeing them as
distractions from his “scientific theological work.”123 History does not
sustain Féret’s judgment. Although the time devoted to public engage-
ments may have detracted from the time Congar had available for writ-
ing, interaction with the people of the church, especially after World
War II, contributed substantially to his developing ecclesiology. Its in-
fluence is seen in his appreciation of the dimensions of the church that
required integration.
Congar’s varied contact with the life of the church was extreme-
ly productive for his theological reflection, particularly his developing
theology of the laity. He saw the growing interest in the theology of the
laity in his own day as a popular result of the liturgical and apostolic re-
newal of the early twentieth century. He wrote Lay People in the Church
in response to the many requests he received, presumably from lay and
clergy alike, who had heard him speak about the laity in the church or
read his articles touching on the theology of the laity.124
Congar published a number of articles based on talks given as part
of his intellectual apostolate in the postwar years. Many of the talks re-
sponded to practical, pastoral issues such as the mission of the parish,
the role of the parish priest and the effective execution of the mission
of the laity. These practical issues quickly led to the exploration of ec-
122. This list is not exhaustive and is based largely on those addresses that were later
published. See Jossua, Le Père Congar, 30, and Congar, Dialogue between Christians, 17.
124. Jossua, Le Père Congar, 30. See also Yves Congar, “The Council in the Age of Dia-
logue,” Cross Currents 12, no. 2 (1962): 148, and Lay People in the Church, xii–xiii.
clesiological questions such as the mission of the church, the nature

of the church as communion, and the integral nature of the church. In
these talks, Congar repeatedly employed many of the dialectical pairs
listed previously to express the full dimensions of the church.125 In
confronting the topic of the multiple dimensions of the church in the
course of his popular engagements, Congar felt strongly the need for
“a really integral ecclesiology”:
Integral truth is synthesis and integration. It has never been my purpose to
make a radical contrast between . . . two notions of the Church, as if they were
irreconcilably opposed and we had to make an exclusive choice between them.
The Church is at one and the same time a hierarchical society and a living body,
institution and community, made from above and constantly being made from
below.126
The only ecclesiology that could deal with the mystery of the church
in all its fullness was one that recognized “a sort of dialectic in which
neither of the two terms must be sacrificed.”127
The experience of the life of the church bolstered Congar’s instinct
for the necessity of integrating the life of the church with its structure,
without sacrificing one or the other. It put flesh on the theological idea
he encountered in Möhler: the people of God is comprised of actual
people. Speaking with the members of the body of Christ face-to-face,
Congar could not reconcile himself to an ecclesiology that excluded or
ignored them. An ecclesiology that would be anything less than a syn-
thesis of the entire reality of the mystery of the church, including all its
members, was simply unacceptable in light of his experience.
Conflict with Rome In the years following the war, Congar had his first
real taste of conflict with the “Roman system,” as he called it.128 Prior to
the war, his ecumenical work, and especially his book Divided Christen-
125. See “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work,” delivered at a conference at Vanves on De-
cember 31, 1947 to the directors of the Apostolic Union; “Mission of the Parish,” delivered
at the Congrès National de l’Union des Oeuvres, Lille, on April 1, 1948; “Eucharist and the
Church,” delivered to priests gathered for the Eucharistic Conference, Nancy, July 1, 1949;
“Human Person and Human Liberty,” delivered at the Centre catholique des intellectuels
français on March 4, 1952; and “Human Social Groups and the Laity of the Church,” in
Christians Active in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 48–61, given in an
address to the chaplains of Action Catholique Ouvriére, Versailles, September 17, 1953.
126. “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work,” 198 (emphasis in the original).
127. “Mission of the Parish,” 164. 128. Journal d’un théologien, 89.
dom, had raised some concerns, but no official action had been taken
against him. During the war, Congar’s mentor and colleague, M.-D.
Chenu, had been removed as regent of studies at Le Saulchoir when
his book about theological reform at the school was banned by officials
in Rome. In the decade following Congar’s return from the war, grow-
ing suspicions about his own work—particularly the challenge it posed
to the theological status quo—culminated in his being exiled from Le
Saulchoir in 1954. The conflict with Rome provided Congar with con-
crete evidence of the dangers of an ecclesiology attentive only to the
hierarchical aspect of the church, particularly if the hierarchy was pri-
marily understood as the Roman curia. Institutional resistance to the
integral ecclesiology he was proposing, however, only strengthened his
resolve for renewal.
Congar traveled to Rome with his Dominican colleague from Le
Saulchoir, Henri Féret, in May 1946. The official reason for the trip was
to conduct an audit of Le Saulchoir’s accounts with Martin Gillet, mas-
ter general of the Dominican Order.129 While in Rome, Congar attempt-
ed to come to a fuller understanding of the circumstances surrounding
Chenu’s condemnation in 1942, but without success. The day after his
arrival in Rome, meeting with Gillet, Congar came to the realization that
“the affair of Fr. Chenu is over: no one gives it any more thought.” After
some discussion of the event, Congar could only conclude, “I remain
very uneasy with all these explanations.”130 In Gillet’s mind, all that re-
mained was to appoint a regent of studies who could reinvigorate Le
Saulchoir. Féret nominated Congar, prompting Congar to begin his time
in Rome with a profound consideration of his theological vocation.131
In Congar’s estimation, Chenu had been condemned for respond-
ing to those demands of modernism that both Chenu and Congar con-
sidered to be legitimate and as yet unresolved, namely the acknowledg-
ment of the historical dimension of theology and the recovery of the
point of view of the subject. Congar shared Chenu’s commitment to
129. Fouilloux’s introduction to “Voyage à Rome avec le Père Féret, Mai 1946” in
Journal d’un théologien, 63.
130. Journal d’un théologien, 67. See also Dialogue between Christians, 29. Congar was
never able to resolve the Chenu affair to his satisfaction.
131. Journal d’un théologien, 69. Fouilloux notes that the Dominican who replaced
Chenu after his dismissal, Father Thomas Philippe, had not been accepted by Chenu’s
colleagues.
renewal, despite its costs. Returning from the war, Congar had decided
to follow “a prophetic line, a line of free and independent witness.”132
While in Rome, he wrote in his journal of his calling to a prophetic
task to serve a theological development that would respond to the chal-
lenges of modernity and the needs of the modern world.133 Looking at
his own theological endeavors (at that time, particularly his ecumenical
work), he realized, “I work in very delicate areas, the frontier areas. I
can be suspected, be censured for it.”134 In the end, he concluded that
he should not serve as regent, in part because his work took him on to
precarious ground that could threaten Le Saulchoir by association.
Congar took advantage of his time in Rome to try to advance the
cause of ecumenism. While there, he met with several members of the
curia and other senior figures associated with ecumenism, including
Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, secretary of the Sacred Congregation for
the Oriental Churches; Monsignor Antonino Arata, the Congregation’s
second-in-command; Father Charles Boyer, founder of the Unitas move-
ment; Father Sebastian Tromp, professor at the Gregorian University
and drafter of the papal encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943); and Monsi-
gnor Giovanni Battista Montini, then serving under Pope Pius XII as
pro-secretary of state for ordinary affairs. In Arata and Montini, Congar
found enthusiasm and encouragement for his engagement with the
separated churches. Among the others, however, he found little interest.
Tromp went so far as to warn Congar of the dangers of ecumenical en-
gagement, directly quoting the pertinent Latin documents to the effect
that the Holy Office prohibited “any collaboration with the dissidents.”135
Over the course of the visit, Congar developed a disdain for the Ro-
man “system” and for those who were associated with it. It bears noting
that Congar did not equate the Roman system with the hierarchy in gen-
eral, given by God in establishing the church. The Roman system was
characterized primarily by the curia, with its congregations, authority,
and government, which he saw as a restriction on “the living, evangel-
132. Ibid. 90. See also Journal d’un théologien, 63, where Fouilloux describes Congar’s
prophetisme as “defined by the taking into account of individual and collective human ex-
perience in Christian reflection.”
133. Journal d’un théologien, 70. In a journal entry made just prior to his trip to Rome,
Congar noted that he had sensed that a similar task was the mission of his generation
upon reading Loisy’s Memoires in 1931.
134. Ibid., 72. 135. Ibid., 101. See also 91 and 107.
ical, Spirit-filled Church.”136 The church of the curia was more devoted
to administration and prudence than to truth: “It is not ‘prophetic,’ but
rather authoritarian.”137 Congar’s experience of the curia confirmed his
commitment to the prophetic path.
While the trip to Rome was a disappointment to Congar in terms of
the lack of enthusiasm he found for ecumenism and his inability to re-
solve the Chenu affair, it was an important moment in his life as a theo-
logian. His close encounter with the Roman system served as a crucible
for hardening his commitment to the prophetic path that would mark
his vocation as a theologian.138
For nearly fifteen years—until the eve of the Second Vatican Coun-
cil—Congar’s commitment to the prophetic path would place him under
increasing suspicion and, he feared, even condemnation by Rome. From
the perspective of the Holy Office and other elements of the Roman sys-
tem, Congar was a challenge. They saw him as operating on the outskirts
of orthodoxy and challenging the status of neoscholasticism as the dom-
inant theological method, which they themselves advocated. Congar was
a theologian determined to affirm the value of the separated churches
and their theological perspectives. Not only was he a friend to the re-
formers, he himself advocated reform (albeit a careful and faithful re-
form within the church). He challenged the behavior of the hierarchy—
though, it is important to note, not the legitimacy of the institution of the
hierarchy itself—pointing out that the hierarchy is not the fullness of the
church and affirming the necessity of the laity in the church’s mission.
He insisted on responding to the reasonable demands of modernism,
rather than rejecting modernism outright. In each case, his theological
work was coupled with active engagement with those marginalized by
the Roman system: non-Catholic Christians, the laity, the world.
After years of suspicion, Congar suffered his first formal sanction
from the Holy Office in February 1952. In 1950, he had published True
and False Reform in the Church, a book describing the nature and ne-
cessity of “true reform,” that is, reform of the life of the church. At
the time, the book did not draw any official censure. In 1952, however,
he was denied permission to revise True and False Reform or to have it
136. Ibid., 89. 137. Ibid., 90.

138. Ibid., 64, where Fouilloux, the editor, offers a more positive interpretation of the
trip as a whole, based on Congar’s enjoyment of Rome’s antiquity and popular Catholic life.
50 Getting to Lay People in the C hurch
translated. All future work would have to be submitted for review by

the Dominican master general in Rome prior to publication. This per-
sonal Roman scrutiny culminated two years later in the “great purge”
of the French Dominicans in 1954.139
In 1953, the master general of the Dominican order, Father Em-
manuel Suárez, replaced the provincials of all three French Domini-
can provinces. The “great purge” came in February 1954 when further
restrictions were imposed on the French Dominicans, including Con-
gar’s own removal from his teaching position at Le Saulchoir. Congar
interpreted the purge of the French Dominicans as a battle between
two visions of the church. On the one hand, the juridical, authoritarian
view of those in the Roman “system,” who equated the church with
Rome, the pope, the curia, and especially the Holy Office (which he
described as the “supreme, inflexible Gestapo”).140 On the other, the
Dominican view of the church as “a supernatural Communion at the
interior of which, within communion and submission, there would be
a liberty of research and thought.”141 Through it all, Congar’s commit-
ment to a prophetic ecclesiological renewal never waned.
His encounter and subsequent conflict with the Roman “system”
strengthened Congar’s judgment that ecclesiological method need-
ed to integrate the mystery of the church in all its dimensions, rather
than continuing to consider only the Roman hierarchy. His convictions
about the need for an integral ecclesiology are reflected in his writings
in this period, particularly his major works, True and False Reform and
Lay People in the Church.
True and False Reform in the Church and Lay People in the Church From
the beginning of his career, Congar had been a prolific author. In the
decade prior to the war, he authored more than 150 articles and reviews
in theological journals and the popular press, as well as two books.
One, Divided Christendom (1937), was the product of a series of lectures
he gave in Paris during the Octave of Christian Unity in 1936. The sec-
ond, The Mystery of the Church (1939), was a collection of articles previ-
ously published elsewhere. Returning from the war, he applied himself
even more assiduously to his scholarship, working tirelessly to make
139. Ibid., 232. 140. Ibid., 242.

141. Ibid.
every moment productive for his theological vocation and to make up

for the time lost to the war. Between 1945 and 1954, he published more
than 350 texts, including 7 books, more than 150 theological articles,
numerous encyclopedia entries, and nearly 100 articles in the popular
press (primarily in Témoignage chrétiennes).142
Returning from his imprisonment in Germany, Congar was eager
to resume his theological writing. During the war years, an important
shift had taken place in Congar’s approach to scholarship: he began to
conceive of his work in terms of major book-length studies. After the
war, he published two major ecclesiological studies. The first, True and
False Reform in the Church, raised the question of how the church could
authentically reform itself in response to what Congar called “the dis-
covery of the subject” that was characteristic of modernity.143 The sec-
ond, Lay People in the Church, was the product of his engagement with
the laity. While in exile, he drafted two additional books, The Mystery of
the Temple, which was eventually published in 1958, and a preliminary
draft of a text on the primacy of St. Peter in the New Testament, which
was never published.144 In the postwar years, he envisioned writing
two further texts that were never completed: his long-planned treatise
on the church, L’Église, peuple de Dieu et mystiquement corps du Christ
(which is explored at length in chapters 2 and 3 of this study) and a
collection of ecclesiological studies that he called Études conjointes.145
As the dark days of suspicion and censure progressed, he consoled
himself with the knowledge that despite current dishonor, his writ-
ings would endure. If the present generation would not receive them,
then future generations might.146 Congar’s commitment to theological
writing was such that, even knowing that his writings were considered
imprudent (for example, those on ecumenism and church reform), he
could not bring himself to be silent to avoid persecution: “I accept the
risk of these troubles and also of the Index. But what one knows to be
true, well-founded, one cannot not say.”147 Thus, despite the risk of re-
jection and persecution, Congar further committed himself to writing
theological texts that would contribute to ecclesiological renewal.
142. Vezin, “Présentation raisonnée de la bibliographie d’Yves Congar,” 168–69.

144. St. Pierre (1954), Archives of the Dominican Province of France.
145. Journal d’un théologien, 57. 146. Ibid., 183 and 196.
147. Ibid., 162.
Congar’s increased dedication to his writing after the war influ-

enced his approach to ecclesiology. Consistent ecclesiological writing
pushed him to test and to refine the premises and processes of his
ecclesiological method. The natural overlap and repetition of themes
between articles produced a cyclical effect that gave him the opportuni-
ty to rework and reconsider his data and his conclusions. Throughout
these texts, he repeatedly spoke to the necessity of an integral eccle-
siology and attempted to work from a perspective of synthesis, even
though he was not yet ready to publish a complete treatise De Ecclesia.
The effect of the cyclical writing process on Congar’s ecclesiology is
exemplified by the progression of works on the theology of the laity that
led up to Lay People in the Church. Specifically, three articles may serve
to illustrate the refinement and clarification his ecclesiological thought
acquired through the writing cycle: “Sacerdoce et laïcat dans l’Église”
(1946), “Pour une théologie du laïcat” (1948), and “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?”
(1950).148 Working through these texts, Congar came to a more precise
articulation of the characteristics and requirements of the ecclesiological
synthesis within which a theology of the laity would take its place. The
cycle of development observed here is similar to that which shaped his
unpublished course materials and draft treatise De Ecclesia.
In 1946, Congar proposed the construction of a laicology to coun-
terbalance the dominant hierarchology of neoscholasticism. He saw
that ecclesiology needed to move beyond what is “partial and insuffi-
cient” in order to “regain . . . Christian realities.” He wrote that his gen-
eration was rediscovering and reaffirming “within the mystery of the
Church, a mystery of the Holy Spirit and a mystery of the laity, a pneu-
matology and a ‘laicology.’”149 In that vein, Congar’s article, which was
subtitled “Towards a ‘Laicology,’” was designed to balance hierarcholo-
gy with a commensurate treatment of the laity, rather than to develop
a true integration of the whole. Later, Congar incorporated theological
aspects of the article into Lay People in the Church, but did so in sup-
port of a different ecclesiological goal: in 1946, Congar’s theology of
148. Yves Congar, “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?” Supplement to La Vie Spirituelle 4 (No-
vember 1950): 363–92.
149. “Sacerdoce et laïcat,” 8. See also “Bulletin d’Ecclésiologie” (1947), 554. Congar
noted that the term “laicology” was coined by Paul Dabin in Le sacerdoce royal des fidèles
dans les Livres saints (1941).
the laity was focused on achieving a balanced view of the church; in Lay
People in the Church, he was working toward integration and synthesis.
By 1948, Congar had abandoned his pursuit of a laicology, instead
seeking what he called a “theology of the laity.” The shift was more than
a change in terminology. Congar was attempting a single ecclesiology in
which the laity was integrally situated. He acknowledged that many im-
portant questions about the laity had been addressed in recent decades,
especially within the liturgical renewal movement.150 The times, howev-
er, demanded more, namely (as quoted above), that the theology of the
laity be understood as “a certain dimension of the entire theological trea-
tise on the Church.” “Elaborating a theology of the laity represents a dif-
ferent thing and more than the study of a particular question: it suppos-
es an entire ecclesiological synthesis where the mystery of the Church
receives all its dimension, to the point of including fully the ecclesial
reality of the laity. . . . The true theology of the laity is a truly complete
ecclesiology.”151 This methodological statement exceeds the development
of a lay counterweight to the existing “hierarchology,” instead envision-
ing a “truly complete ecclesiology.” Its anticipation of the description of
total ecclesiology found in Lay People in the Church is obvious.
The final article in the progression, “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?” (pub-
lished in 1950), is a nearly verbatim preview of the first chapter of Lay
People in the Church, with one significant difference. The article from
1950 appeared in a journal supplement entitled “Toward a ‘Spirituality
of the Laity.’” The reference to a distinctly lay spirituality in the title
to the supplement placed the question that Congar posed in the title
of his article—“What is a lay person?”—in a context that presumed
a fundamental distinction between lay and ordained members of the
church. It is difficult to know whether Congar himself approved of the
distinction between lay and clerical spirituality or whether the inclu-
sion of his article in the journal supplement making that distinction
simply reflected a decision by the journal’s editors, not Congar himself.
However, in writing Lay People in the Church, he asserted that lay spiri-
tuality must be understood in the context of the universal Christian call
to spirituality. In the 1953 edition of Lay People in the Church, chapter 9
is entitled “In the World and Not of the World: ‘Spirituality’ and Sancti-
150. “Pour une théologie du laïcat,” 44. 151. Ibid., 45.

54 Getting to Lay P eople in the Church
fication of the Laity Engaged in the World.”152 He began the chapter on

lay spirituality in Lay People in the Church with the following disclaim-
er: “A primary truth governs the whole question [of spirituality], and it
is this: there is only one Christianity, one obligation to seek union with
God in Christ, and so to tend to holiness; it is not the onerous privilege
of priests and religious alone, it is the obligation of all Christians what-
ever in virtue of the one Christianity that is common to them all.”153 It
appears that Congar realized that a contrast between lay and clerical
spiritualities could undermine his argument that lay people were also
active with regard to the sacred. Only after this clarification does he
proceed to consider the particular “conditions, duties and resources”
that affect the spirituality of the lay state.154 Congar’s clarification of
the context within which he situated the question of lay spirituality il-
lustrates the priority he gave to integration and synthesis. He felt com-
pelled to make it absolutely clear that any particular question of the
lay Christian life could be considered only within the wholeness of the
church, from which it could never be separated.
As a whole, the decade following the Second World War was a time
of great intensity for Congar. On the one hand, he experienced the lib-
erating renewal of French Catholicism and participated in the life of
the church through contacts with a wide variety of groups and initia-
tives in the French and the international church. On the other hand,
he suffered suspicion, restriction, and exile at the hand of the Roman
“system,” which he came to know and disdain. In the midst of these
experiences, Congar dedicated himself to his extraordinarily prolific ca-
reer as a writing theologian. More specifically, his circumstances and
tasks led him to increased clarity in and commitment to his vision of
ecclesiological synthesis.
Assessment
Like Poe’s purloined letter, the evidence of Congar’s early focus on the
necessity of and means to developing an integral, total ecclesiology hides
152. The English translation of the 1965 revised edition does not include the subtitle
“‘Spirituality’ and Sanctification of the Laity Engaged in the World.”
153. Lay People in the Church, 400.
154. “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?” 383. The text is repeated in Lay People in the Church, 18.
in plain sight in his published texts from his first two decades as a theo-
logian. When one reads his major works from this era—Divided Christen-
dom, True and False Reform in the Church, and Lay People in the Church—
attention is drawn to the specific issues Congar explored: ecumenism,
reform, and the theology of the laity. His innovative work on those topics
eclipses the brief statements regarding his method and purpose made
in the introductions of these texts. Once alert to the repeated refrain of
ecclesiological integration, however, the reader notices its presence, im-
plicit and explicit, replete in Congar’s writing, first in his appreciation of
others’ efforts at ecclesiological renewal and then in his own contribu-
tions to the conversation revolving around the theology of the church.
The very persistence of the theme, however, presents a conundrum:
if a total ecclesiology is the essential context for meaningful reflection
on specific issues in the life of the church, how is it that Congar was
able to make substantial progress in the areas of ecumenism, reform,
and the laity while working in the absence of that comprehensive
framework? Moreover, if Congar believed (as it seems he did) that a
total ecclesiology was the necessary framework for theology, why did he
devote himself to publishing articles and books on specific questions
rather than undertaking the elaboration of that framework? In short,
Congar’s own work appears to argue against the necessity of the total
ecclesiology that he claimed was essential. The fact of his publications
suggests that meaningful inquiry was entirely possible without a total
ecclesiology in place to support it.
The resolution of this conundrum lies in the chapters that follow.
Congar was, in fact, working to construct a total ecclesiology in these
years. That framework, though incomplete and unpublished, under-
girded the specific theological questions he addressed in his published
work. Although he lamented the lack of a commonly held integral ec-
clesiology, he made use of the principles that emerged from his own
attempts in that regard.
The effect of Congar’s underlying total ecclesiology is most nota-
ble in his choice of subject matter in the three major books from this
period, which form the tip of an ecclesiological iceberg. In each book,
he addressed an aspect of the life of the church. His purpose was to
set forth a theological understanding of the church’s self-enactment in
history. This purpose links Congar’s pursuit of a total ecclesiology to
his early emphasis on the need to respond to the legitimate concerns

of modernity. His method was to integrate—at least in part—the cir-
cumstances of the church’s life with the realities of that which is giv-
en to the church by God. In his attention to the church’s life itself, he
assumed the historical and subjective perspectives he deemed neces-
sary in responding to modernity. Ecclesiological inquiry made entirely
within the context of an emphasis on the divine act of institution in es-
tablishing the hierarchical structure of the church (in other words, an
ecclesiology bound up exclusively in hierarchology) decontextualized
the church from its presence in time and from its members. In con-
trast, Congar’s method placed the church squarely within history—up
to and including the present day—and acknowledged its composition
by members ordained, religious, and lay.
Congar did not, however, simply adopt the methods of modern so-
cial thought and apply them to the earthly church. Rather, his breadth of
vision served to redefine the parameters placed on history and subject
by the voices of modernity. In terms of history, he accounted for both
the finite and the infinite through his appeal to the eschatological status
of the church (explored more fully in chapters 3 and 4). With regard
to the subject, he placed the individual human person within the con-
text of the communion that is the complex of relationships among God
and humankind, as described above, such that it is this communion,
the church, that is the subject. Thus, Congar’s underlying concern for a
total ecclesiology brought forth the method of integration of the gift and
the task of the church in a manner that responded directly to the mod-
ern criticism of inattention to history and to the active subject.
In conclusion, it can be said that Congar’s twenty years as a theo-
logian prior to drafting Lay People in the Church were filled with events
and experiences that deeply influenced his approach to ecclesiology. As
a young theologian, he had an instinct for ecclesiological wholeness.
That instinct, confirmed, tested, and refined through many years of
theological service, underpinned Congar’s entire approach to a theolo-
gy of the church. Twenty years of theological experience and reflection
culminated in his call in Lay People in the Church for a “total ecclesiolo-
gy,” that is, for “a whole ecclesiological synthesis wherein the mystery
of the Church has been given all its dimensions.”155

• 2
Y V E S C O N G A R ’ S T R E AT I S E
DE ECCLESIA, 1931–1954
Yves Congar is best known as a prolific author on a wide variety of eccle-

siological issues. He began his career, however, as a teacher of theology
at the French Dominican House of Studies, Le Saulchoir. His extensive
lecture notes from ecclesiology courses taught in the first half of his
career, as well as the thesis he wrote to gain the qualifications required
to teach, reflect the same desire for an integral ecclesiological synthe-
sis—a total ecclesiology—as is found in his published works. Congar
himself saw a cohesiveness between his teaching and his writing. In
early 1954, when he found his theological writing constrained by cen-
sors within the Dominican order and Rome, he was comforted by the
fact that he could continue his theological opposition to the “system” in
the classroom.1 He described the course De Ecclesia he was teaching at
that time as “true dynamite under the chairs of the scribes!”2

2. Ibid., 271.
57
58 Y ves Congar ’ s T reatise D e Ecclesia
The courses Congar taught served as a laboratory in which he at-

tempted to develop a total ecclesiology. The treatise De Ecclesia that he
dreamed of writing as a young theologian first took shape in his the-
sis and teaching materials.3 Later, while he was in the process of writ-
ing the treatise, his draft text served in turn as the framework for the
ecclesiology courses he was teaching at the time. Although he never
completed the treatise, the texts resulting from his efforts to craft it
from 1931 to 1954 reveal the evolution of his vision of an integral eccle-
siological synthesis and provide a valuable background for interpreting
his published works in these years. Even after 1954, he continued to
add to his research notes for the treatise until as late as 1971.4 These
papers are a testament to the persistence of his aspiration for a total
ecclesiology. They also show that, at least in the first half of his career,
he envisioned such an ecclesiology in very concrete terms, as a treatise
that could and should be written.
This chapter introduces nine unpublished manuscript documents
that chronicle Congar’s continual efforts to develop that treatise De Ec-
clesia from 1931 to 1954. Specific statements he made in the introduc-
tion to each text about his purpose in constructing the treatise are then
presented in chronological order to illuminate the desire for a total ec-
clesiology that runs through his work. The introductions to his courses
and treatise are then further examined in order to clarify the method
and the framework he adopted at each stage of the unfolding project.
Close attention is given to the distinctions Congar made between apol-
ogetics, canon law, and theology, particularly with regard to the treatise
De Ecclesia.
The earliest manuscript used in this study is the thesis that Congar
wrote in 1931 to complete his studies in preparation for teaching at the
French Dominican House of Studies. The other eight manuscripts are
all associated with the ecclesiology courses he offered in subsequent
years. He taught the treatise De Ecclesia for the first time at Le Saul-
choir beginning in the fall of 1932, and then again in 1934 and 1936.
3. “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” 169.

4. E.g., Yves Congar, L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (1948), Archives of the
Dominican Province of France, loose interleaf inserted at 15, and L’Eglise (1948), Book
Two, Part I, loose interleaf inserted at 4. In “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity
and Ministries,” Congar noted that he still made daily discoveries concerning the theology
of the Church (169).
Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise De Ecclesia 59
During World War II, he exchanged the Dominican classroom for Ger-
man prisoner-of-war camps, but he continued teaching ecclesiology,
offering two courses De Ecclesia, one in Lübben and one in Lübeck.
Returning to Le Saulchoir after the war, he again taught the treatise De
Ecclesia in 1948, 1951, and 1954, just prior to being removed from his
teaching position at Le Saulchoir.
Congar formed the intention of writing his own treatise De Eccle-
sia as early as 1929. At first, the materials he prepared for his courses
De Ecclesia were primarily lecture notes and secondarily preliminary
drafts of the treatise he intended to publish. The relationship between
his teaching of the course De Ecclesia and his writing of the treatise
shifted after his return from wartime imprisonment, at which point
he was eager to start writing the treatise. In 1948, for the first time, he
drafted his De Ecclesia in the form of a (partial) book manuscript. From
that point forward, his De Ecclesia was formulated primarily as a text in
preparation for publication: he was finally getting down to writing the
treatise that he had envisioned for so long. His earlier work, however,
cannot simply be dismissed as a prologue to his actual writing of the
treatise. In writing his treatise in 1948, Congar indicated numerous
points at which he planned to insert material from his earlier courses,
including even his very first course on the church given in 1932. The
nine documents considered in this study, therefore, are best viewed as
a coherent series recording the development of his treatise De Ecclesia.5
Each of the nine documents in the series has an internal cohesion
and integrity in its original form. Congar frequently modified his man-
uscripts after drafting them, writing in the margins and inserting notes
between the original pages of the manuscript. He continued amending
some of his texts almost thirty years after they were originally drafted.6
As a result, the manuscripts have a layered quality that marks them
as part of a work in progress. Within the series, Congar’s later manu-
scripts contain frequent references to the earlier documents, such that
the entire series forms an interrelated whole. In their form today, the

6. Yves Congar, Thèse du Lectorat (1931), loose interleaf inserted at 61, referring to
Joseph Ratzinger, Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura (Munich: Schnell and
Steiner, 1959). Appendix I provides a more general description of the Congar holdings
at the Archives of the Dominican Province of France and Congar’s habits in constructing
and amending manuscripts.
60 Y ves Congar ’ s Treatise D e E cclesia
documents attest both to his approach to the treatise De Ecclesia at the

particular time at which he wrote each of the original texts and to the
development of his thought over time.
The Documents
1. Thèse du Lectorat (Le Saulchoir, 1931): In 1931, Congar presented
his lectoral thesis at Le Saulchoir. It is entitled simply Thèse du Lector-
at—1931, although he later recorded the title of his thesis as The Begin-
nings of a Treatise on the Unity of the Church in memoirs written just
after World War II.7 The format of the text is more polished than other
manuscripts in the collection considered in this study. Handwritten,
the body of the thesis is 101 pages, followed by 51 pages of notes. The
thesis is essentially what Congar later termed a speculative theology
of the church, that is, an ecclesiology constructed according to deduc-
tive methods, as in scholastic and neoscholastic theology. Originally,
Congar planned to write his thesis in four sections, addressing the fi-
nal and efficient causes of the church, the quasi-formal cause of the
church, the notes of the church, and the life of the church, respectively.
In actuality, he abruptly ended the thesis halfway through his consid-
eration of the quasi-formal cause. In the table of contents, he drew a
line at that point and wrote, “The composition stops here.”8 His thesis
apparently passed the examination successfully, despite being incom-
plete. In later memoirs, Congar described the thesis as “hastily” writ-
ten.9 He never published any part of his thesis, but it appears that he
used it in preparing his first course De Ecclesia, which he taught at Le
Saulchoir in the academic year of 1932–33. As was his habit, he later
inserted additional notes into the manuscript as interleaves, including
a citation for a text published in 1959. Thus, while Congar never pub-
lished his lectoral thesis, he apparently still viewed it as an active piece
of scholarship more than twenty-five years after he wrote it.
2. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (Le Saulchoir, 1932–1933): Congar’s dossier
of lecture notes for his first ecclesiology course is the most extensive

8. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), ii.
9. Journal d’un théologien, 21. Congar noted that Le Saulchoir had a shortage of profes-
sors at that time (Dialogue between Christians, 6), so the need for him to finish his writing
and start teaching may have been the cause for his truncated thesis.
Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise De E cclesia 61
text in the series of De Ecclesia documents.10 His lecture notes for the
nine-month course—more than 300 handwritten pages—are nearly all
written in full prose form, rather than the more abbreviated notes more
common in his later courses. Congar structured the course in response
to the question Quid sit Ecclesia? He took the image of the church as
society as his starting point for the course and proceeded to set forth
a largely speculative theology of the church. The body of the course is
made up of a consideration of the four causes of the church: final, ma-
terial, efficient, and formal. He included a biblical study of the church
gathered in a separate 34-page manuscript entitled Étude de Théologie
biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclésiologie de S. Paul to be delivered
prior to his consideration of the efficient cause of the church, to which
most of his course is devoted.11 He followed his exposition of the four
causes of the church with three lectures on the membership and notes
of the church, and finished the course with a review of the main themes
that he had developed in it. After giving the course, Congar inserted
many notes into the pages of the manuscript, which suggests that he
continued to consider the course a useful contribution to his treatise in
later years. The enduring value that he placed on the lecture notes for
his first course De Ecclesia is also reflected in his many references back
to it in later manuscripts.12
3. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (Le Saulchoir, 1934): In 1934, Congar
taught a one-semester, sixteen-lecture course on the church that was in-
tegrated with other classes taught as part of the theology curriculum at
Le Saulchoir.13 His course followed the treatise on Christ and coincid-
ed with the presentation of question eight in the third part of Thomas
Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, which, in its third article, raises the ques-
10. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), Archives of the Dominican Province of France.

Congar’s notes for the treatise De Ecclesia drafted in 1948 were probably of comparable
volume, but the manuscript available today is incomplete.
11. Yves Congar, Étude de Théologie biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclesiologie de
S. Paul (1932), Archives of the Dominican Province of France. Congar’s Pauline study does
not include an introduction or methodological statement, so is examined only in chapter 3,
below.
12. Congar’s lecture schedule, inserted into Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), as a
loose interleaf at 1, and Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), De Ecclesia membris, 1–12, and
Quid sit nota?, 1–4. The notes for the final lecture, which is essentially a summary of the
course, appear only as a brief, one-page interleaf inserted at the end of the manuscript.
13. Yves Congar, Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), Archives of the Dominican Prov-
ince of France.
62 Y ves Congar ’ s Treatise De E cclesia
tion “Who is a member of the Church?” His lecture notes are 70 pag-
es long, with many additional interleaves on which he developed the
themes presented in the course. The manuscript of his lecture notes is
divided into three sections. The first section was devoted primarily to
an exposition of the mystical body. The second section, comprising a
single lecture, addressed the synthetic unity of the church as mystical
body and the church as society. The final section, which he covered in
three lectures, presented the powers of the church. As in 1932–33, he
included a biblical study in the course, but his theology of the church
was nonetheless largely speculative and, following the neoscholastic
construct typical of seminary education at that time, was presented in
terms of the final, efficient, and formal causes of the church.
4. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (Le Saulchoir, 1937): Congar devel-
oped a new ecclesiology course in 1937, which he presented as a se-
ries of twenty-five lectures from April to July of that year.14 His lecture
notes for this course are much less detailed than those prepared for
his courses in 1932–33 and 1934, totaling only about 20 pages. For the
introduction to his course, Congar began with two lectures based on
the introductory material from his Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934).15
In his third lecture, he began his consideration of the final cause of the
church, in which he included a biblical exposition of the church as “the
divine life graciously extended/communicated to humanity.”16 As in
his two previous courses, his ecclesiology was primarily a speculative
theology of the causes of the church, into which he inserted a biblical
study. Included in his lecture notes are two drafts of complex, multi-
page annotated diagrams of his biblical exposition. Based on these di-
agrams, it appears that he was reconsidering the presentation of his
biblical material as he developed this course.
5. Cours sur l’Eglise (Lübben, 1941): One of Congar’s wartime cours-
es was a course on the church given at the camp in Lübben, where he
was held from April to June 1941.17 The population of the camp includ-
14. Yves Congar, De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), Archives of the Dominican Prov-
ince of France.
15. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover. The interleaf
is entitled Reprise of the Course in 1937.
16. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover. Congar also
referred to chapter 2 of his book Divided Christendom, which was scheduled for release in
July 1937.
17. Yves Congar, Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), Archives of the Dominican Province of France.
ed seminarians who had entered the military in defense of their coun-

try. The camp commander explicitly prohibited Congar from giving
courses for the seminarians, probably reacting against a theology lec-
ture he had given at his previous camp that was interpreted as having
a pro-Russian political message. To get around the prohibition, Congar
gave courses that were open to everyone (not having been specifically
prohibited from giving lectures to the general population of the camp),
in which the seminarians could then participate.18 His lecture notes
were prefaced by a 6-page introduction that included an explanation of
the origins of the current interest in the theology of the church and his
plan for the course, including its point of view and method. His materi-
als for the course include a 56-page bound notebook holding notes for
the first part of the course on the biblical foundations for a theology of
the church. Notes for the rest of the course were written on interleaves
inserted into the back cover of the bound notebook.19
This first ecclesiology course developed in the war camps was no-
tably different from the courses given at Le Saulchoir. In it, for the first
time, Congar gave biblical study precedence over a speculative theolo-
gy of the church. Additionally, in his speculative study, he did not use
scholastic terminology of causation as he had in his previous courses.
This change of terminology was perhaps an accommodation for the
nontheologians in his audience. The course given in 1941 is also note-
worthy in that it was the only course in the De Ecclesia series in which
he actually covered all of the topics that he proposed in his plan for the
course, including specific issues concerning the life of the church.
6. Petit “De Ecclesia” (Lübeck, 1945): Congar developed a second
prison-camp ecclesiology course in 1945.20 The lecture notes for the
course were written in a single 35-page notebook with few interleaves.
The course began with a scriptural study of the foundations of a theol-
ogy of the church, followed by what Congar described as a “speculative
study” of the church.21 In the speculative study, he intended to present
18. Jean Puyo, 88 and 95.
19. In 1941, Congar also wrote notes about the method he would take in the treatise
De Ecclesia that he hoped to publish after the war. He inserted these notes as interleaves to
the draft of the treatise that he wrote in 1948.
20. Yves Congar, Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), Archives of the Dominican Province of
France.
21. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 25. See ibid., 3–23, for the entire scriptural exposition,
entitled “The Constitution and Revelation of the Church in Scripture.”
64 Y ves C ongar ’s T reatise De Ecclesia
an examination of the four causes of the church, which he would link

to the four notes of the church. He planned to follow the explanation of
the four causes with a consideration of the different meanings given to
the word “church.” The manuscript includes lecture notes for the en-
tire scriptural study, but only for the beginning of the speculative study,
in which Congar presented only the final, material, and efficient causes
of the church. The course may have been interrupted by the liberation
of the camp in May 1945, as the war came to an end.
Documents seven through nine in the De Ecclesia series are very
closely related to one another in purpose and development. The manu-
scripts themselves are intertwined, with the later texts comprising revi-
sions and expansions on the earlier texts. When Congar began drafting
his treatise De Ecclesia in earnest in 1948, he for the first time wrote
his manuscript in the form of a text to be published rather than in the
form of lecture notes, although annotations on the manuscript make it
clear that the text was used to teach courses De Ecclesia in 1948, 1951,
and 1954. It is difficult to date many of the materials in the dossier
containing the draft treatise with precision because Congar filed his
draft texts and notes (many undated) for the treatise in a single folder
over a period of many years. The contents of the file include prelimi-
nary notes—a paragraph or two in length—that he recorded as early
as 1941 while thinking about the treatise he hoped one day to write, as
well as source citations that he filed with his draft text as late as 1971.22
Most of the notes appear to have originated between the late 1940s and
the mid-1950s. Within the dossier, three documents can be clearly dis-
tinguished: a partial draft of the treatise that Congar began in 1948,
entitled L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ; a revised outline of
the treatise, written in 1951, entitled Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours
de 1951; and a revised annotated outline for two sections of the treatise,
written in 1954, labeled Ordre suivi en 1954.23 The texts from 1951 and
1954 are partial revisions of the 1948 text, but they are presented sepa-
rately here to emphasize the development of Congar’s approach to his
treatise in the postwar years.
22. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaves inserted at 8 and 15, and L’Eglise (1948), Book
Two, Part I, loose interleaf inserted at 4.
23. Yves Congar, L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (1948), Plan du Traité de
l’Eglise—Cours de 1951 and Ordre suivi en 1954, Archives of the Dominican Province of
France.
7. L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (Le Saulchoir, 1948):

Congar initially planned to write his treatise in four books addressing
the purpose of God, the work of God, the properties of the church, and
the life of the church, respectively. The draft manuscript preserved
among his archived papers is incomplete in two regards: first, Congar
never finished writing the text, and second, at least two of the chapters
that he did write are missing from the file. The available manuscript
includes an outline for the treatise as a whole, as well as the title page,
an extensive introduction, and a bibliography for the treatise. It appears
that Congar wrote a nearly complete draft of Book One, entitled “The
Purpose of God. Its Progressive Realization,” in which he integrated
biblical theology of the church in the Old and New Testament with the
speculative theology of the final, material, and efficient causes. From
Book One, only a 71-page chapter entitled “Synthesis” remains today.
The dossier of treatise texts and notes also includes an outline and sub-
stantial notes for Book Two, entitled “The Work of God, or The Reality
of the Church,” in which he examined the formal cause of the church,
and a much smaller set of notes for Books Three (“The Properties of
the Church”) and Four (“The Life of the Church”).
The manuscript written in 1948 was the backbone of Congar’s sub-
sequent development of his treatise De Ecclesia, as evidenced by the fact
that he inserted the revisions he developed for the courses in 1951 and
1954 into the De Ecclesia manuscript from 1948 rather than creating
new dossiers and draft texts. At certain points, it appears that he was re-
working specific elements of the treatise, inserting notes as alternatives
to his original text. Many of the interleaves are very brief annotations of
sources or ideas that could contribute to future revisions of his treatise.
Most appear to pre-date the Second Vatican Council, although one re-
fers to a source from 1965 and another to a journal published in 1971.24
8. Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours de 1951 (Le Saulchoir, 1951): Con-
gar revised the outline of his draft treatise from 1948 in conjunction
with the ecclesiology course he taught in 1951, but apparently used the
draft and notes from 1948 as his lecture notes for the course. The doc-
ument from 1951 is a revised outline for the entire treatise. The revised
outline reflects the content and organization of the text of Book One as
24. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaf inserted at 15, and L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, Part I,
loose interleaf inserted at 4.
66 Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise D e Ecclesia
he actually wrote it in 1948, which differs somewhat from the original

outline he had prepared in 1948 prior to writing the text. Additionally,
in 1951, Congar combined Books Three and Four, on the properties and
life of the church, respectively, into a single book addressing both topics.
9. Ordre suivi en 1954 (Le Saulchoir, 1954): In the spring of 1954,
Congar taught ecclesiology for the last time at Le Saulchoir prior to his
removal from France by his Dominican superiors. He again used the
draft of his treatise De Ecclesia written in 1948 as his lecture notes for
the course. However, he reordered some of the material on the syn-
thesis of biblical and speculative theology and on the hierarchy. He
sketched informal notes that he labeled “Ordre suivi en 1954” in which
he gave the new structure with cross-references to the pages of the
original treatise corresponding to the various topics, as appropriate.
The Purpose of the Treatise

Throughout the documents considered in this study, Congar was re-
markably consistent in his statements of what he hoped to achieve in
constructing a treatise De Ecclesia. He used terminology similar to that
found in his published texts, referring to the fullness of the mystery
of the church in all its dimensions, to describe what he sought in the
treatise, which he called “properly theological”25 (as distinct from what
he described as apologetic or canonical treatises). He repeatedly ex-
plained that the defining characteristic of a theological treatise would
be its treatment of “the mystery” of the church.26 Congar placed the
need for such a properly theological treatise De Ecclesia in the context
of the history of the theology of the church from the early Fathers to his
own day. In the twentieth century, he perceived a movement underway
in ecclesiology toward a synthesis and integration that would embrace
the whole mystery of the church, and he intended to write a treatise
that would respond to that movement’s demands for a theological trea-
tise on the church.27 The following excerpts from his unpublished texts
demonstrate the continuity of this purpose from 1931 to 1954.
25. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 40, and Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 3.
26. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 4 and 5; Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 10, 13, and 23–
26; Cursus Brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 3; Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), introduction, 5–6; and
L’Eglise (1948), 8.
27. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 10.
In his Thèse du Lectorat (1931), Congar wrote that he intended to

respond to “the desire to consider in all its breadth the mystery of faith
that is the church, and to give the mystical elements that are the very
soul of the supernatural society their full place.”28 His original desire,
stemming from his ecumenical vocation, had been to write a study of
the unity of the church, but he had come to realize that a theological
treatise on the church was the necessary prerequisite to any study of
the church’s unity. He described his thesis as follows:
This work is a preparation for a study on the unity of the Church.
Attracted by this question, I realized first that its solution supposes a com-
plete doctrine of the Church. . . .
. . . The Church is a very complex reality and the great difficulty of every
study of ecclesiology is to balance all the present elements and to address one
point without bringing all the others into question.
Thus I had to begin this work at the beginning; when the time came to
write, I had to resign myself to giving only a sketch of the beginning of the
study of the whole.29
In his concern for the unity of the church, Congar discovered that the
theology of the church dominant in his time was inadequate for ad-
dressing questions of unity, because the unity of the church is inherent
to its very being and no comprehensive study of the church’s being yet
existed. Thus, his first step was necessarily the building of a framework
that could support the work of ecumenism. He intended his thesis to
be the beginning of a complete study of the doctrine of the church in
support of future work concerning the unity of the church.
In his first Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), Congar envisioned his
own work as part of the contemporary movement for ecclesiological re-
newal “to consider the Church in all its dimensions, in all its value and
depth of mystery, of the collective, total value (totality [Ganzheit]).”30 In
his judgment, this was the necessary approach to take in ecclesiology.
He intended to construct a truly theological treatise on the church that
would reflect in faith on the mystery of the church and advance an un-
derstanding of that mystery through the use of reason. As in his Thèse
du Lectorat, the language he used to describe to goal of a theological
28. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 4.

29. Ibid., 1. These excerpts are taken from the first four paragraphs of Congar’s thesis.
30. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 9, margin note.
68 Yves Congar ’ s Treatise D e E cclesia
treatise De Ecclesia was similar to that used in his published works in

the 1930s.31
Congar reiterated his intention to construct a theological treatise
in his two subsequent ecclesiology courses, Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae
(1934) and De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937).32 He noted contemporary
developments that had led to “a call for a properly theological treatise
on the Church supposing faith, addressing the inmost nature of the
Church, forming a particular treatise having its place in Christian dog-
matics,”33 distinct from the apologetic treatise that had predominated
in Catholic thought since the eleventh century. In response to that call,
he planned to present a theological treatise that, although it would not
be “a complete treatise, [which is] impossible in so little time,” would
present “the most important elements.”34
Congar’s purpose in the courses he gave in the camps of World
War II—Cours sur l’Eglise (1941) and Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945)—was, as
previously, to develop a treatise on the church as mystery in response
to a variety of contemporary movements for renewal that affected
the church. During the course he gave in 1941, he explained that he
planned to elaborate a treatise on the church, which he described as “a
mystery of our faith” as much as “an article of the Creed,” that would
be a proper treatise in its own right. He also intended to address the
specific question of “the separated Churches [and] the problem of unity
or of reunion,” which had been the impetus for his first ecclesiological
study in 1931.35 In the course he gave in 1945, he placed his treatise
within the context of what he perceived as a new movement toward
synthesis in ecclesiology that sought to supply “that which is lacking in
our theology: connectedness to everything.”36 Although he did not state
an explicit purpose for this course, the context and content are similar
31. Ibid., 15 and 26–27.

32. Congar used the same introduction, in which he described his intention for the
course, for both courses. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the
cover.
33. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 3, and De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose
interleaf inserted at the cover.
34. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover. His courses
in 1934 and 1937 were both shorter than the course given in 1932–1933 (16 and 25 lec-
tures, respectively).
35. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), introduction, 5.
36. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), loose interleaf inserted at 26.
enough to the course given in 1941 that it is reasonable to presume his

purpose was likewise the same.
When at long last Congar began formally to draft his treatise, L’Eg-
lise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ, in 1948, he described it as “a
theological treatise,”37 the goal of which was “the construction of the
mystery,” that is, the full mystery of the church in all its dimensions.38
Although he further developed the content of the treatise in conjunc-
tion with the ecclesiology courses he gave in 1951 and 1954, and con-
tinued adding notes to it as late as 1971, it does not appear that he ever
changed his fundamental purpose in writing the treatise.
Thus, beginning with his Thèse du Lectorat (1931) and in every eccle-
siology course he taught from 1932 to 1954, Congar’s purpose, usually
explicitly stated, was to construct a treatise De Ecclesia that would con-
sider the totality of the mystery of the church in all its dimensions, that
is, a total ecclesiology. Congar emphasized the theological character of
the treatise, different from the treatises on the church governed by the
work of apologetics and canon law in previous centuries. In support
of his notion of a truly theological treatise, explored more fully below,
he gave priority to a synthesis of the mystery of the church as a whole
over dissection of the work into individual dimensions and responses
to specific questions regarding the Church. These unpublished texts
show that, throughout the years when he was stating the need for a
total, integral ecclesiology in his published texts, he was also actively
working to construct that ecclesiology.
The practical attention Congar gave to synthesis in his unpublished
works is an important counterbalance to the more focused questions
addressed in many of his books and articles. In his published texts,
Congar claimed that a total ecclesiology was the required framework
for consideration of specific theological questions regarding the church.
Nonetheless, even as he lamented the lack of such a total ecclesiolo-
gy, he managed to write works such as Divided Christendom, True and
False Reform in the Church, and Lay People in the Church. If one looks
solely at his published work, his accomplishment may appear to give
the lie to his claim regarding the necessity of a total ecclesiology, since
it seems he was able to conduct his theological investigations with-
37. L’Eglise (1948), 2.

38. Ibid., 8.
out such a treatise. His unpublished texts, however, tell the rest of the
story. During the years when he published those and other important
texts about the church, he was also undertaking a consistent and per-
sistent effort to develop his own treatise De Ecclesia. The endeavor for
ecclesiological synthesis and integration was central to his teaching ac-
tivity, and the publication of the treatise was a constant goal for Con-
gar.39 His active efforts to construct a total ecclesiology are largely un-
known because the treatise was never published, but, in fact, they form
the foundation of the topical studies he did publish in those years. A
consideration of his unpublished texts is thus an aid for an under-
standing of Congar’s ecclesiological project as a whole.
Method
Congar began nearly every manuscript used in this study with an expla-
nation of the method and plan of the treatise he intended to set forth.
His constant refrain was that it was to be a truly “theological” treatise,
produced according to a theological method.40 His conviction regarding
the necessity of using what he described as a theological method grew
out of his historical study of how the theology of the church had devel-
oped in the life of the Christian community. He described the neces-
sary theological method both in negative terms, contrasting it with the
methodology of apologetics and canon law, and in positive terms, using
the language of totality, synthesis, and integration. Each of these three
elements—historical context; the distinction between apologetics, can-
on law, and theology; and the character of a truly theological treatise—
will now be considered in turn.
History of the Theology of the Church

Congar recounted the history of ecclesiology in his first ecclesiology
course and repeated or referred back to it in subsequent courses. In his
historical overview, he identified four major periods in the historical
development of the treatment of the church. The prescholastic era of
the church (up to the ninth or tenth century) was an era of both the
39. Journal d’un théologien, 39 and 56–57.

creation of liturgy and the refutation of heresy, characterized by a “very

rich possession of doctrine.”41 Congar explained that for the ancient
church and the Fathers, the church was “the heavenly mystery, linked
to the mystery of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit.”42 Mentioning the
contributions of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and especially Augus-
tine, Congar found it notable that the Fathers did not attempt to im-
pose a single point of view, a “unilateralism,”43 but focused simply on
the refutation of specific heresies and sects. In general, the Fathers did
not develop a theology of the church per se other than in the exception-
al cases where questions of the church were central to the refutation of
heresy, for example, in the West, in Augustine’s argument against the
Donatists.44 Instead, for the Fathers, the theology of the church was
incorporated into other theological questions; here, Congar specifical-
ly mentioned christology, pneumatology, anthropology, and the sacra-
ments.
The second period stretched from the ninth or tenth century to the
fifteenth century. Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and his con-
temporaries did not establish a separate treatise on the church. The
canonists involved in the Gregorian reform, however, developed an ec-
clesiological perspective focusing on the pope.45 Thus began an eccle-
siology “characterized by the development of the theory of the rights
of the Papacy by means of opposition to the State, to the Empire.”46
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, this speculation was “above all,
the affair of canonists,”47 with theological material simply inserted into
the legal texts. Congar identified the historical influence of the canon-
ical perspective, with its narrow attention to questions of power and
authority, as one of the causes of the inadequacies of the treatise De
Ecclesia in the current day.
The third period, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth cen-
tury, saw the concretization of what Congar identified as “the modern
treatise on the Church” in response to the triple threat of the Protestant

45. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 1.
46. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 5–6.
47. Ibid., 5.
72 Yves Congar ’s T reatise De Ecclesia
Reformation, Gallicanism, and the rise of philosophical rationalism.48

On the basis of the foundations established by the canonical approach,
the treatise De Ecclesia became a work of apologetics reacting against
these threats.49 The result was “the constitution of the apologetic trea-
tise on the Church.”50 The fact that the treatise on the church emerged
as a separate treatise at just the moment when the theology of the
church was being constructed from a reactionary, defensive stance had
the serious effect of limiting the scope of the treatise, such that “certain
questions [such as] the ‘royal priesthood’ [and] the notion of the mysti-
cal Body were abandoned.”51
According to Congar, the final historical period, from the nine-
teenth century to his own day, was dominated by two activities: first,
the preparation of the draft schema De Ecclesia for the First Vatican
Council, and second, a movement for ecclesiological renewal that had
not yet come fully to fruition. With regard to the first activity, the prepa-
ration of the text De Ecclesia for the council brought together three
“currents”: the continuing Catholic refutation of the theology of the
Protestant Reformation, the Catholic and apologetic renaissance of the
nineteenth century, and theological and pietistic developments regard-
ing “pontifical prerogatives.”52
With regard to the renewal movement in ecclesiology, in his first
ecclesiology course in 1932–1933, Congar identified two initiatives un-
dertaken by the renewal that had begun in the nineteenth century: on
the one hand, an early return to the sources and, on the other, a re-
sponse to the contemporary situation. Both these thrusts of the mod-
ern ecclesiological renewal arose from the desire for totality, described
48. Ibid., 7. Gallicanism refers to the movement to limit centralized church authority
(in the person of the pope) and to favor the authority both of the state and of the local
church (in the person of the bishop). In his course from 1934, Congar pointed to what he
described as the early Gallicanism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and its later
recurrence in the seventeenth century, as well as to Protestantism, which questioned the
very theology of the church itself, from the sixteenth century, as the threats that gave rise
to the apologetic treatise De Ecclesia. In his course dating from 1945, Congar identified the
threats of Gallicanism, conciliarism, and Protestantism as the impetus behind the apolo-
getic treatise De Ecclesia, with no mention of philosophical rationalism.
49. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 7–8, and Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), loose interleaf
inserted at 25.
51. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 8 and margin notes.
52. Ibid., 8–9.
above, which Congar concluded was the necessary course for future
ecclesiology.53
In preparing the ecclesiology course he offered in 1934, Congar re-
flected more fully on the situation in his own day that had produced
a growing desire for “a properly theological treatise on the Church.”54
He explained that contemporary factors contributing to this desire
included the renewal movements in mystical spirituality, liturgy, and
theology; the growth of Catholic Action and the accompanying sense
of teamwork between the laity and the hierarchy; and fruitful socio-
logical studies. The problems associated with human community, the
Christian missions, and the question of the reunion of the churches
had likewise contributed to the desire for a theological treatise on the
church. Lastly, he recognized the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in
current aspirations for a renewed ecclesiology. Taken together, he felt
these factors comprised, “in the current Church, a veritable—and au-
thentic—movement of ‘Reform’: in fact, precisely a ‘reform’ which ex-
ceeds the Reform and the Counter-reformation.”55 Thus, as in his earli-
er course, he again put his own effort to construct a theological treatise
on the church within the context of a momentous contemporary move-
ment for ecclesiological renewal.
In the courses he taught during World War II, Congar continued
to reflect on the state of ecclesiology in his own day. He began the ec-
clesiology course that he gave in 1941 by noting “the fact of the im-
mense current interest in the Church, especially since the great war.”56
He attributed renewed interest in the church to two factors, broadly
speaking. The first factor was a general reaction against the rational-
ism, individualism, and subjectivism of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The second factor was the intellectual and pastoral move-
ments that had been underway in the Catholic world in the preceding
two or three decades.57
The introduction to the course from 1941 offers a uniquely broad
picture of the context in which Congar understood himself to be de-
53. See margin note, ibid., 9. Congar named Möhler as one of the “initiators” of this
two-pronged movement for renewal in ecclesiology.
55. Ibid., 2, verso (terminal ellipsis in original).
57. Ibid., introduction, 1–2.
74 Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise De Ecclesia
veloping a theology of the church. His analysis of the contemporary

situation reveals his perception of a tension in the life of the church.58
On the one hand, a multifaceted renewal was underway in the church,
a renewal that had immense implications for ecclesiology. Renewed in-
terest in theological notions such as the mystical body, the priesthood
of the faithful, the laity as full members of the church, the catholicity
of the church, the communional and sacramental nature of the church,
and the social dimension of the church were the fruit of the various re-
newal movements in the life of the church.59 On the other hand, since
the papacy of Pius IX, the Holy See had assumed a more active cen-
tralizing role in the worldwide church and had become the voice of
the Roman Catholic Church by means of the promulgation of encyc-
licals. The newly centralized voice was used to affirm “Catholic unity
and its hierarchical nature”; Congar noted the “interventions [by the
Holy See] in the life of the Church which . . . unifies it and even makes
it uniform.”60 For Congar, who understood the catholicity of the church
as the capacity for the integration of multiplicity within unity, the new
emphasis on the hierarchical (that is, structural) dimension of catholic-
ity and the imposition of uniformity were no doubt seen as troubling
developments in the life of the church.
In the course he offered in 1945, Congar again asserted that a new
movement toward synthesis was underway in ecclesiology. He offered
a list of factors influencing the movement toward synthesis, including
many of the movements listed in his course from 1941. In 1945, he add-
ed the renewal in Thomistic theology to the list. Congar also indicated
that the trend toward synthesis sought to supply “that which is lacking
in our theology: connectedness to everything.”61 Although Congar did
not explicitly link his Petit “De Ecclesia” of 1945 to the contemporary
movement for ecclesiological synthesis, his recounting of the history
of the treatise De Ecclesia established the contemporary movement for
ecclesiological renewal as the context for the study that followed, as had
been the case also with his previous course in 1941.
58. It is interesting that in his wartime ecclesiology courses, Congar never specifically
mentioned the circumstances of the war itself and the imprisonment that were the imme-
diate context for his class, even when speaking about suffering and hardship.
59. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), introduction, 2–4.
60. Ibid., introduction, 2.
The history of the treatise De Ecclesia motivated Congar’s own as-

piration to be part of the movement for ecclesiological renewal that
sought fuller appreciation of the mystery of the church. His interpre-
tation of that history served as his justification for his own approach
to ecclesiology. He said that the treatise De Ecclesia had been shaped
historically by the narrow point of view of the canonists and apolo-
gists and that, as a result, it failed to encompass the full mystery of the
church. It was time, he believed, to construct a new, truly theological
treatise on the church.
Apologetics, Theology, and Canon Law

The distinction Congar made between apologetics, theology, and, with
less emphasis, canon law, was central to his theological method. He ex-
plained that apologetics and theology differ in their object and method
and therefore produce two very different treatises on the church. Con-
trasting the two perspectives gave Congar the opportunity to describe
what constituted the truly theological approach that he, in company
with the renewal movement in contemporary ecclesiology, sought.62
The objects of apologetics and theology differ in that the two disci-
plines seek to demonstrate different truths. There is a critical distinc-
tion between “the intrinsic truth of the object of faith” and the “extrin-
sic quality that the object possesses of being reasonably believable.”63
The first, “the truth of the mystery,” is the object of theology.64 The
demonstration of the second, “the credibility of the witness and of the
object to which he witnesses,” is the object of apologetics.65 According
to Congar, the goal of apologetics, properly speaking, is “to establish
the credibility of Catholic dogma in general.”66 The apologetic treatise,
therefore, focused narrowly on “the question of the institution of a vis-
ible society,” the church, which stands as witness to the supernatural.67
Within that narrow focus, the question of “the Roman pontiff as pri-
62. Cours d’Ecclesiologie (1932–1933), 13–17. Congar addressed the distinction between
apologetics and theology in later courses, but often referred back to this course, which,
therefore, is taken as the basic framework for his presentation of this topic.
63. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 13.
64. Ibid. 65. Ibid.
76 Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise D e E cclesia
mate has taken on an exaggerated development; the juridical elements

have been emphasized beyond measure.”68
Apologetics and theology likewise have different methods. Apolo-
getics argues only from natural reason, whereas theology employs both
faith and reason such that the arguments and conclusions of theology
involve both the natural and the supernatural. Congar concluded that
“it is impossible to do theology if one does not have faith: faith enters
into the very constitution of theological science.”69
According to Congar, apologetics and theology produced very dif-
ferent treatises on the church as a result of their differing objects and
methods. He described the theological treatise as follows:
My [the theologian’s] point of departure is faith itself, my presuppositions, my
presumptions as a Catholic: “Credo . . . unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam
Ecclesiam.” . . .
The goal is a theology of the Church, a body of demonstrations originating
from faith and extending, by way of logical demonstration, the light of the prin-
ciples of faith, to more or less detailed conclusions.
The treatise on the Church thereby achieved will form a special treatise of
theology, like the treatise on the angels, on grace, on the Trinity, on the Word
made flesh, on the sacraments.70
In contrast, apologetics sets aside the faith of the theologian in the in-
terest of leading nonbelievers to faith. Thus, classic apologetics pursues
an argument that begins with a demonstration of the divine institution
of the teaching authority of the church (that is, the magisterium). It
then establishes the notes of the church as the signs of that teaching
authority. It finishes its task by surveying the Christian churches to de-
termine which one possesses true teaching authority.71 Therefore, the
apologetic treatise on the church strives to demonstrate the reasonable-
ness of the Roman Catholic Church’s own claims about itself.
In the case of the Church, I [the apologist] will demonstrate that the Church,
the continuation of Jesus Christ (already shown to have been sent accredited by
the Father), is the teacher of divine truth and that that which it affirms about
itself on the topic of its powers is reasonably believable.
68. Ibid., 4.
70. Ibid., 15.
Then, as several religious societies claim to be the Church of Christ, I [the

apologist] will demonstrate more specifically that only the Catholic Church re-
sponds adequately to the marks which the true Church of Christ should bear.
This is the object of the apologetic treatise on the Church, set forth in these
terms by the Vatican Council (Denz. 1793).72
In his thesis, Congar described three characteristics of a properly

theological point of view that would accompany a theological treatise
on the church. First, a theological viewpoint entails “considering the
mystery in itself: the church is a mystery of faith, an object of faith
which, before giving rise to an apology, gives rise to contemplation and
rational construction.”73 Thus, he made a clear distinction between the
apologetic and theological viewpoints and identified theology as pre-
ceding apologetics, rather than vice versa. Second, the object (that is,
the church) is considered “from God’s point of view: God is immedi-
ately present here because the Church is the society of God extended
to man through Jesus Christ in the Spirit of love.”74 Again, Congar was
making a distinction between theology and apologetics; for apologetics,
the church is considered from the perspective of natural reason. Lastly,
the theological viewpoint includes “the use of a philosophy as an in-
strument of elaboration and construction.”75
Congar’s assessment of the two treatises can be summarized as
follows. The theological treatise on the church reflects in faith on the
mystery of the church, advancing an understanding of that mystery
through the use of reason. In contrast, the apologetic treatise on the
church selectively makes only those rational arguments that are useful
for asserting the divine institution of the church and the legitimacy of
its power and for validating the claim of the Catholic Church to be the
true church, instituted by Christ, that divine action being the source of
its authority. The theological treatise thus has a much broader scope
than the apologetic treatise. Whereas the former considers the entire
mystery of the church, the latter is concerned only with the subset of
that mystery that corresponds directly to the specific burden of proof
borne by apologetics. Apologetics was concerned with proofs argued
from reason, while theology was concerned with “the mystery.”76
72. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 16. 73. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 5.

74. Ibid., 5. 75. Ibid., 5.
78 Y ves Congar ’s T reatise D e Ecclesia
With specific reference to the treatise De Ecclesia, Congar noted in

the second millennium a “nearly exclusive development of the apolo-
getic treatise . . . such that the theological elements [were] very much
reduced.”77 The treatise De Ecclesia had emerged as a separate treatise
within theology in order to stage a defense against various threats to
church authority and had therefore taken the form of an apologetic
treatise. In Congar’s judgment, however, apologetics usually exceeded
the boundaries of what were, strictly speaking, the proper elements of
the apologetic treatise.78 Because no theological treatise on the church
had developed previously, the apologetic treatise stood in its stead, with
the result that many aspects of the church were simply not addressed
in the typical treatise De Ecclesia.79
The predominance of the apologetic perspective in the initial de-
velopment of the treatise De Ecclesia as a treatise separate from other
theological questions had significant repercussions for the theology of
the church. The damage to ecclesiology was extensive: “By that very
fact, the most profound theological elements have been mutilated, im-
poverished.”80 The resulting treatise De Ecclesia was more attentive to
the exterior and polemical aspects of the church, including a justifica-
tion of the necessity of obedience, than to “the sense of contemplation
of the mystery in order to live it.”81 The overreaching apologetic treatise
on the church had become the limit for theology. In other words, the
limitations proper to apologetics were imposed on the theology of the
church. The effect was seen at the First Vatican Council, in “the practi-
cally exclusive development of that which concerned the magisterium
(the teaching Church), the pope, relations with the State.”82
Congar identified an additional problem in the relationship be-
tween apologetics and theology: apologetics had been given the posi-

79. L’Eglise (1948), 4. Congar planned to insert into his manuscript an explanation of
the apologetic treatise on the church and of the distinction between an apologetic and a
theological treatise based on the lecture notes from the course De Ecclesia that he gave in
1932, 12–32 (see Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae [1934], 2).
81. Ibid., 3. See also Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), loose interleaf inserted at 25.
82. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), loose interleaf inserted at 25. Congar also referred to the
draft schema on the church that used the phrase “the Mystical Body is the definitio christi-
ana Ecclesiae,” but that was not finally promulgated by the Council.
tion of gatekeeper to theology, seen as a necessary first step prior to

theological inquiry. “Certain people conceive of apologetics as an effort
of demonstration anterior to faith, to theology, and as providing access
to theology, its mission being to furnish theology with a rationally es-
tablished and proven given.”83 But Congar detected an artificiality in
the suspension of faith required in order to present the apologetic trea-
tise on the church in isolation from and anterior to theological reflec-
tion on the mystery of the church. He argued that apologetics should
rather proceed from theology:
If one makes a separate apologetic treatise, prior to a theology of the Church,
one risks wanting to prove too much; under the pretense of only relying on the
gospel documents considered from a purely natural point of view, one arrives
at a forced, artificial, and, all things considered, hardly effective demonstration.
Would it not be better to make apologetics a function of theology, applying it
only in order to present, in a subordinate task which has faith or mystery as
its object, the rational credibility of that object established as well as possible,
without admitting hypothetical doubt?84
Congar explained that an isolated apologetic treatise on the church

was ineffective in convincing Orthodox Christians as well as some Prot-
estants. The biggest stumbling block in conversation with non-Catholics
came in addressing apologetically the notes of the church, which he con-
sidered a “nearly impossible” argument to make successfully.85 More-
over, Congar claimed that the apologetic treatise failed to address many
of the essential questions that theology should consider. He did not elab-
orate upon this assertion, but it seems to be a criticism of the limitation
of the “given” of theology to that which was provided by an anterior apol-
ogetics. All those dimensions of the mystery of the Church that do not
fall within that “rationally established and proven given” could not be
considered in a theology that was dependent on apologetics for its raw
material.86
Congar warned that because the scope of apologetics is narrower
than the scope of theology, the distinction between the two must be
preserved. The necessity of maintaining the distinction between apolo-
getics and theology did not preclude an intimate relationship between

84. Ibid., 24–25. 85. Ibid., 25.
86. Ibid., 24.
80 Y ves Congar ’ s T reatise D e E cclesia
them. In that relationship, however, apologetics and theology were

each to be accorded their proper object and method. Congar’s concern
was that theology not be limited to the object and method proper to
apologetics, but that it achieve its proper scope in considering the full
mystery of the church.87
In addition to the natural limitations of the apologetic treatise De
Ecclesia, Congar criticized what he called “a bad apologetics, a dishonest
apologetics,” which is narrow-minded, proud, ambiguous, and glib.88 A
dishonest apologetics “employs any argument, whether false or foreign
to the question, to prove that the clerics are always right.”89 Such an
apologetics is always contrary to the work of theology.
More briefly, Congar also explained the inadequacy of the canon-
ical treatise De Ecclesia as a foundation for theological reflection on
the church. The canonical construction of the theology of the church
was largely a Western phenomenon. Beginning in the twelfth century,
“questions concerning the Church, its powers, its hierarchical struc-
ture, its relationship to temporal society”90 were often addressed by
canonists, in their writings and within a canonical framework. The
canonical point of view was compatible with an understanding of the
church as society, specifically “as a certain particular species within
the genre of societies.”91 This point of view persisted into the nine-
teenth century, in which various theologians working toward a pastoral
ecclesiology “attributed to canon law the description of the internal life
of the Church.”92 Thus, theology had abdicated the task of ecclesiology
to canon law.
Congar used the example of the episcopate to illustrate the differ-
ence between the canonical and theological points of view: “[Canon law]
studies, for example, what are the rights and powers of the bishops, it
does not have to propose a theory of the episcopate nor to study its inter-
nal links with the structure of the Church.”93 As a result of the prevail-
ing canonical point of view, the theology of the church lacked the theo-
87. Ibid., 17. 88. Ibid., 21. See also 22–23.

89. Ibid., 21. 90. L’Eglise (1948), 2.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid. Congar refers to Franz Dorfmann, Ausgestaltung der Pastoraltheologie zur
Universitätsdisziplin und ihre Weiterbildung (Vienna and Leipzig, 1910), 210, 215, and 218.
93. L’Eglise (1948), 3.
logical reflection that would consider the nature of the church and its
concrete existence in light of revelation. Congar was intent upon taking
a theological rather than a canonical point of view; he considered that
the canonical perspective had contributed substantially to the shortcom-
ings of the contemporary treatise De Ecclesia.
He noted that the Eastern tradition intentionally separated the ju-
ridical and spiritual aspects of the church. The juridical aspect—“[the
Church’s] organization, the distribution of powers in it”—was assigned
to canon law, while the “essence of the Church” was reserved to the-
ology.94 The benefit of the Eastern approach was that the theology of
the church was not subordinated to canon law, as had happened in the
West. The disadvantage, in his opinion, was that it resulted in “the ex-
cessive separation . . . between the essence of the Church, entirely spir-
itual and quasi-celestial on the one hand, and its terrestrial existence
on the other.”95 The solution, in Congar’s judgment, was “an integral
ecclesiology [that] should apply itself to thinking of the unity of the two
aspects, mystical and juridical.”96
Congar emphasized that the narrow canonical perspective limiting
the theology of the church to questions of hierarchical power and au-
thority had developed only at the end of the first millennium and that
its effects, including the formulation of the apologetic treatise De Eccle-
sia, were characteristic only of the second millennium of Christianity,
not the entire Christian tradition. In his earliest ecclesiology course,
Congar proposed a double remedy to the limited scope of the canonical
perspective and the apologetic treatise. Ecclesiological renewal could
be achieved through a return to the ancient sources that pre-dated the
narrow ecclesiology of the second millennium and through an en-
gagement with the intellectual resources and the legitimate demands
of modernity. Möhler had begun such a movement for ecclesiological
renewal in the nineteenth century, and Congar intended, from the mo-
ment he prepared his first lecture in his first course on the church, to
join that renewal movement. Here, then, lie the roots of his pursuit of
94. Ibid., 3.
95. Ibid., 3.
96. Ibid., 3. Emphasis mine, to highlight the notable further reference to Congar’s
goal of an “integral ecclesiology.” Congar referred here favorably to the encyclical Mystici
Corporis.
82 Y ves Congar ’s Treatise D e E cclesia
a total ecclesiology. His goal was to reassert theology’s claim to the trea-
tise De Ecclesia and, in the process, to construct a total ecclesiology that
could support the work of contemporary ecclesiology.
The Theological Treatise

In his first ecclesiology course, after having thoroughly considered the
apologetic point of view and the manner in which apologetics had been
practiced with regard to the church, Congar rather dramatically labeled
the next section of his notes “My choice.”97 He chose to break with those
who would set apologetics as a de facto limit on ecclesiology—in other
words, those supporting the dominant theology of his day—in order to
invert the relationship between the apologetic and theological treatises
on the church.
My choice [is] . . . to make a theological treatise on the Church, as rich from the
religious point of view as possible, carrying out the function of apologetics, not
the applications of apologetics. Thus, from the scientific point of view the construc-
tion is properly theological. But there will be all sorts of information useful in
the apologetic art, and we will contemplate formally the properties of the Church
on the one hand, the life of the Church as obviously transcendent on the other,
strictly in their value as sign, their function as note, thus bringing together all the
elements of an apologetic consideration of the Church, not prior to and separate
from [theology], but within its theological framework as a function of theology.98
Congar planned to incorporate actual contact with primary sources, the

fruit of ressourcement and current ecumenical questions into his course
developing a theological treatise De Ecclesia. Thus, his approach would
make apologetics subordinate to theology and reveal the given of apolo-
getics as originating from theology rather than vice versa.99
According to Congar, the truly theological treatise is defined by its
object and method, as seen above. For the most part, in his unpub-
lished texts, he defined his theological method over and against the
apologetic and canonical methods that had constructed the governing
ecclesiology of the early twentieth century. While teaching the course
at Lübben in 1941, the same year that he began to record notes for the

98. Ibid., 26–27.
99. Ibid., 27.
treatise De Ecclesia he planned to write one day, he gave his most sub-
stantial positive description of his theological method, which he con-
trasted to descriptive, historical, and apologetic methods. The theologi-
cal method “starts from faith.”100
It sets itself up within the religious object itself and, therefore, from that which
the Church itself affirms about itself, it contemplates the mystery and, being
aided by reason, by all the resources of historical or philosophical reason, it
interprets and constructs intellectually the mystery itself. It is not a question,
for example, of defending the institution of the bishops by Christ, but of under-
standing what the episcopate is.101
Through Congar’s method one “becomes aware of the ‘donné’: Scrip-

ture, Tradition, the life and fact of the Church; [one] interprets and
constructs it.”102 Congar emphasized the faith stance of the theological
method, which begins within faith and remains within faith while em-
ploying reason: it is “the contemplation of believing reason.”103
When Congar finally began to draft his treatise De Ecclesia in 1948,
he began his text with the statement, “The present treatise on the
Church is neither a canonical treatise, nor an apologetic treatise, still
less a study of social philosophy, but a theological treatise.”104 He went
on to explain the theological point of view taken in his treatise, clearly
distinguishing it from canonical and apologetic points of view. In his
treatise De Ecclesia, Congar planned to take a theological point of view
from which “the Church is an object of faith even in being visible.”105
An interleaf inserted into the 1948 manuscript includes a description
of the object and method of the theological approach in terms nearly
identical to those used by Congar in the ecclesiology course he gave at
Lübben in 1941: “[Theology] sets itself up within the religious object
itself and, therefore from that which the Church itself affirms about
itself, it contemplates the mysteries and, being aided by reason, by all
the resources of historical or philosophical reason, it interprets and
constructs intellectually the mystery itself.”106 Congar, then, was intent
upon adopting a theological and not a canonical or apologetic point of
view in his own treatise De Ecclesia.

101. Ibid. 102. Ibid.
103. Ibid. 104. L’Eglise (1948), 2.
105. Ibid., 4. 106. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 14.
84 Y ves Congar ’ s T reatise De Ecclesia
In his draft treatise, Congar described his method not only as theo-
logical, but also as historical and integrative. By using the word “theolog-
ical” to describe his method. Congar intended to connote, in a single
word, the entire theological enterprise, which made use of “rational
principles of interpretation and construction” and had a “contemplative
value.”107 His method, being theological, would take “as [its] rule the
donné. . . . This rule is the tradition of the Church: id quod traditur; that
is to say, the reality.”108 In a separate note, he explained that by the don-
né, he referred principally to scripture, but also to “the ‘Tradition’ of the
Church handed on by its magisterium and its life.”109
Congar’s method would also be “historical,” in that it would be
attentive to “the modern discovery of the historical, of development”
and would follow “the current movement of ‘ressourcement.’”110 His in-
tention was to move beyond the “pure, static, conceptual intelligibil-
ity” of speculative theology in order to achieve “the intelligibility that
things receive from their genesis [and] from their proper value within
the development.”111 His desire for a historical aspect in his method
for constructing the theology of the church is reminiscent of his early
assessment of the legitimate demands of modernity, one of which was
attention to the historical dimension of theology.
Lastly, Congar’s method was to be integrative. In this it would re-
spond to the modern demand for integration. In 1941, in an initial
sketch of his treatise De Ecclesia, Congar described his method as:
A method of integration, of assimilation, of assumption.
A catholic method.
A method that seeks to respond to difficulties by surpassing them, from
above, in granting their just requests, in unity and the fullness of
truth. I believe that such is the true apologetic and, although this work
is not a work of apologetics, I believe that it is of value to [apologetics].
A method of plenitude.112
107. Ibid., 6.
108. Ibid.
109. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaf inserted at 6. This description of tradition is part
of an interleaf that sets forth the object and method of the theological point of view in
terms nearly identical to those Congar used in his ecclesiology course given at Lübeck in
1941.
110. L’Eglise (1948), 6.
111. Ibid., 6.
112. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 5, dated 1941 and entitled “Preface to the Treatise.”
His intention was “to make an effort at integration, tracing the line of
Tradition, to consider the Christian truth in an integral, total manner,
the most truly catholic possible; to integrate, in a more total light, in an
actual way, the truths too little known which should bring a response to
the rising demand.”113 Thus, Congar was convinced that only an inte-
gral, total understanding of the full truth of Christianity was sufficient
for responding to the demands of the modern world.
Congar went much further to articulate his theological method in
his unpublished texts than he did in his published works. Perhaps the
innovation of his approach, unfamiliar to his students, required clear
explanation before entering into the content of the course. Regardless
of his reasons, Congar’s methodological statements in his unpublished
texts are an important complement to his other works. Here, readers
are given to understand precisely what Congar intended to do in con-
structing his ecclesiology and the reasons why he considered a new ap-
proach necessary. This complementarity between Congar’s published
and unpublished works is explored more fully in chapter 4, below.
Framework and Plan

Congar’s identification of the optimal framework, or plan, to use for
his treatise underwent more substantial modification over time than
did his statement of purpose and method. Initially, he saw the issue
in terms of choosing between two competing models: the church as
society or the church as the body of Christ, preferring first one, then
the other. Over the years, he reached a more nuanced understanding
of these two categories and the relationship between them and aspired
to a synthesis of the two, ultimately shifting from Aquinas’s term con-
gregatio fidelium to the biblical concept of the people of God as a label
for the society that is the church. Appendix II, which includes outlines
of Congar’s unpublished texts, may serve as a useful resource for the
presentation of those developments in this section.
In his early days as a scholar, Congar identified the use of philos-
ophy as one of the essential characteristics of truly theological inquiry
(despite his acknowledgment of his own weak philosophical training).
113. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 5, dated 1941.

Because theology is a rational activity of the believer, “it supposes the

use of a philosophy as the instrument of elaboration and construction
. . . it requires first the use of a rational framework for the whole and
a general principle of construction.”114 Congar’s choice of framework
shifted over time. Initially, in his thesis and his first ecclesiology course,
he preferred to start with the framework used by Aquinas, the church
as the congregatio hominum fidelium, because “the Church is formally,
although analogically, a society,” as Aquinas’s description conveyed.115
The choice of a societal framework for his thesis determined the entire
structure of his ecclesiological study. His approach was governed by
consideration of the nature of a society:
In a society, all the light comes from the end, because a society is, of itself, a
placing in common of human activities in view of a common good to be ob-
tained. The end of a society specifies it, determines its form, its constitution, that is
to say the order established within the multitude in view of the end. Society be-
ing thus constituted for the end and ordered to the end, it remains to examine
its properties, activities, effects, [and] relations to other realities.116
Congar continued to use a societal framework for his theology of

the church in his first ecclesiology course, in which he reiterated the
argument in its favor that he had set forth in his thesis and conclud-
ed, “Very resolutely therefore, the general systematic point of view that
we adopt is that of the Church-Society.”117 He again took as his working
definition of the church for the purposes of the course the Thomistic
term congregatio hominum fidelium. He considered this choice of defi-
nition an obvious one at this early stage in his career: “[It is] useless to
search far [ for a definition]; everyone understands by ‘Church’ a reli-
gious, supernatural society.”118 In spite of his matter-of-fact presump-
tion of the appropriateness of a societal description of the church, Con-
gar later admitted that despite repeated efforts he had never been able
to build a theology of the church successfully from the starting point of
the church as society.119
114. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 28. Congar made a similar point in his lectoral
thesis (5).
116. Ibid., 7.
118. Ibid., 12.
119. L’Eglise (1948), 8–10.
The plans for Congar’s thesis and his first ecclesiology course are
similar to one another. In both cases, he failed to complete the plan
he established at the beginning of the project. In 1931, he intended to
present his thesis in four major sections:
Part I, The final and efficient cause: the end and institution of the Church
Part II, The quasi-formal cause and the constitution of the Church
Part III, The properties, notes and “dotes” [endowments] of the Church
Part IV, The life of the Church.120
In the table of contents, he outlined parts I and II in detail, while

parts III and IV were little more than headings, next to which Congar
noted that the details were “still uncertain.”121 In fact, he terminated
his thesis abruptly midway through part II in the middle of presenting
Augustine’s theology of the episcopate.122
For his course in 1932–1933, he gathered the examination of the
causes of the church into a single section, rather than dividing it across
two sections as he had in his thesis. Thus, he gave the broad outline of
the course as follows:
I. Quid sit Ecclesia: a study of the Church according to the four
causes. . . .
II. The properties of this being and, at least for certain properties, their
apologetic function, their value as notes.
III. The manifestation of this nature and of its properties in the exercise of
its life:
interior life: this also having, because of its transcendence, the
value of a note: Ecclesia ut nota suiipsius.
life of relationships: in fact, the difficult question of the relations
between Church and State.123
In actuality, Congar did not address the specific notes or marks of the
church or the question of the relations between church and state in his
course notes.
Congar concluded his introduction to the course taught in 1932–
1933 with an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of his
120. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), i–iii. Congar listed the four sections of his course with
slightly different headings at the end of the introduction to the thesis (7).
121. Ibid., iii.
122. Ibid., 101.
plan. He acknowledged that his approach risked minimizing the per-

spective of apologetics. He believed the comparison of the apologetic
and theological points of view and the exposition of the typical plan of
an apologetic treatise on the church that he included in the introduc-
tion to the course compensated for this potential shortfall. He realized
that his plan also took for granted many theological presuppositions,
particularly relating to Christ and the sacraments, but he dismissed
this as an inescapable state of affairs common to all theological treatis-
es. Lastly, he admitted that his approach was “less clear” than it would
have been had he employed the “easier common framework” of the
apologetic treatise on the church.124 He made no apologies for this dis-
advantage. In his critique of the apologetic point of view with regard
to the treatise De Ecclesia, he had disparaged the apologetic treatise as
being “the easier” approach, compared to the theological treatise.125
Meeting the challenge of surpassing the standard apologetic treatise De
Ecclesia was precisely his intention.
Congar identified several advantages of his plan, all of which are
related either to achieving a more profound theological consideration
of the mystery of the church or to redefining apologetics as a function
of theology rather than as its precursor. He believed his plan would
bring to the fore the reality that “the static order of powers and of the
hierarchy only constitute the Church and its unity in actu primo; it
[also] needs life. This better satisf[ies] both the sociological notion of
the Church and the revealed analogies of the mystical body.”126 His ap-
proach would illuminate the religious, mystical, and biblical elements
of the church in a way that was “more genetic, more attentive to the
birth and the formation of the Church.”127 In describing his approach
as more “genetic,” he was probably referring to his decision to consider
the four causes of the church in the ordo generationis, that is, starting
from the final cause, which gives rise to the church, rather than the
ordo cognitionis, that is, starting from the formal cause by which the
church is known in human experience. This, he believed, would not
only answer the question of what the church is (Quid sit?), but also in-
dicate aspects of how the church exists (Quomodo sit?).128
124. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 32. 125. Ibid., 26.

127. Ibid. 128. Ibid., 31.
Congar believed his plan would also establish apologetics as a func-

tion of theology, thereby overcoming the limitations of even an hon-
est apologetics, specifically with regard to the use it made of the four
marks, or notes, of the church. His plan had the advantage of emphasiz-
ing that these marks are properties that God has gifted to the church; as
God’s gift, they are signs of divine truth. It is in this way that they serve
an apologetic function. Thus, apologetics would emerge “as a natural
extension of faith” rather than as a precondition to it.129
It seems that Congar was generally satisfied with the direction
and content of his course, but not with the arrangement of the course
content. At the end of his assessment of the advantages and disadvan-
tages of his plan, he concluded, “It is still badly arranged technically,
but I am absolutely certain of having tapped into the great traditional
veins.”130 His frequent references back to passages in his Cours d’Ecclé-
siologie (1932–1933) in future manuscripts demonstrate his satisfaction
with many of the elements of the course, particularly the explanation of
his perspective and method in the introduction.
In his thesis and his first ecclesiology course, Congar argued
against the use of St. Paul’s analogy of the church as the body of Christ
as the framework for his ecclesiology. He stated that the body of Christ
is really “a metaphor, or even an allegory; it is, by itself, insufficient
for the purposes of a rational elaboration.”131 In fact, he saw the com-
parison of the church to the body of Christ as just one possible meta-
phor among many for the church. While it was a rich analogy, it was
also hampered by the limitations common to all analogies. However,
even as he elected to proceed from the systematic point of view of the
church as a society, he clarified that the distinction between the church
as society and the church as body was by no means absolute:
Thus, as the Church is a separate genre of society, in which the physical union
to the invisible head is the end itself of the moral union to the visible head, and
the analogy of the body is the symbol revealed by God as the most expressive of
this mystical reality, the study of the Church as society should always be open
to the analogical transpositions inspired and imposed by its special nature; the
best that one should expect from a systematic study of the Church as supernat-
ural society will be a new appreciation of the value of the analogy of the body.132
129. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 32. 130. Ibid.

131. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 6. 132. Ibid., 6–7.
By the time Congar taught his second ecclesiology course in 1934,

he had reconsidered Aquinas’s theology of the church and, more specif-
ically, the utility of the societal framework he had adopted from Aqui-
nas for his own theological project. Given the demand for a truly theo-
logical treatise on the church and the absence of such a treatise in the
work of Thomas Aquinas, Congar posed the question: “Whether there
are in St. Thomas the elements (principles) of the treatise [and] what
place to give him in its theological synthesis?”133 He provided an exten-
sive list of passages in Aquinas’s writings that contain ecclesiological
elements and principles, commenting that “a notable characteristic of
these ecclesiological texts of St. Thomas is that he does not separate
the visible elements and the invisible elements of the Church.”134 He
emended his original manuscript to note in particular “a very great ec-
clesiological value,” perhaps even “an ecclesiological orientation” of Aqui-
nas’s treatises on the Trinity, Christ, the Holy Spirit, grace, faith, chari-
ty, the theological virtues, and the sacraments.135
Congar believed that Aquinas had been able to avoid separating the
visible elements of the church from the invisible elements precisely
because he did not have a separate treatise on the church.
This is the great difficulty of the treatise. On the one hand, one cannot avoid rec-
ognizing in the Church a duality of realities and logics; and on the other hand, it
is the property of catholicity not to dissociate the two. One cannot not recognize
the duality of realities and logics. The Church is a mystery of spiritual life; it is
the Mystical Body of Christ and, precisely by that which it most specifically is,
it always exceeds the limits and the categories of the Church-Society. . . . They
should not be dissociated. However, they should be distinguished; one can only
speak of the two, Church-Mystical Body and Church-society successively.136
Congar sought to move beyond the apologetic treatise to construct

a theology of the church that would distinguish without dissociating
the two realities of the church as both mystical body and society. He
suggested that there were at least three approaches to achieving a theo-
logical synthesis of the church as both. First, one could consider the

134. Ibid., 6. See ibid., 4–5, for the full list of texts. This list is reproduced below,
Appendix V.
136. Ibid., 6.
church as society, as he had himself done in 1931 and 1932. In his judg-
ment, the image of the church as society would allow for “a very rigor-
ous, clear, and satisfying logical distribution of the material and one
will easily construct a proper treatise De Ecclesia.” Nevertheless, “one
will be compelled to surpass this point of view and to add to the De
Ecclesia societate a De Corpus mysticum.”137
Second, one could consider the church as the mystical body. In Con-
gar’s opinion, this approach would result in “a simple expansion of the
treatise on Christ’s capital grace, with the addition of elements of other
treatises: such an expansion will not produce a special treatise on the
church and will not consider a large number of ecclesiastical realities,
[such as] the life of the Church as society.”138
Congar proposed a third option: “speaking of the Church according
to the two points of view, successively.”139 It was this option that he ad-
opted for his ecclesiology courses in 1934 and 1937. In the earlier of the
two courses, he proposed the following broad outline:
A. The Church–Mystical Body
B. The mystical body realizes itself in the form of a society, within the
framework of, but not by means of, a society
C. The Church–Society
D. Synthetic view of the unity of the two: a single Church at once mystical
Body and society. How to conceive of the relationship between the one
and the other. The final unity of the Church.140
Congar’s desire to integrate the images of the church as mystical

body and the church as society reflected his perception of a reciprocal
relationship between the two realities. He asserted that “by the unique
way in which [the Church] is a society, it is the mystical body.”141 At the
same time, he equally claimed that “the Church, because it is the mys-
tical Body, is a society in a unique and original way.”142 Congar hoped
to articulate a theology of the church that did justice to the two reali-
ties and that demonstrated the integral relationship between them. In
this regard, he was more attentive to the image of the church as the
mystical body of Christ in his course in 1934 than he had been in his
thesis or in his previous lecture course. This attention to the church
137. Ibid. 138. Ibid., 7.

139. Ibid. 140. Ibid.
141. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 6. 142. Ibid., 7.
92 Y ves Congar ’ s Treatise De E cclesia
as the body of Christ would persist in future versions of his course De

Ecclesia.
In 1937, Congar organized the Cursus Minor that he taught into
two major divisions, “The Church as Mystical Body” and “The Church
as Society.”143 He intended from the start that the two images of the
church should be addressed unequally, planning to give “a nearly com-
plete exposition of the Mystical Body,”144 while touching only briefly on
a few questions related to the church as society.
In the first part of the course, on the church as mystical body, he
relied heavily on Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae as his primary
source. He explored four major points:
1. “What does it mean to say ‘Everything is already realized in Christ’?”
2. “What does it mean to say ‘The divine life extended to us’?”
3. “This divine life extended to us is the life of Christ.”
4. “What is the unity of the Mystical Body?”145
Congar’s lecture notes for the course were brief compared to his first
two courses, referring frequently to passages from those earlier docu-
ments. In the section of the church as the life of Christ himself, Con-
gar introduced the distinction between the points of view of the donné
and the agi, a dialectical pair often translated as “gift” and “task” that
figured prominently in his published works.146 He included seven pag-
es of notes on the donné, but for the agi he wrote only the heading,
“Point of view of the agi: the whole of our supernatural activity realizes
Christ,” repeated from the course outline, at the top of a blank page.147
For the second part of the course, on the church as society, Con-
gar had drafted only a brief outline, written after teaching the course.
He noted that he had had “very little time” to cover the material, so he
made an abbreviated presentation drawn primarily from one of the lec-
tures given in his course in 1934 and chapter 2 of his newly published
book, Divided Christendom.148
143. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), course syllabus, 6 and 8.

144. Ibid., course syllabus, 2. 145. Ibid., course syllabus, 6–8.
146. Ibid., course syllabus, 7.
147. Ibid., part C, 9. See also ibid., part C, 1–6 and 8 on the point of view of the donné.
Congar misnumbered the pages in this section of the manuscript; there is no page 7.
148. Ibid., last page (unnumbered) of the manuscript. Congar addressed the theology
of the unity of the Church in chapter 2 of Divided Christendom.
Congar was not satisfied with the outcome of the course as pre-
sented in 1937. After giving the course, he drafted a revised plan in an-
ticipation of the next time he would teach ecclesiology, including the
following elements:
I. Introduction: One or two lectures on the history of the treatise De
Ecclesia, theological sources and bibliography, and current trends.
Presentation of the plan for the course.
II. Background: One lecture to build an awareness of the reality, prob-
lems, and elements of the treatise De Ecclesia, the two levels of the
reality and the unity of the Church-Mystical Body and the visible
Church, ecclesiologies that dissociate the two, and “the Protestant
problematic.”
III. The Church as the mystical Body.
IV. The Church as Society: its unity, powers, organization, administration;
theologies of the papacy, the episcopate, parishes, and Catholic Action;
and its members.
V. Synthesis of the unity of the Church as mystical Body and the Church
as Society according to the Common Good.149
Given his use of the preexisting introductory material, which included

a statement of his purpose and method for the course, the fundamen-
tal intention of his De Ecclesia was obviously unchanged. In the content
of the course, Congar experimented with further increasing the atten-
tion given to the image of the church as mystical body at the expense of
the image of the church as society. From the revised outline he created
after the course, it appears that he recognized the importance of in-
cluding an intentional synthesis of the two images, as he had in 1934.
In his first wartime course in 1941, Congar again incorporated both
frameworks, church as society and as mystical body. The organization
of the course reflects a major shift for Congar in that he now gave sub-
stantial emphasis to the biblical theology of the church. He reordered
the structure of his study to examine the church as society (in reality,
the distribution of powers in the institutional church) first, followed
by the church as the mystical body of Christ. Overall, he structured
the body of the course in four parts. First, he planned to devote two
or three lectures to “the revelation and development of the Church in
149. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover. The outline
presented here is reconstructed from Congar’s abbreviated notes.
94 Y ves C ongar ’s T reatise De Ecclesia
the Bible.”150 He began with scripture in order “to respond to the first
demand of theology, which is awareness of the ‘donné,’”151 as described
above. Second, he would approach “the intellectual construction of
the mystery” of the church by examining it “first in its visible, exter-
nal reality, as society, then in its internal reality of grace, as the Mys-
tical Body.”152 Third, he would examine the notes of the church and
the “relations” of the church, by which he meant the relations between
church and state.153 Lastly, he would consider questions of the “the dis-
sident Churches and the problem of reunion, of Christian unity.”154
Congar’s second wartime course, taught at Lübeck in 1945, was
unique in that it is the only manuscript examined in this study in which
Congar did not give careful attention to the selection of the framework
for his study. As in 1941, he began with an extensive biblical theology of
the church. In the course of that study, he addressed the organization
and institution of the church as well as the relationship of the church
to Christ, but neither these images nor any other serves to structure
his study, as in previous courses. Congar offered no explanation for his
inattention to the question of framework and, indeed, returned it to its
customary prominence in his work when drafting his treatise De Eccle-
sia in 1948.
In 1948, in the introduction to the treatise De Ecclesia, Congar ad-
opted a new approach to selecting a framework for his treatise. He not-
ed that two approaches were commonly taken in ecclesiological studies:
one regarding the church as a society, the other regarding it as the mys-
tical body. After rejecting both (each of which he had espoused in earli-
er documents), Congar considered the idea of the church as the people
of God, an image recently introduced as a result of biblical scholarship,
but he saw unacceptable limitations to that approach as well. Ultimate-
ly, he settled upon a fourth hybrid alternative: the church as the People
of God–Body of Christ.155 While this was not his first mention of the
church as the people of God, it was his first use of the image as part of
an organizing paradigm for ecclesiology.
150. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), introduction, 3. In fact, Congar’s lecture notes for part one
of the course divide the biblical foundations of the theology of the church into six lectures.
151. Ibid., introduction, 6. 152. Ibid.
153. Ibid. 154. Ibid.
155. L’Eglise (1948), 8 and 10.
Congar’s arguments here against taking either the church as a soci-

ety or the church as the mystical body as a framework for ecclesiology
are essentially a critique of his own earlier efforts. An understanding
of the church as society, which had governed his courses De Ecclesia in
1931 and 1932–1933, called for “the application of the notions of Thom-
istic social philosophy: the common good; unity, powers.”156 Now, Con-
gar explicitly critiqued his own prior attempts to construct a theology of
the church from the starting point of the church as society:
I have tried several times to address the mystery of the Church from a (purely)
sociological point of view, in applying to that which is given according to faith
the principles of social philosophy. Each time I was struck by the impossibility
of adequately addressing the mystery of the Church from this point of view.
There always remained the reality of the mystical body, not the aspect of the
latter as a community among us, but the aspect of the mystical body as a union
with Christ. It is the essentially christological character of the mystery of the
Church, that which Ephesians and Colossians add to the other Pauline epistles,
that escapes a sociological treatment of the Church. Now, not only is this char-
acter essential, but it is more essential than the properly sociological character.
Because if there were only a single man, there would no longer be a society,
but there would still be the Church provided that this one man was united to
Christ.157
Thus, a purely sociological approach to the church is doomed to fail-

ure because it lacks the vital element of christology. In his treatise of
1948, Congar concluded that Thomistic social philosophy was simply
inadequate for constructing a theology of the church: “But this [the
Church-Society] does not suffice. One is obliged to surpass this frame-
work. There is a given entirely unique to the Church, which is that its
common good is realized prior to it, in a single individual.”158
On the other hand, Congar considered a treatment of the church as
the mystical body of Christ to be also problematic: “One arrives at the
arbitrary duality of the interior being and spirit of the Church, and its
exterior being. One cannot construct the entire treatise on the Church
beginning only from the notion of the Mystical Body.”159 Pius XII’s en-
156. Ibid., 8.
157. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 8, dated 1941 and entitled “Preface to my De Ec-
clesia.”
158. Ibid., 8.
159. Ibid.
96 Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise D e Ecclesia
cyclical Mystici Corporis (1943) had taken the mystical body of Christ as
its ecclesiological image. Congar believed that in positing “the identity
of the (mystical) body of Christ with the ecclesial organism of the Ro-
man Catholic Church,” Mystici Corporis became entangled in the ines-
capable arbitrary duality: “This identity is not totally tenable: there are
members united to Christ who are not of the Roman Catholic Church
and vice versa. One always returns to the arbitrary duality.”160
Earlier, in his course from 1934, Congar had critiqued an exclusive
view of the church as either society or mystical body. At that time, he
had determined to resolve the problem by addressing both views, one
after the other, although in fact he spoke only very briefly about the
church as society.161 In 1948, another possible approach presented it-
self. The renewal in biblical studies, which, among other accomplish-
ments, revived an appreciation of the connection between the Old and
New Testaments, had advanced an alternative image: the church as the
people of God. Congar noted that he himself had consistently “connect-
ed the church to the promises and the covenant of the Old Testament”
in his ecclesiology courses and in his published works (particularly Di-
vided Christendom and The Mystery of the Church).162 Nevertheless, he
saw two critical barriers to the idea of the people of God being used
in isolation as an image of the church, particularly if exclusive of the
church as the body of Christ. First, the image it did not convey the cen-
trality of Christ to the existence of the church as a people. The promis-
es and the covenant of the Old Testament, he wrote, “are only realized
in Christ.”163 The implication for the church was immense: “Thus, the
Church is the people of God only as the body of Christ.”164 Second, the
image of the church as the people of God failed to convey the most
unique aspect of the church, its communion with Christ. Through this
communion, the church is not only in relationship with God, but also
participates in the divine life.
The idea of “people of God” alone does not express that which is most original
and characteristic in the Church, and that which comes entirely from the fact
of Christ. The Church is not an Israel who has received and recognized its Mes-
160. Ibid.
162. L’Eglise (1948), 9. 163. Ibid.
164. Ibid.
siah; it is more than that. Or at least its Messiah is something other than the
head of the people of God, the new David. He comes from heaven. In being in
communion with him, the Church becomes a participant in the good of filial,
heavenly life. . . . The Church is not only the people of God; it is participant
and community, the body of the only one who has descended from heaven and
returned to heaven.165
Thus, Congar emphasized that the church as community is also “mys-

tically Christ”:
The first is realized only in the second; the people of God is achieved, the peo-
ple of God is realized only in the Mystical Body, in becoming mystically the
one who alone descended from heaven. Such that, at the same time, we have
a great unity, and we cannot entirely reduce the duality of the aspects: society
and mystical body. With regard to Christ himself, we will see that the Church
has a double relationship: to Christ as its transcendent head . . . [and] to Christ
as its life.166
The church’s relationship to Christ as its head is attested in the syn-

optic gospels and in the event of the Ascension, when Christ estab-
lished the apostolicity of the church in the giving of powers, making
the church a society. The church’s relationship to Christ as its life is
reflected in the Gospel of John and the event of Pentecost, when Christ
gave his very Spirit to the church, making the church a communion.
The theological point of view taken in constructing the mystery
of the church must, therefore, affirm both the unity of the church
with Christ and also a “double quality” in that relationship, whereby
the church is both “the people of God and the body of Christ.”167 For
Congar, the use of both images together prevented, on the one hand,
a triumphalistic ecclesiology that ignored the eschatological reality of
the church still journeying in history and, on the other, an understate-
ment of the church’s participation in the divine life in and through Je-
sus Christ. Either image, taken alone, risked falling short of the full
mystery of the church. Congar noted that since 1941, he had used both
images in the title of his treatise. Later, he further amended the title to
include the image of the church as the “Temple of the Holy Spirit.”168
165. Ibid. 166. Ibid., 10.

167. Ibid.
168. Ibid., cover. The addition is made to a coversheet dated 2 February 1948. The
date of the addition is not noted.
In the fourth section of the introduction to his treatise, Congar ex-

plained the plan he had adopted for the treatise. In establishing the
plan, he felt he had to respond both to the demands of speculative the-
ology and to those of ressourcement and biblical theology. He believed
that the two approaches, speculative and historical-biblical, were not
incompatible and could even work together.169
According to the method of speculative theology, the treatise De Ec-
clesia was traditionally organized according to the four causes. Congar
defended the theological usefulness of the four causes and was critical
of theologians who would dismiss the value of the four causes in ex-
pounding the theology of the church. “In certain milieus,” he wrote,
“one smiles and chuckles as soon as someone speaks about the four
causes. . . . That is part of a whole profound ignorance of scholasticism
and St. Thomas.”170 In fact, the four causes come into play even when
the theology of the church is approached via questions raised about the
church in the earliest Christian writings. The causes are simply the re-
sponses to the questions that can be asked about the origin and pur-
pose of any reality, including the church. Thus, as he did in his ecclesi-
ology course of 1932–1933, Congar planned to use the four causes and
to follow the ordo generationis in examining them.
After establishing “an understanding of the reality of the Church in
itself” according to the four causes, he planned to consider the proper-
ties of the church and “the manifestations of this reality in the exercise
of that which it is/its life,”171 both its internal life and its life in relation
to secular society, other Christian communities, and non-Christian re-
ligions. He was careful to distinguish between the use that apologet-
ics made of the properties, or notes, of the church and the place of
the notes in a theological treatise. For apologetics, the notes serve as
proofs of identity for the true church. Theologically, the properties of
the church are an expression of the church’s being. Rather than the
notes of the church being external, static proofs of the identity of the
Catholic Church as the true church, the properties of the church were
to be seen as the dynamic manifestation of the nature of the church in
its life. Congar planned to link the four causes to the four properties
169. Ibid., 11–14. 170. Ibid., 11.

171. Ibid., 12.
of the church in the following pairs: final cause and holiness, material
cause and catholicity, efficient cause and apostolicity, and formal cause
and unity.172 This approach would allow him to show the integral rela-
tionship between the structure of the church and its life.
While the speculative method would expound the mystery of the
church according to the four causes, the historical method would ex-
amine the progressive stages in the life of the people of God and of the
church. The benefit of the historical approach was that it considered
things in light of their original contexts, in contrast to “the old scholas-
tic framework” that Congar described as “the framework of an intellec-
tual work in the era that ignored development.”173
Congar saw a nearly exact correspondence between an approach to
the church via the historical, biblical study of the constitution of the
people of God through the Old and New Testaments and an approach
via the speculative categories of the final, material, and efficient causes,
“such that one can perfectly, and without violence, deal with these three
causes of the church within an historical framework.”174 He believed
that such a presentation would benefit rather than dilute the specula-
tive method in that it would show “the speculative classifications and
precisions coming from the donné itself.”175 Thus, in 1948, Congar’s
plan was to present a treatise on the church as the People of God–Body
of Christ from the theological point of view, integrating speculative and
historical-biblical methods. He prepared a series of outlines for the
treatise before beginning to draft it.
According to the final outline prepared in 1948, he planned to pres-
ent his treatise in four books:
Book One: The purpose of God. Its progressive realization.
Book Two: The work of God or the reality of the Church.
Book Three: The properties of the Church.
Book Four: The life of the Church.176
172. Ibid., 11–12. Congar noted that Ambroise Gardeil, regent of studies at Le Saul-
choir from 1894 to 1911, had taken this approach in an unpublished course given in 1886,
but he did not indicate how he came to know the contents of that course.
173. Ibid., 13.
174. Ibid., 13–14. Congar did not include the formal cause in this scheme, reserving it
for the second book of his planned treatise.
175. Ibid., 14.
176. Ibid.
100 Y ves C ongar ’ s T reatise D e E cclesia
Book One was to present a synthesis of the biblical foundations of the

church and the speculative categories of the material, final, and effi-
cient causes of the church. Available archival materials suggest that
Congar wrote a nearly complete draft of Book One, although the only
text remaining today is the third of the book’s three parts, presenting
the “Synthesis.”177
Book Two of the treatise was to address the formal cause of the
church, including an examination of the participation of the church in
the powers of Christ and various aspects of the unity of the church as
both the people of God and the body of Christ.178 In 1948, Congar had
not yet firmly settled on his approach to the contents of Book Two; he
marked the outline written in that year “draft plan subject to modifica-
tion.”179 Although the dossier that he began for the treatise De Ecclesia
after World War II includes many notes for Book Two, no draft text of
the book has been discovered to date.
Book Three of the treatise was to provide a general study of the four
properties of the church. In 1948, Congar was considering addressing
the properties in the following order: holiness, unity, apostolicity, and
catholicity. He did not, however, offer any rationale for his approach,
which neither follows the creedal order of the notes nor corresponds to
the ordo generationis that he planned to follow in addressing the causes
of the church, which he intended to correlate with the four marks of
the church. Book Four was to study the internal and external life of the
church. He provided very little elaboration of the content of this book
on his outline, although he noted with regard to the internal life of the
church that there were “many things to say!”180 The dossier for the trea-
tise holds very few notes for Books Three and Four, and there is no
evidence that Congar ever prepared a draft text on either the properties
or the life of the church for his treatise.
In the final section of the introduction to his 1948 treatise, Congar
briefly explored various meanings of the word “church.” He took as
177. Ibid., outline, 1. In the course of writing the draft of Book One, he apparently de-
cided to reorder the material presented in Book One, part III, such that the existing draft
actually reflects the order shown on the Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours de 1951 rather than
the outline he prepared in 1948.
178. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two coversheet. See also ibid., bibliography, 2.
179. Ibid., outline, 1.
180. Ibid., outline, 2.
his basic definition of the church “the community of those who have
faith, who believe,”181 but did not find it entirely sufficient. “A real defi-
nition,” he wrote, “can only be the fruit of our research and of a knowl-
edge of the reality in question by its causes.”182 He noted the ambiguity
of the word. Sometimes, albeit rarely, it referred to “the faithful people,
the community, distinct from its leaders.”183 More frequently, church
was taken to mean “the hierarchy, the government of the Church.”184
The word could also designate “the objective institution, the pure for-
mal cause prior to the community of men to which it applies, or even
to those individuals who bear the powers.”185 Congar acknowledged
that his own used of the word may be ambiguous at various points in
his treatise, but he offered no remedy for that ambiguity.
There is no sign that Congar made any adjustments to the intro-
duction of his treatise as drafted in 1948 in preparation for teaching
his ecclesiology course in 1951, which suggests that the method and
approach that he described in that introduction remained largely un-
changed. In the body of the treatise, the content of Book One of the
treatise did not change substantially between 1948 and 1951. He reor-
dered the chapters of the section of Book One entitled “Synthetic View.
The situation of the Church,”186 but did not change the content he pre-
sented. In his initial draft of the treatise structure in 1948, Congar ten-
tatively planned to include a chapter entitled “Mary and the Church”
in Book One of his treatise, but as of April 1951 he was still undecided
about its appropriate placement.187 In 1948, he had placed “Mary and
the Church” as the final topic under “Synthesis” in Book One.188 In
1951, he originally gave it a similar placement, but later revised the out-
line to insert the chapter on “Mary and the Church” into the section in
Book One on “Jesus Christ and the People of God under the New and
181. Ibid., 14.

182. Ibid.
183. Ibid., 15. Congar cites Acts 20:28 as an example.
184. L’Eglise (1948), 15. Congar referred here to one of his published articles, “Sainteté
et péche dans l’Eglise,” Vie Intellectuelle 15 (1947): 6–40, for a more lengthy explanation of
the different meanings of the word “church.”
185. L’Eglise (1948), 15.
186. Plan du Traité (1951), 1.
187. L’Eglise (1948), outline, 1, and Plan du Traité (1951), 1.
188. L’Eglise (1948), outline, 1.
102 Y ves Congar ’ s T reatise De Ecclesia
definitive Disposition,” after a chapter on the “Constitution or Birth of

the Church.”189
In the outline created in 1951, he clarified that in Book Two, which
received the new title “The Work of God or the form of the Church real-
ized in Humanity,” the formal cause of the church would be addressed
in conjunction with the efficient cause.190 As will be seen, Congar’s per-
ception of the close relationship between the efficient and formal caus-
es of the church was a recurring challenge to his use of neoscholastic
categories of causation in his ecclesiology. In the 1951 outline, Congar
also combined the content of Books Three and Four as envisioned on
the 1948 outline into a single Book Three, “The Properties and Life of
the Church.”191
In 1954, Congar again used the draft of his treatise De Ecclesia writ-
ten in 1948 as his lecture notes for his course on the church. The in-
troduction to the treatise does not reflect any additions made in 1954,
suggesting that, as in 1951, his method and approach remained large-
ly unchanged. Congar did update the bibliography from 1948, adding
his own recently published works, True and False Reform in the Church
(1950) and Lay People in the Church (1953).192
Assessment
Congar was remarkably consistent in the introductory statements that
he made in his successive unpublished papers De Ecclesia. They reveal
that his project to construct a treatise De Ecclesia between 1931 and 1954
was motivated by an unfailing desire to create a truly theological treatise
on the church within the framework of which other ecclesiological ques-
tions could be considered. He routinely introduced his courses with an
account of the distinction between the treatise De Ecclesia shaped by the
demands of canon law and apologetics that had dominated Catholic the-
ology since the eleventh century and a “properly theological” treatise De
Ecclesia that took as its object the full mystery of the church. His own
intention was to construct a theological treatise that would integrate all
the dimensions of the church. He repeatedly indicated that the modern
189. Plan du Traité (1951), 1. 190. Ibid., 2.

191. Ibid., 3. 192. L’Eglise (1948), bibliography, 2.
need for an integral ecclesiology could be satisfied by a ressourcement,

that is, by a return to the theological understanding of the church as
it had developed through history, using scripture, the church Fathers,
magisterial writings, and the experience of the Christian community
itself as sources. He saw himself as working in continuity with earlier
theology, including the neoscholastic theology that he judged incom-
plete, while at the same time participating in the theological renewal
that sought to reclaim the ancient tradition in order to respond to con-
temporary challenges faced in the modern world. He consistently de-
scribed his method in constructing his treatise as one of integration and
synthesis, as demanded by the contemporary movement for ecclesio-
logical renewal. Thus, the intention and method that he outlined at the
beginning of each text varied little over the nearly twenty-five years from
which these documents are taken.
Another (no doubt unintended) element of continuity across Con-
gar’s early ecclesiological efforts was his constant adjustment to the
strategy for implementing a method of integration and synthesis. In
his first efforts, he attempted to integrate the mystery of the church
through appeal to a single image of the church as society. Finding that
unsuccessful, he resorted to what might be seen as integration through
hyphenization: church as society–mystical body, followed by church
as people of God–body of Christ and ultimately people of God–body
of Christ–temple of the Holy Spirit. Still relying on the images of the
church to provide the framework for his study, he concatenated mul-
tiple images, seeking a more comprehensive whole. None of these at-
tempts were fully successful (Congar’s constant revision of his course
and treatise suggests he would agree with that assessment), although
the multiplication of images used as a basis for theological reflection
broadened the scope of ecclesiology beyond the structural, hierarchical
dimension of the church to include attention to the life of the church
and so fulfilled one of Congar’s major intentions. At the least, his strug-
gle to come to a plan to achieve a synthesis illuminates the fundamen-
tal challenge of a total ecclesiology. Giving place to all the dimensions
of the mystery of the church may well be impossible. Perhaps the best
that can be achieved is humble recognition of the limits of human en-
deavor and commitment to the ongoing work of integrating that which
becomes visible as history unfolds.
If arriving at a plan was difficult for Congar, the implementation of

those plans was even more convoluted. The following chapter explores
the development of his progressive implementations of the method of
synthesis as he attempted to integrate speculative and biblical theology
in his treatise.
• 3
I N T E G R AT I O N O F S P E C U L AT I V E
AND BIBLICAL METHODS
Throughout the first half of his career, Congar repeatedly expressed his
intention to construct his treatise De Ecclesia according to a method of
integration and synthesis in order to produce a truly theological trea-
tise that would take as its object the full mystery of the church. His
unpublished manuscripts show that, in developing this method of in-
tegration and synthesis, he strove over time to bring together specu-
lative and biblical theological methods in a way that would provide a
theological framework that could accommodate all the dimensions of
that mystery. He found that his efforts to express his vision of the full
mystery of the church were hampered by the limitations of the scho-
lastic system of speculative theology with which he started in 1931 and
that was de rigueur in the early twentieth century. The introduction of
biblical theology into his ecclesiology helped him to overcome some of
those limitations.
Although Congar did not fully achieve his goal of an integral ec-
105
106 Integration of Methods
clesiology, the unpublished texts examined here demonstrate that his

method of integration and synthesis, with its appeal to both speculative
and biblical theological methods, allowed him to construct a theologi-
cal framework that incorporated dimensions of the church that Congar
felt had been excluded in the canonical and apologetic treatises. This
chapter will show how the attempt to integrate speculative and biblical
theology in his treatise developed in four phases from the exclusively
speculative approach taken in his Thèse du Lectorat (1931) to what he
considered a synthetic speculative-biblical theology of the church in his
treatise, L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ, drafted from 1948 to
1954.
In all of his ecclesiology courses, Congar used the speculative
method to describe the church, usually according to the philosophi-
cal categories of causation, a method that was typical of contemporary
manuals of theology. Without delving too deeply into the principles of
neoscholasticism, a brief overview of Aristotle’s doctrine of causation
and its incorporation into Christian theological method beginning in
the scholastic period will serve as useful background to understanding
Congar’s work, which was, in part, a response to what he saw as exces-
sive reliance on analytic methods.
Aristotle defined the four causes by which a thing can be known in
his Metaphysics:
Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for we say we
know each thing only when we think we recognize its first cause), and causes
are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we mean the substance, i.e. the
essence (for the “why” is reducible finally to the definition, and the ultimate
“why” is a cause and principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third
the source of the change, and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the purpose
and the good (for this is the end of all generation and change).1
Aristotle designated the four causes formal, material, efficient and fi-
nal, respectively.
Thomas Aquinas adopted and further developed Aristotle’s doc-
trine of causation, which then became an important philosophical sup-
port to scholastic and neoscholastic theology.2 Congar’s understand-
1. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, Part 3, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1924). See also Aristotle, Physics, Book II, Part 3.
2. Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Metaphysicae, lib. 5, lect. 2.
I ntegration of M ethods 107
ing of the four causes was probably similar to the explanation offered
in the neoscholastic philosophy manual written by Cardinal Mercier,
archbishop of Malines, in 1916, in which he described “the natural-
istic theory of Aristotle and the Scholastics,” with plentiful reference
to Aquinas.3 The following summary highlights aspects of that theory
that are useful in order to understand the speculative ecclesiology Con-
gar developed between 1931 and 1954.
The four causes are formal, material, efficient, and final. The ma-
terial and formal causes are intrinsic causes as the “constituent prin-
ciples of corporeal substances.”4 The material cause is that which
“receives the form and unites itself to it to constitute a composite sub-
stance.”5 The form, or formal cause, of the substance is the “principle
of unity” of its matter and being, in that it “provides the subject for
actual existence.”6 Aquinas rejected the possibility of a substance hav-
ing multiple substantial forms, which Cardinal Mercier described as “a
characteristic and noteworthy advance of Thomism.”7
The efficient cause is the extrinsic principle of the action that ef-
fects “the becoming of a being.”8 The efficient cause can be divided
into the principal and instrumental causes: “When two causes con-
join to produce an effect, that is the principal one which makes use
of the power of the inferior and directs it exercise; and that one which
helps in the production of the effect under the impulse and direction
of the other is the instrumental one.”9 As will be seen, Congar blurred
the distinction between the formal and efficient causes in ways that
fundamentally contradicted the classical philosophical doctrine of the
four causes. It appears that he perceived an intrinsic efficient causation
within the church (although he did not use that language to describe
it)—the church being in a sense enacted from within. While this state
3. Desirée-Joseph Mercier, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, vol. 1, 3rd En-

glish ed., trans. T. L. Parker and S. A. Parker (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner, Ltd,
1926), 525 (emphasis in original). Originally published in French as Traité élémentaire de
philosophie (Louvain, 1916).
4. Mercier, Modern Scholastic Philosophy, 526.
5. Ibid., 529.
6. Ibid., 532, with reference to Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet I, q. 4, a. 1, co.
7. Mercier, Modern Scholastic Philosophy, 532, with reference to Thomas Aquinas,
Quodlibet XI, q. 5, a. 5.
8. Mercier, Modern Scholastic Philosophy, 533.
9. Ibid., 535 (emphasis in the original).
108 I ntegration of Methods
of internal enactment is expressed well by biblical notions such as the

indwelling of the Spirit and the presence of Christ within his body, the
language and categories of causation had no mechanism for express-
ing it, given the distinction between intrinsic form and extrinsic effect.
Thus, Congar repeatedly struggled with the assignment of efficient and
formal causality, as will be shown below.
With regard to the final cause, Mercier noted that while some mod-
ern philosophers considered it to be extrinsic, “Aristotle, St. Thomas
and Scholastics in general [asserted] that it is above all intrinsic and im-
manent. . . . There is in the very depths of all beings a tendency which
draws them to their ends and directs thereto the exercise of their forc-
es.”10 The final cause is the “desired good which, because it is desired,
determines the will to choose an action or line of action judged to be
necessary or useful for its attainment.”11 The common good of the soci-
ety that is the church, that is, its final cause, was an important starting
point of Congar’s speculative ecclesiology.
In addition to the four causes, Thomas Aquinas made a distinction
between two aspects of the formal cause: the intrinsic form and the
extrinsic exemplar, or pattern. Thus, he described the exemplary cause
as that which is “the mental type according to which an intelligent effi-
cient cause produces its effect.”12 According to Mercier, the exemplary
cause—sometimes also called the extrinsic formal cause—is difficult
to categorize within the four Aristotelian causes because it “has a com-
plex causal influence; it is at once an efficient, final and, in a fashion,
a formal cause.”13 Congar associated the exemplary cause with the for-
mal cause, using the term “quasi-formal cause” to refer to a cause that
is formal only in the exemplary sense (in particular, the formal causal-
ity of the hierarchy).14
Although Aquinas himself never defined the causes of the church
(perhaps because he never wrote a treatise De Ecclesia), neoscholastic
10. Ibid., 541.

11. Ibid., 542.
12. Ibid., 551. Mercier cites Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 3, a. 1 and q. 3, a. 1, c., in
explaining the exemplary cause. Aquinas also addressed the exemplary cause in relation to
the formal cause in Sententia Metaphysicae, lib. 5, lect. 2, n. 2.
13. Mercier, Modern Scholastic Philosophy, 552. Mercier clarified that the exemplary
cause, insofar as it was a final cause, was “an extrinsic formal cause” (551).
manuals of ecclesiology often used the four causes to describe the na-
ture of the church. Several of the manuals to which Congar referred
in his unpublished texts followed this approach.15 While their expla-
nations of the causes differed from one another, in each case they be-
gan with the efficient cause of the church and concluded with its fi-
nal cause. As will be seen, Congar reordered the causes, considering
the final cause of the church first. This reordering allowed Congar to
characterize the church first as a society or people oriented toward and
participating in the life of God.16 Additionally, even when he used the
speculative method of neoscholastic theology, on occasion he reached
conclusions about the causality of the church that differed from those
of the neoscholastics.
Over time, Congar integrated his speculative theological method
with a biblical method based on the fruits of contemporary biblical
scholarship. Thus, his biblical theology presented “the stages of the
history of the People of God” (in the Old Testament), followed by “the
history of the Church” in the New Testament.17 Although he initially
had reservations about the usefulness of biblical metaphors for rigor-
ous rational reflection, he eventually was convinced of the important
contribution they could make to his integral ecclesiology.
Congar discovered that each method taken alone had its shortcom-
ings. The speculative method was insufficiently attentive to revelation,
while the biblical method, at least as employed in critical exegesis,
tended to isolate texts and lacked attention to the cohesive whole of the
reality of the church. He hoped, however, that taken together, the two
methods could produce an intellectually rigorous integral ecclesiology
that presented the mystery of the church in all its dimensions in light
of the revelation of God’s plan of salvation.18
Congar’s journey to integrate speculative and biblical theological
15. Johann Baptist Franzelin, Theses de Ecclesia Christi (Rome: Typographia Polyglot-
ta, 1887); Hermann Dieckmann, De Ecclesia: Tractatus Historico-Dogmatici (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1925); and Carlo Passaglia, De Ecclesia Christi: Commentariorum Libri
Quinque, vol. 2 (Regensburg: G. J. Manz, 1856).
16. In 1948, Congar further reordered the causes to consider the material cause prior
to the final cause in order to further emphasize the communal orientation of humankind
toward God.
17. L’Eglise (1948), 13.
18. Ibid., 168 and loose interleaf inserted at 5.
110 I ntegration of M ethods
methods can be divided into four chronological phases. In the first

phase, reflected in his Thèse du Lectorat, Congar employed only a specu-
lative method, although he recognized the potential contribution that
biblical theology could make to speculative ecclesiology. At the time,
however, he did not consider himself equipped to incorporate biblical
methods into his speculative approach. In the second stage, comprising
the three courses De Ecclesia from the 1930s, he developed a biblical
theology of the church that he inserted into his speculative ecclesiology,
albeit with little integration between the speculative and biblical studies.
In the third phase, recorded in his two wartime courses, he inverted
the relationship between the speculative and biblical theologies as pre-
sented in the second phase. Thus, the biblical theology of the church
became more prominent than the speculative theology while there con-
tinued to be minimal integration between the two. In the fourth and fi-
nal phase, developed in the treatise De Ecclesia begun in 1948 and in its
subsequent revisions, Congar presented what he considered a synthetic
view of the church developed according to both methods taken together.
The presentation of each of these stages that follows includes those
details of Congar’s unpublished texts that reflect the progressive inte-
gration of the two theological methods and its effect on his ecclesiol-
ogy. As will be seen, he made great strides toward developing some
aspects of an integral ecclesiology, but did not fully achieve his goal.
Phase 1: Speculative Theology (1931)

In writing his Thèse du Lectorat in 1931, Congar used a speculative
method based on the doctrine of causation described above, taking
the writings of Thomas Aquinas as virtually the only source for his re-
search.19 The framework of causation is apparent in the titles of the
first two sections of his thesis, “The Final and Efficient Cause: The End
and Institution of the Church” and “The Quasi-formal Cause and the
Constitution of the Church.”20 At this early stage of his theological ca-
reer, he considered rational reflection to be the proper foundation of a
19. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 1. Congar noted that “since I have not received any teach-
ing on the Church, direct reading of St. Thomas is in effect nearly the only source of this
work.”
20. Ibid., i.
truly theological perspective and dismissed biblical analogies for the

church, including Paul’s image of the body of Christ, as inadequate for
that purpose. Thus, his first attempt at a treatise De Ecclesia was en-
tirely speculative, with no effort made to integrate or incorporate the
sources or fruits of the biblical method.
Congar began his thesis with an explanation of the final cause of
the church, which he described as the common good of the church as a
society. He identified that common good as “God himself in his inmost
life,”21 which he also termed “divine beatitude”:22 “God communicates
to us his own beatitude and, by that, makes us to participate in his
nature.”23 God shares his life with humankind such that a common so-
ciety, a “society of friendship,”24 is established in which both God and
humans partake of the same divine life. This society of friendship is
the church. In response to God’s outpouring of blessing, humans have
a “supernatural vocation” according to which they are called to share in
God’s life.25
Proceeding from his notion of the supernatural vocation, Congar
offered two definitions of the membership of the church. The first was
based on his reading of Aquinas, whereby participation in divine bless-
ing is the essential criterion for church membership. Thus, Congar
wrote, “All those who are in communion with God in beatitude and
who have in common as the supreme good of their life the very good
of the divine life are members of this divine society.”26 In other words,
those who respond to God’s call to participate in the divine life are
members of the church. The second definition, following shortly after
the first, is more inclusive: “All who are called to share the divine life
are members of this Church.”27 According to this second definition,
the criterion for membership in the church is God’s action in calling
men and women to a supernatural vocation, rather than individual hu-
man response to God’s call.
Congar did not offer any explanation or sources for his more inclu-
sive definition of the church. It appears that his claim that the appro-
21. Ibid., 9. 22. Ibid., 10.

23. Ibid., 8. 24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 9. Congar cited Thomas Aquinas, De Perfectione, c. 2; De Virtutibus, q. 1, a.
9; and De Caritate, a. 2, regarding participation in the blessings of God.
priate starting point for a treatise De Ecclesia was a recognition of the

fundamental significance of divine beatitude as the final cause of the
church was part of his strategy to overcome the hierarchical focus of ec-
clesiology.28 Although Congar did not explicitly contrast his description
with that of Robert Bellarmine, the post-Tridentine theologian’s defini-
tion of the church offers a classical formulation of the understanding
of church membership operative in Catholic theology in the early twen-
tieth century: “[The Church is] an assembly of persons united by the
profession of the same faith and communion in the same sacraments
under the governance of legitimate pastors and especially of the one
vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman pontiff.”29 The three conditions
cited by Bellarmine—profession of faith, sacramental communion,
and submission to governance—correspond to the three powers of the
hierarchy: teaching, sanctifying, and governing the church. Thus, ac-
cording to Bellarmine’s definition, recognition of hierarchical authority
becomes the de facto criterion for church membership.
In contrast, Congar defined the membership of the church in terms
of a divinely initiated vocation: “All who are called to share the divine
life are members of this Church.”30 His inclusive description of church
membership served to direct ecclesiology away from the hierarchical
reference point that had dominated Catholic theology in the second
millennium. He should not be understood as rejecting Bellarmine’s
definition; Congar expected the Christian vocation to be lived out with-
in the institutional church, which is governed by hierarchical authority.
Nonetheless, his definition shifted the criterion for membership in the
church away from the relationship between the members of the church
and the hierarchy (specifically, a relationship of obedience), toward the
relationship between humankind and God, as initiated by God’s call
to share in the divine life. Thus, he wrote, “This divine society having
divine beatitude as its common good and grace as its principal law is
28. Ibid., 8n6. Congar invoked Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 1, a.
3, and Reginald Maria Schultes, De Ecclesia (n.p., n.d.), 30, to justify beginning with the
final cause.
29. Robert Bellarmine, Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius
temporis haereticos, vol. 1: De Conciliis et Ecclesia, book III, chapter 2. Translation taken
from Michael J. Himes, “The Development of Ecclesiology: Modernity to the Twentieth
Century,” in The Gift of the Church, ed. Peter C. Phan (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
2000), 47.
the Church. We will soon see that the Church is not only that; but it is
first that, and should be considered principally as the divine society of
the blessed.”31
Turning to the efficient cause of the Church, Congar explained its
action as the “restoration of divine friendship in Christ by the exten-
sion to all of us of his capital grace [that] is the end of the entire Incar-
nation, but [that] is only effectively achieved . . . on the cross.”32 Thus,
Christ is the principal efficient cause of the church because, in his Pas-
sion, he “restores in himself the society of God and men.”33 “Jesus con-
stituted, by his Passion, a good common to him as man and to all the
members of his mystical body, that is to say to the entire human nature
in as much as it is subject to his capital grace. The common good of our
divine blessing is now a common good already acquired for us in Christ.”34
The church, therefore, is established by the renewal of humankind’s
sharing in the common good, which is the divine blessing of God’s life.
Having received this blessing through Jesus Christ, the church has the
mission “to apply to men the good of salvation definitively achieved on
the Cross, to incorporate and to engender men to Jesus Christ,” which
it accomplishes through faith and the sacraments. Christ established
the visible, hierarchical church for this purpose, although other means
could have served the same end.35
Congar identified the hierarchy as the “quasi-formal cause” of the
church.36 He planned to explore the role of the hierarchy and its powers
31. Ibid., Congar cited Augustine, De moribus Ecclesiae catholicae I, c. 30, with regard
to this claim.
32. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 14. Congar does not actually use the term “efficient cause”
except in the table of contents.
33. Ibid., 15.
34. Ibid., 16. On the effect of the Passion by virtue of Christ’s capital grace, Congar
cited Summa Theologiae IIIa, q. 49, a. 1, and De Veritate, q. 29, a. 7, arg. 11.
35. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 20. See also 20–24.
36. Ibid., 28. The term “quasi-formal cause” is not unique to Congar. Contemporaries
including Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Émile Mersch, and Karl Rahner all used it to indi-
cate causality other than the fully formal cause as classically defined by Aquinas. Congar
appears to have used the term as a synonym for exemplary cause. See also Réginald Gar-
rigou-Lagrange, Christ the Savior (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1950), q. 17 (originally published
in 1945); Karl Rahner, “Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace,”
329, in Theological Investigations, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1964) (originally published in
1939); and Émile Mersch, The Theology of the Mystical Body, trans. Cyril Vollert (St. Louis,
Mo.: B. Herder, 1951), 202–16, originally published as La théologie du corps mystique (Paris:
Desclée de Brouwer, 1944).
of order and jurisdiction, but in fact, he terminated his study midway

through his examination of the power of order. True to his intention to
develop an ecclesiology based on the societal nature of the church, he
began his consideration of the quasi-formal cause of the church with
an explanation of the formal causes of societies in general. According
to Congar, the form of a society is, first, the static, hierarchical order
of the society directed toward its end and, second, the dynamic order
whereby the activities of the hierarchically ordered society are coordi-
nated toward the achievement of its common good. The static order of
a society brings about its dynamic order.37 Congar here demonstrated
his early instinct for understanding the church as both structure and
life, both gift and task.
With regard to the church, Congar tried to be very precise in his
description of the causality associated with the static and dynamic or-
ders, which led him to associate the hierarchy with both the formal
and efficient causes of the church. He explained that every society has
a common good that calls forth “common activity”38 in which all mem-
bers of the society participate, albeit to varying degrees. The common
enterprise elicits cooperation among the members of the society. Con-
gar identified that “order of cooperation”39—which incorporates all
members of the society—as the form (that is, the formal cause) of the
society. At the same time, he recognized that the accomplishment of a
common good through cooperation required a “static order of dispo-
sition”40 within a society. That is, the society would be structured in a
way that made the universal cooperation possible. He called this static
order “the social hierarchy.”41 He argued that the social hierarchy was
the “motor cause” of the society rather than the formal cause, writing:
“Thus the hierarchy is not properly speaking the formal cause, except
according to a certain character of exemplary cause; it is more precisely
the motor cause the effect of which is to promote each [member] to the
common operation in which the society is realized.”42 The passage is
significant in that it explains Congar’s reluctance to identify the hier-
37. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 28. Congar did not support these assertions with referenc-
es to Aquinas or any other source.
38. Ibid., 31. 39. Ibid.
40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.
42. Ibid. Congar cited here Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 29, a. 4.
archy as the formal cause of the static order of any society (including
the church, as was commonly held by the neoscholastic theology of his
day). In his view, the hierarchy is not the form itself of the society, but
rather is the element that facilitates the common pursuit by all mem-
bers of the society of the common good. The common action is the
formal cause of the society, not the hierarchy, which enables that coop-
eration. Instead, Congar attributed motor causality (synonymous with
efficient causality) to the social hierarchy of any society.
At the same time, Congar was apparently reluctant to dismiss fully
the neoscholastic attribution of formal causality to the hierarchy. His
acknowledgement that the hierarchy holds “a certain character of ex-
emplary cause” as the “quasi-formal” cause assigns some formal cau-
sality to the hierarchy.43 Thus, in the passage quoted above, Congar was
attributing aspects of both formal and efficient causality to the hierar-
chy with regard to the static order of a society, specifically, the society
that is the church.
Turning to the dynamic order of a society (specifically, of the church),
Congar identified the hierarchy as the efficient cause, “in a certain
manner,”44 of the dynamic order of the church. He explained the effi-
cient causality of the hierarchy in terms of authority: “authority is the
promoter and realizer of the order of activity within which the society is
fully realized.”45 He clarified that the efficient causality of the hierarchy,
like that of faith and the sacraments, is an instrumental efficient cau-
sality whereby it is the vicar and representative of Christ. As Christ’s
vicars, “[ministers] are in the service of the Church and do not domi-
nate it.”46
It is the powers of Christ that allow the hierarchy to be an instru-
mental efficient cause of the dynamic order of the church. Christ, in
the plenitude of his capital grace, is the source of all power, in which
“men only participate, that is to say, take part.”47 In his consideration
of the powers of the church, Congar merged the twofold division of the
powers of sanctification and jurisdiction, as found in Aquinas, with the
43. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), i. 44. Ibid., 28.

45. Ibid., 28–29.
46. Ibid., 33. Congar cited here Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIIa, q. 64, a. 2,
ad 3, and Super Sententias IV, d. 17, q. 3, a. 1, qc. 5 sol, and d. 27, q. 3, a. 3, ad 2.
threefold division of the powers of order, teaching, and ruling devel-

oped by later theologians, equating the power of order to the power of
sanctification and placing the powers of teaching and ruling within the
power of jurisdiction. In a footnote, he clarified that the teaching func-
tion of the church does not fall entirely under the power of jurisdiction,
because “there is a priestly teaching which is attached to the power
of order.”48 His discussion of the powers of the church—which com-
prised two-thirds of the thesis manuscript—focused almost exclusively
on the participation of the hierarchy in Christ’s powers.49 The notion
of the participation of the church as a whole in the powers of Christ did
not appear in Congar’s writings on the treatise De Ecclesia until 1941,
in his Cours sur l’Eglise given at the prisoner-of-war camp in Lübben.50
As a whole, Congar’s first attempt to draft a properly theological
ecclesiology according to the method of speculative theology had mixed
results. On the one hand, while he used the categories of causation as
the framework for his ecclesiology, he reordered the treatment of the
causes, considering the final cause of the church first, rather than fol-
lowing the convention of neoscholastic manuals of ecclesiology, which
typically placed the final cause last.51 This reorientation directed the
focus of his ecclesiology toward the inner mystery of the church and
its supernatural vocation, rather than toward the hierarchical institu-
tion. He also avoided the typical neoscholastic assignment of formal
causality to the hierarchy. Instead, he used more ambiguous language,
“quasi-formal cause,” to limit the sense in which the hierarchy could
be understood to be the formal cause of the church, and assigned in-
strumental efficient causality to the hierarchy. This assignment, which
48. Ibid., 40n69bis. Congar cited Georg von Philipps, Kirchenrecht (Regensburg,
1845), n32. See also 34–40. Congar cited Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae, q.
39, a. 2, for the distinction between the two spiritual powers of sanctification and jurisdic-
tion. He cited multiple sources on the threefold division of powers, including: Antoninus,
Summa theologica 22, De Summo pontifice, ch. 2; J. H. Oswald, Die Erlösung in Christo, vol.
2 (Paderborn, 1878), 217ff; Franzelin, Theses de Ecclesia Christi, 46–64; Louis Billot, Trac-
tatus de Ecclesia Christi (Rome: Univ. Gregoriana, 1903), 336–47; and Schultes, De ecclesia
Catholica praelectiones apologeticae (Paris: Lethielleux, 1925, 1931), 333–36.
49. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 34–101.
50. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), Pouvoirs, 1–5.
51. For example, the consideration of the final cause of the church is placed at the end
of the examination of the causes in Franzelin, Theses de Ecclesia Christi, Dieckmann, De
Ecclesia: Tractatus Historico-Dogmatici, and Passaglia, De Ecclesia Christi: Commentariorum
Libri Quinque, vol. 2.
was unusual in Congar’s day, was a product of the distinction he made

between the static and dynamic orders of the church, which created a
situation whereby the hierarchy could be interpreted as the efficient
cause of the dynamic order.52 Lastly, while he did not explicitly address
the material cause of the church, his inclusive description of the mem-
bership of the church foreshadowed the broad interpretation of the ma-
terial cause as all humanity that would appear in his later unpublished
texts. Thus, while his method was similar to that used by the neoscho-
lastic theologians of his day, Congar made discernible strides toward
what he understood as a truly theological treatise De Ecclesia.
At the same time, Congar’s Thèse du Lectorat fell short of his goal in
significant ways. The most obvious shortcoming is his failure to com-
plete the study as outlined in the table of contents. Despite his inten-
tion to avoid the hierarchical, juridical focus of the apologetic treatises
in his own ecclesiology, most of his thesis was nevertheless devoted
to a consideration of the hierarchy. Nearly three-quarters of his thesis
addresses the quasi-formal causality of the hierarchy. Most of the text is
devoted to the power of order. Congar did not develop even provisional
outlines for sections III and IV of the planned text, entitled “The Prop-
erties, Notes, and ‘Dotes’ [endowments] of the Church” and “The Life of
the Church,” respectively.53 His failure to complete the sections on the
properties and life of the church was a precedent for his future work;
for nearly twenty-five years, Congar repeatedly included the properties
and specific issues in the life of the church on his treatise outlines, but
only once did he actually manage to give these topics more than a cur-
sory treatment. The one exception was the Cours sur l’Eglise that he gave
in 1941, while he and his students were imprisoned at a German pris-
oner-of-war camp and apparently unfettered by the time constraints of
the usual academic schedule.
Congar apparently realized that his exclusive reliance on a specula-
tive method based on the philosophical categories of causation limited
52. In a study of the work of Congar’s contemporary, Charles Journet, Dennis Doyle
noted that in L’Eglise du Verbe incarné, vol. 1 (1941): “the main achievement of Journet
was to cast the hierarchy out of the formal cause of the Church” (Dennis Doyle, Com-
munion Ecclesiology, [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000], 42). Journet’s solution differs
from Congar’s in that Journet assigns immediate efficient causality to the hierarchy, but
Doyle’s conclusion implies that Congar was innovative in his explanation of the hierarchy
as something other than the formal cause already in 1931.
53. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), iii.
the success of his study. He recognized the need for a study of “the
whole scriptural aspect of ecclesiology,” conducted according to “its
proper methods,”54 but thought it better to postpone such a study than
to undertake it with inadequate preparation. Nonetheless, he noted that
certain aspects of his ecclesiology would benefit from the incorporation
of biblical study. For example, he felt that texts from the gospel of John
could be useful in understanding the divine friendship, particularly
human participation in divine beatitude.55 With regard to his consid-
eration of the quasi-formal cause of the church, he acknowledged that
his treatment of the powers of order and jurisdiction was based more
on philosophical categories than on a “properly theological”56 method
based on scripture and dogma, but nonetheless proceeded according to
the structure derived from philosophy. Perhaps the most telling indi-
cation of his critique of the exclusive use of speculative method in his
thesis is the fact that when teaching the treatise De Ecclesia for the first
time the following year, Congar paired his speculative theology of the
church with a biblical study of the revelation of the church in scripture.
Phase 2: Speculative Theology + Biblical Theology

(1932–1933, 1934, and 1937)
Congar entered a second phase in his approach to the treatise De Ecclesia
during the three ecclesiology courses he taught in the 1930s. This sec-
ond phase is characterized by the insertion of biblical studies into what
is essentially still a speculative De Ecclesia. In each of the three courses
from the 1930s, Congar’s theology of the church was again based largely
on a speculative theology of causation. Into the speculative studies, how-
ever, he inserted an extensive biblical study of the covenant in the Old
and New Testaments and of Paul’s ecclesiology of the body of Christ.57
54. Ibid., 24, note.

55. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 9n7, and 14n6. Congar referred specifically to John 17:
20–26, which was a text of special significance to him in the discernment of his ecumen-
ical vocation, and various verses from John 14–18. It seems he envisioned not the formu-
lation of an entire biblical ecclesiology, but rather more focused studies in support of spe-
cific ecclesiological questions. Throughout his thesis, Congar invoked scriptural sources,
but they served essentially as proof texts. Congar called for a “theological interpretation” of
John 5:21–22 and 26–27, on the powers of Christ (36n79).
57. In the course he gave in 1932–1933, Congar also included a study of the biblical
Although Congar’s biblical study is substantial, there is little integration

between the speculative and biblical components of his ecclesiology. The
following summaries of the speculative and biblical theologies from his
courses in the 1930s reflect the parallel relationship between the two
methods in his theology of the church in this second phase.
The Speculative Theology of the Church

In the courses he taught in the 1930s, Congar’s speculative theology
of the church continued to be governed by the Aristotelian categories
of causation commonly used in neoscholastic manuals to present a
theology or apologetics of the church. For all three courses, he drew
heavily on Thomas Aquinas as his primary theological source, as he
had for his thesis in 1931. In 1932–1933, Congar organized his course
explicitly according to the four causes (final, material, efficient, and for-
mal). In 1934 and 1937, he examined the final cause of the church in
the introduction to his course, and then considered the efficient and
formal causes of the church in a section entitled “The Mystical Body”
in 1934, modified to read “The Church as the Mystical Body”58 in 1937.
The inherent duality of the metaphor of the mystical body, whereby
Christ has both an intrinsic relationship with the church, with which
he forms one body, and an extrinsic relationship, as head over the
church, allowed Congar to differentiate less rigidly between the final,
efficient, and formal causes while still appealing to the familiar specu-
lative categories of causation in constructing his ecclesiology. In the
courses taught in 1934 and 1937, he gave no consideration to the mate-
rial cause of the church. The detailed summary presented here draws
primarily on the course from 1932–1933, which was longer and more
complete than the courses in 1934 and 1937. Congar himself took the
course from 1932–1933 as a foundation for his overall project to con-
struct the treatise De Ecclesia, referring back to it frequently in subse-
texts related to the primacy of Peter. Because that study does not figure in his integration
of theological methods, the details of the study are not included here.
58. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover, where Con-
gar noted that he planned to use the notes from his course in 1934 to cover the first two
topics of the course in 1937, the introduction to the course and the consideration of the
reality of the Church, and Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 11, table of contents, and De
Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at 1.
quent works. Where the courses from 1934 and 1937 reflect significant
developments over the course from 1932–1933 in Congar’s pursuit of
an integral ecclesiology, those developments are presented here.
Before we delve into Congar’s attempt at a speculative theology in
his early ecclesiology courses, it bears noting that his application of
neoscholastic method is at times tortuous and inconsistent; he him-
self was dissatisfied with his accomplishment. It is explored in some
detail here to illustrate his intense effort to work within the theological
structures of his era and at the same time to expand and transform that
structure to accommodate a more complex, multifaceted understand-
ing of church. An assessment of the significance of Congar’s attempt
can be found at the end of this section.
The Final Cause Congar retained from his thesis the explanation of the
final cause of a society according to which “a society is defined by its
common good.”59 As in his thesis, he again explained that with regard
to the church, “the question of the end is here a question of vocation, of
divine initiative.”60
He distinguished between “two zones”61 in the church, which cor-
respond to two societies. The church is first “a purely spiritual soci-
ety”:62 “The Church is in effect first—it was first historically, and it still
remains first—the society of God himself and intelligent creatures ele-
vated to the supernatural order. Scripture and the Fathers often speak
of the Church understood in this way.”63 Second, the church is “a visible
society”:64 “The Church is then the supernatural society instituted by
Jesus Christ on earth to attain heaven: a society limited to men and
women redeemed by Christ, on account of which they enter into the
59. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8. See also Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 34,
where Congar cited Thomas Aquinas’s definition of a society, “adunatio hominum ad aliq-
uid unum communiter agendum” (Contra impugnates Dei cultam et religionem, c. 3).
61. Ibid., 37, and Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8. See also De Ecclesia: Cursus
Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover, where Congar refers to the Church’s
“two levels of reality.”
63. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 37. Congar cited Hebrews 1:14 and 12:22–24,
Revelation 21:2–5, and Ephesians 2:19, as well as Franzelin, De Ecclesia Christi, 13–19, in
support of this claim. He gave a similar definition of the first ecclesial zone in Cursus bre-
vior Ecclesiologiae (1934), (8).
Redemption of Christ.”65 Thus, there are in the church “two orders,

two societies, two unities defined by two common goods.”66 In the first
zone, the common good of the church as spiritual society is “the very
good of God, in which he takes his beatitude and from which he makes
our beatitude.”67 God’s communication of his beatitude to humankind
establishes a society of friendship in which “the very society of God
[is] extended to us, the society of the Holy Trinity [is] extended to spir-
itual creatures.”68 In the second zone, that is, the visible society of the
church, the common good is “the salvation of God achieved in Christ,
the Peace of God, the divine Good, the right to beatitude restored in
Christ.”69
Congar made his explanation of the common good even more com-
plex by suggesting that the common good is simultaneously the end,
the form, and the “treasure” of a society.70 For each of these three levels
of the common good, he detailed the specific content of the common
good in five different contexts: the economic aspect of temporal soci-
eties, the political aspect of temporal societies, the heavenly church,
the interior aspect of the church on earth, and the “external society”71
of the church on earth. Thus, he presented a total of fifteen different
common goods, some of which had further multiplications of mean-
ing. The six common goods associated with the economic and political
aspects of temporal societies were probably included simply as illustra-
tions in light of the analogy Congar made between societies in general
and the church as society. Regarding the ecclesial society per se, the
schema identified nine common goods specifically associated with the
church. In practice, Congar focused in his courses on just two common
goods, as described above, but the abundance of possible common
65. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 37. Congar noted that this is the usual sense of
the word “Church” and that “it is the Church understood in this way that we will study in
what follows.” He gave a similar definition of the second ecclesial zone in Cursus brevior
Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8.
66. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8. This theme of duality remained important
throughout Congar’s De Ecclesia project.
67. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 38. This is the common good of the church as
described in Congar’s thesis.
68. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 38. 69. Ibid., 40.
70. Ibid., 42.
71. Ibid., 42. See also Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 10, for a similar chart in
which he divided the Church into “spiritual society (mystical body)” and “militant, hierar-
chical, visible society.”
goods that he proposed reflects the difficulty he had in confining his

theology of the church to the speculative categories of causation. The
common good of a society is directly related to its final cause, which in
scholastic theology is understood as the single determining end of an
entity. Thus, the proliferation of common goods within a single society
complicates and even contradicts the doctrine of causation. Congar was
clearly trying to stretch the philosophical terminology to convey mean-
ings beyond those intended by scholastic theology.
To summarize, in his explanation of the final cause Congar dis-
tinguished primarily between two common goods that give rise to his
identification of two societies within the church. In the church as invis-
ible, spiritual society, God extends the beatitude that is his life (that is,
the life of the Trinity) to humankind. Congar supported this claim with
recourse to 1 John 1:3: “our fellowship is with the Father and with his
Son, Jesus Christ.”72 In the church as visible, earthly society, Christ is
the mediator of that beatitude. Here, Congar quoted 1 Corinthians 1:9:
“God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.”73 Thus, the visible church is “the Church of
Jesus,”74 and its final cause is “the acts of Christ as [its] head, and above
all his Passion.”75
Congar’s negotiation of this distinction between invisible, spiritu-
al society and visible, earthly society in his lecture notes was not fully
satisfactory. The distinction between the two goods—participation in
God’s life and participation in God’s life as restored by Christ—appears
insufficient to warrant his claim that they correspond to two different
societies. Christ’s very act of restoration points to a common good be-
yond his mediating action, namely participation in the divine life that
he restores. All participation in God’s life occurs only in Christ.76
Congar’s notes from his courses from the 1930s do not indicate that
he had any misgivings at the time about his argument for two church
72. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 37. Translation taken from the New American Bi-
ble. Congar also described the end, or final cause, of the church as “Deus gloriosus et beatus
participatus et visus” (Cours d’Ecclésiologie [1932–1933], 42).
73. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 38. Translation taken from The New American Bible.
75. Ibid., 42. Congar referred to Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Metaphysicae, lib. 12, lect.
12 n. 26–31 on this point.
76. Congar himself emphasized this point in the course given in 1937. See De Eccle-
sia: Cursus Minor (1937), B, 10.
societies arising from two different common goods. It seems, however,

that his perception of the duality of common goods, and therefore soci-
eties, in the church led him to struggle in defining the final cause. On
the one hand, the common good of a society is its end and therefore is
the “cause of the society and of its unity, as end.”77 Thus, two societies
with two different (though not unrelated) common goods would have
two different final causes.
Congar clearly had trouble using neoscholastic language of cau-
sality to convey what he considered to be essential dimensions of the
church. According to revisions of his lecture notes from 1932–1933, he
was later reluctant to distinguish between distinct final causes of the
two societies. Instead, he simply redefined the final cause of the invis-
ible church as “the glory of God and the salvation of men.”78 In 1934,
he defined the final cause as “the divine good of the communicated
divine life, glory to God, salvation of men.”79 In his revised notes from
his course in 1932–1933 as well as in his course in 1934, the description
appeared in a table that compared the two societies of the church. In
both cases, he entered the descriptions quoted here under the heading
of the invisible, spiritual church and left the parallel entry under the
heading of the visible church empty, giving no description of its final
cause. Nonetheless, in 1934, he continued to refer to “the two ends or
common goods of the two zones of the Church,”80 thus acknowledging
that his schema of two different common goods resulting in two eccle-
sial societies called for two final causes, one for each of the societies
of the church. It seems that while he was able to explain the common
goods of the two societies, the distinction of final causes was more dif-
ficult for him to articulate.
Although Congar described the duality of societies within the
church at great length, he insisted on the unity and unicity of the one
church. While in the sense outlined above there are two final causes

78. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 43. The undated interleaf is labeled “completed
and modified table” and is a revision of the table in which he presented various permu-
tations of the common good in 1932–1933. Congar used both spiritual and invisible to de-
scribe the Church in heaven.
79. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 10, with reference to Thomas Aquinas, Summa
contra Gentiles IV, c. 55, and Rev 5:13, 7:12, and 19:6–2 [sic].
of the two church societies, the two are one, because life in union with
God is not separate from unity with Christ: “[Humans] return to God
in Christ, through acts of faith and of love [that are] at once trinitarian
and christological, uniting and being assimilated to God in uniting and
being incorporated into Christ.”81
Congar’s explanation of the final cause of the church illustrates his
predicament in trying to articulate an integral ecclesiology using the lan-
guage and concepts of scholastic theology. The categories of causation
were insufficient for expressing the full mystery of the church as he un-
derstood it. He wanted to express the distinction between the church on
earth and the church in heaven and to acknowledge the realities of each
state, while at the same time affirming their unity. To articulate this vi-
sion of the church within the philosophical system of causation, he di-
vided the church into two distinct societies. Despite his assertion of the
unity of the two societies, his exposition emphasized their distinction
more than the unity of the one church.
The Material Cause Congar’s explanation of the material cause of the

church is very brief and found only in the course he gave in 1932–1933.
He described the material cause of the church as “all mankind,” with
all the limitations attendant on the rational, sensible human state.82 Al-
though he did not refer to the supernatural vocation in the explanation
of the material cause in his 1932–1933 course, his inclusive definition
of the material cause reflects the universal call to relationship with God
that served as the criterion for church membership in his thesis. Addi-
tionally, Congar claimed that “the historical Church, extended and re-
alized in real, concrete space and time,” experiences a certain material
causation by “the historical and geographical circumstances” that con-
dition it.83 He noted that the material cause of the church differed from
that of natural societies in that the material cause of the church preex-
ists the church society. His understanding of the material cause did not
contribute substantially to his theology of the church in 1932–1933, and
in his courses in 1934 and 1937 he did not include it in his explanation
of the causes of the church.
81. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), B, 10.

83. Ibid., 61–62.
The Efficient and Formal Causes In Congar’s ecclesiology, the efficient

and formal causes of the church were so closely related to one another
that he assigned both formal and efficient causality to both the Holy
Spirit and the hierarchy.84 In his lectures on these causes, he did not
emphasize that his subject was the visible church, but in defining the
two zones of the church, visible and invisible, he indicated that the visi-
ble, earthly church would be the topic of the course’s study.
He devoted most of the course he gave in 1932–1933 to the efficient
cause of the visible church. He identified Christ as the principal effi-
cient cause of the church by virtue of the plenitude of grace that he en-
joys and that he shares with the church as its head through his powers
as priest, prophet, and king. From Christ, there are two instrumental ef-
ficient causes of the church: the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy through
the latter’s participation in the munera Christi.85
The Holy Spirit is an instrumental efficient cause of the church as
the “agent” of Jesus Christ after the Ascension and as the one that re-
alizes the supernatural society of the church by working in the hearts
and souls of its members.86 One of the means by which the Spirit effects
the church is through charisms, understood as “functions”—Congar here
emphasized his choice of terminology—in the church: “charisms of
teaching, of consolation, of exhortation, of presidency, of organization of
charitable works, etc.”87 The hierarchy is an instrumental efficient cause
of the church insofar as it participates in the powers of Christ, the prin-
cipal efficient cause. The hierarchy is always the vicar, or representative,
of Christ with regard to these powers, which properly pertain to Christ.88
84. In scholastic theology, it was more common to pair the efficient cause with the
final cause and the formal cause with the material cause. See also Mercier, Modern Scho-
lastic Philosophy, 525, and Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Metaphysicae, lib. 5, lect. 2, n. 13.
85. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 66–82. Congar based his argument largely on
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIIa, q. 7 and 8, on the plenitude of grace in Christ
and his capital grace. He later inserted notes on Christ’s capital grace taken from Thomas
Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 29, a. 4 (loose leaf inserted at Cours d’Ecclésiologie [1932–1933], 71).
86. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 83. See also ibid., 82–87. Congar did not explicit-
ly apply the term “instrumental cause,” but his description of the role of the Holy Spirit in
effecting the church corresponds to that of an instrumental cause.
87. Ibid., 91–92. Congar acknowledged that some charisms are extraordinary and
rare, but many relate to more routine functions within the Church.
88. Ibid., 95 and 125–26 and a loose interleaf inserted at 63. In 1932–1933, Congar
noted but did not actually address the efficient causality of the sacraments. Baptism and
the Eucharist, however, figured prominently in his examination of the formal cause of the
Church in that course.
Congar further explained that the hierarchy is the instrumental ef-

ficient cause of the church insofar as it is “the entirety of the differ-
ent subjects who receive, more or less, the influx of Christ, who make
present and visible on the earth, each according to a certain mode and
a certain measure, the actions of Christ.”89 Congar was aware that,
given that the hierarchy is within the church, his assignment of effi-
cient causality to the hierarchy could appear to conflict with the logic
of causation whereby the efficient cause is external to the form that is
caused, but he defended his position:90
[The hierarchy] indeed acts within the Church and, by its powers, realizes the
supernatural society: the powers are therefore agents and realizers, and it is this
that gives them the appearance of efficient causality; but, in reality, they are re-
alizers in the same way that the soul realizes the body: or, for greater precision:
they are like the powers of the soul, by which it acts. [The soul] remains in the
interior of the society and is tied to the formal cause. Yes, but . . . I envision the
powers [of the hierarchy] not as constituting the formal part of the ecclesiastical
body, namely the authority, but as prolonging, by a visible organ, the action of
Christ.91
Here Congar made a distinction between the hierarchy as the prolon-

gation of Christ’s action and powers, which effects the instrumental
efficient causation of the church, and the “social hierarchy,” that is, the
hierarchy as authority, which is the formal cause of the church.92
Congar offered a detailed explanation of who in the church partic-
ipates in the powers of Christ, which “are participated in and received
by the various parts of the Church in an unequal manner and according
to a different mode.”93 He identified the recipients, manners, and modes
as follows:
by St. Peter and his successors, in fullness, and immediately;
by the other apostles together and by their successors the bishops taken
together (the episcopal body; an ecumenical council), in fullness, but in
dependence on Peter;
by the apostles taken individually, in fullness or quasi-fullness and immediate-
ly from Christ, although with a certain dependence on Peter;
89. Ibid., 136. See also 143–44. 90. Ibid., 135.

91. Ibid., 135–36. In this course, Congar also described the Holy Spirit as the soul of
the Church.
92. Ibid., 136. 93. Ibid., 143.
lastly, by the bishops, successors of the apostles, taken individually, in only

a partial fashion and only dependent on Peter and on his successor,
but by the intermediary of Peter and his successor (the priests totally
dependent on the bishops).94
Congar’s point in detailing the degrees of participation in the powers of

Christ by the members of the hierarchy was to argue against the defi-
nition, found in some theology manuals, of the hierarchy “exclusively
as the formal cause,” such that the hierarchy constitutes the “ecclesi-
astical monarchy.”95 In contrast, his description of different degrees of
participation in the powers of Christ demonstrated that “the efficient
cause is variously represented, variously present and acting.”96
In summary, Congar described Christ as the primary efficient
cause of the church and the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy as the in-
strumental efficient causes that continue Christ’s work. In his course
in 1932–1933, Congar noted that despite the persistent debate between
“the mission of the hierarchy or the mission of the Spirit” in the
church, “in principle” there is no opposition between the two as effi-
cient causes of the church, but he did not explain how the two causes
could be seen as existing in harmony.97 He continued to refine his no-
tion of the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy as dual instrumental efficient
causes of the church until 1952, when he published an article outlining
the argument for the double mission of the Spirit and the hierarchy.98
Congar also presented a complex explanation of the formal cause
of the church in his course given in 1932–1933. He first described the
“extrinsic formal cause,”99 that is, the exemplary cause of the church.
In the largest sense, the exemplary cause of the church is “the idea that
God has of it.”100 Likewise, the Trinity is an exemplary cause, in that
94. Ibid., 143–44.

95. Ibid., 144. Congar cited Billot, De Ecclesia, 497, and J. de Guibert, De Christi Eccle-
sia breve schema (Rome, 1928), 178, as texts that assigned such causality to the hierarchy.
97. Ibid., 92–93.
98. Yves Congar, “Le Saint-Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’œuvre du
Christ,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 36 (1952): 613–25. Later published
in English translation as “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the
Church, 105–45. Congar began to develop the theology of the “double mission” of the Spir-
it and the apostolic body in 1945 as a resolution of the perceived difficulties in accounts of
two missions.
100. Ibid., 236.
“the trinitarian society [is] . . . the exemplar, in a word, of diversity in

unity, of order, of dependence without imperfection: all that which is
the form of the Church.”101 Similarly, Christ is an exemplary cause of
the church as its head:
This exemplarity stems from the profound and eminent manner in which he
is the head. He is the head as containing in him eminently the entire Church,
such that all the various functions ordered to the common action, in which the
immanent form of the Church consists, only reproduce Christ, each according
to a particular aspect and act of Christ: such that these functions are at the same
time the functions of the Christian society and the function, organs and mem-
bers of the body of Christ.102
With these explanations of the exemplary cause of the church, Con-

gar expanded considerably on the consideration given to the exemplary
cause in his Thèse du Lectorat (1931).
Congar’s primary focus, however, was on “the intrinsic formal
cause” of the church, “that act, that perfection which makes the thing
intrinsically that which it is, which constitutes it according to a certain
mode and to a certain degree of being, determining its characteristic
properties.”103 He identified two basic functions of the formal cause
of a society. “The first role of form [is] simply to give being and life,”104
while “the second role of form [is] to organize the body to the service of
its life and of its unity.”105 The second role is therefore a necessary au-
thoritative function among the diverse functions of the society, “having
the charge of the common good as such, vis à vis the other [ functions] a
directive and unifying function.”106
With regard to the society that is the church, Congar first explained
that the Holy Spirit is the formal cause of the church both formally (for-
maliter) and as exemplar (exemplariter). He further explained that the
Spirit is formally (that is, intrinsically) the formal cause of the church
101. Ibid. Congar referred to Dom Gréa on the Trinity as exemplary cause, but provid-
ed no specific citation.
102. Ibid., 237–38. Congar referred to Franzelin, Theses de Ecclesia Christi, 320–39, on
the exemplary causality of Christ.
104. Ibid., 248. Congar also described this as “a role of unification to the end, which
brings about the social being” (241).
105. Ibid., 280. Congar’s description of the two roles of form is similar to his descrip-
tion of the two orders of a society in his Thèse du Lectorat.
in that “the elements which unify and realize humanity in the Church,
making, determining and constituting the Church from within . . .
are the effects of the Holy Spirit.”107 Thus, the Spirit is “the soul of
the Church” in that it both “animates the Church” and “organizes the
Church.”108
Congar then further explored in considerable detail “the intrinsic
elements” of the church that fulfill the two functions of the formal
cause.109 He identified faith and charity, and the associated sacraments
of baptism and Eucharist, as the elements that carry out the first func-
tion of the formal cause, that of giving being to the church.110
With regard to the second function of the formal cause, the organi-
zation of the functions of the church society, Congar noted the diversity
of these functions but limited himself to addressing “the constitution
of the Church,” that is, “the order of authority which is the formal part
[pars formalis] of the social body,”111 namely, the “social hierarchy.”112
Christ founded the Church and he has not ceased acting in it; but he does not
enter within the Church as a formal element. But the animated and vicarial
instruments of Christ which the apostles represent enter into the constitution
of the Church as authority, pars formalis, organizing the body; their successors,
heirs of the powers which they received from Christ, become in their turn . . .
the authority or pars formalis representing the order of functions, the social hi-
erarchy of this supernatural society.113
107. Ibid., 246. Thomas Aquinas made a distinction between two aspects of the for-
mal cause: the intrinsic form and the extrinsic exemplar, or pattern (Sententia Metaphysi-
cae, lib. 5, lect. 2, n. 2).
108. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 246. On the organizing function of the Spirit,
Congar referred to Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 171, pr. ; q. 183, a. 2 and
3; q. 184, a. 5–8; and q. 185 (247).
109. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 248. For Congar’s examination of the first role
of the formal cause, see 248–79; for his examination of the second role, see 280–306.
110. Ibid., 252–68. Congar cited sources such as Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 14,
a. 2, and q. 28, a. 4, and Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 4, a. 1 and 2 and q. 19, a. 7; as well
as scripture texts including John 17:20–21 and Ephesians 4:11–14, in his examination of
faith, and Summa contra Gentiles, lib. 3, c. 151; Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 28, a. 1, ad 2,
and q. 65, a. 5, in his examination of charity.
112. Ibid., 286. Congar invested the phrase with a particular meaning: “not the hier-
archy of holiness, of faith, of charity, of personal mystical incorporation into Christ; but
the hierarchy properly social, based on the distribution of social tasks, of functions, of
powers relative to the common good” (285).
113. Ibid., 286.
Here, again, Congar substantially revised the assignment of causality

given in his Thèse du Lectorat (1931). The second function he described
for the formal cause of a society in 1932–1933 is the same function he
labeled motor (efficient) causality in 1931. Thus, without changing his
understanding of the functional role of the social hierarchy, he shifted
its assignment from efficient to formal causality.
Congar’s treatment of the formal and efficient causes of the church
in 1932–1933 departed from the scholastic interpretation of the doc-
trine of causation in two ways. First, he identified two intrinsic formal
causes of the church: the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy, despite the fact
that Aquinas had indicated that there can be no such plurality of for-
mal causes. Second, he assigned both formal and efficient causalities
to both the Spirit and the hierarchy. Thus, the Holy Spirit is both effi-
cient cause (as the Spirit of Christ) and the formal cause (as the soul of
the church). Likewise, the hierarchy is both efficient cause (through its
participation in the munera Christi) and formal cause (as the authori-
ty by which the church society is ordered). The scholastic doctrine of
causation, however, held that the efficient cause is an extrinsic cause
and the (nonexemplary) formal cause is an intrinsic cause. Logically,
therefore, the efficient and formal causes are mutually exclusive and
cannot be the same entity. Congar tried to justify his description of the
hierarchy as both the formal and efficient cause by assigning each of
the causes to distinct aspects of the hierarchy. He did not provide any
explanation for the double assignment of the Holy Spirit. Again, as
seen earlier, Congar perceived a fundamental duality in the church that
the language of causation was not equipped to articulate. He was, it
seems, straitjacketed by the categories of causation and expended con-
siderable ink and energy attempting to reconcile what the neoscholas-
tic terminology would dismiss as contradictions. As a result, his lecture
notes suffer from unresolved tensions.
Congar mitigated these metaphysical complications in the courses
he gave in 1934 and 1937 by placing the categories of causation with-
in the context of the metaphor of the church as the mystical body of
Christ (the ecclesiological value of which he had earlier dismissed).
The metaphor introduced the duality of Christ acting both intrinsically
and extrinsically with regard to the church as his body, as well as the
duality between the visible, earthly church and the invisible, heavenly
church. At the same time, the image was of one and only one body.
Thus, the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ was able to
convey the duality of the church, namely, the fact that the two church
societies are in fact united as one church, in a way that the categories of
causation alone could not.
As a result, in 1934 and 1937, Congar was able to speak more easily
of multiple final and formal causes of the church and to identify intrin-
sic and extrinsic efficient causes of the church, because the image of
the church as the body of Christ conveyed an essential duality in the
relationship between Christ and his body. The assignment of causality
in the courses from 1934 and 1937 corresponds closely to what Congar
presented in 1932–1933, but it appears he felt himself less constrained
by the classical limitations of the causes that had led to tensions in his
course in 1932–1933. Thus, in 1934, he further blurred the distinction
between the causes by identifying “a triple title of causality” in Christ as
the efficient, exemplar, and final cause of the church.114 In 1937, he also
identified God as a final, efficient, and formal cause of the church.115
While he continued to use the categories of causality, the image of the
body of Christ allowed him to stretch those categories beyond their
common usage in neoscholastic theology in order to articulate his vi-
sion of the mystery of the church.
Congar did not explicitly attribute his reinterpretation of the causes
to the influence of the metaphor of the church as the mystical body of
Christ in his courses in 1934 and 1937. He simply used the titles “The
Mystical Body”116 and “The Church as the Mystical Body”117 for the
sections of his courses presenting the speculative ecclesiology in those
years. Notably, as will be discussed below, he included a study of the Pau-
line theology of the church as the body of Christ in each of these courses,
but he did not specifically explain its usefulness with regard to determin-
ing the causes of the church. Nonetheless, it appears that he drew upon
the common connotations of the metaphor of the mystical body of Christ
as a license for his idiosyncratic assignment of the causes.
In summary, in constructing the theology of the church for the
114. Ibid., 26. Thomas Aquinas used the term “exemplary causality” as a refinement
within the formal cause (Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Metaphysicae, lib. 5, lect. 2, n. 2).
115. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), B, 4 and 9.
116. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 11, table of contents.
117. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at 1.
courses he gave in the 1930s, Congar appealed primarily to the specu-

lative theological categories of causation. He faced a predicament in
constructing a total ecclesiology by this means, however, in that the
language of speculative theology was tied to the apologetic ecclesiology
he wished to overcome and simply could not convey the full mystery of
the church as he understood it. He was constrained by the theological
language of his day and the expectation that Catholic theology would
employ the philosophical categories of causation. He attempted to
stretch the structures of causation to accommodate the full mystery of
the church, but his efforts were consistently hampered by the neces-
sity of working within the established theological framework, which,
as Congar himself pointed out in his critique of baroque theology, did
not give all the dimensions of that mystery their full place. In 1934 and
1937, he introduced the imagery of the church as the mystical body of
Christ as the construct within which to consider the four causes of the
church, which allowed him to stretch the neoscholastic categories be-
yond their typical confines to accommodate a more complex vision of
the church. This refinement in his use of speculative theology demon-
strated his commitment to the construction of an integral ecclesiology.
Given the choice between, on the one hand, maintaining a rigorously
speculative framework at the expense of ecclesial dimensions that did
not fit within it and, on the other, substantially recasting that frame-
work in a fashion contrary to the principles of neoscholastic theology
in order to allow the inclusion of those ecclesial dimensions, Congar
chose to recast the speculative framework. However, while the new
framework gave him license to redefine the categories of causation,
doing so vitiated the precision that the speculative system intended to
provide. In the end, his continued effort, though impressive, was un-
successful.
The Biblical Theology of the Church

In the 1930s, Congar inserted a biblical study of “The Revelation of the
Church as the design of God to call us to his life”118 into his courses
De Ecclesia, but never took it as his starting point, as he would in his
wartime and postwar texts. In the biblical study, Congar explained that

the establishment of Israel as the people of God is fulfilled by Christ in

establishing the church as his Body:
God reveals this design first to a people, and in a rather broad manner: the idea
of a certain community of life and interests, of a certain association or solidarity.
Afterwards, he reveals himself to all, revealing, at the same time, the precise
manner in which this community of life, this solidarity, is realized: namely in
Christ, as members of his body, co-inheritors with him, co-kings, co-glorified.119
He developed his biblical study in two parts. First, he examined the

covenant as revealed in the Old and New Testaments, after which he
presented a biblical theology of the body of Christ based on the Pau-
line letters. Although he did not integrate his biblical theology with his
speculative theology to any great extent in the 1930s, the biblical study
from the course he gave in 1932–1933 was the foundation of his future
biblical theology and therefore merits presentation in some detail.
The Covenant Congar began his biblical study of the covenant by trac-
ing its history from Noah to David, noting that the primary covenants
were those with Abraham and Moses. The covenants with Abraham
established Israel’s relationship with God as one characterized by in-
heritance. The first covenant with Abraham (Gn 15) was in the form
of promise and testament (in the sense of a will). The promise of de-
scendents was to Abraham himself, whom God made his heir: “At one
and the same time, God promises him an heir and gives him an inher-
itance.”120 The inheritance was the land of Canaan, given by God to
Abraham and passed on to Abraham’s descendents. According to the
second covenant with Abraham (Gn 17), the heir was not any and all
of Abraham’s descendents (which would include Ishmael, his son by
Hagar), but rather “the son of the promise,” Isaac, born of Sarah.121
The line of inheritance was repeatedly narrowed over the course of Is-
rael’s history. Thus, in his covenants with Abraham and his descen-
dents, God established both the inheritance and the line of those who
would inherit by his promise.
In contrast, the covenant with Moses was based on law rather than
on promise.122 Where the covenant with Abraham was a unilateral
119. Ibid., 47. 120. Ibid., 49.

121. Ibid., 50. 122. Ibid., 51–52.
134 Integration of M ethods
promise by God, the covenant with Moses was “quasi-bilateral” in that

it placed juridical demands on the people of Israel.123 The existence of
two types of covenant, one based on promise and one on law, raised
the question of whether life in God is the rightful reward earned by
the faithful believer or a promised gift. Congar left the question un-
answered, simply noting that in both cases, the covenant is “a mercy”
initiated by God.124 As a whole, the Old Testament covenant is the re-
lationship whereby Israel is the people of God and God is the God of
Israel, the two linked by the land, which belongs both to Israel and
to Yahweh as “joint property.”125 “By the Covenant, God and Israel are
associated, in solidarity,” he wrote. “The Covenant establishes a sort
of mystical relationship.”126 Later in the history of Israel, the prophets
foreshadowed a new covenant of “universality, eternity, and stability.”127
Jesus Christ is heir to the promise of the old covenant, in that he
is human, born in the line of David, and also the fulfillment of the
covenant, in that he is both man and God. Christ, by his blood, estab-
lishes and mediates the new covenant, which is realized in the church.
At the Last Supper, by sharing the cup of his blood, which is the cup
of the new covenant, Christ extends the new covenant to the church,
which as “the beneficiary” of the new covenant is thus the “new peo-
ple of God.”128 While the covenant has been accomplished by Christ,
the church’s inheritance is not yet complete.129 Until that final achieve-
ment, Christ’s blood “is the guarantee of our total inheritance, the
guarantee of the possession of the Reign. . . . The Eucharist is the guar-
antee of the future and definitive messianic banquet.”130
The Body of Christ Congar began his separate biblical study on the
body of Christ with an explanation of the Greek word ekklesia.131 In the
123. Ibid., 52. 124. Ibid.

125. Ibid., 54. 126. Ibid.
127. Ibid.
128. Ibid., 56. Congar cited multiple New Testament texts supporting his description
of the Church as the new people of God (ibid., 58). He described the content of the new
inheritance as “the patrimonial goods of God,” by which he means the divine life (Cours
sur l’Eglise [1941], 53).
130. Ibid.
131. Étude de Théologie biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclésiologie de S. Paul (1932),
Archives of the Dominican Province of France. The Pauline study is a separate text inserted
Septuagint, the Greek word ekklesia was used to translate the Hebrew
word qahal. The common meaning of qahal is “assembly,” but Congar
emphasized that in the Hebrew, it had also taken a specific religious
meaning as its primary denotation, namely, “the assembly of the chil-
dren of Israel, the assembly of Yahweh, the people of God,” which car-
ries the connotation of the entire covenantal history of Israel. In con-
trast, Congar noted that in the Greek language, ekklesia had maintained
its secular sense—“the gathering of the citizens of a city, [and] there-
fore a purely political, civil meaning, ‘the assembly of the people’”—de-
spite its scriptural use.132 Thus, ekklesia shares the common meaning
of qahal, that is, assembly, but it did not necessarily bear the full conno-
tation of its religious meaning, “people of God.”
According to Congar, Paul used the Greek word, familiar in its sec-
ular sense, investing it with the meaning of the Jewish term. This re-
valuation of the term incorporates the covenantal history of Israel into
the life of the church, the body of Christ. While Paul used ekklesia to
refer to both the “total Church” and the particular churches, Congar
explained that “Paul’s thought always proceeds to the total Church, the
body of Christ, and the particular Churches only enter his thought as
the concrete realization of the body of Christ.”133 As Christ’s body, the
church is the fullness (pleroma) of Christ. As its head, Christ is the prin-
ciple of order and life for the church.134 The restoration of divine life by
Christ is accomplished in two stages. “First, in him,” that is, divine life
is restored “in him and for us . . . because he contains and represents
us.”135 “Then in us,” that is, divine life is restored “in our being associ-
ated with his mystery (passion and resurrection) and, by that, already
with his glory.”136 “This establishes the reality of the Church [as] Body
in full into the course, as reflected on the course schedule inserted into Cours d’Ecclésiolo-
gie (1932–1933) as a loose interleaf at 1. See also Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8, and
loose interleaf inserted at the cover of De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), both of which refer
to the Étude de Théologie biblique from 1932 in its entirety. Congar used Traugott Schmidt,
Der Leib Christi (Leipzig: Deichert, 1919), as his primary source for this study. Some of the
assertions made in Congar’s study are not consistent with more recent biblical scholarship.
132. Étude de Théologie biblique (1932), 2.
133. Ibid. (1932), loose interleaf inserted at 5. See also ibid., 5.
134. Ibid., 23 and 28.
135. Ibid., 31. Congar cited 2 Corinthians 5:14b and 17–19a and Colossians 3:20 in
this regard.
136. Étude de Théologie biblique (1932), 31.
of Christ, the fullness of Christ, [with] Christ having a double relation-

ship to his body: he animates it from within by his Spirit and he is its
head, as the principle of that life.”137 Paul made it clear, however, that
while “from God’s side, everything is accomplished in Christ, . . . from
our side, the peace of Christ, the life of Christ must be made ours.”138
What is accomplished eternally must be made manifest in history. For
that reason, the visible church has the hierarchy and the sacraments as
two visible means of salvation.
Congar’s biblical study introduces aspects of the church that he had
difficulty addressing effectively within the speculative framework of
the four causes. The account of the covenant was attentive to the histor-
ical dimension of the church, while the speculative theology was ahis-
torical. The image of the body of Christ also introduced the inherent
duality whereby Christ is both of the body and over the body, whereas in
his speculative theology, Congar had to disregard the rules of causation
to describe specific causes as both intrinsic and extrinsic at the same
time.
Although Congar did not explicitly comment on the service biblical
theology could offer to speculative theology in his courses in the 1930s,
he did allow his biblical study to shape the context for his speculative
theology to some extent. In the course he gave in 1932–1933, he de-
scribed the biblical study of covenant and the body of Christ as a tran-
sition between his examination of the final cause and his examination
of the efficient cause.139 In 1934 and 1937, he used the image of the
church as the mystical body of Christ, taken from Paul’s letters, as the
framework for his speculative theology of the causes of the church, as
described above. However, while Congar appealed to biblical theology
for the title of his speculative theology of the church in these courses,
he did very little to integrate the content of his biblical studies into the
speculative theology that he constructed within the framework of the
mystical body. Not until 1948 would he make a concerted effort to inte-
grate the two methods.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid., 32. Congar cited 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 in this regard.
Phase 3: Biblical Theology + Speculative Theology

(1941 and 1945)
In the two ecclesiology courses that he taught while in German prisoner-
of-war camps during World War II, Congar shifted the balance between
the speculative and biblical theological methods. His intention in the
courses was again to elaborate a treatise on the church as “a mystery of
our faith” that would counter the prevalent apologetic treatise.140 In this
third phase of development of his treatise, however, Congar inverted
the approach taken in the second phase. Rather than inserting a biblical
study into a speculative theology of the church, as he had in his courses
in the 1930s, he developed a biblical ecclesiology as the primary focus of
his course, to which he then added elements of speculative theology. As
in the second phase, nevertheless, his courses showed little integration
of the two methods. In both the Cours sur l’Eglise (1941) and the Petit “De
Ecclesia” (1945), the biblical study was presented first, in its entirety, and
was then followed by an independent speculative study.
Congar’s revised approach may have been influenced by the diver-
sity of his students. At Le Saulchoir, his students had been Dominican
seminarians and priests trained in philosophy, the works of Thomas
Aquinas, and neoscholastic theology. In the prisoner-of-war camps, his
students included seminarians and priests as well as lay people—ap-
parently both Catholics and non-Catholics—many of whom no doubt
did not have specialized theological backgrounds.141 The biblical theol-
ogies from both wartime courses are very similar to one another and so
are presented jointly below. In the speculative portion of each course,
Congar took significantly different approaches in the two courses; each
speculative study is therefore presented separately below. In develop-
ing the treatise De Ecclesia after the war, Congar frequently referred
back to the course he taught in 1941.
The Biblical Theology of the Church

Old Testament As in the courses given in the 1930s, Congar began
his examination of the “Revelation and Development of the Church in

141. Colliard, Patrice de La Tour du Pin, 153; Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 3; and Cours sur
the Bible”142 with a study of the covenant, emphasizing the themes of

inheritance, heir, promise, and law in the covenants with Abraham and
Moses. To this, he added an explanation of the spiritualization of the
covenant by the prophets as a product of the suffering of Israel:
The more something is spiritualized, the more it is interiorized and, at the
same time, the more it is expanded and universalized.143
It is a de facto law that man is only spiritualized, is only interiorized, is only
expanded by means of testing, of suffering, of sacrifice.144
[Testing and suffering] make us understand that we are not the end of ourselves
but that our true greatness consists in ordering ourselves toward something
else.145
This is what happens for Israel. . . . It is in the test and singularly in the test of
captivity that God acts on his people and makes them achieve a further step, in
the sense of interiority, of spirituality, of universality.146
Thus, the prophets preached the expansion of both the heirs and the
inheritance of the covenant. The people of God encompasses not only
the physical descendents of Abraham, but all those who are converted
to God. Likewise, the inheritance is not limited to the physical land of
Canaan, but is the very kingdom of God.147
In 1945, Congar added an account of the unity of Israel as seen in
the Old Testament. The external unity of the people of God was effect-
ed through the kings, the priests, and the prophets. Its internal unity
was the unceasing action of Yahweh by his Spirit.148 In the terminology
of speculative theology, Congar’s account of the unity of the people of
God speaks to the efficient and formal causes of the community. His
l’Eglise (1941), loose interleaf inserted at 56, for descriptions of the students in Congar’s
wartime courses.
142. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 3. 143. Ibid., 13.
144. Ibid., 15. 145. Ibid.
146. Ibid., These words are all the more poignant given that Congar delivered them
while teaching in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. His own experience of
captivity and that of his students surely heightened his awareness of the reality of the
hardships endured by Israel.
147. Ibid., 19–27, and Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 13–14. Congar had referred to the spir-
itualization of Israel by the prophets in Divided Christendom (49), but through preaching
rather than suffering.
148. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 8–10 and 13. Congar made a brief mention of the ecu-
menical significance of the experience of schism between the northern and southern king-
doms, whereby the unity of kingship was broken and the southern kingdom no longer par-
ticipated in the true priesthood, but the prophetic ministry persisted in both kingdoms (9).
explanation of the biblical principle of the external unity of the people

of God corresponds closely to his description of the hierarchy as an ef-
ficient and formal cause of the church in his courses from the 1930s.
Similarly, the biblical testimony to the action of the Spirit corresponds
to his description of the Holy Spirit as an efficient and formal cause of
the church in those earlier courses. In his course in 1945, Congar did
not comment on the similarity between these biblical concepts and the
speculative categories of causation in either his biblical or his specula-
tive study. After the war, in 1948, however, he would develop the idea of
a general correspondence between the biblical theology of the church
and the speculative categories of the final, material, and efficient causes.
New Testament Congar intended his study of the revelation of the

church in the New Testament to reflect the development that occurred
in the experience of the disciples and the early Christian community
in coming to understand the church.149 In the synoptic gospels, Jesus
speaks primarily about the kingdom of God, rather than the church per
se.150 John interprets the kingdom as life itself: “The kingdom is eter-
nal life communicated from above by God in his incarnate Son, and
known by us through faith and the sacraments: water and the flesh of
the Lord.”151 Jesus founded the institutional church as “the kingdom in
its preparation phase” through his blood, his apostles, and the Spirit.152
In the Acts of the Apostles, the people of God is thus constituted as the
church internally by the Spirit and as a society externally by the teach-
ing of the apostles, the shared life of the community, the Eucharist, and
common prayer. The church is organized according to the authority of
the apostles, among whom Peter is the head, with the participation (in
various ways) of the entire community, which includes both Gentiles
and Jews.153 Congar repeated from the biblical study he prepared in
1932 his explanation of Paul’s use of the Greek word ekklesia to identify
the church as the people that God has called to himself. Those who re-
spond to God’s call with faith are baptized; receiving Christ’s Spirit, they
become one with him: “We are one single being in Christ, by his Spirit,
which we have received in believing and in the baptismal bath.”154
149. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 28. 150. Ibid., 31–35.

151. Ibid., 35. 152. Ibid., 37.
153. Ibid., 42–47. 154. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 51.
In the course Congar gave in 1945, he further emphasized the histo-

ricity of what he called “the foundation of the Church” in his explanation
of its history in three phases stretching from the birth of Jesus to the
Second Coming.155 During his ministry, Jesus laid the foundations of the
church. Then, the “creation of the Church” occurred between Christ’s
passion, in which he achieved the salvation of humankind, and Pente-
cost, at which “all the constitutive elements of the Church” were com-
pleted.156 The final phase, extending from Pentecost to the Second Com-
ing, is the period of the expansion of the church to all peoples. Congar
elaborated this extensive view of the historical founding of the church
to counter the theology of the neoscholastic manuals that presented the
founding of the church as a single event, ignoring the progressive action
of God in the Old and New Testaments and, presumably, still today.157
Based on his scriptural study, Congar concluded that the church is
“the true people of God.”158 Though he had addressed the Old Testament
category of the people of God in the biblical study he included with his
ecclesiology courses in the 1930s, he gave it greater prominence in his
wartime courses. In the biblical theology found in his prewar courses,
Congar had given most attention to the covenants with Abraham and
Moses, noting that they established a particular relationship between
Israel and Yahweh in which God and his people are linked through the
land given to Israel. He had previously noted the continuity between
Israel as the people of God and the community of those saved by Je-
sus Christ, that is, the church that is the body of Christ. In his wartime
courses he added an important new element: what he described as the
spiritualization of the covenant by the prophets as a product of the suf-
fering of Israel.159 This development allowed him to see that the church
today is still the people of God, while also the body of Christ, and that
attention must be given equally to each.
As a whole, Congar’s biblical theology of the church interprets the
present community as being both in continuity with Israel and in heav-
enly communion with Christ. The visible church society is already the
mystical body of Christ, yet it awaits the fullness of that reality in heav-
en. Based on his study of the suffering of Israel in the midst of his own
155. Ibid., 17. 156. Ibid., 17 and 19.

157. Ibid., 16 and 19–21. 158. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 56.
159. Ibid., 13–15.
suffering, Congar concluded that the church is truly both the people
of God and also the body of Christ. After the war, this subtle but im-
portant insight from the prison camps influenced the provisional title
Congar gave his treatise, “The People of God and the Body of Christ.”
The shift in Congar’s ecclesiology to a full appreciation of the
church as the people of God was supported by the nonconformist
attitude he developed in the camps. The inclination to think beyond
current structures and habits was already evident in Congar’s work be-
fore the war, as in his project to counter baroque theology, and was
reinforced by his prison experience. In a memorial for his fallen com-
rades, Congar wrote that at Colditz, where difficult prisoners who had
attempted to escape from other camps were housed, he encountered a
group of fellow prisoners who were “non-conformists, energetic and
stubborn.”160 These were men who “never accepted that defeat was de-
finitive” and who “never put down their weapons.”161 He described at
length these officers’ spirit of nonconformism, which was character-
ized by a commitment to their own conscience over the dictates of the
opinions of others, even their superiors. Congar likewise applied the
spirit of nonconformism in his intellectual life. He characterized intel-
lectual nonconformism largely by diligent work driven always by the
rigorous standards of truth. In a private self-examination, he cautioned
himself against the Dominican predilection for novelty, which could
be counteracted by his deep love for the tradition of the church. He de-
manded of himself an urgency in his work and criticized his tolerance
of error. He sought a correct balance in his relationship with Rome;
any criticism should be made only when necessary and should be un-
dertaken “seriously” and with restraint and discretion.162
Nonconformism was not simply a reaction against something; it
was a commitment to live out a reality alternative and even contradicto-
ry to the account of reality being given by others. In the case of the war,
it was to enact constantly, in large and small ways, French opposition
to Germany despite the Vichy government’s compliance with Hitler.
In ecclesiology, it was to pose a primary lens for the theology of the
160. Yves Congar, Leur Résistance: Mémorial des officiers évadés anciens de Colditz et de
Lubeck morts pour la France (Paris: Renault, 1948), 10.
161. Ibid., 10.
162. Yves Congar, Examen de Conscience (Janvier 1941), Archives of the Dominican
Province of France.
church different from the neoscholastic model asserted by those es-

pousing a hierarchology. Thus, it is no surprise that it was in the prison
camps that Congar inverted his ecclesiology to apply biblical methods
first, rather than the neoscholastic speculative methods.
Congar was still, to some extent, bound by the conventions of the
day and did not have full liberty to abandon neoscholasticism entirely.
Nonetheless, he substantially reframed the notion of causation, with its
almost inescapable emphasis on the hierarchy, by placing it within the
construct of the biblical images of the church. By starting his ecclesi-
ology with the biblical study, particularly the integration of the images
of the church as people of God and body of Christ, Congar was able to
begin to approach a solution to the limitations of the hierarchology of
neoscholasticism and focus instead on the integral totality of the mys-
tery of the church. Thus, the German prisoner-of-war camps spurred
a crucial development in Congar’s ecclesiology. Mired in the suffering
of captivity, Congar came to a new understanding of Israel’s status as
the people of God. Surrounded by the heroic nonconformism of his
compatriots, he strengthened his commitment to articulating a new ec-
clesiology attentive to all the dimensions of the mystery of the church.
Many themes familiar from Congar’s prior speculative theology of
the church appear in his wartime biblical study, but without recourse to
the language of causation: divine life as the common end of the church
society, the constitutive function of both hierarchical authority and the
shared life of the church, and the role of the Holy Spirit as Christ’s con-
tinued action, to name a few. While these themes appear in the specu-
lative theologies that followed the biblical studies in the courses given
in 1941 and 1945, Congar did not comment on commonalities between
the biblical and speculative theologies in these courses.
The Speculative Theology of the Church

For his course in 1941, Congar divided his speculative theology—which
he labeled “the intellectual construction of the mystery”—into two stud-
ies, examining the church “first in its visible, external reality, as society,
then in its internal reality of grace, as the Mystical Body.”163 His study
163. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), introduction, 6. The section of the course presenting the
speculative theology of the church is a collection of notes rather than a unified text. The
of the visible society was limited to an explanation of the powers of the

church, a treatment that was more abbreviated than in his earlier cours-
es. He added an important new element to his study of the powers in
considering the participation of the entire church in the munera Christi.
He explained that there is a twofold “distribution of these powers within
the body of the Church: the power [puissance] immanent to the body
[as a whole] and second the properly hierarchical ‘powers’ [pouvoirs].”164
According to the first, “each member of the faithful, as a member of
the body, has something of the priestly, of the royal and of the prophet-
ic.”165 At the same time, while there are many functions in the church,
“the life of the body as such is organized and governed socially by one
authority, function, [that is,] the hierarchy in priesthood, government,
and teaching.”166 He referred to the participation of the whole church in
each of the three powers, although he was unable to explain how the lay
faithful participate in Christ’s power of governance.167
In the second speculative study given in 1941, addressing the inter-
nal reality of the church, Congar did not actually use the terminology
of causality. Nonetheless, his theology of the mystical body paralleled
the explanation of the formal and efficient causation of the church he
had given previously in the 1930s. He asserted that the church as the
body of Christ is “realized by faith and the sacraments of faith.”168 His
explanation of faith and the sacraments is similar to his explanation
in his earlier courses of the formal causality of the church in terms
of faith and charity and the corresponding sacraments of baptism and
Eucharist. His explanation of the effect of Christ’s capital grace, which
incorporates men and women into Christ’s sacrifice and therefore into
his life with the Father, was similar to his explanation of Christ as the
principal efficient cause of the church in 1932–1933.169 He concluded
that the mystical body is formed through participation in the life of
Christ, which is one life shared by all: “The life of one in many; the
notes range from brief source citations to multiple pages developing a given theme. In
1934, he had labeled his study of the powers “The Powers of the Church,” but considered
them only insofar as the hierarchy exercises them.
165. Ibid. 166. Ibid.
167. Ibid. Congar wrote, “Here, it is not a question of the lay person; one must at least
be a cleric,” without further explanation.
168. Ibid. 169. Ibid.
life of one in a variety of vocations, of gifts, of functions.”170 The un-

explained absence of any mention of the Holy Spirit in the theology
of the mystical body in 1941 is intriguing. In 1934 and 1937, one of the
primary benefits of his use of the mystical body as a framework for his
speculative theology had been the ease with which it allowed him to
address the efficient and formal causality both of the Holy Spirit and of
the apostles and their successors.
In the speculative portion of the course he gave in 1945, Congar
returned to a structure corresponding to the four causes of the church,
such as he had used in 1932–1933, once again using the language of
causality. He further developed his understanding of the two instru-
mental efficient causes of the church (the Holy Spirit and the hier-
archy), apparently as a result of the biblical framework of his study.
He refined the notion of dual causation, proposing a double mission
whereby both the Holy Spirit and the apostolic body (the hierarchy) are
sent by Christ, the principal efficient cause, to continue his action “ac-
cording to two modes” that comprise “one single mission,”171 but he
did not explain how the effects of that double mission are experienced
in the church.
One exception to the general lack of integration between the bibli-
cal and speculative theological methods in this third stage is found in
Congar’s presentation of the material cause of the church in the course
given in 1945. In his previous courses, Congar had paid little attention
to the material cause, giving it only a brief mention in his course in
1932–1933. In 1945, his treatment of the material cause was short but
significant. He identified the human person as the material cause of
the church and proceeded to define the human person, according to
the text of Genesis 1, as the creature made from the earth in the image
of God, yet condemned to death as a sinner.172 His biblical description
of the human person does not appear to have influenced the rest of his
ecclesiology in 1945, but seems to have heralded his desire for a fuller
understanding of the material cause, as expressed in the draft treatise
of 1948.
170. Ibid.
172. Ibid., 29. This broader language corresponds to part of Congar’s description of
the membership of the Church in his Thèse (1931).
Phase 4: Integration of Biblical and Speculative

Theology (1948, 1951, and 1954)
The fourth phase of Congar’s progressive integration of biblical and
speculative theology is characterized by his intentional synthesis of the
two methods beginning in 1948. In the treatise De Ecclesia that Congar
first drafted as such in 1948, his intention was to present a theology of
the church as both the people of God and the body of Christ constructed
from a theological point of view and integrating speculative and biblical
methods. Congar’s attempted synthesis is likewise apparent in the mod-
ifications to the treatise described in the outlines that remain from his
Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours de 1951 and the Ordre suivi en 1954.
Congar was optimistic about the prospects for integrating at least
some aspects of speculative and biblical theology. Specifically, in Book
One of the treatise, entitled “The Purpose of God. Its Progressive Real-
ization,”173 he presented a synthesis of the speculative theology of the
final, material, and efficient causes of the church and themes related
to the disclosure of the church established by God as found in scrip-
ture. In Book Two of the treatise, “The Work of God or The Reality of
the Church,”174 Congar relied more heavily on speculative theology in
examining the formal cause of church in terms of ecclesial participa-
tion in the powers of Christ. Nonetheless, the influence of his study
of the revelation of the church in scripture is felt in his notes for Book
Two, particularly in his examination of the distribution of powers in
the church. Unfortunately, his notes for Books Three and Four of the
treatise (later consolidated into a single planned Book Three) are insuf-
ficient to determine how his treatment of the properties and life of the
church would have been affected by his attempt to synthesize specula-
tive and biblical methods had he completed the treatise. The available
contents of Books One and Two will be considered here to demonstrate
how Congar undertook the task of integration and the ecclesiology his
efforts produced.

174. Ibid., Book Two, cover.
Book One: “The Purpose of God. Its Progressive

Realization”
Congar’s original intention in Book One was to create a synthesis of
the speculative and biblical methods in constructing a theology of the
church. According to his preliminary outlines, he originally planned
for Book One to be divided into two parts, one on the revelation of the
church in the Old Testament, the other on its revelation in the New Tes-
tament.175 In this first draft, he planned to include a synthesis at the end
of each part in which he would bring together the categories of specu-
lative theology and the themes of the biblical theology just presented. In
Part I, on the Old Testament, he planned to interpret the final and mate-
rial causes of the church in terms of the people of God. In Part II, on the
New Testament, he planned to present Jesus Christ and the new Israel
(that is, “Israel, the body of Christ”) in terms of dialectic and causality.176
Once writing was underway, however, Congar changed his plan for the
overall treatise. According to the final outline from 1948, he ultimately
decided instead to structure the book in three parts. The first two parts
were devoted to an examination of the revelation of the church in the
Old and New Testaments, respectively, followed by a synthesis of the
speculative and biblical ecclesiology in a separate Part III.
Today, all that remains of Book One is Congar’s preparatory out-
lines for the entirety of Book One and the draft text of the third of the
three parts. It is likely that Congar actually wrote Parts I and II (the
Old and New Testament studies), given that in his manuscript from
1948 there is a 120-page gap in the numbered pages where, accord-
ing to the outline, the biblical study should be, but they are no longer
available or have yet to be discovered.177 In Book One, Part III, signifi-
175. Ibid., draft outline 1 and draft outline 2. Congar created two rough outlines in
preparation for the final working outline for his treatise in 1948. Judging from the mate-
rials on which they are written and their relationship to the final outline dated 1948, the
draft outlines were probably prepared in rapid succession in late 1947 or early 1948.
176. Ibid., draft outline 1.
177. The outlines for the Old and New Testament sections in the outlines from the
treatise dated 1948 and 1951 are nearly identical. The only substantial difference is the re-
ordering in the New Testament section of the chapter on the Holy Spirit and the apostles
as the “agents of the work of Christ” and the chapter on the constitution of the Church.
Congar later edited the outline from 1951 to return the chapters to their original order
(Plan du Traité [1951], 1).
cantly entitled “Synthesis,”178 Congar presented “a synthetic view” of

the material, final, and efficient causes of the church and examined the
status of the church as situated between the promise and the fulfill-
ment of the promise.179 What follows below is a consideration of Book
One, Part III, presenting first Congar’s explanation of the causes of
the church and then his reflection on the eschatological status of the
church, which represents an important development in his pursuit of
a total ecclesiology.
In 1948, Congar reordered the presentation of the causes of the
church made in earlier courses, beginning with the material cause rath-
er than the final cause, as he had done previously. He did not give a rea-
son for reordering the causes in this way, but it may have been because
the notion of communion, which he introduced with his examination
of the material cause, underpinned the explanation he gave later in the
treatise of the final cause of the church as communion with God.
As in 1945, Congar again expanded the traditional description of
the material cause as the baptized members of the church, redefining
the material cause to be all humanity. He presented five basic asser-
tions about the human person based on the testimony of scripture. In
doing so, he integrated the speculative category of material cause with
a Christian anthropology founded on scripture.
Congar’s first and second assertions were that “Man is in the im-
age of God”180 and “Man is fallible.”181 These statements are similar to
the conclusions that Congar had drawn from scripture in his course in
1945. His innovation in 1948 was to draw a connection between these
scriptural insights and the category of material cause used in specula-
tive theologies of the church.
Congar’s third and fourth biblical assertions, new in 1948, were

179. The draft of Book One written in 1948 actually follows the outline from 1951
more closely than that of 1948. Specifically, Congar placed the “synthetic view” before the
eschatological view in the draft of Book One, Part III. According to the outlines from 1948
and 1951, Congar planned to end Book One, Part III with a chapter entitled “Mary and
the Church,” (L’Eglise [1948], outline, 1, and Plan du Traité [1951], 1). A note on the outline
from 1951 indicates that in April 1951, he was still debating the appropriate placement of
the chapter. The available texts for Book One from 1954 only include chapter 2, “Condi-
tion de l’Eglise entre la Promesse et la Consommation” (Ordre suivi [1954]).
180. L’Eglise (1948), 135.
181. Ibid., 136.
that “Man is dealt with in a people, in society, and called to unity”182

and “Man is dealt with according to a development and a history.”183
These two statements provided a scriptural foundation for two ecclesi-
ological themes that had been important to him since his early days as
a theologian, namely, the social reality of the church and its historical
dimension. With regard to the social reality of the church, he recast
his earlier notion of the church as a society to reflect the biblical image
of the church society as a participative communion, the establishment
of which he believed was “the entire purpose of God.”184 In commu-
nion, “everything goes from the one to the one; but from the solitary
one to the one of communion,”185 as God calls those who are made in
his image to a sharing in his very life. With regard to the historical di-
mension of the church, he found that biblical theology witnesses to the
historicity of humanity and calls for an expansive understanding of the
material cause as “humanity in history,”186 that is, humanity stretching
across generations throughout time, not just the human beings who
are members of the church at a given moment.
Congar’s fifth biblical assertion related to the material cause of
the church was that “Man is dealt with as having a relationship to the
cosmos.”187 This statement of the cosmic quality of the human person
was a new theme in Congar’s theology of the church. Humanity is not
entirely separable from the rest of creation; therefore the church, of
which humanity is the material cause, has a cosmic dimension. Later,
Congar envisioned consideration of the material cause of the church as
“an ecclesiological anthropology,”188 although he did not develop that
anthropology. In later revising his work, Congar indicated that he was
not happy with this treatment of the material cause that he had drafted
in 1948 and felt it needed to be reworked.
Next, Congar addressed the final cause of the church. As with the
material cause of the church, his understanding of the final cause was
182. Ibid., 137. 183. Ibid., 138.

184. Ibid., 140.
186. Ibid., 138, with reference to Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 61–62.
187. L’Eglise (1948), 139. He later developed the cosmic aspect of the church in his
book The Mystery of the Temple (1954).
188. L’Eglise (1948), 134. The note appears on the cover of the section dealing with the
final and material causes of the Church. It was added sometime after his initial drafting of
the section and apparently indicated an idea Congar wanted to develop further.
reshaped in his postwar treatise by his effort to integrate speculative

and biblical methods. The influence of the New Testament notion of
communion (koinonia) led Congar to conclude, “If we seek the proper
end of the design of grace, of God, of his purpose of grace, we see that
it is, from the beginning, to make a society with man; to draw man into
his society.”189 In the New Testament, he explained, the primary mean-
ing of koinonia is participation. As the final cause of the church, com-
munion signifies “participation in Christ, in the Spirit, in the faith, in
the gospel, in ministerial service.”190 In scripture, koinonia also means
communication. In the church, communion is the communication of
God’s life to men and women.
Congar’s integration of the final causality of the church with the
biblical notion of koinonia led him to an important insight: the final
cause of the church is not the divine life as a static, objective common
good to be attained, but rather the active communication of and partic-
ipation in the divine life as communion. The identification of the com-
mon good as active communion allowed him to see that the church
on earth and the church in heaven both share a single common good,
although they relate to it differently. This realization allowed him to
affirm more effectively both the unity of the church and the duality be-
tween the earthly and heavenly states of the church. This resolved, at
least in part, the complexities of Congar’s earlier speculative theology,
laden with multiple final causes that separated the visible and invisible
church. Previously, Congar had described the church as two societies,
one visible and one invisible and spiritual. In 1948, he changed his
terminology and spoke of “the Church as institution” and “the Church
as the communion of divine life.”191 He explained that each state has
different but not unrelated heads, laws, and common goods, but that
those of the church as institution are derived from those of the church
as communion. For example, the head of the church as communion is
Christ, while the head of the church as institution is both Christ and
the apostolic body, which Christ instituted. Thus, he asserted the unity
of the two “because there is only one concrete church, at once the com-
munion of the body of Christ and the means of procuring it.”192
At first glance, Congar’s emphasis on the distinction between the
189. Ibid., 140. 190. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 141.

191. Ibid., 146. 192. Ibid., 148. See also 146–49.
church as institution and the church as the communion of divine life

might appear to be a legacy of the speculative theological method he had
used in the past. In his text from 1948, he himself acknowledged that
scripture and the patristic tradition did not make a distinction between
the church as institution and the church as communion. Instead, they
spoke of the church “in the sense where it is societas/collegium fidelium,
the community of living beings who have as the object of life the object
of the life of God himself,” that is, as the communion of divine life.193
“But,” he added, “there is another more immediate sense of the word
Church: the Church as the earthly institution, for the in-between times.”194
His distinction between the church as communion and the church as in-
stitution should be seen, therefore, as the product of a growing apprecia-
tion on Congar’s part of the church’s status “between the time of the two
comings of the Lord” that he developed as a result of his integration of
speculative and biblical methods.195 The development of Congar’s aware-
ness of the eschatological sense necessary for ecclesiology, which ap-
peared for the first time in Book One, Part III, of his treatise, was crucial
to his pursuit of an integral ecclesiology and is examined in detail below.
Having examined the material and final causes, Congar turned to
the efficient cause of the church. His text here is clearly an incomplete
draft, complex and at times confusing as he worked through the chal-
lenge of integrating the speculative category of efficient causality with
the biblical witness to the nature and life of the church. One of the
complexities of Congar’s treatment of the efficient cause is his desire
to account for different dimensions of efficient causality. As a result, he
identifies God as the fundamental efficient cause, while indicating that
Christ and the Holy Spirit can also be seen as the efficient cause of the
church, without addressing the distinction he seems to imply between
the work of God (which he does not specify as meaning God the Father
or the Trinity) and the work of Christ and/or the Holy Spirit. Addition-
ally, Congar describes a participation by the hierarchy and all the faith-
ful in God’s work as efficient cause, but does not settle definitively on
how the hierarchy and the faithful relate to one another in this regard.
193. Ibid., 145.

194. Ibid. (emphasis mine).
195. Ibid., 161. It was probably for this reason that in 1951 and 1954 Congar placed the
explanation of the duality within the church in the chapter on the eschatological status of
the church, rather than with the explanation of the final cause, as in 1948.
To begin, Congar determined in light of his biblical study that fun-

damentally, God is the efficient cause of the church, in that it is God
who effects his purpose of communion: “The first thing to note is that
God himself intervenes to realize his purpose. The Bible is full of this
affirmation that God himself acts, intervenes.”196 At the same time, he
noted that Christ, the Holy Spirit, the hierarchy, and the individual per-
son as a member of the church participate in God’s efficient causation
of the church, and thus can also be identified as efficient causes of the
church. As Congar revised his treatise, however, he was not satisfied
with the explanation he gave of the efficient cause. In particular, he
found he had inadequately accounted for the spiritual gifts of the faith-
ful and the powers of the hierarchy. His intention had been to illumi-
nate how the individual members participate in the efficient causation
of the church. He feared, however, that he had risked being too individ-
ualistic: “As Möhler remarked, the priesthood of all, if it did not have
the hierarchical priesthood, would be a principle of individualism, of a
purely individual religious life.”197 Such individualism was not what he
wanted to convey in addressing the efficient cause of the church.
Of greater concern to Congar was the fact that he had not explicitly
addressed the charisms given to the faithful by the Holy Spirit in the
schema of efficient causation. He realized that, as a result, he gave the
appearance that human participation in the efficient causation of the
church is limited to members of the hierarchy, rather than including
all the faithful. While such an approach might be legitimate for con-
sidering the church only as institution or society, it was inadequate for
a theology of the church “according to its total and concrete reality,” as
was his goal in developing an integral ecclesiology.198 In its total reality,
the form of the church “consists of, besides the hierarchical powers,
the spiritual gifts.”199 These gifts include not only the extraordinary
gifts that Aquinas wrote of in the Summa, but also “the gifts by which
the faithful realize that mutual assistance by which the Church is con-
structed.”200 Ecclesiology must account for both the hierarchical pow-
196. Ibid., 151.

197. Ibid., interleaf attached at 152, citing Karl Eschweiler, Johann Adam Möhlers
Kirchenbegriff (Braunsberg: Herder, 1930), 55.
198. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaf inserted at 152.
199. Ibid.
200. Ibid., with reference to Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae q. 171.
ers and the spiritual gifts in the church, recognizing that the two are
not identical.
Congar attempted several resolutions to the challenge of being at-
tentive to both the hierarchical powers and the spiritual charisms in
the church. In his first attempt, he approached the issue from the per-
spective of God sending both Christ and the Holy Spirit: Christ is sent
to institute the hierarchy and the sacraments and the Spirit is sent to
distribute the charisms/spiritual gifts and to sanctify souls. He was not
content with this solution, however, which he felt might appear to deny
that salvation comes through Christ alone.201
In a second effort, notably devoid of the influence of his biblical
study, Congar tried to resolve the problem by rethinking the notion of
efficiency:
One does not have to seek to put within the efficient cause the realizing agents
of everything that one finds in the internal form of the Church. One should only
put there that which is necessary to realize the essence (the essential) of the
Church, without which there would be no Church; the necessary and sufficient.
One must keep here only that which is truly constitutive of the Church; not
all that which one finds in fact. That which explains the coming into existence
of the institution of the Church.202
Based on this logic, he proposed the hierarchy as the efficient cause

of the church. He was, however, apparently not fully content with this
solution. His dissatisfaction may have stemmed from the inconsisten-
cy between an identification of the hierarchy alone as the human par-
ticipant in the efficient causation of the church and his explanation of
the powers of the church later in the treatise, in which he described the
necessity of the entire body for the mission of the church: “The essen-
tial idea [is] of the spiritual participation of the whole body in the royal,
priestly, and prophetic anointing. Essential to the Church as body. Not
constitutive of the Church as institution. Once again: necessary to the
Church to fulfill its mission and to achieve its end; not necessary to its
structure.”203 In light of this, Congar’s second proposed resolution—
that includes the hierarchy in the efficient cause of the church but
makes no mention of the faithful—would make a distinction between
201. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaf inserted at 152.

202. Ibid. (undated, but later than 1948).
203. Ibid., Book Two, loose interleaf inserted at 3.
what is necessary for the church to exist as institution and what is nec-
essary for it to attain its proper end. This was problematic in that it in-
troduced the possibility of an impotent church institution: existing, but
ineffectual, unable to achieve its proper end, that is, its common good.
It is likely that Congar also found that the second proposed resolu-
tion conflicted with the findings of his biblical study of the church. In
the outline of his New Testament study, he included a chapter entitled
“The Agents of the Work of Christ after His Departure: The Spirit and
the Apostolic Body.”204 His notes on the outline suggest that the chap-
ter addressed the “double mission”205 of the Spirit and the apostles, the
agreement between the two, and “the independence”206 or “the sover-
eignty”207 of the Holy Spirit. It appears, therefore, that in 1948 Congar
developed a scriptural argument for the notion of the double mission
of the Spirit and the apostles that he had begun to explore as part of
his speculative theology of the church in 1932–1933 and 1945. His sec-
ond attempted resolution of the problem of the efficient causation of
the church would also have been inconsistent with this scriptural ar-
gument.
Congar ultimately resolved the problem by returning to and further
developing his earlier notion of a double mission of the Holy Spirit and
the apostolic body. In a fully developed explanation of the double mission
published in 1952, he explained the double mission of the Spirit and the
apostolic body as efficient causes of the church in this way: “There is a
duality of agents (or of missions) that promote the work of Christ: the
Spirit working internally, with a divine efficaciousness, what the apos-
tolic ministry effects externally.”208 In this way, he felt he accounted for
both the apostolic authority and the charisms of the Holy Spirit to which
scripture attests.
As a whole, Congar’s explanation of the material, final, and effi-
cient causes of the church benefited greatly from his integration of
speculative and biblical methods. While he was not able to resolve ev-
204. Ibid., outline, 1. Congar moved this chapter to chapter 3 in the 1951 outline.
205. Ibid., draft outline 2. See also ibid., draft outline 1, where Congar refers to the
“double sending” of the Spirit and the Apostles.
208. “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” 144. Congar inserted a chart in his
course materials illustrating the double mission in his treatise notes. The chart is similar,
but not identical, to the chart in the published article.
ery inconsistency, he succeeded in creating a coherent ecclesiology that

accommodated many of the apparent tensions between dimensions of
the church.
In developing this integrated ecclesiology that brought together
speculative categories of causation and a biblical understanding of the
church, Congar came to an essential awareness of the eschatological
status of the church.209 While drafting his treatise De Ecclesia, he had
become increasingly convinced that the crux of all ecclesiology lay in
the fact that one must hold together something already realized and
something still anticipated: “This,” he wrote, “is truly the pivotal point of
all ecclesiology.”210 This realization was fueled by his attempt to bring to-
gether the speculative categories of neoscholastic theology and the bib-
lical testimony regarding the church. Because the church is “the cause
already given and the fruits still awaited,”211 it is both institution and
communion. An awareness of the dual ecclesial reality of what Congar
described as institution and communion led to an eschatological sense
in ecclesiology, namely, “the sense of the Church’s situation in the di-
vine economy, in the realization of the purpose which, running from a
genesis to an apocalypse, from a promise to its realization, makes of
the Church an in-between reality: a realization in relation to the syna-
gogue, a sacrament and prophecy in relation to the Kingdom and the
consummation.”212 It must be noted that Congar used the term escha-
tological in a more particular way than its common reference to the the-
ology of the last things. The eschatological status of the church refers
to its present intertemporal situation between the fulfillment of the old
covenant in Christ and the fulfillment of the new covenant in his sec-
ond coming. There is a certain realization of the kingdom already in
the time between the times.
209. In the 1948 draft of the treatise, Congar introduced this point prior to present-
ing his synthesis of the material, final, and efficient causes of the church with the eccle-
siology developed from biblical sources. In 1951 and 1954, he revised his text to have the
discussion of the eschatological status of the church follow the presentation of the syn-
thesis. Obviously, Congar realized prior to 1948 that the church lives between the coming
of Christ and definitive establishment of the kingdom of God (see, for example, Divided
Christendom, 51). His breakthrough was in recognizing the pivotal importance of that sta-
tus for ecclesiological synthesis.
210. L’Eglise (1948), interleaf attached at 156.
211. Ibid. (undated, but after the publication of True and False Reform in the Church in
1950, which is cited on the interleaf).
212. Ibid., 156.
In Congar’s own judgment, scholastic and neoscholastic theology

made the error of considering the church only in its status as the reali-
zation of the promise, leading to “the triumphant ecclesiology/apologet-
ics which is characteristic of the Counter-Reformation.”213 As a result,
the necessary eschatological sense was lacking in modern manuals of
theology. He believed that the recovery of this sense was essential to any
ecclesiology that aspired to reflect the reality of the church on earth:
But if it is right and necessary to note strongly the substantial unity of the Church
such as it exists between the two comings of the Lord, and the Church such as it
will subsist eternally, it is equally necessary to clarify the characteristics proper to
its situation, its condition, on earth. . . . The earthly Church is the Church through
the presence, in it, of the definitive, heavenly gifts and through the action, in it, of
the virtue of Christ, of the causes. But these gifts do not exist in it in a state con-
natural to them; they exist in a state connatural to us, to earthly men.214
Congar’s appreciation for the eschatological status of the church on

earth was firmly rooted in scripture. He was able to accomplish this de-
velopment in his ecclesiology largely due to his efforts to integrate the
methods of speculative and biblical theology in his treatise De Ecclesia.
In prior iterations, his use of “Church as society” as a lens for ecclesi-
ology led him to focus on either the church on earth or the church in
heaven. While asserting their unity, he nonetheless treated them sep-
arately. When he instead took the biblical notion of communion as his
primary image of the church, he was able to begin to express the unity
of the earthly and the heavenly church without denying or distorting its
present reality.
Judging from the notes (dating from 1942 to 1954) that Congar in-
serted into the treatise manuscript, he continued for more than a de-
cade to seek a more precise understanding of the relationship between
the promise of the Old Testament, the promise of the New Testament,
and the consummation of the promise. He recognized that God’s
promise is fulfilled in two stages: “In a first stage, he realizes it in one
single person, the Son of Man. . . . In a second stage, in all.”215 Al-
213. Ibid., interleaf attached at 156.Congar clarified that his criticism of scholastic theo-
logians did not extend to “the great scholastics,” such as Thomas Aquinas, but rather to his
commentators (ibid., 157).
214. Ibid., 161.
215. Ibid., loose interleaf inserted at 149. See also the loose interleaf inserted at 157,
describing God’s progressive self-communication.
156 Integration of M ethods
though there is a certain parallel between the promises of the Old and
New Testament in that they both look to fulfillment, there is a crucial
distinction, in that the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament
by Christ effected “a true changing of regime,” whereas the fulfillment
awaited by the church of the New Testament does not entail the estab-
lishment of a new order, because “the New alliance is eternal, and the
eschatological goods are already possessed by it,” albeit “in figures.”216
Ecclesiology must reflect the realities associated with the eschato-
logical status of the present church, which exists “in between” the two
comings of Christ, in between the synagogue and the kingdom. The
church suffers dialectical tensions that arise from the intertemporal
status of the church, whose “‘time’ is that of the truth already given but
not yet manifested.”217 Congar considered numerous forms of the dis-
tinction that exists between the limitations of the present church and
the perfection of the heavenly church in his draft De Ecclesia in 1948
and subsequent revisions, including “the union of the heavenly and
the earthly,”218 “interiority and exteriority,”219 “immediacy and media-
tion,”220 “Grace and Law,”221 “already done and still to do, gift and task,
one alone and a people,”222 “the one and the many,”223 and “a single
alpha in view of an omega of many in him.”224 This list echoes some
of the dialectical pairs that he described in his published work as di-
mensions of the church that needed to be held in unity in an integral
ecclesiology. In 1951 and 1954, Congar described the “double reality of
the Church,”225 whereby the church is both “grace and the means of
grace,”226 that is, both “the common good as the end and the common
good as the means,”227 as a consequence of the eschatological status of
the church, which itself explains the many particular dualities in the
216. Ibid., loose leaf inserted at 157, and a loose interleaf inserted at 161. Judging
from the publication dates of the bibliographic references appearing on the interleaf, this
appears to be one of Congar’s later conclusions, made with reference to texts dating from
as late as 1954.
217. L’Eglise (1948), loose interleaf inserted at 161, with reference to Henri de Lubac,
Corpus mysticum (Paris, n.d.), ch. 9, especially. 226.
218. L’Eglise (1948), 162. 219. Ibid., 163.
220. Ibid., 165. 221. Ibid., 166.
222. Ibid., 172. 223. Ordre suivi (1954).
224. Ibid. 225. Plan du Traité (1951), 1.
226. Ibid.
227. Ordre suivi (1954). Congar further described the common good as means as the
“res et sacramentum.”
church.228 According to the draft treatise De Ecclesia, Congar did not

expect the tensions to be resolved until the heavenly church is fully
achieved.
In addition to the dialectical tension between the earthly church
and the heavenly church, Congar noted that the earthly church expe-
riences a duality with regard to the world and a duality within itself.
The duality between the church and the world is not an opposition be-
tween the church and a separate kingdom of darkness that is the world.
Rather, it is a duality insofar as Christ’s power is divided between the
church and world. The fulfillment of the kingdom will be “a unitary or-
der under the sovereignty of the Spirit.”229 Christ’s reign will no longer
be divided by the separation between the church and the world. Congar
broadened his discussion of the current duality between church and
world to assert the cosmic dimension of the kingdom of God: “The
reign of God exists within the very framework of the world and of na-
ture. Nature was (and will become again) a temple.”230
The church also experiences an internal duality as a result of its in-
complete union with God and because of division among the members
of the community. This present reality within the church on earth is in
tension with God’s plan of unity and with the human vocation to com-
munion. The supernatural vocation of the human person is to commu-
nion not only with God, but also with one another in God, such that
“God is all in us, in all, finality: totality, communion through the Spirit
of God.”231 In the earthly church, that communion is not lived fully.
“We are here below in a state of things where there are more questions
than answers; where it is impossible to answer everything, to harmo-
nize everything. A world of non-integrity. A world of contradiction.”232
At the same time, the church cannot forget that it possesses already the
first fruits of the goods of the Kingdom now “in mystery”:
Thus the Church takes on the value of a parable of the Kingdom, icon of the
heavenly realities, promise of the consummation. . . . The Church is the King-
228. Plan du Traité (1951), 1, and Ordre suivi (1954). Congar had first described this
double reality in the course he gave in 1932–1933, but without this eschatological expla-
nation.
229. L’Eglise (1948), 183.
230. Ibid., 184.
231. Loose interleaf inserted into Ordre suivi (1954). See also L’Eglise (1948), 163–64.
232. L’Eglise (1948), 187.
dom in mystery; it is the seed of the glorification of the creature. Coming from
the Resurrection, it is, for the entire world, a promise that life will not die, but
will triumph; that all will be reunited, unified; that in a new earth and new
heavens the creation will become again the temple of God.233
By virtue of its eschatological status, therefore, the earthly church can-

not be separated from the heavenly church. The earthly church is the
heavenly church, albeit “in mystery.”
Book Two: “The Work of God or The Reality

of the Church.”
Congar did not actually write a draft text for Book Two, entitled “The
Work of God or The Reality of the Church,”234 but he did leave annotated
outlines and many notes and references for the planned text, which,
in 1951, he retitled “The Work of God or The Form of the Church Real-
ized in Humanity.”235 In Book Two, he planned to address the formal
cause of the church, which he described as “the energies of Christ
insofar as [they are] interior to the Church, constituting humanity in
the Church.”236 In the introduction to the 1948 treatise, he noted the
possibility of integrating the causes of the church with the findings
of biblical study, but he excluded the formal cause from among those
he planned to integrate. His notes for Book Two suggest he planned
a largely speculative approach to the formal cause, with an emphasis
on the hierarchical structure and powers of the church, similar to the
approach taken in his course from 1932–1933, to which he frequently
referred in this section of the draft treatise. Nonetheless, the influence
of his study of the revelation of the church in scripture is felt in his
notes for Book Two, particularly in his examination of the distribution
of powers in the church.
In his notes on the distribution of powers in the church, Congar
brought together elements from the speculative theologies that he had
presented both in 1932–1933 and in 1941 in order to develop an ex-
planation of the dual participation of the hierarchy and of the whole
church in the powers of Christ. In the course he gave in 1932–1933,
he had emphasized the participation of the hierarchy in the powers of
233. Ibid., 188. 234. Ibid., Book Two, cover.

235. Cours de 1951, 2. 236. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, cover.
Christ.237 However, in 1948, his explanation of the double mission of

the Holy Spirit and of the apostolic body as instruments of the efficient
causality of Christ called for him to incorporate the insight that he had
presented in 1941, that the powers are, in fact, distributed to the entire
body and, at the same time, to the hierarchy in a special manner. Thus,
in 1948 he wrote:
The powers or functions of Christ exist in the Church under two forms. . . .
The powers of Christ are immanent to the whole body. And yet, they also exist,
in the Church, under a hierarchical form. . . . This must be understood and
these contradictory statements must be organized, ordered. The prerogatives
and functions of Jesus Christ are truly in the body because Christ has already
come and lives in it; to the measure that it is his body; that we are identified
mystically with him. They are thus in the body as the form of life and dignity. And
they will remain there.238
Congar felt that recognizing the dual participation in the powers

of Christ by both the body as a whole and the hierarchy satisfied the
demands of a biblical theology of the church on two points. First, it ac-
counted for the scriptural witness to the double instrumental efficient
causation of the Spirit and the apostolic body, in that it responded to
“the two relationships that Christ has with the Church: animating it
as his body by his Spirit; [and] instituting, realizing it as institution by
his power.”239 Second, it was “in harmony with all that we have seen of
the status of the Church,”240 that is, the dualities associated with its es-
chatological state. It acknowledged that there is “a double participation
[by the Church] in the energies of Christ: the participation of commu-
nion, with regard to its form of life (interiority) and the participation of
causality, as a means of procuring life (exteriority).”241 With this con-
clusion, Congar felt he was establishing an appropriately strong con-
nection between the eschatological status of the church as explained in
Book One of his treatise and the various participations in the powers of
Christ as explained in Book Two.
237. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 114–18.

238. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, Part I, 1. See also Plan du Traité (1951), 2, and Ordre
suivi (1954). In each text, Congar placed his discussion of the distribution of powers at
different points in the outline for Book Two, Part I, entitled in 1951 and 1954 “The Powers
of Christ and the Work of the Church.”
239. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, Part I, 2. 240. Ibid.
241. Ibid., interleaf inserted at 2 (dated 1951).
In his notes from 1948, Congar included in his consideration of the

formal cause of the church an explanation of the necessity of the hier-
archy as the visible mediator of the work of Christ through its participa-
tion in the powers of Christ, but was dissatisfied with his argument. He
had initially planned to reiterate the argument he made in 1932–1933
to explain “the fittingness of a visible hierarchical mediation.”242 There,
he had claimed “to establish the necessity, the fittingness that a visi-
ble hierarchy should be established to continue the action of Christ.”243
Making his argument within the social philosophical framework that
shaped his course in 1932–1933, he had asserted that whereas the Spirit
works secretly in the souls of men, Christ’s work must also be accom-
plished publicly and exteriorly, which in a society requires a visible hi-
erarchical authority.244 In 1948, however, he was no longer relying on a
social framework for his treatise. Instead, he placed his explanation of
the fittingness of the visible hierarchy within the biblical framework of
the incarnation. He wrote, “God, through the Incarnation, became ac-
tive for our salvation through human nature, according to the human
nature, according to the modality of human nature. This is what can be
called the law of incarnation.”245 In the incarnation, God made himself
present through the visible mediation of Christ. That visible mediation
continues through the church, as an aspect of the eschatological status
of the church. Sometime after drafting the original text, however, Con-
gar came to suspect that the “law of incarnation” pointed only to the
necessity of visible mediation, not to the necessity of the hierarchy as
that mediation.246 In the notes for his treatise De Ecclesia, therefore, he
reached no resolution of this issue.
In summary, Congar achieved his most successful presentation of
an integral ecclesiology in this fourth phase of developing his treatise
De Ecclesia. In the draft manuscript begun in 1948 and in its subse-
quent revisions, his development of the biblical notion of active com-
munion as the final cause of the church and of the eschatological status
of the church allowed him to overcome the excessive distinction be-
242. Ibid., 3. With reference to Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 95.

244. Ibid., 96.
245. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, Part I, 3. Congar also referred to the “law of incarna-
tion” in Divided Christendom (69).
246. L’Eglise (1948), Book Two, loose interleaf inserted at the cover.
tween the earthly and heavenly conditions of the church that had weak-
ened his earlier texts. He also presented a more coherent explanation
of both the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy as efficient and formal causes
than he did in his previous texts. Additionally, the treatise gave fuller
place to the whole church, particularly in its attention to the role of
charisms in the formation of the church and the participation of the
entire body in the powers of Christ.
Examination of the four phases of Congar’s work has shown the
progression of his efforts to integrate speculative and biblical theolog-
ical methods in constructing his theology of the church. Over time, he
developed a biblical theology of the church and identified scriptural
metaphors that were more able to accommodate the tensions he per-
ceived in the life of the church than could the speculative categories
of causation alone. His attempts at methodological integration did not
fully achieve the ecclesiological synthesis he sought. They did, never-
theless, allow him to begin to establish a well-founded framework for
that synthesis. For Congar, the biblical images of the church as the peo-
ple of God and the body of Christ (to which at some point in drafting
his treatise he added the image of the temple of the Holy Spirit) came
to serve as a shorthand for that ecclesiological synthesis.
Assessment
Congar spent nearly twenty-five years attempting to construct a treatise
De Ecclesia that would integrate all the dimensions of the mystery of
the church. In practice, his approach to constructing the treatise was to
bring together the methods of neoscholastic speculative theology and
historical biblical theology in an attempt to establish a framework and
a language for articulating his vision of the mystery of the church. His
project began with his first major text on the church, his Thèse du Lec-
torat, in 1931, progressed through the ecclesiology courses he taught at
Le Saulchoir in the 1930s and the prisoner-of-war camps in the 1940s,
and culminated in the draft treatise De Ecclesia that he began to write
in conjunction with the ecclesiology course he was teaching at Le Saul-
choir in 1948 and continued to develop until his removal from the
Dominican house of studies in 1954. From 1931 to 1954, his overall
intention remained the same, but he continually worked to refine the
method and content of his ecclesiology in order to attain the goal of

an integral ecclesiology. In the end, though he made progress toward
his goal, he did not fully achieve it: the treatise De Ecclesia was never
completed.
Examination of Congar’s unpublished papers related to his project
reveals two important accomplishments achieved through the progres-
sive integration of speculative and biblical methods. First, the integra-
tion of biblical metaphors with the speculative categories of causation
provided Congar with the language and concepts necessary to articu-
late the mystery of the church in such a way as to embrace the du-
alities, dialectical tensions, and diversity of dimensions that comprise
the reality of the church. Second, his interpretation of the causation
of the church in light of the entire biblical narrative of the history of
the people of God fulfilled as the body of Christ showed him the crit-
ical importance of having an eschatological sense in ecclesiology, that
is, a sense of the reality of the church as existing between two times,
at once both realized as communion with God and still anticipating
the full realization of that communion. This eschatological perspective
gave duality and dialectic in the church a positive value in the context
of God’s design for the economy of salvation. The incorporation of bib-
lical methods allowed him to reach a far better integration than the
speculative method alone allowed. Both of these two accomplishments
can be traced in Congar’s unpublished texts.
The first accomplishment, achieved through the integration of bib-
lical metaphors and speculative causes, seemed unlikely given Congar’s
early work, in which he rejected biblical metaphors for the church, in-
cluding the body of Christ, as insufficiently rigorous for useful theolog-
ical reflection. Nonetheless, in 1948, he actually entitled his treatise The
Church: People of God and Body of Christ, later adding Temple of the Holy
Spirit. The incorporation of the biblical images was a consequence of
his progressive integration of speculative and biblical methods in con-
structing his treatise De Ecclesia. Congar came to recognize that bibli-
cal metaphors for the church had a greater capacity to accommodate
the duality and dialectic of apparently contradictory dimensions of the
church than did the strictly speculative categories of causation.
The exclusively speculative theology of Congar’s lectoral thesis of-
fered him no opportunity to acknowledge, much less to resolve, the
dualities apparent in the church. The categories themselves compelled

him to limit his theology of the church to questions concerning its
hierarchical dimension and thus nearly to replicate the hierarchology
that he deplored, despite his stated intention to consider the church in
all its dimensions. While writing his purely speculative theology of the
church, Congar himself realized the contribution that biblical theolo-
gy could potentially make to the ecclesiological enterprise, although he
was not able to pursue a biblical theology at that time.
In the courses he gave in 1934 and 1937, Congar introduced the
biblical metaphor of the church as the body of Christ into his eccle-
siology. Although he did not fully integrate the results of his biblical
study into his speculative theology of the church, the witness of the
New Testament to the legitimacy of the image of the body of Christ for
the church allowed him to take the metaphor as the framework for his
speculative theology. Scripture reflects the inherent duality of the rela-
tionship between Christ and his body: as the head of the body, Christ
both presides over the body and is part of the body. Thus, the scriptural
image allowed him to develop a speculative theology of the church that
accommodated his perception of intrinsic efficient causality and multi-
ple formal causality in the church.
As Congar gave progressively greater weight to a biblical theology
of the church, the image of the people of God replaced his initial vision
of the church as society. Originally, he had identified the church as a
special and unique type of society. Attention to the societal structure of
the church was useful for explaining hierarchical authority within the
temporal ecclesial community, but it failed to reflect the relationship be-
tween God and humanity that Congar ultimately recognized as being
the fundamental purpose of the church. In comparison, the biblical im-
age of the people of God, constituted according to covenants of love and
law, captured precisely that dimension of the church that distinguished
it from other societies, namely its supernatural vocation to share in
God’s life. In the Old Testament, the people of God awaited the fulfill-
ment of the covenant promises to which God called them. In the New
Testament, the promises constituting the people of God were trans-
formed, such that the inheritance was not merely territory, but divine
life in Christ. The society of the people of God was thus a communion
with and in God, rather than merely a community established by God.
Ten years after he wrote his lectoral thesis, continuing attention to

biblical theology led Congar to develop an account of the church as the
people of God that is also the body of Christ. That vision of the church
is encapsulated in his conclusion to the course given in 1941, in which
he described the church as “the true people of God”:
A people that God recruits through apostolic preaching to which our faith re-
sponds; that Christ assembles so as to take part in the inheritance of the pat-
rimonial goods of God; that he organizes and rules under the authority of the
apostolic body which takes his place during the time of his absence; to which he
gives, through faith, grace, the sacraments, a certain participation, already, in
the definitive goods of the heavenly Kingdom.
A people that is not purely a society, even though it is a society, but that
is only truly the people of God, the new Israel, in being one in Christ, united
to Christ as members to their vivifying principle: a people that is the mystical
Body, a multitude that lives one life which is the life of Christ.
This is the final word that summarizes the entire evolution. The people of
God is realized, under the new covenant, as the spiritual body of Christ. We are
the people of God in becoming members of Christ, members of the Son, sons
in the Son, the family of God.
Christ is the new Adam, the true Abraham, the true David. He renews and
makes true in himself humanity, the covenant, the people of God. In entering
into him, we become a new humanity, sharers in the covenant and the prom-
ises.247
In this passage, Congar gave place both to the church as a whole and to
the hierarchical authority within the church, thereby achieving his goal
of overcoming the one-sided hierarchology of neoscholasticism.
In 1945, biblical theology led Congar to expand his ecclesiology
further to introduce the idea of a dual mission of the Spirit and the
apostolic body in constituting the church. Earlier, he had expressed an
appreciation for the efficient causality of both the Spirit and the hier-
archy, but he was able to formulate a comprehensive theology of their
double mission only when he integrated the speculative categories of
causation with the scriptural testimony regarding God’s design for the
church. His description of the double participation by both the hier-
archy and the ecclesial body as a whole in the powers of Christ was
likewise an outgrowth of the progressive integration of speculative and
biblical theology regarding the relationship of the Spirit to the church.
247. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 56.

The Spirit animates the body of Christ, bestowing gifts proper to the
life of the body; thus, the charismatic life of the church cannot be un-
derstood as something other than a participation in Christ’s own pow-
ers. The Trinitarian form of the revised title of his treatise encapsulates
the first accomplishment of Congar’s project as a whole: the integra-
tion of biblical language with the speculative categories of causation to
articulate an understanding of the full mystery of the church.
The second crucial accomplishment of Congar’s integration of
speculative and biblical theological methods was the development of an
eschatological sense of the church attentive to the status of the histor-
ical church as existing in the time between the two comings of Christ,
between the synagogue and the kingdom. Compared to his gradually
developed awareness of the value of biblical metaphors for extending
the signification of the language of causality, Congar’s insight into the
necessity of an eschatological sense in ecclesiology seems to have come
to him rather suddenly in 1948.
While biblical images of the church tolerate and accommodate du-
ality and dialectic within the church, the eschatological status of the
church explains the reason for the duality and dialectic: the cause of
the church (Christ) has been given, but the fruits of that gift are not
yet fully realized. Thus, the church is not sequentially the people of
God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit across time.
It is all three concomitantly, awaiting and anticipating the final fulfill-
ment of the promise. Contemplating the church within the economy
of salvation as revealed in scripture, Congar recognized that the inter-
temporal status of the earthly church explains the inescapable dialec-
tics within the church and must be acknowledged in order to construct
a realistic, accurate ecclesiology that accounts for the church as it is.
At the same time, he recognized that the eschatological nature of the
church’s present status demands the preservation of the essential unity
of the earthly and heavenly church. This eschatological sense became
Congar’s controlling vision of the church. As a result, he was able to
assign positive value to all the dimensions of the church, regardless of
the dialectical tensions among them. The apparent contradictions are
aspects of God’s design for the church and thus are to be welcomed,
even as their resolution in the perfection of communion that is still to
come is eagerly anticipated.
Nevertheless, in retrospect it can be said that the fundamental lim-

itation or constraint in Congar’s project to write a treatise De Ecclesia
was his intention to articulate the mystery of the church while taking
account of the language and concepts of the neoscholastic speculative
method, understood narrowly as the explanation of the church accord-
ing to its four causes. While the integration of speculative and biblical
methods allowed him some success in establishing a more compre-
hensive ecclesiological framework, his success came only through a
reformulation of the scholastic doctrine of causation itself. One is left
with the impression that Congar managed to attempt an integral eccle-
siology despite the constraints of the neoscholastic speculative method,
rather than assisted by that method, and that all efforts in that vein
would ultimately be destined to fail.
Congar pursued a total, integral ecclesiology at two levels. The first
level addressed the object of ecclesiology: the mystery of the church in
all its dimensions. At a second level, Congar came to see integral ec-
clesiology as a method, based in part on the integration of speculative
and biblical theologies. Glimpses of totality at the first level—especial-
ly the joint dimensions of the church as both gift and task—are more
clearly seen in his biblical studies than in his speculative theology, lead-
ing perhaps to the judgment that speculative theology was superfluous
and that Congar’s pursuit of a total ecclesiology that would make use
of a method of integration was unnecessary. Two points argue against
that conclusion. First, in Congar’s own theological development, he
achieved the insight presented in his later biblical studies only through
a lengthy process of wrestling with the framework of speculative the-
ology. Without the exertion, he may never have reached his awareness
concerning, especially, the eschatological status of the church, which
was largely a product of his unsuccessful application of the system of
causality to the church. Second, in the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury, Congar did not have the option to teach ecclesiology courses that
completely disregarded the categories and method of neoscholasti-
cism. Without engaging neoscholasticism in a serious way—a practice
not emphasized in his published texts—Congar would not have been
allowed to teach for as long as he did, given the normative status of
neoscholasticism and the skepticism of biblical theology prevalent in
some quarters at that time. He would not have had the academic teach-
ing setting that the documents studied here clearly demonstrate was
important to his iterative attempts at formulating a total ecclesiology.
Thus, while Congar’s integration of neoscholastic speculative method
with biblical theology was never fully successful and ultimately did not
endure in his ecclesiology or in the approach taken by the Second Vati-
can Council, Congar’s attempt to accomplish that integration was nec-
essary to the advancement of his vision of a total ecclesiology.
The fate of Congar’s project to write a new treatise De Ecclesia was
finally determined by events in his life and in the life of the Catholic
Church. He was removed from his teaching position at Le Saulchoir
in the spring of 1954. The actual crisis leading to his removal came
in February of that year, but he was allowed to finish the academic se-
mester. The last revisions to the treatise recorded in the Ordre Suivi
de 1954 are dated April 1954. Later that month, Congar departed Paris
and was no longer engaged in teaching the ecclesiology courses that
had been the laboratory for his developing treatise. He went first to
the École Biblique de Jérusalem, where he took advantage of being at
the center of Catholic biblical scholarship to further develop his bib-
lical theology. While in Jerusalem, he wrote The Mystery of the Temple
and an unfinished manuscript, Sur la primauté de Pierre dans le NT.248
Both texts were related to themes he had introduced in his treatise, but
Congar did not insert them into the dossier holding his draft and notes
for the treatise. After his months in Jerusalem, his circumstances wors-
ened; in November 1954 he was called to Rome and then, in February
1956, was sent to Cambridge, and his theological work was further in-
terrupted. In December of that year, he returned to France to take up
residence at the Dominican priory in Strasbourg. Eventually, in 1960,
he was named to the preparatory commission for the Second Vatican
Council, at which point his fortunes began to change.
Significant aspects of Congar’s courses and treatises De Ecclesia
have been presented in this chapter in order to illustrate the substance
and effect of his integration of theological methods over the course of
nearly twenty-five years. The categorization here of his work into four
phases is not intended to suggest definitive transition points in Con-
248. Yves Congar, The Mystery of the Temple, trans. Reginald F. Trevett (Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1962), originally published as Le mystère du Temple ou l’Économie de la
Présence de Dieu à sa créature de la Genèse à l’Apocalypse, Lectio divina 22 (Paris: Cerf, 1958).
gar’s theological development. The frequent cross-referencing between

earlier and later work both by Congar himself and in the analysis here
of his texts gives ample evidence of the continuity within his work and
of the gradual progression of his thought. Nonetheless, the four phases
reflect significant stages of development in Congar’s striving for an in-
tegral ecclesiology.
The theology that Congar developed in the course of his project to
write a treatise De Ecclesia represents the unspoken framework that un-
derpins much of his published work in the period 1931–1954. Readers
familiar with Congar’s published work may be surprised by the extent
of his entanglement with the language and categories of neoscholastic
theology in his unpublished texts, which brings an unfamiliar timbre
to his writing. His explanations of the four causes of the church are tor-
tuous and convoluted at times, lacking the historical breadth and bibli-
cal inspiration that characterize his published work. It was, however, in
straining against the challenges of articulating his vision of the church
using the language and structures of neoscholasticism that Congar
achieved major breakthroughs, such as the centrality of the church’s
eschatological status in ecclesiology. In the following chapter, elements
of Congar’s unpublished texts will be compared with some of his pub-
lished work from the same period in order to clarify the meaning of
his published works and to assess the mutual complementarity of his
unpublished and his published work.
• 4
THE UNIFIED PURSUIT OF A

“ T O TA L E C C L E S I O L O G Y ”
This study has argued that Congar’s published texts and unpublished
work from the first half of his career demonstrate his consistent desire
for a total ecclesiology. In his published texts, he repeatedly referred to
an ecclesiology that would present the mystery of the church in all its
dimensions. In his unpublished works, he used similar language to
describe the integral ecclesiology that he attempted to construct in his
courses and in the draft treatise De Ecclesia. Thus, both his published
and unpublished texts reflect a single, unified aim: the pursuit of a to-
tal ecclesiology.
For full understanding of Congar’s pursuit of a total ecclesiology,
his writings must be taken as a whole. Although the treatise was never
completed, his De Ecclesia project was the backdrop to his entire eccle-
siological enterprise during the first half of his career. His major books
from that period were theologically grounded in the ecclesiological de-
velopment that was occurring through his teaching and drafting of the
169
170 U nified P ursuit
treatise De Ecclesia. At the same time, his published works provided the
forum in which he considered specific, pressing issues in the actual
life of the church, such as ecumenism, ecclesial reform, and the role of
the laity—something that Congar consistently intended to incorporate
into his courses also, though he rarely actually managed to do so. Thus,
his published and unpublished texts complement one another.
This chapter brings Congar’s published and unpublished works
together to achieve a more complete understanding of his pursuit of
a total ecclesiology, integrating the conclusions about Congar’s meth-
odology and purpose drawn from the study of his published works in
chapter 1 with those from consideration of his unpublished works in
chapters 2 and 3. It first demonstrates how the unpublished De Ecclesia
series clarifies the desire for a total ecclesiology that Congar manifest-
ed in his published works. It then examines the three major books that
Congar published in this period—Divided Christendom (1937), True and
False Reform in the Church (1950), and Lay People in the Church (1953)—
to discover in more detail how his published and unpublished works
complement one another in his pursuit of a total ecclesiology.
Clarification of Published Texts

Congar’s unpublished documents De Ecclesia clarify three aspects of
his pursuit of a total ecclesiology that are somewhat ambiguous in the
methodological statements found in his published texts. First, they
show that Congar not only desired a total ecclesiology, he worked ac-
tively to construct such an ecclesiology throughout the first half of his
career. Second, they clarify that the hierarchology he sought to replace
with a total ecclesiology was not, properly speaking, a theology of the
hierarchy but rather a predominantly apologetic account of the church.
Lastly, they show what Congar meant when he said that the method to
be pursued for a total ecclesiology was one of synthesis and integration.
The first of these three points has already been demonstrated in de-
tail above; the second and third points will now each be considered in
turn.
U nified P ursuit 171
Critical Distinction: Apologetics and Theology

Although Congar’s published texts tend to contrast “total ecclesiolo-
gy” and “hierarchology,” his unpublished texts clarify that for Congar
the critical distinction was between apologetic and truly theological
approaches to the treatise De Ecclesia. In his published works, Congar
emphasized the distinction between an integral ecclesiology and what
he described as the hierarchology that had arisen following the Prot-
estant Reformation and had come to dominate contemporary Catholic
theology. Whereas an integral ecclesiology considered the totality of all
the dimensions of the church, a hierarchology tended to neglect all di-
mensions except the hierarchical structure and powers of the church.1
While Congar did not at all reject the hierarchical dimension of the
church, he believed that ecclesiology needed to overcome the theolog-
ical limitations that defined the church only or primarily according to
its hierarchical functions. Thus, in his published texts, hierarchology
stood as the opposite of the total ecclesiology for which he advocated.
Though Congar may appear to have been opposed to the hierarchy, his
opposition was, in fact, to the exclusive attention to hierarchical power
in ecclesiology, to the identification of the church with the hierarchy,
excluding other members of the church and even the Holy Spirit, and
to the actions of certain members of the hierarchy in the history of the
church, none of which constituted a rejection of the hierarchy of the
church itself. The dichotomy between hierarchology and total ecclesi-
ology as expressed in his published texts, however, may contribute to a
misinterpretation of the nuances of Congar’s critique.
His unpublished texts clarify that the essential distinction is, in
fact, between the apologetic treatise De Ecclesia (of which he considered
the emphasis on the hierarchy is a product) and “a properly theological
treatise” De Ecclesia.2 In his own courses and treatise, Congar explained
that since its emergence as a separate treatise, De Ecclesia had been
an apologetic treatise. As recounted above, he perceived fundamental
differences between the task and method of apologetics and those of
1. Lay People in the Church, 38 and 51. Congar clarified that the communal aspect of
the Church “has never been denied,” noting that “if there has been one-sidedness in a cler-
ical direction it has been in theoretical ecclesiology much more than in the lived reality of
Catholicism.” (Lay People in the Church, 48 and 50).
172 Unified Pursuit
theology. The intention of the apologetic treatise was to prove the legit-
imacy of the church (more precisely, the Roman Catholic Church) as
the authoritative witness to the content of the faith. Hence, it tended
naturally to focus on apostolic succession and the hierarchy. In con-
trast, the mystery of the church, which is the appropriate object of a
total, integral ecclesiology, was properly a topic of theology, not apolo-
getics. Apologetics as practiced since the Reformation had taken on the
role of gatekeeper to theology, imposing a restrictive view of the legiti-
mate sources and the crucial questions related to the task of theology.
Further, Congar accused “bad apologetics” of intentionally ignoring
theological truths in order to strengthen its arguments for hierarchical
authority and the legitimacy of church teaching.3
In his published texts, Congar never explained the fundamental
distinction between apologetic and theological treatises De Ecclesia. Nor
did he explain the inherent limitations of apologetics as a substitute
for or gatekeeper to theology. As a result, the primary distinction in
his published texts instead appeared to be between a total, integral ec-
clesiology and the juridical hierarchology that was exclusively attentive
(or nearly so) to the hierarchical structure and powers of the church.4
Because he never explicitly defined his neologism “hierarchology” as
an apologetics (rather than a theology) of the hierarchy, the distinction
can appear to be between two competing theologies—one of the whole
church, the other of only the hierarchical aspects of the church.
The interpretation of hierarchology as a theology of the hierarchy
is liable to be problematic for two reasons. First, it may lead to the in-
terpretation of Congar’s rejection of hierarchology as a rejection of the
theology of the hierarchy as part of ecclesiology. In fact, Congar’s op-
position was to the substitution of an apologetics of the hierarchy for
a theology of the church as a whole. While there is no question that he
had a variety of criticisms to levy against the practices of the church
hierarchy, particularly in his own day, that criticism was not the sub-
stance of his objection to hierarchology. His rejection of it is better un-
derstood as part of his larger critique of the domination of ecclesiology

4. “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work,” 198, and Lay People in the Church, xvi, 38, and
46. Congar noted that the treatise De Ecclesia had long been an apologetic treatise, but did
not indicate the significance of that fact.
by apologetics, to the exclusion of properly theological reflection on the

church. Describing hierarchology in his published works, he wrote,
“De Ecclesia was principally, sometimes almost exclusively, a defence
and affirmation of the reality of the Church as machinery of hierarchi-
cal mediation, of the powers and primacy of the Roman see, in a word,
a ‘hierarchology.’”5 This description of the treatise De Ecclesia that Con-
gar equated to a hierarchology corresponds to his description of the
apologetic treatise De Ecclesia in his unpublished texts, but without the
explicit label of apologetics. Hierarchology, therefore, can be taken as a
shorthand reference to the apologetic De Ecclesia that Congar opposed
in favor of a total ecclesiology.
The second difficulty with the interpretation of hierarchology as a
theology of the hierarchy is that it may lead to an inadequate attempt to
resolve the shortcomings of hierarchology. If the problem is that hier-
archology is an incomplete ecclesiology, in that it ignores the nonhier-
archical dimensions of the church, it would seem that a logical solution
to the problem would be to supplement the hierarchology with a theol-
ogy of those dimensions of the church that had been ignored, such as
the Holy Spirit, the laity, and ecumenism. Yet this is precisely the solu-
tion that Congar insisted would be inadequate.6 His published texts,
however, do not convey precisely why such an approach, which seems
logical, would be unsuccessful. The distinction Congar made between
the apologetic and theological treatises De Ecclesia in his unpublished
texts sheds light on the question. No amount of emendation can trans-
form apologetics into theology.
To summarize, “hierarchology” was, in effect, synonymous with the
apologetic treatise De Ecclesia. Thus, the problem with hierarchology as
the dominant theology of the church was that, in Congar’s judgment, it
was not actually a theological treatise at all. It was an apologetics of the
hierarchy (and of the church), not a theology of the hierarchy, as such.
According to Congar, apologetics and theology—both legitimate enter-
prises in their own right—differ fundamentally in their method and
purpose. Therefore, hierarchology had all the limitations of the apol-
ogetic treatise as described by Congar in his ecclesiology courses. No
matter how many supplements might be appended to the apologetic

6. Ibid., xvi; preface to Le schisme de Photius, 8; and “Sacerdoce et laïcat,” 8.
treatise De Ecclesia, they could not surmount this fundamental barrier.

The necessary remedy was the construction of a true theology of the
church that would offer a theological consideration of all the dimen-
sions of the church, including the hierarchy, rather than an apologetic
treatise responding only to the task of apologetics. It would be a theo-
logical treatise De Ecclesia that addressed the full mystery of the church
in all its dimensions and thereby achieved a total, integral ecclesiology.
The Meaning of Synthesis

Congar’s unpublished works also clarify what he meant by the method
of synthesis that he called for in his published texts. In his published
work, he referred to a method of synthesis that would integrate all the
dimensions of the mystery of the church. His unpublished works show
how Congar attempted to achieve that synthesis by taking the whole-
ness of the mystery of the church as the basic starting point for ecclesi-
ology. Specifically, they offer a fuller understanding of his vision of the
relationship between synthesis and analysis and of his use of dialectic
in the integration of the dimensions of the church.
According to Congar’s published work, a method of synthesis
would take the whole of the mystery of the church as the object of ec-
clesiology. He contrasted this method, which he associated with the
theology of the early Fathers, with the method of analysis and dialectic
introduced by the scholastics, whereby the whole is broken down into
its component parts. Following the rise of scholasticism, ecclesiology
had emphasized, with unsatisfactory results, the dialectical distinctions
within the church, rather than the unity in multiplicity that was proper
to it, on account of its catholicity.
Congar believed that renewed synthesis could be achieved through
an integration of the various dimensions of the church into a single
whole. He was not, however, systematic in his identification of those
dimensions in his published works. Instead, he named multiple dia-
lectical pairs to identify aspects of the church that coexist in some de-
gree of tension with one another, for example, structure and life, gift
and task, and hierarchy and faithful. At times, Congar seemed to use
some of the pairs as nearly synonymous. For example, there appears to
be a close parallel between gift and task and structure and life. In other
cases, the multiple pairs clearly point to nonequivalent realities in the

church, as with structure and life and hierarchy and faithful. The list of
dialectical pairs may appear to be a compilation of the dimensions to
be addressed by a total ecclesiology. However, it was evident from Con-
gar’s published texts that he did not envision such an ecclesiology as
merely a compendium of aspects of the church considered separately.
Thus, in Lay People in the Church, he wrote, “At bottom there can be
only one sound and sufficient theology of laity, and that is a ‘total ec-
clesiology,’”7 and elsewhere he made a similar claim for ecumenism.8
It seems, therefore, that the specific issues captured by the dialectical
pairs would not be a part of a total ecclesiology, but rather a total eccle-
siology would by its very nature itself be a theology of the laity and a
theology of the unity and catholicity of the church. His published texts
thus reflect a certain vision of a synthesis achieved through a thorough
integration of the dimensions of the church, but they give no detailed
account of such a synthesis.
Congar’s unpublished papers De Ecclesia clarify the relationship
between analysis and synthesis in constructing a total ecclesiology, and
they demonstrate Congar’s sincere commitment to maintaining conti-
nuity with the scholastic theology that was predominantly characterized
by analysis in constructing his total ecclesiology. For nearly twenty-five
years, he attempted to construct a treatise De Ecclesia incorporating the
method and findings of scholastic speculative theology, particularly its
doctrine of causation, while, at the same time, introducing historical
and biblical sources and methods. He tried different approaches to the
marriage of speculative and biblical theology during these years, but at
no point did he set aside scholastic theology entirely. In fact, his com-
mitment to incorporating in some way the categories of the scholastic
doctrine of causation into the treatise appears to have been a major fac-
tor in his failure to achieve a total ecclesiology, because those categories
ultimately lacked the capacity to accommodate his vision of the mystery
of the church in all its dimensions. Nonetheless, the unpublished re-
cord of his attempts to construct such a treatise demonstrates that Con-
gar seems to have appreciated the potential contribution of scholastic
theology to the work of ecclesiological renewal in the twentieth century.
7. Lay People in the Church, xvi.

8. Preface to Le schisme de Photius, 8.
Congar’s approach was to adapt the scholastic use of the categories

of causation in order to emphasize the wholeness of the church in his
treatise. In examining the causes of the church, he preferred to follow
the ordo generationis, which begins with the final cause, rather than
the ordo cognitionis—more common in the ecclesiology manuals of his
day—which ends with the final cause. As a result, the starting point for
his ecclesiology was the common good of the one church, whole and
complete, that is, the divine life shared by God through Christ with
human beings. Although his achievement of synthesis was far from
perfect (consider, for example, the proliferation of common goods in
his early ecclesiology courses), by giving priority to the final cause of
the church, Congar reframed the basic task of ecclesiology as the con-
struction of the whole mystery of the church rather than the dissection
of that mystery (that is, as synthesis rather than purely analysis).
Congar’s reordering of the causes of the church was innovative
compared to the typical approach found in ecclesiology manuals in
the early twentieth century. In his earliest texts—his Thèse du Lectorat
(1931) and Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933)—in which he considered
the church primarily as a society, he justified considering the causes
of the church in the sequence of the ordo generationis on the basis of
Thomistic social philosophy. However, even after he set aside his con-
sideration of the church as society, he continued to take the final cause
as the starting point for his ecclesiology. It appears, therefore, that for
Congar the utility of the final cause as a starting point for ecclesiology
was not limited to the role it plays in social philosophy, but rather de-
rived from the concern for the ultimate unity of the church that this
approach impelled.
From the beginning of his De Ecclesia project, Congar valued the
premise of unity established by considering the final cause of the church,
both as earthly institution and as heavenly communion. The whole
church is defined by its final cause, that is, its ultimate common good,
which is communion in the divine life shared by God with all human-
kind. Even when Congar distinguished between the common goods of
the visible and invisible church, respectively, the distinction was min-
imal. The unity of the final cause is contrasted with the multiplicity of
efficient and formal causes of the church that he identified. By taking
the final cause as his starting point, Congar was able to establish the
wholeness of the church, which is the goal of ecclesiological synthesis,

as the lens for the rest of his ecclesiology. Thus, although his published
texts suggest that a total ecclesiology would employ synthesis rather
than analysis, it is in his unpublished texts that he reflected the value
he saw in the neoscholastic analytic method, provided that it was used
in such a way that synthesis was given priority.
Congar’s unpublished texts also clarify his use of dialectic to achieve
an integral ecclesiological synthesis. In his published texts, Congar
used multiple dialectical pairs to describe the dimensions of the church
that were to be integrated in an ecclesiological synthesis, but he did not
specify how one moved from dialectic to an integral synthesis.9 His un-
published papers shed some light on his use of dialectic to describe the
integration of the various dimensions of the church, while showing that
he had not thoroughly resolved the problem of how to describe the di-
mensions of the church and the tensions between them. His unpub-
lished treatise provides some clarification of how his understanding of
dialectic developed in the years after his return from World War II.10
Congar came to realize the centrality of what he called an “eschatolog-
ical sense” in ecclesiology while drafting his treatise in 1948.11 This re-
alization led him to interpret the dialectical tensions that exist in the
church as manifestations of the present eschatological status of the
church. He described the dialectical pairs and the dualities that he em-
ployed to describe the dimensions of the church as the “consequences”
of the present status of the church in the period between the incarna-
tion and the fulfillment of the kingdom.12
In his earlier texts, both published and unpublished, Congar had
associated these tensions—which he described primarily in terms of
the dialectic of gift and task—with the mystery of the theanthropic na-
ture of the church. For example, in Divided Christendom, he wrote:
All the new order, which is the Church—the gathering together in the oneness
of God—exists in Christ as in its Principle: all that we are called to become, to
9. The confusion regarding dialectic in Congar’s published work is one of the chal-
lenges to which MacDonald and Famerée respond in their books on Congar’s ecclesiology.
10. Congar initially entitled the chapter dealing with the dialectical pairs “The Condi-
tion of the Church between the Promise and the Consummation” (L’Eglise [1948], outline,
1). In 1951, he retitled the chapter “The Situation of the Church between the Synagogue
and the Kingdom” (Plan du Traité (1951), 1).
11. L’Eglise (1948), 156. 12. Plan du Traité (1951), 1.
178 U nified Pursuit
receive and to inherit is established in Christ, so that the Church, His Body,
His Pleroma, may manifest it and make it explicit, and in a sense complete it,
though without adding to it anything that was not already implicit in Him. Fun-
damentally it is the same mystery of which we spoke in connection with uni-
ty—all is given from above—all is already realized in Christ—and yet we have
our part to accomplish. The Church is the meeting-place of what is from heav-
en and what is of men, at once Jerusalem from above and a fellowship gathered
from all nations: a life given by God [gift] and a co-operation of mankind [task];
a divine-human reality, whose inmost mystery lies in the fact of the conjunction
of Infinite Act with finite activities.13
There is an inevitable dialectical tension between the gift that is given

and the task that is to be done in the church, because the gift is given
by the perfect God, while the task is subject to human frailty.14
By 1948, however, when drafting his treatise De Ecclesia, Congar
emphasized the eschatological status of the church in the world as the
necessary perspective from which to comprehend the dialectical pairs
he enumerated. This approach in no way diminished the significance
of the theanthropic nature of the church that he had explained in his
earlier work.15 However, he now maintained that the eschatological
status of the church gave rise to a single “great Christian dialectic” of
which the various dialectical pairs, including gift and task, were specific
aspects.16 Based on his unpublished texts, therefore, it may be said that
the eschatological sense that Congar acquired in the course of devel-
oping his treatise De Ecclesia was the key to the integral synthesis of
the full mystery of the church in all its dimensions that he sought. The
integration of the dimensions of the church, many of which Congar ex-
pressed in the dialectical pairs found in his published and unpublished
texts, is to be achieved through a full appreciation of the eschatological
status of the church.
Nonetheless, the unpublished documents show that Congar him-
13. Divided Christendom, 96–97. The English translation does not reflect Congar’s ex-
plicit use of the language of gift and task found in the original French: “l’unité du donné et
de l’agi” (Chrétiens désunis, 119). Congar initially developed the notion of there being a cer-
tain duality in the Church as a result of its theanthropic nature in the ecclesiology course
he taught in 1934 (see also Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae [1934], lecture 13, 1–2).
14. “L’Eglise, Corps Mystique du Christ,” 241–42.
15. In fact, Congar used both approaches in True and False Reform (see 90–91 and
113), which he first wrote in 1946–1947 and revised for publication in 1949, thus bracket-
ing the first draft of his treatise in 1948.
16. L’Eglise (1948), draft outline 1.
self had not resolved fully the issue of how to describe the dimensions
of the church and the tensions between them. As described in chapter 3,
Congar—offering no clarification on the difference between dialectics
and other types of dualities and making the same claims about both,
which suggests that the distinction between the two categories is not
significant for his ecclesiology—revised the list of dialectical pairs and
other dualities that he saw in the church repeatedly between 1948 and
1954. Congar apparently had not finished his revisions by the time of
his removal from Le Saulchoir in 1954.17 Despite their provisional qual-
ity, however, the lists from his unpublished texts are useful in that they
present the dialectical pairs in a more orderly fashion than is found in
his published works and give a sense of how his thought was develop-
ing at that time. Moreover, they reveal that the dialectic of structure and
life, regarded by some scholars as central to Congar’s ecclesiology, was
not so crucial for Congar himself. It is notably absent from the lists.18
In one of his last revisions to the draft text of the treatise, Congar
commented on what he described as the “dialectical character of these
traits”: “They exist in tension, that is to say that each one is true, but
is totally true only if the other, of which it is the opposite, is also as-
serted.”19 Thus, he insisted strongly that both terms in each dialectic
be fully acknowledged and integrated in the theology of the church.
Moreover, it was not enough simply to include both terms equally; the
terms in each dialectic must be understood as, in a sense, constituting
one another. Gift can be properly understood only in relation to task
and vice versa. Gift and task taken separately from one another would
be incomplete representations of what each of them truly was in the
church. The method of synthesis, as Congar envisioned it, would in-
tegrate the dialectical pairs that he used to describe the dimensions of
the church in a way that respected and revealed the reciprocal relation-
ship between what might otherwise appear to be opposing dimensions
of the church.
This clarification of the method of synthesis, drawn from Congar’s
17. In the final iteration of dialectics in the Ordre suivi en 1954, the list appeared as
part of what was clearly a roughly written working document, not a finalized outline for
the treatise.
18. Congar himself indicated that he preferred gift and task as an equivalent to struc-
ture and life (foreword to MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, xxii).
19. Ordre suivi (1954).
unpublished texts, was not apparent in his published works, largely be-
cause of the latter’s purpose, which was normally to respond to specific
issues related to ecclesiology. In general, his published texts began in
medias res, as it were, and the privileged place that the wholeness of
the church had as the starting point for a more comprehensive eccle-
siology remained in the background. Even in large works such as True
and False Reform in the Church and Lay People in the Church, Congar
acknowledged that he was examining only one question that should,
in fact, be situated within an ecclesial whole that he was unable to pro-
vide in that particular book.20 As a result, in his published works, Con-
gar appeared to talk about synthesis without taking concrete steps to
achieve it. His unpublished De Ecclesia project shows how extensively
he actually worked to achieve such a synthesis.
The Complementarity of the De Ecclesia Project

and Congar’s Major Published Works
The primary purpose of Congar’s De Ecclesia project was to construct
a total, integral ecclesiology. In those unpublished texts, he worked to
build the framework within which specific issues related to the church
could be fruitfully considered. At the end of most of his courses, Con-
gar intended to address specific issues, such as the membership of the
church;21 the relations between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic
Christian communities (that is, ecumenism);22 the relations between
church and state,23 between the church as temporal society and the
world,24 and between the church and non-Christian religions;25 and,
more generally, the interior and exterior life of the church.26 In prac-
tice, the only time he actually covered the topics fully as planned was
20. Vraie et fausse réforme, 7, and Lay People in the Church, xvi.
21. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 30; Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted
at 1; and L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2.
22. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), Introduction, 6; L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2; and Plan du
Traité (1951), 3.
23. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), iii; Cours sur l’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 30; Cours sur l’Eg-
lise (1941), Introduction, 6; and Plan du Traité (1951), 3.
26. Cours sur l’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 30; L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2; and Plan du
Traité (1951), 3.
during the course he gave in the war camp in Lübben in 1941. In most
cases, these issues remained unaddressed.
In his Thèse du Lectorat and his treatise L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et
Corps du Christ, Congar titled the section dealing with issues such as
these “The life of the Church.”27 His choice of terminology requires
some clarification. The purpose of Congar’s entire treatise was to con-
struct an ecclesiological synthesis that integrated all the dimensions of
the church, including its life. In Lay People in the Church, when elabo-
rating the distinction between structure and life in the church, he de-
scribed the life of the church as follows: “By life we understand the
activity which men . . . exercise in order that the Church may fulfil her
mission and attain her end which is, throughout time and space, to
make of men and a reconciled world the community-temple of God.”28
The unpublished texts examined in this study show that Congar suc-
cessfully incorporated the life of the church, in this broad sense, into
his ecclesiology. In his thesis and in his early courses De Ecclesia, he
took the society of the faithful as his primary image of the church, that
is, the society of people actively working for the common good that is
the final cause of the church. In the courses given during the war, he
emphasized the historical unfolding of God’s plan for the salvation of
the world, from the covenant with Abraham to its fulfillment in Christ,
which continues in the church. In his treatise, L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu
et Corps du Christ, he joined the biblical theology of salvation history to
the speculative categories of causation. In doing so, he was attentive to
the relationship between the church and the world and to the cosmic
aspect of God’s plan of salvation. In each case, the life of the church
as described in Lay People in the Church was an integral element of his
ecclesiology.
It is important, therefore, to distinguish between the life of the
church per se and specific issues in the life of the church, such as the
relations between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian
communions. In his unpublished texts De Ecclesia, Congar addressed
the life of the church per se at great length as part of the ecclesiological
synthesis he constructed. However, he rarely had the opportunity to
27. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), iii. See also L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2, and Plan du Traité
(1951), 3.
respond to specific issues concerning the current life of the church.

In contrast, specific issues such as these were the primary focus of the
three major books that Congar wrote during the years in which he was
gradually developing his treatise: Divided Christendom (1937), True and
False Reform in the Church (1950), and Lay People in the Church (1953).
In each of these books, he addressed a specific, pressing issue facing
the church: ecumenism, ecclesial reform, and the role of the laity, re-
spectively. In each, he noted the need for an adequate treatise De Eccle-
sia as the framework for addressing specific issues such as these.29 In
the absence of such a treatise, he elaborated the theological principles
that directly impacted the issue at hand, drawing on the ecclesiology
developed through his teaching and drafting of the treatise De Ecclesia.
His intent in these books, however, was to respond to individual issues
related to the church, not to expound a full ecclesiology. Even taken
together, these major published works do not approximate the total ec-
clesiology Congar wanted to develop.
Congar’s books and his unpublished texts, therefore, can be seen
to complement one another. The unpublished texts provide a funda-
mental ecclesiological framework, the need for which he stressed in
the published works, while the published texts apply that ecclesiology
to specific, pressing issues in the life of the church. The following ex-
amination of these three books in conjunction with Congar’s unpub-
lished texts illustrates this complementarity between his published and
unpublished work.
Divided Christendom (1937)

Divided Christendom originated as a series of eight conferences that
Congar delivered at Sacré Coeur in Paris during the Week of Prayer
for Christian Unity in January 1936.30 Chronologically, the text falls be-
tween his Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934) and his De Ecclesia: Cursus
Minor (1937). Congar later described the purpose of the book as being
“to consider, in a realistic spirit and from a theological point of view,
the problem that the existence of dissident Christian communities and
29. Divided Christendom, 33; Vraie et fausse réforme, 7 and 78; Lay People in the Church,
xvi and 46; and Jalons (1950), 95n22.
30. Congar, Dialogue between Christians, 17.
their reunion in one Church poses for the one, catholic Church.”31 In
the book, he established the theological foundation for his consider-
ation of the problem of reunion in two chapters, one on the unity of
the church (chapter 2) and the other on its catholicity (chapter 3).32 The
chapter on the unity of the church drew heavily on the ecclesiology
he developed in his first two ecclesiology courses, Cours d’Ecclésiologie
(1932–1933) and Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934). The published nar-
rative is consistent with the treatment he gave the same topics in his
unpublished texts, but was significantly streamlined, possibly out of
consideration for his audience when delivering the material as talks to
nonexperts. In contrast, very little of the material on the catholicity of
the church in Divided Christendom had appeared in his early ecclesiol-
ogy courses.
Chapter 2 of Divided Christendom, on the unity of the church, can
be seen as an abridgement of the ecclesiology that Congar presented
in the courses he gave in 1932–1933 and 1934.33 In this chapter, he ex-
plained the unity of the church in terms of the speculative categories
of causation and the biblical account of the history of salvation as he
had developed these in his early ecclesiology courses, but he presented
them according to a different formula: Ecclesia de Trinitate, Ecclesia in
Christo, and Ecclesia ex hominibus.34 Under the heading Ecclesia de Trini-
tate, he established that participation in the life of God is the final cause
of the church.35 As in the ecclesiology course he gave in 1932–1933, he
followed his consideration of the final cause and common good of the
church with an account of the covenantal history of the Old Testament
and its fulfillment in the New Testament.36 Under the heading Ecclesia
in Christo, he explained that “the sharing of the divine life is effected
31. “Autour du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie” (1939), 514 (emphasis in the original).

32. Divided Christendom, ch. 2, “The Oneness [Unité] of the Church,” and ch. 3, “The
Catholicity of the One Church.”
33. Congar omitted the material on the powers of Christ and of the hierarchy from
his explanation of the efficient cause of the church in Divided Christendom as well as the
remarks on the membership and the notes of the church that he included at the end of his
course in 1932–1933.
34. Congar also used this formula in True and False Reform (see 90 and 113), but the
formula itself does not appear in his unpublished papers.
35. Divided Christendom, 48. “In the language of the Schoolmen, the life of God in glo-
ry and beatitude becomes, by grace, a ‘common good’ pertaining to God and those whom
He calls to share it.”
36. Divided Christendom, 49–51.
in Christ and only in Christ,”37 in other words, that Christ is the prin-
cipal efficient cause of the church. Lastly, under the heading Ecclesia ex
Hominibus, he explained that the formal cause of the church is faith
and charity and the “social hierarchy.”38
Congar also echoed the description of the “two zones”39—spiritual
and visible—of the church and of the consequences of that duality that
he elaborated in his courses De Ecclesia. Because the church is both hu-
man and divine according to the “law of incarnation,” it exists “under
two aspects.”40 There are in the church “two realities which . . . are nev-
ertheless one Church.”41 The first reality is the church “as being already
the family of God and the community of those sharing the divine life;”
the second is the church “as she is in this world, humanly conditioned
and militant.”42 Thus, the church is both mystical body and institution-
al body.43 These realities are not to be separated, but rather are to be
understood as one church, “a unity at once corporeal and spiritual.”44
As noted above, Congar’s original motivation for attempting to
write a treatise De Ecclesia as the project for his lectoral thesis had been
to facilitate a study of the unity of the church. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that the theology of the church that he developed in his thesis and
in subsequent courses would provide the foundations for the practical
consideration of ecumenism in Divided Christendom.
In contrast to the obvious correlation between his explanation of the
unity of the church in Divided Christendom and the ecclesiology devel-
oped in his De Ecclesia project, very little of the material in chapter 3
of Divided Christendom, on the catholicity of church, was taken direct-
ly from his ecclesiology courses. However, Congar predicated his ex-
planation of the catholicity of the church on his understanding of its
unity, and this chapter of Divided Christendom can therefore be said to
be indirectly indebted to his unpublished De Ecclesia texts. In his pub-
lished book, he wrote, “The Catholicity of the Church, regarded as a
property of her being, is the dynamic universality of her unity, the ca-
37. Ibid., 63. 38. Ibid., 53–54 and 76.

39. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 37, and Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 8. See
also De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), loose interleaf inserted at the cover, where Congar
refers to the Church’s “two levels of reality.”
40. Divided Christendom, 69 and 76.
41. Ibid.,75. 42. Ibid.,76.
43. Ibid., 79. 44. Ibid., 88.
pacity of her principles of unity to assimilate, fulfil and raise to God in

oneness with Him all men and every man and every human value.”45
He framed his entire treatment of the catholicity of the church in terms
of its unity and its relationship with Christ: “The Catholicity of its Head
is the principal cause of the Catholicity of the Church.”46 Just as Christ
makes all one in him, the purpose of the church’s unity is that it might
exercise catholicity “to restore into unity all the diversity of His crea-
tion.”47
In Divided Christendom, Congar’s interpretation of diversity was
essentially positive, asserting the positive value of “a great diversity of
religious experience . . . [and] theological traditions” in the church, de-
spite a reminder that division is the tool whereby “the devil brings evil
into the world.”48 He attributed the loss of unity to the human element
in the law of incarnation. Where “the divine law is the communication
of life by assumption into unity,” the law of nature, “which in itself is
good and in accordance with the will of God,” is one of division, disper-
sion, distribution, diversity, and differentiation.49 His assurance that
“unity does not involve uniformity”50 suggests that in the assimilation
of multiplicity into unity, the diverse component parts of multiplicity
are not annihilated. Thus, with regard to the question of reunion, he
preferred the language of “return” over that of “absorption.”51
Nonetheless, his assessment of the positive value of diversity was
weakened by the strong distinction he drew in the chapter on the
catholicity of the church between the unity of God and the diversity
of the human condition. Notably, in this chapter he did not mention
the diversity of persons in the Trinity, which he described elsewhere
as the model of communion for the church.52 Congar’s failure to re-
late directly the catholicity of the church to the multiplicity in unity of
the Trinity is all the more puzzling because in explaining the oneness
of the church, he described the life that is communicated to humans
(that is, the final cause of the church), as “the Divine Societas of the
Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.”53 Congar used similar language
45. Ibid., 94–95. 46. Ibid., 98.

47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 110 and 102.
49. Ibid., 101 and 102. 50. Ibid., 195.
51. Ibid., 258. 52. Ibid., 58.
53. Ibid., 48.
in his Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), where he described the com-

mon good of the church as God’s communication of his beatitude to
humankind, that is, “the society of God itself extended to us, the society
of the Holy Trinity extended to spiritual creatures.”54 In his course, he
also explained that the Trinity is an exemplary cause of the church, in
that “the trinitarian society [is] . . . the exemplar, in a word, of diversity
in unity, of order, of dependence without imperfection: all that which is
the form of the Church.”55 He did not, however, develop the notion of
Trinitarian diversity as the basis for the catholicity of the church in Di-
vided Christendom; if he had, he might have been able to make a stron-
ger and more theologically grounded argument for the positive value of
diversity in the church.56
Congar established the “theological point of view”57 he wished to
bring to his consideration of ecumenism in Divided Christendom in
the chapters on the unity and catholicity of the church. He then de-
voted several chapters to a consideration of the ecclesiologies opera-
tive in non-Catholic Christian communities and to an evaluation of the
Catholic understanding of the status of non-Catholic Christians and
communities. In the final chapter of Divided Christendom, he proposed
an “Outline for a Practical Programme” for reunion. He called for the
Catholic Church to realize its catholicity more fully than was the case
in the then-current circumstances of separation among the Christian
communions, writing, “Catholicity is no less than the Church herself,
Catholic just because she is One, and working that Catholicity out in
practice.”58 He outlined three concrete actions that the Catholic Church
should take to prepare for reunion. Each step can be seen as the practi-
cal application of the ecclesiological principles that he had developed in
his Thèse du Lectorat and the first two courses De Ecclesia that he taught.
Thus, his practical program was grounded in the ecclesiology that he
had developed by the mid-1930s.
The first step would be “the cultivation of an attitude which is evan-

55. Ibid., 236.
56. Congar referred to the Trinity as the exemplar of unity in diversity in texts he pub-
lished later, including “Unité, Diversités et Divisions,” in Sainte Église, 105–30, and “Pneu-
matology Today,” American Ecclesiastical Review 167, no. 7 (1973): 435–49. The earlier arti-
cle was a paper delivered at the Semaine des Intellectuels Catholiques in November 1961.
gelical, fraternal and friendly, the outlook of a member of a great fel-

lowship and not of a unit in a system.”59 Such an attitude would be
cultivated through knowledge, understanding, and love of separated
Christians, not simply through the sometimes ineffective apologetics
that had become common Catholic practice.60 Theologically, this first
step can be seen to derive from Congar’s understanding of the final
cause of the church, according to which the church is a “society of
friendship,”61 that is, the fellowship of those responding to the super-
natural vocation whereby God calls all men and women to share in his
life. Given that the church is this society of friendship, it should live
with the attitude of friendship appropriate to divine fellowship.
The second action would be “a return to the sources and to the in-
terior life” so as to discover “a spiritual fellowship” with other Chris-
tians.62 This second step clearly builds on the theological premise of the
church as the society of friendship just described. In 1932, Congar had
described contemporary ecclesiological renewal as a return “to the rich-
est categories: those which themselves define the total mystery of the
church, its most interior, most ‘collective,’ most religious elements,”63
which had been overlooked by theologians in their preference for the ex-
ternal, institutional elements of the church. To recover the most interi-
or, most religious elements, Congar had developed in his earliest eccle-
siology courses the notion of the “two zones” of the church, recognizing
the church to have both an interior and an exterior aspect.64 The second
step that he included in his practical program for ecumenism called for
the church to live in a way that would be more attentive to its interior,
spiritual aspect, which had been neglected in favor of its institutional as-
pect, in order to find there the true basis for fellowship and friendship.
Lastly, Congar proposed that the Catholic Church prepare for re-
union by stating its doctrine clearly, such that it could be readily un-
derstood by other Christians, and by living fully the catholicity of the
church. He gave a concrete description of catholicity lived fully: “We
59. Ibid., 264.
60. Ibid., 262–63. The description of apologetics Congar gave in Divided Christendom
actually corresponds to what, in his course, he called “bad apologetics,” although the lan-
guage he used in his published text was more circumspect.
61. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 8. 62. Divided Christendom, 264 and 265.
64. Congar also incorporated this notion into his consideration of the unity of the
Church in Divided Christendom, chapter 2.
188 Unified Pursuit
must demonstrate to them the spectacle of a full and joyous liberty,

not incompatible with authority, a profound conviction of the almighty
love of God which is in no way inimical to our co-operation; a faith
which is expressed in ecclesiastical orthodoxy without ceasing to be a
spontaneous mystical and inward reality.”65 This description echoes
the theological foundations that Congar established in his courses and,
to a more limited extent, in Divided Christendom itself. He had identi-
fied as the instrumental efficient causes of the church the mission of
the hierarchy and the mission of the Holy Spirit, between which there
was no conflict. In his practical program, it appears that Congar trans-
lated this principle into the need for a demonstration by the church of
a liberty compatible with authority. Likewise, theologically speaking, he
had explained the theanthropic nature of the church and the resulting
dialectic of gift and task. Here, he called for a demonstration of the in-
tegral reality of God’s gift of love and of human cooperation. Lastly, he
had written theologically of the church as both institution and mystical
body. In his practical program, he called for faith to be expressed in
such a way as to respect both that which is exterior, namely “ecclesiasti-
cal orthodoxy,” and that which is “mystical and inward” in the church.
Thus, the characteristics that Congar associated with the church living
fully its catholicity appear to have been derived from the theological
understanding of the church that he had developed in his thesis and in
his ecclesiology courses. In Divided Christendom, therefore, he gave the
sort of practical application of the principles of that ecclesiology that he
had not been able to address in his thesis or courses.
To summarize, reading Divided Christendom in conjunction with
Congar’s unpublished papers De Ecclesia, it is clear that his published
book both relied on and complemented his unpublished theology of
the church as it existed in the mid-1930s. Congar based the presenta-
tion of the unity of the church in Divided Christendom on the ecclesi-
ology that he had developed in his Thèse du Lectorat (1931) and in the
two courses De Ecclesia that he taught in the early 1930s. While he did
not explicitly develop the themes of catholicity and diversity in his ear-
ly ecclesiology courses, the notion of catholicity presented in Divided
Christendom relied so heavily on the notion of unity that preceded it in
the book that his courses De Ecclesia can be seen as likewise a crucial,

though implicit, point of reference for what he said about catholicity.

At the same time, the explanation of the catholicity of the church in Di-
vided Christendom fills a notable gap in the development of his unpub-
lished treatise De Ecclesia.66 Divided Christendom also complements the
unpublished papers by providing a practical application of the ecclesio-
logical principles that Congar had developed there to a specific issue in
the life of the church, namely the reunion of the churches.
True and False Reform in the Church (1950)

Congar completed a first draft of True and False Reform in the Church in
1946 or 1947. After soliciting comments from colleagues, he rewrote
the text extensively in 1949 and added Part III, “Reform and Protestant-
ism.”67 Chronologically its composition overlaps with the initial draft-
ing of his treatise L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ in 1948. The
theological foundation of True and False Reform reflects the ecclesiology
that Congar developed in the early stages of his De Ecclesia project as
well as the new insight concerning the ecclesiological significance of
the eschatological status of the church that seems to have come to him
in 1948, although the overlapping timeframes of composition make it
difficult to know which text first expressed this insight.
Congar established the historical context and theological founda-
tion for his consideration of ecclesial reform in Part I of his book, en-
titled “Why and in What Sense Does the Church Reform Itself?” In
Part II, “The Conditions of Reform without Schism,” he proposed four
practical conditions for the conduct of reform in the life of the church.
His intention was to build on the ecclesiological foundation established
in Part I in order to harmonize the life of the church with its structure
in the practice of reform. Part III of the book was a specific critique
of the Protestant Reformation and its theological aftermath. The influ-
66. In the whole De Ecclesia series, Congar only once, in 1941, explicitly treated the
catholicity of the Church; his lecture notes for that class reflect the understanding of cath-
olicity developed in Divided Christendom. See also Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), loose interleaf
inserted at back cover. Congar presumably intended to cover the catholicity of the Church
under the heading of the notes of the Church in his Thèse du Lectorat (1931) and his Cours
d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933) as well as his later treatise, L’Eglise (1948), but in each case sus-
pended work before reaching the topic.
67. Congar cited different composition dates on different occasions. See Dialogue be-
tween Christians, 32, and Journal d’un théologien, 317.
ence of the ecclesiology developed in Congar’s De Ecclesia project is felt

primarily in Parts I and II of the book.
In True and False Reform, Congar was specifically interested in the
question of ecclesial reform. The influence of the De Ecclesia project is
more subtle in this book than in Divided Christendom because Congar
laid a more selective theological foundation for True and False Reform
than in his earlier book. He described his study as being built on “a
theology of unity,”68 but he acknowledged that he included only the
points that were significant for the issue of reform. In Part I, in fact,
Congar referred readers to Divided Christendom for a fuller presenta-
tion of the Ecclesia de Trinitate, in Christo, et ex hominibus, which “in-
cludes all the other meanings and synthesizes them,”69 a phrase that
itself is eloquent of his continued striving for an integral ecclesiology.
Thus, the theology of the church that he presented in Divided Christen-
dom, which was closely related to his courses De Ecclesia, appears to
have been the foundation for his later study of reform, even though he
did not fully elaborate it in True and False Reform.
On the other hand, Congar included the biblical elements of his
treatise De Ecclesia much more fully in True and False Reform than he
had in Divided Christendom.70 In light of the progressive integration
that had taken place of biblical theology with speculative theology in
his treatise De Ecclesia, this development is not surprising. By the time
he wrote True and False Reform, he had come to appreciate the ecclesi-
ological significance of the scriptural testimony to God’s plan of sal-
vation as well as the evidence given by scripture to the essentially his-
torical nature of salvation. In True and False Reform, Congar noted the
importance of incorporating historical and experiential data with doc-
trinal sources to achieve an ecclesiology attentive to both the structure
and the life of the church. His appreciation for the historical dimension
of salvation allowed him to propose a positive interpretation of ecclesial
reform as an integral aspect of the historical unfolding of salvation.71
This interpretation of reform was further supported by the aware-
ness Congar had acquired of the present eschatological status of the
68. True and False Reform, 11. 69. Ibid., 90.

70. Ibid., 117–34.
71. See True and False Reform, 11, 117, and 148. He wrote, “In order to study the church
according to its life as a communion, the insights of history as well as those of experience
must be integrated along with the insights from doctrinal sources” (11).
church while developing his treatise De Ecclesia. He discovered in the

eschatological status of the church an explanation for the dialectical ten-
sions he had long perceived in the church. Because the church exists
in the time between the fulfillment of the covenant in Jesus Christ and
its own full consummation in the final coming of the kingdom of God,
it shares in two realities: that which has been accomplished and that
which is yet to be accomplished.
Congar included in True and False Reform an account of the es-
chatological status of the church as he had described it in his unpub-
lished works.72 The consequent dialectic between gift (donné) and task
(agi), characteristic of the church on earth, was the particular premise
on which he built the distinction between the irreformability of the
structure of the church and the necessity of reform in the life of the
church.73 Gift and task reflect two complementary aspects of salvation
history. According to Congar, scripture reveals that God’s plan of sal-
vation entails the cooperation of human beings: “God, finally, is not
only the one from whom everything proceeds by pure grace but also
the one to whom everything is destined to arise and return through an
effort that God makes it possible for us to do but which we nonethe-
less do.”74 Within this plan, “the gifts of God require our response.”75
Thus, the donné is that which God gives: “the deposit of apostolic faith,
of the sacraments, of the apostolic powers (priesthood, magisterium,
and governance), in brief, everything that structures the Church.”76 He
asserted clearly that this gift that constitutes the structure of the church
is “unchangeable.”77 On the other hand, the agi is the task given to the
church: “applying the principle of salvation,” that is, the task of taking
salvation to the world, which “has to do with the life of the Church.”78
The activities of the church and its members in this regard involve the
Ecclesia ex hominibus, which Congar described as fallible.79 Thus, the
life of the church can and should undergo reform.
Congar’s understanding of the dialectical tension between gift and
72. Ibid., 117–34, and Vraie et fausse réforme, 467–82.

73. True and False Reform, 90. 74. Ibid., 119.
75. Ibid. 76. Ibid., 127.
77. Ibid. A more literal translation of the French renders the phrase “strictly irreform-
able.” See also 93, where Congar described those things given by God as “the formal prin-
ciples,” that is, the formal cause, of the Church.
78. Ibid., 130. 79. Ibid., 113.
task supported his distinction between the irreformability of the struc-

ture of the church and the reformability of the life of the church. In
his draft treatise De Ecclesia, he explained the dialectical tensions in
the church as a result of the church’s eschatological status. Because
Congar wrote True and False Reform over the same period that he be-
gan drafting his unpublished treatise De Ecclesia, it is difficult to know
whether his insight regarding the eschatological explanation of the dia-
lectical tensions in the church led to his conviction regarding ecclesial
reformability or vice versa. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the line of
thought developed over time in his ecclesiology courses contributed to
the argument for the legitimacy and necessity of ecclesiological reform
presented in True and False Reform.
In Part II of True and False Reform, Congar explained that the fun-
damental criterion for true reform was that it take place within and
with reference to the church, the structure of which is irreformable,
without creating an alternative body separate from the church.80 He
identified four conditions necessary for reform without schism:
1. The primacy of charity and of pastoral concerns.

2. Remaining in communion with the whole church.
3. Having patience with delays.
4. Genuine renewal through a return to the principle of tradition
(not through the forced introduction of some “novelty”).81
Each of these conditions was influenced by the treatise De Ecclesia that

he had developed since 1931. In the case of the second through fourth
conditions, the connection is readily apparent. With regard to the sec-
ond condition, Congar based his “theology of communion” in True and
False Reform on the “theology of unity” set forth in Divided Christendom
as the exposition of the unity of the church,82 which was itself taken
from his early courses De Ecclesia. His identification of patience as the
third condition for reform was a lesson drawn both from his study of
the history of ecclesiology, which was part of nearly every ecclesiology
course he taught, and from his awareness of the eschatological status
of the church.83 With regard to the fourth condition, Congar wrote, “It
80. Ibid., 216. 81. Ibid., 214, 229, 265, and 291.
82. Ibid., 11.
83. In his unpublished treatise, Congar included a consideration of the “pilgrim and
will be necessary first of all to consult the tradition and to become im-
mersed in it. . . . Tradition is essentially the continuity of development
arising from the initial gift of the church, and it integrates into unity
all the forms that this development has taken and that it actually man-
ifests.”84 The practice of drawing on the breadth of Christian tradition
had been Congar’s habit in both his published and unpublished texts
since the beginning of his career and was particularly influential in the
development of his treatise De Ecclesia.
The first condition of reform without schism—“the primacy of
charity and of pastoral concerns”85—however, benefits most from elu-
cidation in light of Congar’s unpublished works. In asserting the first
condition, Congar explained that those who would reform the church
have to make a fundamental option with regard to their attitude, “ei-
ther to adopt the practical attitude that takes its point of departure from
the reality of the church and aims to serve its development in charity,
or to adopt an intellectual and critical attitude that takes its point of
departure from a representation of ideas and develops into a system
that seeks to reform the existing reality under the influence of this sys-
tem.”86 A basic characteristic of an attitude of charity is that, “at the
point of departure, someone accepts the concrete reality of the church
as normative.”87
In his book, Congar gave a substantial explanation of what he
meant by “pastoral concerns,” but gave only the brief indication above
of what he understood by “the primacy of charity.” In the absence of
further explanation, the reader may presume that Congar referred here
to a personal attitude or behavior of good will toward others on the part
of the reformer. The ecclesiology courses he taught in the 1930s, how-
ever, offer a much deeper understanding of what charity accomplishes
in the individual Christian and in the church:
At the interior of each of us, it is charity which, being the virtue of the last end,
of order toward beatitude, unifies and orders every other love, every other good
act, toward the last end.88
crucified status” of the Church as part of his examination of its eschatological status. In
1954, he described that status as “the time of patience” (Ordre suivi [1954]).
84. True and False Reform, 293–94. 85. Ibid., 215.
86. Ibid., 227. 87. Ibid., 228.
88. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 259. Congar cited Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 23 and 25, on the role of charity.
Thus, it is charity that makes us a single whole and which, making us to live
as members of the divine Society, makes us live in unity and the communion of
all the other members of that society.89
Charity is “essentially the effect of love, movement toward the end and
the agent that brings about unity.”90 Moreover, charity, “by its very na-
ture, unites to the end and cannot not unite to the end.”91
Charity, then, is both a personal attitude of acceptance or affection
toward the institutional church and the interior force that orders each
individual toward divine life, which is the common good of the church
as society, and that establishes communion among the members of the
society whereby “the parts order themselves to the whole and to one
another”92 in service of the common good. As such, it is one of the
formal causes of the church. As the first condition for true reform in
the church, then, “the primacy of charity” connotes active association
with the very essence of the church. Thus, there can be no question of
separation from the church in a true reform. Charity, likewise, entails
the ordering of the church society as a whole toward its proper end and
therefore naturally requires the reform of any aspect of the life of the
church that departs from the movement toward that end. A commit-
ment to charity necessarily both protects the unity of the church and
supports reform within the church.
In summary, the underlying theology of the church supporting
Congar’s program for reform outlined in True and False Reform in the
Church is the theology he developed through his De Ecclesia project.
As in Divided Christendom, the theological foundation of True and False
Reform in the Church was drawn from his ecclesiology courses and de-
veloping treatise. Each of the four conditions he identified for reform
without schism shows the influence of ideas developed in his unpub-
lished texts. At the same time, however, True and False Reform was an
important complement to his treatise on the church. His brief method-
ological observation on the importance of the incorporation of histor-
ical evidence in achieving an integral ecclesiology reveals why Congar
89. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 261. Congar’s description of the effect of charity
thus demonstrates the relationship between the first and second conditions he gave for
true reform.
91. Ibid., 18.
92. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 263 bis.
brought together speculative and biblical theology in his unpublished

ecclesiology; it also indicates why he felt the need to consider as well
such major historical issues as reform in the church, as he did in this
published work. Although he did not specifically list reform as one of
the issues to be addressed in any of his course outlines, his study of
reform in the life of the church clearly complements his treatise and is
particularly significant given his own personal identification with the
movement for contemporary ecclesiological renewal.
Lay People in the Church (1953)

Congar completed Lay People in the Church in December 1951, having
worked on it for two years.93 It was written after his initial draft of L’Eg-
lise (1948) and coincided with the revisions that he made to the treatise
during the ecclesiology course he taught in the spring of 1951.94 Lay Peo-
ple in the Church was a landmark in modern Catholic theology in that it
offered a serious, theological argument for the vital, active role of the
laity in the church. It also provides an important complement to the un-
published documents that chronicle Congar’s development of his trea-
tise De Ecclesia. The preparatory outlines for the treatise that he began
drafting in 1948 suggest that he intended to cover some of the issues
addressed in Lay People in the Church, but in fact he never developed
those parts of the treatise. Specifically, the outline from 1948 included
a consideration of the baptismal priesthood and “the prophetism of the
entire body,” including “the cooperation of the faithful.”95 In the outline
from 1951, he indicated that a section on “The Members of the Church”
(which had appeared without detail on his outline from 1948) was to
include a specific consideration of the laity in which he would address
“its life according to the three functions of the Church” and “its partic-
ipation in the hierarchical activities according to the three functions,”96
topics that were actually treated in Part II of Lay People in the Church.
Congar wrote that “the whole purpose of [Lay People in the Church]
is to give the elements of a response at the doctrinal level to the need for
93. Lay People in the Church, xvi.

94. Congar had actually begun his development of a theology of the laity prior to be-
ginning Lay People in the Church in 1949. See, e.g., “Sacerdoce et laïcat” (1946) and “Pour
une théologie du laïcat” (1948).
95. L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2. 96. Plan du Traité (1951), 3.
196 Unified Pursuit
giving the laity its full place.”97 He approached his argument for the ac-
tive, vital participation of the laity in the life and mission of the church
from two (not unrelated) directions that reflect the influence of the the-
ology of the church that he developed in writing his treatise De Ecclesia.
First, he appealed to the eschatological status of the church and its sig-
nificance for the church’s mission to the world, with which he associ-
ated the laity (although not to the exclusion of the clergy). Second, he
justified the active participation of the laity in the apostolic mission on
the basis of the very nature of the church, specifically, on the basis of its
instrumental efficient causes (the Holy Spirit and the apostolic body).
In first appealing to the eschatological status of the church, Con-
gar gave a broad theological sketch of God’s plan of salvation as the
context within which the role of the laity in the church could be rightly
understood. “God’s design as it is revealed throughout the Bible . . . is
to bring mankind into fellowship with his divine life.”98 God’s purpose
is achieved through Jesus Christ, who is “the means devised and put to
work by God to bring about his unconstrained purpose of creation and
fellowship.”99 Thus, he wrote, “the kingdom [of Christ the King] will be
an order of things in which man and creation will be conformed to the
will of God.”100 However, scripture also reveals that God’s plan “shall
be unfolded in two times,”101 such that the church exists in between
Christ’s work of salvation and the coming of the kingdom in its full-
ness. One of the characteristics of the time between those times is “a
duality of Church and world”: while Christ is king over all creation, in
the present age he reigns only over the church, which is “made up of
those who by faith choose to submit to him.”102
Congar then added: “In God’s unitary design the Church and the
world are both ordered to this Kingdom in the end, but by different
ways and on different accounts.”103 The church cooperates in establish-
ing the kingdom, while the world seeks the wholeness and reconcilia-
tion of the kingdom. Both the hierarchy and all the faithful participate
in building up the kingdom in the church and in the world. “The hi-
erarchy exercises the mediation of the means of grace between Christ
97. Lay People in the Church, 343. 98. Ibid., 59.

99. Ibid., 65 (emphasis in the original). 100. Ibid., 66.
101. Ibid., 67. 102. Ibid., 79.
103. Ibid., 95.
and the faithful; the latter exercise a mediation of life between the Body
of Christ and the World, and this also is a means of grace in its order.
The world is drawn to Christ in and through the faithful, its human
part to be transformed in him, its cosmic part to find its end in him.”104
These mediations are based on “a double participation in Christ’s mes-
sianic energies” as priest, prophet, and king by the hierarchy and the
faithful, respectively.105 Earlier in Lay People in the Church, Congar had
described lay people as “Christians in the world, there to do God’s work
in so far as it must be done in and through the work of the world.”106
Having clarified the nature of God’s work, he showed that their pres-
ence in the world particularly suits them for the role of mediators of
life between the body of Christ and the world.
This summary of the theological framework that Congar elaborated
in chapter 3 of Lay People in the Church shows signs of the influence of
his treatise De Ecclesia on his theology of the laity. The key elements
of his argument—the eschatological status of the church, the duality
between church and world, and the church’s mission to the world—
are all themes that Congar developed in L’Eglise (1948). Likewise, the
notion of the participation of the whole ecclesial body in the priestly,
kingly, and prophetic powers of Christ that is the premise of Part II of
Lay People in the Church first appeared in his Cours sur l’Eglise (1941)
and was an aspect of the ecclesiology that he planned to develop more
fully in the treatise he began writing in 1948.107 On the basis of these
points Congar was able to develop his argument in Lay People in the
Church for the necessity of the active participation of the laity in the
church’s life and mission. As a consequence of the church’s eschato-
logical status, whereby Christ exercises his kingship presently only
over the church and not over the world, it is necessary that Christ’s
mission be extended to the world. Because both the hierarchy and the
faithful share in the powers of Christ and receive the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, they are both able to participate in Christ’s mission. Congar con-
cluded that the laity are best situated to exercise that mission in the
world and must be recognized as having an active participation in the
life and mission of the church.108
104. Ibid., 118. 105. Ibid., 118.

106. Ibid., 19. 107. L’Eglise (1948), outline, 2.
108. Lay People in the Church, 454–55.
A second argument in Lay People in the Church for the active partic-
ipation of the laity in the life and mission of the church is based on an
understanding of the dual mission of the Holy Spirit and the apostolic
body as the instrumental efficient cause of the church. As was seen
earlier, in his first ecclesiology course in 1932–1933, Congar recognized
the efficient causality of the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy and acknowl-
edged the perceived tension between their two missions. In 1945, he
reframed his presentation of the instrumental efficient causality of
the church, proposing instead that the Spirit and the apostolic body
are sent by Christ in a single mission, carried out under two modes.
In drafting L’Eglise (1948), he struggled to explain the relationship be-
tween the two modes. He placed the double mission of the Holy Spirit
and the apostolic body in the context of God’s plan of salvation as re-
vealed in scripture and integrated biblical and speculative theology to
explain the double mission in a way that finally found expression as
follows: “There is a duality of agents (or of missions) that promote the
work of Christ: the Spirit working internally, with a divine efficacious-
ness, what the apostolic ministry effects externally.”109
In Lay People in the Church, Congar constructed an argument for the
cooperation of all the faithful in the mission of the church based on this
understanding of the efficient causation of the church. Given the uni-
versal mission of the Holy Spirit, who is given to all in the church, he
concluded that “all the faithful in their own way are given a mission to
build up the Body of Christ and bring it new members, being refreshed
and guided by the same Spirit and endowed by him with the spiritual
gifts.”110 Because, however, the mission of the Holy Spirit and that of
the apostles is, in fact, a single mission, he concluded that “the mission
of the faithful makes them co-operators with and complementary to the
Apostles.”111 Although the mission of the faithful participates in the ap-
ostolic mission in a way different from the way in which the mission of
“ministers” does, “it is none the less given for the same object.”112
This argument for the sharing by all the faithful in the apostolic
109. Yves Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the
Church, 144, originally published in two parts, “Le Saint-Esprit et le Corps apostolique,
réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 36
(1952): 613–25, and 37 (1953): 24–48, 144.
110. Lay People in the Church, 354. 111. Ibid., 355.
112. Ibid.
mission is derived from the very nature of the church. Nothing less
than the efficient cause itself of the church establishes the participa-
tion. The very means by which the church exists inherently entails a
sharing in the apostolic mission by all the faithful. The strength of
Congar’s argument for the participation of all the faithful in the apos-
tolic mission is not fully apparent in Lay People in the Church because
he did not give a complete exposition of the causes of the church on
which his argument was based. Taken in conjunction with his unpub-
lished texts, however, the weight of the argument becomes clear. In Lay
People in the Church, Congar concluded:
Once again we verify this law of the Church’s existence: the inseparable duality
of the hierarchical principle and the communal principle, an hierarchical struc-
ture and a life of the whole body; more: the inseparable duality of the institu-
tion, aggregate of the means of grace, and of life; of what is given to constitute
the Church and of what is given so that, the faithful community being formed,
all its members may bring forth living activities.113
This conclusion was not an exhortation that structure and life should
be inseparable, but simply an assertion of an inescapable “law of the
Church’s existence.” The participation of all the faithful in the apostolic
mission directly follows from the fact that the dual mission of the Holy
Spirit and the apostolic body is the efficient cause of the church.
One critique of Congar’s theology of the laity as presented in Lay
People in the Church has been that it assigns the clergy to the church
and the laity to the world, or to an indeterminate position in between
the church and the world.114 Congar himself rejected such an interpre-
tation, writing, “‘To the cleric the spiritual, to the laity the temporal,’
could only be a caricature or a betrayal of my position.”115 Admittedly,
in Lay People in the Church, Congar frequently reflected on the mission
of the laity in the world, particularly in terms of the activities of Cath-
olic Action.116 As described above, the eschatological imperative of the
113. Ibid.
114. Pellitero, La Teología del laicado en la obra de Yves Congar, 152, and Famerée, L’Ec-
clésiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II, 207–10. Both theologians draw the same conclu-
sion regarding Congar’s position, with which Pellitero personally agrees, while Famerée
is critical.
115. Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” Jurist 32
(1972): 173. Here, Congar referred to his position in all previous publications, including
Lay People in the Church.
116. Lay People in the Church, 362–99.
church’s mission to the world was one of the theological justifications

for Congar’s assertion of the necessarily active, vital role of the laity in
the church. However, the mission to the world and the participation of
the laity in that mission emanates from within the church itself, as the
second argument makes clear, thus showing that the laity have a full
role in the life of the church and not just in its mission to the world.
Congar’s understanding of this role is clear from his explanation of the
efficient cause of the church in his De Ecclesia. Knowledge of that ec-
clesiology clarifies why Congar assessed his position quite differently
from his critics, who drew their understanding of his thinking only
from his published work.
Assessment
While Congar’s published works and his unpublished De Ecclesia se-
ries separately manifest his consistent desire for a total ecclesiology
throughout the first half of his career, the published and unpublished
texts are actually complementary and, taken together, enable a stronger
and more integrated vision of that goal to emerge. Congar’s published
works give evidence of his desire for a total ecclesiology, but his unpub-
lished documents amply testify to his active effort to construct a total
ecclesiology and show the method he used to do so. The theology of the
church that he developed in the course of his De Ecclesia project un-
derpinned the major ecclesiological texts that he published in the first
half of his career. Most notably, that theology provided the foundation
for the texts on ecumenism, ecclesial reform, and the theology of the
laity that he wrote in those years. At the same time, Congar’s published
works are an important complement to the unpublished documents
examined in this study. One of the limitations of the De Ecclesia project
was Congar’s consistent failure to address specific issues regarding the
life of the church. This shortfall distanced his unpublished ecclesiology
from the pressing questions of the day that were such a significant cat-
alyst for his theological reflection as a whole. Congar’s published works
fill the gap in his De Ecclesia project and show how the total, integral
ecclesiology he worked to construct did, in fact, support consideration
of specific issues regarding the life of the church, in accordance with
his aim in the project.
• CONCLUSION
This study has traced the development of Yves Congar’s notion of a

total ecclesiology and his active attempts to construct such an ecclesi-
ology from his earliest days as a theologian until his removal from the
faculty of Le Saulchoir in 1954. At that time, with the suspension of
his teaching activities, Congar also ceased drafting and revising the un-
finished manuscript of his treatise De Ecclesia, although he continued
to gather notes and references for the treatise until as late at 1971. In
1970, he gave a succinct account of his pursuit of a total ecclesiology:
In the introduction to Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat I wrote . . . “At bottom
there can only be one sound and sufficient theology of the laity, and that is a
‘total ecclesiology.’” I have not written that ecclesiology. It was during my days
as a student brother in 1928–1929 that I first conceived the ambition of writing
a treatise on the Church, but it will probably never be written.1
Congar’s project to write a treatise De Ecclesia was interrupted by

his removal from Le Saulchoir in 1954. In his years of exile in Jeru-
salem, Rome, Cambridge, and Strasbourg, his access to his research
notes appears to have been limited. Additionally, he was no longer
teaching the courses De Ecclesia that had been crucial to the develop-
ment and drafting of his treatise. Perhaps also, while he had not been
proscribed from writing, the likelihood that he would be allowed to
1. “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” 169 (text dated 1970).
201
202 C onclusion
publish his treatise was in question, in light of the scrutiny to which

his work was now subjected by Roman censors prior to being granted
approval for publication. There are thus various possible practical rea-
sons for the noncompletion of his treatise in the 1950s. However, Con-
gar’s firm statement of 1970 after a decade of renewed intense activity
requires explanation.
In July 1960, Congar was named as an expert to the preparatory
commissions for the Second Vatican Council. He continued to serve as
an expert to the council until its close in December 1965. During those
years, his effort was devoted largely to supporting the council both in
his official capacity as a peritus and more generally in his work as a
theologian. He contributed to collections of articles on issues of inter-
est to the council fathers, including the volumes L’Episcopat et l’Eglise
universelle and Les Laïcs et la mission de l’Église, and his continued com-
mitment to a total ecclesiology is apparent in the latter text.2 He wrote
about the laity in the church: “A laicology can only be a particular slice
taken from a total ecclesiology [une ecclésiologie totale]. It is thus very im-
portant that it be connected to the most general, most enveloping, and
most totalizing [totalisantes] affirmations concerning the mystery of the
Church.”3 In a companion article on the church, Congar spoke of “a
veritable ‘renewal’ of the theology of the Church underway today.”4 He
described the renewed ecclesiology in terms reminiscent of the themes
he had developed in his courses and in his unfinished treatise De Ec-
clesia:
2. Yves Congar and B.-D. Dupuy, L’Episcopat et l’Eglise universelle, Unam Sanctam 39
(Paris: Cerf, 1962), and Yves Congar, “Le laïcat et histoire,” in Les Laïcs et la mission de l’Eg-
lise, ed. Jean Daniélou, 11–38 (Paris: Centurion, 1962). The article was originally published
in two parts in the Bulletin du Cercle Saint Jean-Baptiste (October–November 1961): 15–22,
and (December 1961): 15–26. Daniélou described the book as a collection of articles from
the Bulletin published in response to the announcement that the Second Vatican Council
would include the apostolate of the laity among its principal themes. It is unclear whether
the articles were originally published in response to the preparation for the council, or
whether Daniélou was referring exclusively to the intention of the volume he edited. Con-
gar’s article was also published in German in the Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe,
ed. H. Fries, 2:7–25 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1962), and in the French translation of the
Handbuch, Encyclopédie de la Foi, vol. 2, ed. H. Fries (Paris: Cerf, 1965). The only alteration
made to the article in the version from 1965 is the inclusion of updated sources to the
bibliography. Citations provided here are to the Encyclopédie de la Foi edition of the article,
entitled “Laïc.”
3. “Laïc,” 444 (emphasis mine).
4. “Église II,” 430.
C onclusion 203
A fully catholic renewal, not a revolution, and therefore, a new elaboration by

a return to the perennial great sources: the Bible, the Fathers, liturgy, Tradi-
tion and the life of the Church, guided by the magisterium. The biblical source
in particular returned the notion of the people of God and the eschatological
sense to the exchange of ideas; the patristic source, the notion of communion;
the liturgical source, that of a consecrated people, of community, and of “mys-
tery”; lastly, the current awareness of the pastoral situation, the dynamic sense
of mission. The works of E. Mersch, H. de Lubac, S. Tromp, Ch. Journet, M.
Schmaus, Y. M.-J. Congar, to name just a few, attempt an integrating synthesis
of the theology of the mystical Body, of society and hierarchy, of laity, of the
problems of ecumenism, of missionary development, of the sacramental no-
tion of the Church, [and] its eschatological end.5
These texts demonstrate that though Congar had suspended work on

the draft of his treatise De Ecclesia, he had by no means set aside his
conviction that a total ecclesiology was the necessary framework for
considering issues concerning the church.
Nevertheless, following the council, Congar apparently decided not
to complete his treatise. The most significant factor in that decision
was probably the teaching of the council itself in the realm of eccle-
siology. Congar’s original intention in writing a treatise had been to
construct a total ecclesiology that would provide an integral synthesis
of the mystery of the church in all its dimensions. Reporting from
Rome on November 1, 1963, he announced that the council fathers
were themselves moving “toward a total ecclesiology.”6 His statement
followed the discussion of the chapter of the schema De Ecclesia enti-
tled “Concerning the People of God and in Particular the Laity.”7 He
considered the inclusion of a chapter describing the laity as integral
to the life of the church significant evidence of the movement toward
5. Ibid., 430–31 (emphasis in the original).

6. “Vers une ecclésiologie totale,” 107. The discussion of chapter 3 of the schema De
Ecclesia took place October 16–25, 1963. Congar’s report, dated November 1, was part of
a series of articles written by him and published by Informations Catholiques Internatio-
nales during the council.
7. This chapter was later split into two separate chapters, one on “The People of God”
and one on “The Laity,” at the initiative of Cardinal Suenens (History of Vatican II, vol. 4:
Church as Communion, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak [Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis Books, 2003], 43). The consideration of the church as the people of God was then
inserted into the schema De Ecclesia as chapter 2, prior to the separate considerations of
the hierarchy and the laity given in chapters 3 and 4, respectively. Congar subsequently
indicated that the content and placement of Lumen Gentium’s chapter 2, “The People of
God” was one of the most important decisions of the council.
204 C onclusion
a total ecclesiology, within which a true theology of the laity could take
its place.
Although Congar’s announcement of the advent of a total ecclesi-
ology in the work of the council was prompted by the discussion of the
chapter on the laity in the schema De Ecclesia in October 1963, he con-
sidered the real turning point in the council’s rejection of hierarchol-
ogy to have come months earlier, during a series of meetings held in
March 1963 for the purpose of redrafting the original schema De Eccle-
sia that had been written during the preparatory phase of the council.
The original schema De Ecclesia had been drafted by the Theologi-
cal Commission, to which Congar was a consultor.8 Despite his partic-
ipation, the schema as a whole was a continuation of the Roman eccle-
siology Congar thoroughly opposed. The preparatory process had been
dominated by the Holy Office, especially by Cardinal Alfredo Ottavi-
ani, its prefect, and by Archbishop Pietro Parente and Father Sebastian
Tromp, respectively assessor and consultor to the Holy Office. Congar
felt that Tromp, working for Ottaviani, had directed and controlled the
entire process of drafting the schema on the church. During the prepa-
ratory period, hopes raised by the announcement of the council were so
far from being realized that Congar himself wrote to Pope John XXIII
in July 1961, specifically lamenting the opportunity being lost on the
ecumenical front, given the lack of communication between the Theo-
logical Commission (the work of which Congar believed Cardinal Ot-
taviani saw as “an extension of the Holy Office”) and the newly created
Secretariat for Christian Unity, headed by Augustin Bea.9 In September
1961, Karl Delhaye and Henri de Lubac, who also served as consultors
to the preparatory Theological Commission, both confided to Congar
their desire to withdraw as a result of the process the preparatory com-
missions had followed.10 The Roman system remained in control, and
it seemed that the council would be a rearticulation of all that Congar
found unacceptable in Roman ecclesiology.
8. My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne and Mary Cecily Boulding
(Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 2012), 45–46. The account of the council presented
here reflects Congar’s own experience and journal entries. For a more objective account
drawn from multiple sources, see The History of Vatican II, vols. 1–5, ed. Giuseppe Alberi-
go and Joseph Komonchak (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995–2006).
9. My Journal of the Council, 47
10. Ibid., 59 and 63.
C onclusion 205
The council opened on October 11, 1962. At the first General Con-
gregation of the Council, Congar took encouragement from what he
saw as an immediate shift in the balance of power between the curia
and the bishops. The secretary general of the council, Pericle Felici,
opened the process for the election of bishops to the ten conciliar com-
missions. The council fathers had been provided with ballots and a
list of the bishops who had served on the corresponding preparatory
commissions. Congar thought it likely that many of the council fathers
would simply reinstate the preparatory commissions as the conciliar
commissions, thereby continuing the predominance of the curia and
of the theology and practices of the Roman system, which had been
a feature of the preparatory phase. Instead, Cardinal Achille Liénart,
bishop of Lille, proposed that elections be postponed such that the
bishops could meet with one another and submit their nominations
through the national episcopal conferences. The proposal was warmly
accepted, and Congar concluded, “The council itself could well be very
different from its preparation.”11
Congar’s hopes were fulfilled. On December 1, 1962, the council
fathers began discussion of the original schema De Ecclesia, drafted by
the preparatory Theological Commission. Substantial criticisms were
made of the text, especially of those aspects of it that corresponded to
what Congar had described as hierarchology. The text was criticized
for its excessive clericalism and juridicism. It was overly centered on
Rome, failed to give a full place to the laity, and gave insufficient atten-
tion to ecumenism and the pursuit of unity. Many of the critical state-
ments reflected the same desire for a more complete integration of the
dimensions of the church that had driven Congar’s pursuit of a total
ecclesiology for decades.12
In light of the council fathers’ response to the original draft, a new
schema De Ecclesia was drafted during meetings held under the lead-
ership of Cardinal Léon-J. Suenens, archbishop of Brussels-Malines,
in the months between the first and second sessions of the council.
Congar participated in several preliminary meetings with bishops and
theologians in the Netherlands, Germany, and France and served on
11. Ibid., 92.

12. For Congar’s account of the debate on the original schema De Ecclesia, see ibid.,
223–47.
206 C onclusion
the subcommission of the conciliar Theological Commission respon-

sible for the new draft. While in Rome in March 1963 for meetings of
the Theological Commission and the subcommission drafting the new
schema, Congar saw the representatives of the Holy Office (Ottaviani,
Parente, and Tromp) repeatedly outvoted and their proposals reject-
ed. “The real battle,” he wrote significantly, “is between the Curia and
above all the ‘Holy Office,’ and the Ecclesia.”13 This way of describing
the two opponents strongly suggests a confrontation between “hierar-
chology” and “total ecclesiology.”
By the end of the meetings of the Theological Commission in mid-
March 1963, it was clear to Congar that the Roman ecclesiology would
not prevail. One of the most visible indications of the demise of hierar-
chology was Sebastian Tromp’s loss of influence during the redrafting
process. Tromp had long personified the Roman system for Congar.
During Congar’s visit to Rome with Féret in 1946, it had been Tromp
who had warned Congar of the dangers of ecumenism. As the recog-
nized author of the papal encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943), Tromp oc-
cupied a position of irreproachable esteem in Rome. In the 1940s and
1950s, Congar had felt himself barred from direct criticism of Tromp’s
theological positions and had to resort to oblique statements intended
to distance himself from Tromp’s theological positions.14 Most recent-
ly, it had been Tromp who had controlled the preparatory Theological
Commission’s draft of the schema De Ecclesia.
By mid-March 1963, however, it was apparent that the theology of
the church espoused by Tromp would not prevail at the council. Cardi-
nal Ottaviani was said to have blamed the unacceptable draft produced
by the preparatory commission on Tromp and, in Congar’s judgment,
had shifted his confidence to Gérard Philips, a professor of theology
at Louvain, of whom Congar himself had a very high opinion.15 On
March 13, 1963, at the close of the final Theological Commission meet-
ing for the discussion of the newly drafted chapters 1 and 2 of the sche-
13. Ibid., 271.

14. Yves Congar, “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie” (1970), Revue des Sciences philosophiques
et théologiques 54 (1970): 112n26. Congar explained that his article “Ecclesia ab Abel,” in
Abhandlungen über Theologie und Kirche, 79–108 (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1952), “was
an indirect way of distancing ourselves from the doctrine of Fr. Tromp and, in a sense,
from Mystici Corporis at a time when it was impossible to criticize it directly.”
15. My Journal of the Council, 282.
C onclusion 207
ma, Ottaviani singled out Philips when thanking the participants for
their work. Congar recorded the incident, writing, “I said to Fr. Tromp
that he too deserved a thank-you. He answered me with a weary ges-
ture accompanied by something that sounded like a sob. In fact, he has
in a sense been set aside. . . . The scepter has passed to other hands.”16
Tromp’s influence in the drafting process had been curtailed not only
by those who opposed the Roman view of the church, but by Ottaviani
himself. Tromp’s defeat marked the defeat of the effort by the Roman
system to impose its ecclesiology on the church through the teaching
of the council.17
In the council’s second session, the new orientation taken during
the intersession in presenting the theology of the church was wel-
comed by the council fathers as a whole. One of the significant devel-
opments was the prominence given to the image of the church as the
people of God. At the beginning of the second session, discussion on
De Ecclesia immediately got underway. Congar wrote, “A desire for a
synthetic and organic presentation is increasingly affirmed.”18 In con-
trast to the disagreement over what to include and how to proceed ex-
perienced during the first session, he added, “We have passed increas-
ingly from an analytic theology and a partial teaching to a presentation
of the whole [un exposé d’ensemble].”19
From October 16 to 25, 1963, the third chapter of the schema,
“Concerning the People of God and in Particular the Laity,” was dis-
cussed by the council fathers. It was after that discussion that Congar
reported from Rome that the council fathers were moving “toward a to-
tal ecclesiology.”20 In a variety of ways, the council fathers were setting
aside the hierarchology of the Roman system and adopting an ecclesi-
ology that integrated more fully the whole mystery of the church.21 The
movement he discerned toward a total ecclesiology was characterized
16. Ibid.
17. On the defeat of the Roman system, see ibid., 263, where Congar recorded
Daniélou’s assessment that “now they [the men of the Holy Office] are defeated,” and 292,
where Congar himself concludes that the efforts of the Holy Office and the Romans have
been set aside, “so that the Ecclesia can really and truly express itself.”
18. “Réouverture du Concile,” in Le Concile au jour le jour, vol. 2: Deuxième session, 86
(dated 4 October 1963).
19. Ibid.
20. “Vers une ecclésiologie totale,” 107.
21. The title of chapter 1 of the second draft of the schema De Ecclesia under consid-
208 C onclusion
by a departure from the hierarchology of the past, but also by the in-
corporation of an anthropology and a theology of the church’s mission,
as well as a chapter on the ecclesial life of the laity, into the council’s
ecclesiology.
Congar once again described the previously dominant hierarcholo-
gy: “an ecclesiology which does not include anthropology, a church that
stands for itself, for the solidity of its own armature, and could almost
do without Christian men.”22 The council had demonstrated an over-
whelming desire for “a primacy given to the sacramental over the jurid-
ical, to Christian ontology or the spiritual reality of the Christian man
over the structures of service and command” within the church.23 This
primacy was not a rejection of the juridical or the structural dimensions
of the church, but rather a prioritization that corrected the imbalances
suffered under the substitution of hierarchology for ecclesiology. Only
a very few voices continued to support the Roman ecclesiology.
Congar subtitled his article “No Ecclesiology without Anthropolo-
gy: A Theology of the Laity.”24 He believed the council was endorsing a
true theology of the laity:
Just the fact that there has been no desire to draft a schema on the Church
without including in it a substantial chapter on the laity is already significant;
still more significant is the fact that, far from appearing confined within it to
the tasks at the border between the spiritual and the temporal, the laity look to
affirm their place and their role within the whole mystical life of the Church.25
Such a theology of the laity implied “the fundamental equality of all

within Christian dignity.”26 That common understanding of the Chris-
tian person prior to distinctions such as differences between the lay or
clerical state was fundamental to Congar’s vision of a total ecclesiolo-
gy, as seen in his description of consideration of the material cause of
the church as an “ecclesiological anthropology” in his draft treatise in
1948. At the council, the church’s mission was also emerging more
fully as an ecclesial dimension. Council discussion was marked by a
eration in October 1963, “The Mystery of the Church,” itself indicates that the council
fathers had taken the full mystery of the Church as the object of the schema, as had been
Congar’s desire with regard to his own work since the early 1930s.
22. “Vers une ecclésiologie totale,” 108.
23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 107.
25. Ibid., 108. 26. Ibid.
C onclusion 209
desire to speak of the church in terms of its relation to the world (a

theme ultimately taken up in Gaudium et Spes), as Congar himself had
done in his unfinished draft treatise.27
Thus, in a very brief and nontechnical article, Congar presented the
council’s emerging theology of the church as a total ecclesiology that
gave full place to the laity, to anthropology, and to the church’s mis-
sion in the world. Gone was the apologetic account of the church that
focused nearly exclusively on the structure and authority of ecclesial
leadership. In its place was a new sense of the church as made up of
human beings all called to an active participation in the life of God.
Congar believed that the integral ecclesiology for which he had worked
since his earliest days as a theologian was finally being taken up by the
bishops and seemed poised to enter the church’s authoritative teaching
about its own nature and purpose.
In the week following the publication of his article “Toward a Total
Ecclesiology,” Congar presented a paper to the French Catholic Intel-
lectuals Week, an event sponsored by the Catholic Center of French In-
tellectuals, in which he gave a fuller theological account of the council’s
turn to a total ecclesiology. His paper on “The Future of the Church”
drew together themes that had been related to his pursuit of a total
ecclesiology over more than thirty years, for example, the need for on-
going reform in the church; the role and place of the laity as integral
members of the church; and the composite image of the church as peo-
ple of God, body of Christ, and temple of the Holy Spirit. As to the
current status of Catholic ecclesiology, Congar wrote:
The conscience of the Church as it spoke through the Vatican Council in Oc-
tober of 1963 gives precedence to the ontology of grace over institutions of ec-
clesiastical law and office, which are not thereby repudiated but only relegated
to their proper place in the service of an order of being (grace), a supernatural
reality having a sacramental basis. The Church becomes once again the People
of God, made up of Christians, and not merely a juridical entity, a moral per-
son, possessor of rights, able, if necessary, to exist by itself without the whole
Christian people. We rediscover this notion in the writings of the Fathers, in
the liturgy, and, of course, in the New Testament only by a serious study of the
texts. I believe it cannot better be described than by calling it an ecclesiology
which encompasses a Christian anthropology, or else by a term I referred to
27. Ibid., 109.

210 C onclusion
before, ontology of grace, an order of being manifested by a Church made up of

Christians, the baptized, who offer their lives and actions as a spiritual sacrifice
and live in the spirit of the Gospel.28
The council’s ecclesiology was part of movement whereby the church

was “abandoning the juridicism that has pervaded the very modes of
thought from the end of the thirteenth century onwards,” and replac-
ing it with the principles of a total ecclesiology as Congar had long en-
visioned it.29
In large part, therefore, Congar’s aspiration for a total ecclesiology
was achieved by the work of the council, particularly in its Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, promulgated in Novem-
ber 1964, which Congar himself helped to draft. In a number of im-
portant ways, Lumen Gentium articulated the ecclesiology that Congar
had attempted to construct in his treatise. First, Lumen Gentium begins
with a consideration of “The Mystery of the Church.” Congar’s primary
intention for his ecclesiology from the start was that its object be the
mystery of the church in all its dimensions. In his Thèse du Lectorat
(1931), he had written that a theological treatise De Ecclesia would take
as its perspective the consideration of “the mystery in itself”30 consid-
ered “from God’s point of view: God is immediately present here be-
cause the Church is the society of God extended to man through Jesus
Christ in the Spirit of love.”31 This is precisely the perspective taken
by the council in Lumen Gentium, which describes the mystery of the
church in terms of the restoration by Christ of humankind’s share in
God’s life such that, through the sanctification of the church by the
28. Yves Congar, “The Future of the Church,” in Ecumenism and the Future of the
Church (Chicago: Priory Press, 1967), 165. Originally published as “L’avenir de l’Église,”
in L’Avenir, Actes de la Semaine des Intellectuels catholiques 1963, 207–21 (Paris, 1964).
These images for the church comprised the title of his incomplete treatise: L’Eglise, Peu-
ple de Dieu, Corps du Christ, et Temple du Saint Esprit. Congar made a similar statement
in mid-October 1963, although with a greater sense of the work being still in progress:
“Progressively, a sacramental structure, that is to say a structure of Christian ontology or
existence, is taking the lead, without suppressing it under the juridical structure that was
attributed principally to the Church” (Yves Congar, “Le Concile s’interroge sur l’Église et
l’épiscopat,” in Le Concile au jour le jour, vol. 2: Deuxième session, 96). See also Yves Congar,
“Août 1964: Perspectives à la veille de la troisième session,” in Le Concile au jour le jour,
vol. 3: Troisième session (Paris: Cerf, 1965), 10.
29. “The Future of the Church,” 165.
31. Ibid.
C onclusion 211
Spirit, “those who believe might have access through Christ in one
Spirit to the Father.”32
Second, the first chapter of Lumen Gentium introduces other themes
familiar from Congar’s treatise De Ecclesia. The conciliar text invokes
multiple images for the church taken from the revelation of God’s
plan of salvation in the Old and New Testaments, especially that of the
church as the body of Christ.33 It also describes the church as a “com-
plex reality,” using language similar to that used by Congar when he
described the “two zones” and the “dual reality” in the church as well as
its theanthropic character: “The society structured with hierarchical or-
gans and the mystical body of Christ, the visible society and the spiritual
community, the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly
riches, are not to be thought of as two realities. On the contrary, they
form one complex reality which comes together from a human and a di-
vine element.”34 Thus, without using Congar’s terminology of dialectic
and integration, the conciliar text sets forth the same claim that Congar
advanced in his draft treatise De Ecclesia, namely that the church must
be regarded as both institution and communion.
Third, Congar considered the content and placement of the second
chapter of Lumen Gentium on the “People of God” one of the most im-
portant achievements of Vatican II.35 He considered it to represent the
council’s commitment “to recognizing the priority and even the prima-
cy of the ontology of grace, which makes a man Christian, over organi-
zational structures and hierarchical positions.”36 Thus, he wrote, “It is
a fact that we are emerging from a predominantly juridical view of the
Church.”37
Vatican II has eliminated juridicism in more than one way. . . . One of its most
decisive steps in this direction was the chapter on the People of God and the
place assigned it between the explanation of the mystery of the Church (that
Church linked to its divine causes) and the chapter devoted to the hierarchi-
cal constitution of the Church. This meant that the most profound value is
not what makes the Church a society, “societas inequalis, hierarchica,” but what
32. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §4.

33. Ibid. §5–7. 34. Ibid. §8.
35. Yves Congar, “The People of God,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. John
H. Miller (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 197, and Yves Congar,
“The Church: The People of God,” Concilium 1 (1965): 7–8
36. “The People of God,” 198. 37. Ibid., 199.
212 C onclusion
makes it a community through the participation of a great number of people in

the same goods of divine life. Hence, the first value is not organization, media-
torial functions, or authority, but the Christian life itself and being a disciple.38
This chapter, then, was for Congar perhaps the most definitive in-
dication of the council’s rejection of the hierarchology that had previ-
ously dominated Catholic ecclesiology. Rather than understanding the
church primarily as the hierarchy, the council instead recognized it
first of all as the entire people of God. The people of God had become
an important image for the church in Congar’s ecclesiology courses in
1941, when it replaced his more general image of the church as soci-
ety with the specific reality of the church as the people called through-
out salvation history to share in God’s life. In 1948, he had given his
draft treatise the title L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ. Chap-
ters 1 and 2 of Lumen Gentium bring together these two images of the
church—as the people of God and the body of Christ. Congar later
added the image of the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit to his
treatise; Lumen Gentium echoes Congar’s threefold title for his treatise
at the end of its chapter on the people of God: “Thus the Church prays
and likewise labors so that into the People of God, the Body of the Lord
and the Temple of the Holy Spirit, may pass the fullness of the whole
world.”39
Fourth, Lumen Gentium’s chapter 4, on the laity, also incorporated
elements important for a total ecclesiology. The conciliar text asserts
that all the faithful, by virtue of their baptism, “share the priestly, pro-
phetic and kingly office of Christ, and to the best of their ability carry
on the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in
the world.”40 This notion is familiar from Congar’s published text, Lay
People in the Church; he likewise planned to address the participation
of all the church in the powers of Christ in the draft treatise he began
in 1948.
Lastly, Lumen Gentium reflects on the eschatological status of the
church, which Congar had considered to be pivotal in the construction
of an ecclesiology since as as early as 1948, in two chapters. In chapter
1, on the mystery of the church, Lumen Gentium asserts that “the Lord
38. Ibid., 199–200.

39. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §17.
40. Ibid. §31.
C onclusion 213
Jesus inaugurated his Church by preaching the Good News, that is, the
coming of the kingdom of God.”41 Thus, the kingdom has come and
is revealed in Christ. At the same time, the church is “on earth, the
seed and the beginning of that kingdom,”42 which it is to proclaim and
establish on earth. Thus, “the Church longs for the completed king-
dom and, with all her strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory
with her king.”43 In Chapter 7, on the pilgrim church, Lumen Gentium
asserts that “the Church . . . will receive its perfection only in the glory
of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things.”44 It
continues: “However, until there be realized new heavens and a new
earth in which justice dwells the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and
institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this
world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the crea-
tures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons
of God.”45 Although Lumen Gentium does not give attention to the es-
chatological status of the church as the cause of its internal dialectic
tensions—tensions that it does not detail as Congar did—the conciliar
text does recognize in the passages above the in-between status of the
church in such a way as to avoid the triumphalism that Congar found
in some neoscholastic theology and attributed to an insufficient sense
of the church’s eschatological status.
For all the many similarities noted above between Congar’s trea-
tise De Ecclesia and Lumen Gentium, one notable distinction between
them may further explain Congar’s decision not to complete his trea-
tise. Lumen Gentium makes no reference to the scholastic doctrine of
causation in its theology of the church, whereas for decades Congar
had constructed his ecclesiology using the four causes of the church
in an attempt to integrate speculative and biblical theology. Thus, the
specific method of his treatise was, in a sense, rendered obsolete by
the council’s text. It was no longer necessary to uphold the continui-
ty between neoscholastic theology and his total ecclesiology, as he had
sought to do with the four causes, because the council had set aside the
neoscholastic philosophical structure in favor of a stronger appeal to
biblical and patristic sources.
41. Ibid. §5. 42. Ibid.

43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. §48.
45. Ibid.
214 C onclusion
In its main lines, the Second Vatican Council achieved the eccle-
siology that Congar had sought for decades: the church’s prevailing
ecclesiology became one that allowed the incorporation of all the di-
mensions of the mystery of the church, especially its communal aspect.
With the promulgation of Lumen Gentium, Congar no longer needed to
publish a treatise De Ecclesia that would replace “hierarchology” with “a
whole ecclesiological synthesis wherein the mystery of the Church has
been given all its dimensions.”46 The council itself had replaced hier-
archology with a constitution on the church that, while not a perfectly
complete ecclesiology, nonetheless firmly established the framework of
the total ecclesiology that Congar had sought. In doing so, the council
changed the context for Catholic ecclesiology such that Congar no lon-
ger had to argue for ecclesiological renewal as though from a minority
position. Instead, he worked at length to support the interpretation and
reception of the council documents, particularly Lumen Gentium, after
the council.
The paradigm shift initiated by the council was, however, only a
beginning. Near the end of his career, Congar reflected that “the Coun-
cil left to the historians and the theologians the task of developing a
theology of the Church.”47 This had been his impression since the days
of the council: Vatican II had established the framework of a total ec-
clesiology, but the work of fleshing out that framework remained to be
done. He deemed the notion that the close of the council marked an
end-state for ecclesiology “absurd.”48 Examples of specific dimensions
of the church requiring further development included: the active par-
ticipation and responsibility of the laity in the church; the idea of com-
munion and community, incorporating the Eastern notion of sobornost,
applied both to the episcopal college and to the church community as
a whole; anthropology; pneumatology; ministry, ecumenism, and mis-
sion; the local and the universal church; and the question of primacy.49

47. Yves Congar, “Les théologiens, Vatican II et la théologie,” in Le Concile de Vatican
II, 81, originally published in Vingt ans de notre histoire, ed. G. Defois, 171–93 (Paris: n.p.,
1982).
48. Jean Puyo, 131.
49. Yves Congar, “Laity,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. John H. Miller
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 277; Yves Congar, “L’Apostolat des
laïcs d’après le Decrét du Concile,” La Vie spirituelle (February 1967): 146; Yves Congar,
“Entretien avec le Père Congar,” in Yves Congar et al., Sept problèmes capitaux de l’Église,
C onclusion 215
In Congar’s judgment, “the task that remains is colossal—an ecclesiol-

ogy of the Church as a single and unique entity, structured in its exis-
tence, as well as of the Church as a communion of particular and local
Churches within this structure.”50 Ironically, after the council, Congar
found himself arguing in defense of the incorporation of the hierarchy
as a necessary part of an ecclesiological synthesis. He criticized what
he saw as a “general tendency” to reject the hierarchy out of preference
for the church’s communal aspect.51 Congar was no more supportive
of an imbalance favoring the life of the church than he had been of
one favoring the structure. Rather than reject the hierarchical aspect of
the church, theologians must find models that bring the hierarchical
and communal principles together in “a more dynamic conception of
unity.”52
The “work still to be done” became the grist for Congar’s theologi-
cal reflection and writing for the rest of his life. The council had given
theologians the necessary framework and license to develop a theology
of the church within the context of a whole ecclesiological synthesis—
in other words, a total ecclesiology. As Congar said, the remaining task
was colossal.
(Paris: Fayard, 1969), 10; Yves Congar, “Church Structures and Councils in the Relations
between East and West,” One in Christ 3 (1975), 241; Jean Puyo, 131; “Les théologiens, Vati-
can II et la théologie,” 81–82.
50. “Church Structures,” 265.
51. Yves Congar, “Unité et pluralisme,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale, 251.
52. Ibid.
• APPENDIX 1
THE ARCHIVES OF THE DOMINICAN

PROVINCE OF FRANCE
Yves Congar’s unpublished papers are held by the Archives of the Dominican
Province of France in Paris, along with his correspondence, books, and other
materials. Congar’s archives are designated as section V.832 in the Dominican
archives. Within section V.832, some of Congar’s papers are further indexed by
type (for example, general papers or correspondence) or sorted chronologically.
Additionally, some papers are stored in dossiers that Congar himself created
during his lifetime (for example, “Liv. II, De Ecclesia”). All the papers used in
this study have been identified by title. The listing below of these documents
includes the section number for Congar’s archives within the larger Dominican
archives (i.e., V.832). Additionally, a document number for texts that have been
further indexed is appended to the V.832 designation (for example, V.832.40
is document 40 in the indexed collection). Where papers have been sorted
chronologically in the archives, the title of the storage box follows the V.832 des-
ignation (for example, papers from 1941 are designated V.832, Box 1939–1945).
The following documents used in this study are found in the Archives of
the Dominican Province of France in the specific locations indicated below:
217
218 Appendix 1 : A rchives
Thèse du Lectorat (1931), V.832, Box 1929–1933.

Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), V.832.40.
Étude de Théologie biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclesiologie de S. Paul
(1932), V.832.
Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), V.832.
De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), V.832.
Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), V.832, Box 1939–1945.
Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), V.832, Box 1939–1945.
L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (1948), V.832, Box 1947–1949 (in-
troduction) and separate folder, “Liv. II, De Ecclesia” (text and notes).
At some point, the introduction to L’Eglise was separated from the rest
of the manuscript. It is presently stored separately in the archives.
Congar labeled the introduction “Cours de 1947,” but the text appears
actually to belong to his course from 1948. The folder labeled “Liv. II,
De Ecclesia” actually contains materials for all the books of the treatise,
as well as outlines for the entire treatise.
Plan du Traité de l’Eglise – Cours de 1951, V.832.
Ordre suivi en 1954, V.832.
Sur la primauté de Pierre dans le NT (1954), V.832, Box 1954.
Prédications et Conférences faites (1930–1968), V.832.
Most of the documents used in the present study were handwritten. Con-
gar frequently added notes to his texts after he wrote them. He often wrote clar-
ifications, alternate phrasing, and source references in the margins of his initial
manuscripts. Such notes appear in the margins of recto leaves and on blank verso
leaves in the initial manuscripts. The notes written by Congar in the margins of
his initial manuscripts are frequently written in different ink from the original
text and can reasonably be taken to be later additions. In his longer, more for-
mal manuscripts (such as his thesis and his course lecture notes), he frequently
wrote only on the recto leaf. The blank verso left ample room for additional notes.
In some cases, it appears that Congar recorded those notes at the same time as
writing the original manuscript, including content similar to that which might
appear in a footnote in a published manuscript, such as source citations. In those
cases, the ink, penmanship, and content are consistent with the initial manu-
script. In many cases, the ink, penmanship, and content of the verso notes are
not consistent with the initial manuscript and are presumed to be later additions.
Congar also added notes to his initial manuscripts by physically attaching
extensions to an original leaf. The flaps affixed to the original leaf gave him
room to write more lengthy additions and corrections to his original text. On
occasion, he attached multiple extensions, sometimes overlapping prior flaps.
In these cases, the sequence of development is apparent from the physical con-
figuration of the leaves.
A ppendi x 1: A rchives 219
Emendations made on extension leaves are generally in a full prose style

and reflect additions Congar wanted to make to his original manuscript. One
benefit of his method of attaching page extensions is that this method leaves
virtually no ambiguity about the precise point at which he intended to insert the
new text into the original manuscript. Likewise, the text on the extensions can
reasonably be judged to postdate the original text.
Congar also made many emendations to his initial manuscripts by insert-
ing loose interleaves between the leaves of the original manuscript. The loose
interleaves found in the documents vary in material, size, and content. Some
are written in full prose style, making an addition or correction to the initial
text or raising a question that Congar felt required resolution. Others are mere
scraps, giving source citations or a brief comment. Some interleaves have an
explicit link to the original manuscript, while others do not.
Explicit links between the loose interleaves and the original manuscripts
take several forms. For example, Congar sometimes labeled the interleaf with
the number of the page in the initial manuscript to which it corresponded. In
these cases, the loose interleaves function in a manner very similar to the ex-
tensions described above. He also labeled interleaves with headings that cor-
responded to headings and topics appearing on the page in the initial manu-
script at which the interleaf was inserted. Loose interleaves that are explicitly
linked in some way to the initial manuscript leave little ambiguity as to which
passage in the initial text they correspond to. Their chronology relative to the
initial text is sometimes uncertain, however. In the case of interleaves linked
by page number to the initial text, the interleaves are reasonably presumed to
postdate the initial manuscript. Interleaves linked to the original manuscript by
common headings are usually presumed to postdate the initial text, although
that sequence is not always certain. In some cases, the content of the inter-
leaf suggests that it contains Congar’s preliminary formulation of an idea, from
which he then wrote the text found in the document, rather than being a later
addition. Where the date of origin of a given note is crucial for the analysis pre-
sented in this study, any uncertainties have been indicated.
Loose interleaves lacking any explicit link to the original manuscript in-
clude the many small slips of paper on which Congar wrote abbreviated source
references or a brief comment. Although the precise relationship between each
such interleaf and the original manuscript is not clear, Congar’s insertion of
notes into his original manuscript was not random. Even those interleaves that
he did not explicitly link to the original manuscript are clearly related to the
topic treated in the pages at the point of their insertion into the leaves of the
original manuscript.
As a result of Congar’s habit of continuing to build on earlier manuscripts,
most documents include materials with different dates of origination. In the
220 A ppendix 1 : A rchives
series of documents related to Congar’s treatise De Ecclesia, documents fall into

two broad categories: those dated by Congar himself and those not dated by
Congar. Among those documents dated by Congar, some carry an inscription
of the date that is consistent with the ink, penmanship, and format of the body
of the text, leading to the conclusion that he dated the manuscript at the time of
writing. In other cases, the inscription of the date is not consistent with the rest
of the document, leading to the conclusion that he wrote the date at a later time.
In both cases, the date is presumed to be correct, unless other evidence strongly
suggests that it is incorrect.
Determination of the date of origination for undated documents is natural-
ly more challenging. All of the major documents in the De Ecclesia series carry
dates inscribed by Congar. Many of the emendations, however, are undated.
Frequently, the date of origination or, at a minimum, the sequence of docu-
ments within a given major document set can be derived. Three techniques
have proven useful to this study in establishing a date ad quem for the orig-
ination of undated documents. First, marginalia physically inconsistent with
the original manuscript, extensions physically attached to the original manu-
script, and loose interleaves linked to the original document by page number
can reasonably be presumed to have a later date of origination than the original
document, as described above. Second, where the emendations included cita-
tions to published texts, the publishing dates of those texts establish the earliest
possible date of origination for Congar’s note.
A third technique for dating individual interleaves is a product of Congar’s
frugal habit of writing his notes on the blank side of scrap paper such as flyers
announcing conferences, surplus forms from the gas company, and envelopes
that he carefully slit to expose the blank interior. Incidental dates such as post-
marks on what was originally the right side of the document indicate the earli-
est possible date of origination for these notes. Congar also used surplus forms
from the gas company, which are distinctive in color and original imprint, for
documents in the De Ecclesia series. Other papers by Congar (outside the De
Ecclesia series) suggest that he used the surplus forms as writing paper from at
least the end of 1948 to at least the beginning of 1950. Although the dating is
not precise, it helps to situate undated documents written on the surplus forms
within the document sets.
• APPENDIX 2
OUTLINES OF DOCUMENTS IN
THE DE ECCLESIA SERIES
1. Thèse du lectorat (Le Saulchoir,1931)1

Intention de cette étude
Bibliographie générale
Introduction; plan général
I. Cause finale et efficiente: Fin et institution de l’Eglise
A. Notre vocation surnaturelle
B. L’Incarnation rédemptrice
C. La fondation d’une Eglise comme établissement de salut
1. caractères généreux de cette Eglise
2. l’Eglise de fait
Excursus: la fondation de l’Eglise à la croix
1. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), i–iii. Text taken from table of contents, with minor editing
to standardize the form of the outline.
221
222 Appendi x 2 : Outlines
II. Cause quasi-formelle et constitution de l’Eglise

A. In communi:
1. la Rôle de la hiérarchie
2. Division et distinction des pouvoirs
Excursus: la distinction des pouvoirs d’ordre et de juridiction, l’Eglise
orthodoxe et la réunion des Eglises
B. In speciali:
3. Le pouvoir d’Ordre
a. Hiérarchies angéliques et hiérarchie Ecclésiastique
i. hiérarchies angéliques
ii. la hiérarchie ecclésiastique
Excursus: Denys et S. Thomas
b. Division de l’Ordre
i. les donnés et les difficultés
ii. remarques générales concernant ces difficultés
iii. division des ordres de la hiérarchie
a. in communi
b. in speciali
iv. l’ordre-sacrement
a. sa nature
b. sa division
c. ses pouvoirs
v. l’Episcopat
a. le pouvoir épiscopal
i. position de la question et principe de solution
ii. l’évêque, dans son pouvoir, est supérieur au prêtre
iii. ce pouvoir supérieur est pouvoir sur le corps mys-
tique
iv. la nature de ce pouvoir: l’évêque prêtre-prince
v. rapport de ce pouvoir à la puissance sacerdotale du
Christ
la rédaction b. la consécration épiscopale
s’arrête là i. est-elle un sacrement?
ii. sa propriété comme consécration au Corps mys-
tique; l’épiscopat état de perfection
Excursus: l’Evêque Époux de l’Eglise
vi. Appendice: l’enseignement d la doctrine comme acte du
pouvoir d’ordre
Excursus: l’“ordo Doctorum”
4. Le pouvoir de gouvernement
a. La Royauté du Christ
b. L’apostolat
A ppendi x 2 : O utlines 223
c. Le Pape
d. Le magistère
i. L’Eglise enseignante
ii. Les Conciles
e. La juridiction
i. législatif
ii. juridiciaire [sic]
iii. coercitif
5. Rapports des pouvoirs d’Ordre et de gouvernement
a. Subordination du gouvernement au sacerdoce
b. Dépendance des actes du sacerdoce par rapport au
gouvernement
6. La constitution de l’Eglise
III. Les propriété, notes et “dotes” de l’Eglise plan de détail encore incertain.
IV. La vie de l’Eglise
A. vie intérieure
B. vie de relations (l’Eglise et l’Etat) etc.
2. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (Le Saulchoir, 1932–1933)2

Introduction
I. Cause finale 3
A. Ce qu’est la fin de l’Eglise
1. présupposés philosophiques
2. Application à l’Eglise
a. Deux zones
b. Bien commun de ces deux Eglises en général
c. Précisions
d. Quelques conséquences
B. Etude biblique: La Révélation de l’Eglise comme le dessein de Dieu de
nous appeler à sa vie
1. L’Alliance (et héritage)
a. Rapide historique des Alliances (textes)
i. avec Noé
ii. avec Abraham
iii. avec Moïse
2. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933). Outline derived from section headings and tables
of contents, with minor editing to standardize the form of the outline and to expand ab-
breviations.
3. Interleaf at Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 33, table of contents.
224 A ppendi x 2 : Outlines
iv. avec les lévites

v. avec David
b. Vue synthétique de l’Alliance
c. La Nouvelle Alliance
i. prédite par les prophètes
ii. réalisée
a. par Jésus-Christ
b. dans l’Eglise
2. Le Règne 4
3. Étude de Théologie biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclésiolo-
gie de S. Paul 5
a. Introduction: le nom εκκλησια: sa richesse et le rapport ju-
ridique de l’Eglise au Christ et au Royaume
b. L’Eglise Corps du Christ et le rapport mystique réel de l’Eglise
du Christ et au Royaume
i. Le fait que les chrétiens ont conscience de former un
société originale
ii. Ce qu’est l’Eglise vis-à-vis de Christ
a. Corps du Christ
i. Premier série de textes: ημεις εν Christ,
Χριστος εν ημιν
ii. Deuxième série: le Christ Κεφαλη
b. Plérome et unité du deux points de vue
iii. Ce qu’est le Christ vis-à-vis de l’Eglise
a. Le Christ chef (en lui-même)
b. Le Christ principe de vie pour nous
iv. Quelques indications sur l’Eglise de fait
a. Les sacrements
b. La hiérarchie
II. Cause matérielle 6
III. Cause efficiente 7
A. Le Christ
1. La Plénitude de grâce du Christ 8
2. Le Christ-Chef 9
4. Congar referred to classes taught by C. Spicq. It appears Congar did not himself
include any lectures on the Kingdom in his course.
5. Étude de Théologie biblique sur “le Corps du Christ” et l’Ecclésiologie de S. Paul (1932), a
separate folio, table of contents.
6. Interleaf at Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 33, table of contents.
7. Loose interleaf inserted at ibid., 63, outline.
8. Ibid., 66.
9. Ibid., 70.
3. Réalité que représente la fonction capitale 10

4. Double mode de l’action du Christ 11
a. interior influxus
b. exterior gubernatio 12
B. La mission et l’action intérieure du S. Esprit comme “Alter Paraclitus” 13
1. L’Esprit est agent de Jésus (le fait)
a. Par rapport à Jésus 14
b. Par rapport aux Apôtres et à l’Eglise
2. Le Saint Esprit réalisateur de la société surnaturelle 15
a. dans notre vie personnelle
b. au point de vue proprement social 16
i. nature des charismes
ii. permanence des charismes dans l’Eglise 17
iii. L’Esprit et la mission 18
3. Des noms de “âme de l’Eglise,” “cœur de l’Eglise” donnés au Saint
Esprit 19
C. Les instruments ou vicaires visibles qui continuent à l’extérieur l’action
du Christ 20
1. Etude générale
a. De la nécessité de tels ministres ou instruments visibles
i. preuve ex parte materiae
ii. preuve ex parte formae
b. Les pouvoirs participés de la plénitude du Christ
i. quels sont ces pouvoirs: leur division
a. l’Eglise doit avoir le pouvoir régénérateur et le pouvoir
de magistère
b. nombre des pouvoirs: les opinions
c. examen de la question en elle même
ii. Pouvoirs diversement possédés
a. la juridiction
b. manière différent dont sont possédés les pouvoirs
c. rapports de ces pouvoirs entre eux
iii. En quoi semblables aux pouvoirs du Christ et en quoi
différent
a. semblables parce que = ceux du Christ
b. différents
10. Ibid., 71. 11. Ibid., 78

12. Ibid., 79. 13. Ibid., 82.
14. Ibid., 83. 15. Ibid., 88.
16. Ibid., 89. 17. Ibid., 91.
18. Ibid., 92. 19. Ibid., 93
20. Interleaf at ibid., 95, table of contents.
226 A ppendix 2 : Outlines
i. extension
ii. vicaire
iii. extérieur
iv. Du sujet qui reçoit ce pouvoir et de ses parties
2. Etude spéciale: Les pouvoirs participés et reçus 21
a. En Pierre et en ses successeurs
i. Primauté de gouvernement
a. chez Pierre
i. la place de Pierre en général
ii. Les textes majeurs de la Primauté
iii. Pierre et les autres Apôtres
a. S. Pierre et S. Paul
b. Pierre et les autres Apôtres
i. dans les faits
ii. dans les paroles et les promesses du
Christ
iv. Résumé synthétique
b. Permanence dans les successeurs de Pierre
i. Le fait de la permanence
ii. Le mode de la permanence
Appendice: Est-il de foi que Un tel est pape?
ii. Primauté de magistère
a. Le fait de l’infaillibilité
b. Les conditions
c. Appendice 22
i. Le pape comme docteur privé
ii. Le pape comme docteur privé peut-il être héré-
tique?
iii. le souverain sacerdoce 23
b. Dans les autres apôtres et leurs successeurs
i. Le pouvoir de gouvernement et de magistère
a. le pouvoir apostolique
b. le mode de réception des pouvoirs de gouvernement (et
la question de la juridiction des évêques)
c. les apôtres ou leurs successeurs réunis en un seul
corps (= traité des Conciles)

22. From this point until the end of section III, there are no lecture notes for the
topics appearing in the outline.
23. Loose interleaf inserted at Cours d’Ecclesiologie (1932–1933), 63, outline.
ii. Le pouvoir sacerdotal

a. y a-t-il un corps sacerdotal distinct, de droit divin, des
laïques?
b. ce corps a-t-il des degrés?
Synthèse: qu’est-ce que l’épiscopat?
D. Etude (biblique, théologique et apologétique) sur la fondation et la nais-
sance de l’Eglise
IV. Cause formelle 24
A. Généralités sur la cause formelle
1. cause formelle d’une société
2. conspectus général de l’applications à l’Eglise
B. Le premier rôle de la forme: donner l’être et la vie simplicitis
1. la foi
a. et le baptême
2. la charité
a. communio sanctorum
b. le service social
c. et l’Eucharistie, sacrement de la charité et de l’unité par la
charité
C. Le second rôle de la forme: organiser le corps au service de sa vie et de
son unité
1. Systèmes erronés et opinions concernant la constitution de l’Eglise
2. Considérations positives sur la constitution et le régime de l’Eglise
a. la constitution
b. le régime (l’Eglise famille et Cité)
i. applications
a. paroisse et “Œuvres”
b. Célébration liturgique et Paroisse
c. Mentalité orientale
d. la Centralisation et le caractère administratif de l’Eglise
e. “Action Catholique”
V. Simples notes 25
A. De Membris Ecclesiae 26
1. Erreurs 27
2. Opinions chez les catholiques

25. Interleaf inserted at ibid., 309, outline.
26. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), De Ecclesia membris (a separately numbered folio
inserted at 309).
27. Ibid., 1.
228 Appendix 2 : O utlines
3. Examen/Solution de la question 28
4. Quelques définitions 29
a. Hérétique matériel
b. Hérétique occulte
B. Quid sit nota? 30
1. Notion de note 31
a. Propriété
b. La note 32
VI. Les grands principes directeurs du Cours
3. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (Le Saulchoir, 1934)33

Introduction
A. Status quaestionis; intentio operis 34
B. Cause finale ou Bien commun de l’Église 35
1. un idée globale de deux fins ou biens commun de les deux zones de
l’Eglise
2. des précisions de la notion de Bien commun
3. qui aboutiront à un tableau grand auquel nous commencerons à
saisir quelle société spéciale est l’Eglise
I. Le Corps mystique 36
A. Le Christ Chef
1. Sa plénitude de grâce
2. Son activité de chef
B. La réalité du Corps mystique en nous
1. Notre vie divine a pour principe
a. formel: la grâce et la charité
b. effective: la Sainte Trinité et par appropriation le Saint Esprit
Reprise et précision
2. L’insertion du Christ dans notre vie divine
a. Du point de vue de notre âme divine entitative [sic] dont le
Christ est cause efficiente instrumentale et exemplaire
28. Ibid., 2. 29. Ibid., 12.

30. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), Quid sit nota? (a separately numbered folio in-
serted at 309).
31. Ibid., 1. 32. Ibid., 2.
33. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934). Outline derived from section headings and ta-
bles of contents, with minor editing to standardize the form of the outline and to expand
abbreviations.
34. Ibid., 1. 35. Ibid., 8.
36. Ibid., 11.
i. grâce chrétienne baptismale d’incorporation

ii. caractère baptismal (et autres caractères)
b. L’âme chrétienne de l’ordre intentionnel et dynamique
i. culte de la vie chrétienne et sacerdoce universel
a. L’Eglise-Société de culte
b. Le sacerdoce universel
ii. L’Eucharistie sacrement de l’incorporation au Christ, de la
constitution du Corps mystique, par la foi vive
3. De quel genre est l’unité réalisée entre le Christ et nous?
a. Les analogies inspires: corps de génération et assimilation
b. Christus et Ekklesia una persona. En quel sens?
II. L’Eglise-Corps mystique et l’Eglise-Société visible 37
A. L’Eglise n’est pas seulement Corps mystique mais société 38
B. L’Eglise-Sociétés visible est Corps Mystique 39
C. Ainsi, une seule Eglise, mais dont l’unité se réalise sur deux plans 40
III. L’Eglise-Société 41
A. Les Pouvoirs de l’Eglise 42
1. Les Pouvoirs en eux même 43
a. Nombre et division (par comparaison avec la société politique) 44
b. Manière différente dont les pouvoirs sont possédés
B. Constitution et Régime de l’Eglise 45
4. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (Le Saulchoir, 1937)46

Introduction
I. L’Eglise comme Corps mystique
A. “Tout est déjà réalisé dans le Christ.” Qu’est-ce à dire?
1. infinité de la grâce du Christ
2. sa grâce capitale
37. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), L’Eglise-Corps mystique et l’Eglise-Société visible (a

separately numbered folio inserted at 58).
38. Ibid., 1. 39. Ibid., 3.
40. Ibid., 5. 41. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 7.
42. Ibid., Pouvoirs; Constitution et Régime de l’Eglise (a separately numbered folio in-
serted at 58).
43. Ibid., 1. 44. Ibid., 4.
45. No lecture notes for this section are included in the course manuscript.
46. Loose interleaves inserted at De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), 1. Outline derived
from typed outline for the course, with minor editing to standardize the form of the out-
line and to expand abbreviations.
230 A ppendi x 2 : O utlines
3. sa puissance de Saveur
a. les formes de son activité
i. sacerdoce
ii. royauté
iii. magistère
b. les modes selon lesquels s’exercent ces activités
i. extérieurs
ii. intérieurs
B. “La vie divine étendue à nous.” Qu’est-ce à dire?
1. Communauté d’objet de vie
2. Comment?
a. Par la foi divine
b. Par la charité divine
i. l’une et l’autre vraiment nôtres et enracinées en nous par
la grâce
3. Comment c’est vraiment la vie divine étendu à nous: la grâce, terme
créé des processions trinitaires
4. Comment se réalise ainsi en nous l’image de Dieu (et du Christ)
C. Cette vie divine étendue à nous est la vie du Christ.
1. Point de vue de “donné”: tout nous est donné comme venant du
Christ et dans notre conjonction à la Passion du Christ par la foi et
les sacrements de la foi
a. L’idée de sacrements et notre conjonction, par eux, à la Passion du
Christ
b. Le baptême, sacrement de la foi
i. caractère baptismal (et les autres caractères)
ii. grâce baptismale
iii. La Foi comme chrétienne
c. L’Eucharistie, sacrement de la charité incorporant
i. La charité comme chrétienne
ii. La charité eucharistique, principe de l’unité consommée
du Corps Mystique
d. Les grâces sacramentelles: la grâce chrétienne
2. Point de vue de l’“agi”: tout notre agir surnaturel réalise le Christ et
est fait à son compte
a. Le ‘modus christianus accendi ad Deum’: vertus chrétiennes
b. La vie cultuelle chrétienne
i. culte intérieur
ii. culte extérieur
a. symbolisme général
b. symbolisme proprement sacramentel
Appendice:
a. L’Eglise société de culte?

b. Le “sacerdoce universel”
D. Quelle est l’unité du Corps mystique?
1. Ce qui est de Dieu et ce qui est de l’Humanité du Christ
2. Quelle est l’âme de l’Eglise? Âme incréée et âme créée
3. En quel sens ‘Christus et Ecclesia una persona’?
II. L’Eglise comme société: La vie divine nous est donnée sous des formes et par des
moyens de mode humain.
A. Le Corps mystique se réalise en société.
B. Les pouvoirs de cette société
C. Dialectique et unité des deux points de vue (Corps mystique et société)
D. La question ‘de membris Ecclesiae’
5. Cours sur l’Eglise (Lübben, 1941)47

I. Intentio operis 48
A. Intérêt
1. Fait
2. Causes
a. Rentre dans un mouvement général de réaction
i. contre le rationalisme
ii. contre l’individualisme
iii. contre le subjectivisme
b. Profite des différente mouvements 49
i. le rôle joue par le Saint-Siège depuis Pie IX
ii. Le mouvement social général
iii. Le Mouvement liturgique 50
iv. La restauration d’une théologie de l’Eglise dogmatique
v. Le retour parallèle aux sources (Bible, Pères)
vi. le mouvement spirituel, mystique
vii. le mouvement missionnaire 51
viii. Action catholique
ix. Problème et mouvement œcuménique
B. Objet de ce cours 52
C. Point de vue et méthode
D. Division du cours 53
E. Bibliographie
47. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941). Outline developed from section headings and content.
48. Ibid., Introduction (a separately numbered folio inserted at the cover), 1.
49. Ibid., Introduction, 2. 50. Ibid., Introduction, 3.
51. Ibid., Introduction, 4. 52. Ibid., Introduction, 5.
53. Ibid., 6.
II. Révélation et Développement de l’Eglise dans la Bible 54

A. Dans l’Ancien Testament
1. Alliance 55
a. Promesses de Dieu
i. héritier
ii. héritage
b. Obligation
2. Alliance avec Moïse 56
3. Spiritualisation de ces notions 57
a. Spiritualisation de la notion d’héritiers et du contenu de l’alli-
ance (fidélité à la loi) 58
b. Spiritualisation de la notion d’héritage 59
4. Elargissement des perspectives 60
a. universalisme
b. Annonce d’une nouvelle alliance
B. Dans le Nouveau Testament 61
1. Les Evangiles 62
a. Jésus parle peu de l’Eglise
b. Le royaume de Dieu se caractérisé par 63
i. le rejet du diable
ii. la remisse des péchés
iii. le jugement
iv. la restauration de toutes chose, et singulièrement de
l’humanité déchue
c. La loi et les conditions du royaume 64
d. Le royaume chez S. Jean
2. les Actes 65
a. Constitution du peuple de Dieu
i. intérieurement
ii. extérieurement
b. organisation 66
3. Saint Paul 67
a. Εκκλεσια
b. l’héritage 68
54. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 3. 55. Ibid., 5.

56. Ibid., 7. 57. Ibid., 13.
58. Ibid., 17. 59. Ibid., 19.
60. Ibid., 27. 61. Ibid., 29.
62. Ibid., 31. 63. Ibid., 33.
64. Ibid., 35. 65. Ibid., 41.
66. Ibid., 43. 67. Ibid., 47.
68. Ibid., 49.
c. L’unique héritier
d. Quel rapport de tout cela à l’Ancien Testament et à ce que nous
avons dit précédemment 69
4. Vue d’ensemble
a. intériorisation
i. l’héritage
ii. l’héritier
iii. élargissement 70
b. La nouvelle alliance
i. biens de l’alliance
a. le sacrifice
b. le sacerdoce
c. la loi
d. le signe d’alliance
III. Etude spéculative 71
A. La révélation et les sources du Traité
B. Distribution des “Pouvoirs”; leur rôle
1. sacerdoce
a. le sacerdoce immanent au Corps
b. le sacerdoce proprement hiérarchique
2. magistère
a. les principes
b. Le magistère comprend
c. Le magistère l’exerce
3. juridiction
a. le pouvoir de conduire les fideles vers leur fin, qui est le salut
eternel, et, pour cela, de leur commander avec autorité
i. législatives
ii. judiciaires et correctives
b. importance
c. distribution de ce pouvoir
i. de droit divine
ii. de droit ecclésiastique
C. Le Corps mystique
1. la foi
2. les sacrements
69. Ibid., 53.

70. Ibid., 55.
71. Loose interleaves inserted at Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), 56. Congar included no head-
ing for this section. The heading given here is borrowed from Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 25,
where Congar characterized this material as the “étude spéculative.”
234 A ppendix 2 : Outlines
a. Le Christ a, une fois pour toutes, opéré notre Rédemption

b. Mais cette rédemption acquise une fois pour toutes par le Christ
doit nous être applique
c. économie des sacrements
d. Le Baptême
e. L’Eucharistie
3. conclusion
a. une participation à la vie du Christ
b. connue, déterminée, et voulue par le Christ
D. Les propriétés (et “notes”) de l’Eglise
1. une
2. sainte
a. dans son but, sa fin
b. dans les moyens qu’elle emploie
c. dans la résultat: la sainteté personnel de ses membres
i. la communion des saints
3. catholique
4. apostolique
a. Ce que l’apostolicité signifie
b. Ce que l’apostolicité implique
c. la succession apostolique
IV. L’Eglise et la Société civile
A. La doctrine de l’Eglise
1. Ce que l’Eglise apporte à la société civile
2. Ce que la société civile doit apporter à l’Eglise
B. Les théories
1. Pouvoir direct, théocratie
2. Pouvoir “indirect”
V. Œcuménisme
A. La révolution protestant. Luther. L’idée essentielle de la Reforme
B. L’Anglicanisme
C. Itinéraire religieux de l’Orient chrétien
D. Tentatives de rapprochement: attitude de l’Eglise catholique
6. Petit “De Ecclesia” (Lübeck, 1945)72

Bibliographie pratique 73
I. Constitution et Révélation de l’Eglise dans l’Ecriture 74
A. Ancien Testament
72. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945). Outline developed from section headings and content.
73. Ibid., 1. 74. Ibid., 3.
1. La constitution du peuple de Dieu 75

a. les promesses faits à Abraham
b. l’alliance sous Moïse
c. le caractère général de l’alliance
2. Unité externe, constitution et organisation de ce peuple de Dieu 76
a. la royauté (le pouvoir gouvernement)
b. le sacerdoce 77
c. le prophétisme
3. L’unité intérieur du peuple de Dieu 78
a. Israël fiancée et épouse de Dieu
b. Israël fils de Dieu
c. Israël temple de Dieu
d. Israël est le lieu où Iahvé agit sans cesse par son Esprit 79
4. Les perspectives nouvelles de l’Evangile s’annoncent dans la prédi-
cation des prophètes
a. Spiritualisation
b. de l’idée de l’héritage
c. universalisation 80
B. Nouveau Testament
1. Enchaînement, continuité avec l’Ancien Testament
2. L’Eglise est le Royaume 81
3. Fondation de l’Eglise
a. de la naissance à la mort du Christ: stade de préparation et de
pose des fondements
b. de la passion à la Pentecôte: stade de créations de l’Eglise
c. Apres la Pentecôte: stade d’expansion 82
4. L’unité interne de l’Eglise. Le rapport de l’Eglise au Christ 83
5. Organisation et “institution” de l’Eglise
II. Développement et vicissitudes de l’idée d’Eglise: Bref histoire du développement
de la théologie de Ecclesia 84
A. Eglise ancienne
B. Les Pères
C. Moyen âge
D. Constitution des traités séparés
1. contre le gallicanisme régalien
2. contre le conciliarisme
3. contre le protestantisme
75. Ibid., 5. 76. Ibid., 7.

77. Ibid., 9. 78. Ibid., 11.
79. Ibid., 13. 80. Ibid., 15.
81. Ibid., 17. 82. Ibid., 19.
83. Ibid., 21. 84. Ibid., 25.
E. Différence des points de vue

1. apologétique
2. théologique
F. Développements quasi exclusif du traité apologétique
G. Tendance actuelle sous influences
III. La cause finale de l’Eglise
A. Le Bien commun 85
1. le Bien commun-final
2. le Bien commun-moyen
IV. La cause matérielle de l’Eglise 86
A. l’homme créature
B. l’homme fait de la terre
C. l’homme à l’image de Dieu
D. l’homme pécheur
V. La Cause Efficiente de l’Eglise 87
A. Le Christ
1. la prédestination du Christ
2. L’onction du Christ
B. L’immanence active du Christ glorifié à son Eglise et, pour le temps
de l’entre-deux événements, le vicariat du Saint Esprit et du corps
apostolique
7. L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps de Jésus-Christ

(Le Saulchoir, 1948)88
P lan ( provisoire ) de T rait é de l’E glise
L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ

Introduction
Livre I: Le Propos de Dieu. Sa Réalisation Progressive

I. Première Partie: Le dévoilement progressif du propos de Dieu et les grandes
étapes du peuple de Dieu dans l’Ancienne Disposition
A. Création d’Adam
B. Abraham
C. Moïse (Josué)
85. Ibid., 27. 86. Ibid., 29.

87. Ibid., 31.
88. L’Eglise (1948), outline (a separately numbered folio inserted at the cover), 1–2.
Outline taken from Congar’s outline of the treatise, with minor editing to standardize
outline format and expand abbreviations.
D. David
E. Les Prophètes
II. Deuxième Partie: Jésus-Christ et le Nouvel Israël
A. Ch. I: Christus Consummator
B. Ch. II: Prédication du Christ. Le Royaume et l’Eglise
C. Ch. III: Les agent de l’œuvre du Christ après son départ; L’Esprit et le
Corps apostolique
D. Ch. IV: Constitution ou naissance de l’Eglise
E. Ch. V: Achèvement de la révélation du mystère de l’Eglise par S. Paul
F. Ch. VI: Etude synthétique des grandes images de l’Eglise
1. Temple
2. Epouse
3. Vigne
4. Jérusalem
5. Œuvre de la Sagesse
III. Troisième Partie: Synthèse
A. Condition de l’Eglise entre la Promesse et la Consommation
1. Dialectique de
a. fait et encore à faire
b. Un seul et plusieurs
c. Donné et Agi . . .
B. La cause matérielle de l’Eglise
C. La cause finale de l’Eglise
a. ses deux Biens communs
D. Résume synthétique sur la Cause efficiente de l’Eglise
E. Marie et l’Eglise
Livre II: L’Œuvre de Dieu ou La réalité de l’Eglise (plan projeté et sujet à modifi-
cation)
I. Première Partie: Les énergies participées du Christ
A. Section I: Etude général 89
1. Quels sont ces pouvoirs
a. Distinction des trois pouvoirs
2. Leur existence sous deux formes: hiérarchique et immanente au
corps
a. Le sens du fait hiérarchique
b. Le pouvoir, ministère et service
3. Convenance que l’action du Christ soit présente dans des ministres
visibles
89. Congar’s notes for Book Two only cover the topics listed in section I. A, “Section I:
Etude général.”
4. En quoi les pouvoirs hiérarchiques sont semblable à ceux du Christ

et en quoi différents
5. Rapports des pouvoirs hiérarchiques les uns avec les autres
B. Section II: Etude particulière
1. L’apostolat ou le Pastorat
a. Chez les Douze
b. La succession du pastorat
2. La primauté de Pierre
a. Sa permanence dans l’Eglise
3. La régence ou le Pouvoir canonique
a. Chez les évêques
b. Dans le Pape: la primauté
i. son essence
ii. ses modes
4. Le sacerdoce
a. baptismal
b. hiérarchique
i. l’épiscopat
ii. le Souverain Pontificat
5. Le magistère
a. Hiérarchique
i. Etude du magistère en général
a. ce qu’il est
b. son objet
ii. Magistère épiscopal
iii. Magistère pontifical
a. l’infaillibilité
i. Nature
ii. Conditions
iv. Les conciles
b. Le Prophétisme de tout le corps
i. Coopération des fidèles
a. au progrès dogmatique
b. au témoignage
ii. (la “Sobornost”)
II. Deuxième Partie: La forme d’unité réalisée ainsi
A. La dualité de la notion d’Eglise, ou les deux plans de l’unité de l’Eglise
B. L’unité du Peuple de Dieu
1. Unité statique
a. l’ordre ecclésial
b. la constitution de l’Eglise
2. Unité dynamique
a. l’action commune
b. l’entraide . . .
C. L’unité du Corps du Christ
1. statique
2. dynamique
3. L’unité du Corps mystique
D. Unité de l’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu ET Corps du Christ
E. Les membres de l’Eglise
F. L’exclusion de l’Eglise
1. excommunication
2. schisme
3. hérésie
Livre III: Les propriétés de l’Eglise

I. Etude général
A. Unité
B. Sainteté
C. Catholicité
D. Apostolicité
E. Autres marques de l’Eglise
Livre IV: Vie de l’Eglise

I. Vie interne de l’Eglise (beaucoup de choses à dire!)
II. Vie de relations de l’Eglise à ce qui n’est pas elle
A. Société temporelle et Monde
B. Religions non-révélées
C. Autres Communion chrétiennes
8. Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours de 1951

(Le Saulchoir, 1951)90
Introduction
Livre I: Le propos de Dieu; sa réalisation progressive

I. Première Partie: Le dévoilement progressif du Propos de Dieu et les grandes
étapes du Peuple de Dieu sous la Première Disposition
A. Création d’Adam
B. Abraham
90. Plan du Traité (1951), 1–3. Outline taken from Congar’s outline of the treatise,
with minor editing to standardize outline format and expand abbreviations.
C. Moïse (Josué)
D. David
E. Les Prophètes
II. Deuxième Partie: Jésus-Christ et le Peuple de Dieu sous la Nouvelle et définitive
Disposition
A. Ch. I: Christus Consummator. Jésus-Christ; sa qualité de Nouveau Princi-
pe
B. Ch. II: Sa prédication. Le Royaume de l’Eglise
C. Ch. III: Constitution ou Naissance de l’Eglise
D. Ch. IV: Les fondes de pouvoir, agents de l’œuvre du Christ après son
départ: L’Esprit et les Apôtres
E. Ch. V: Achèvement de la révélation du mystère de l’Eglise dans S. Paul
F. Ch. VI: Les grandes images synthétiques: (vigne, arche . . .) Temple et
Epouse
III. Troisième Partie: Vue synthétique. La situation de l’Eglise
A. Ch. 1: Traduction synthétique de ce qui précède en termes de cause
matérielle, finale, et efficiente
B. Ch. II: Situation de l’Eglise entre la Synagogue et le Royaume
1. Situation d’entre-deux. Ses conséquences.
a. Dialectique de
i. union du céleste et du terrestre
ii. intériorité et extériorité (grâce et loi; immédiateté et média-
tion)
iii. fait et encore à faire
iv. un seul et plusieurs
v. donné et agi
b. Double réalité de l’Eglise: Grâce et moyen de grâce (D’où: deux
unités, deux autorités, deux lois, deux sacerdoces, etc. )
2. Etat pérégrinal et crucifié. Eglise de l’Exode et de la Crois
C. Ch. III: Marie et l’Eglise
Livre II: L’Œuvre de Dieu ou la forme d’Eglise réalisée dans l’Humanité

I. Première Partie: Les énergies du Christ à l’œuvre dans l’Eglise
A. Section I: La Hiérarchie. Etude générale
1. Les deux formes selon lesquelles les énergies du Christ sont partic-
ipées dans l’entre-deux de ses deux avènements.
a. Sens du fait hiérarchique, de l’Apostolicité.
b. Comment le Christ, Nouveau Principe, se rend présent et actif
dans l’humanité pour en faire son corps.
c. Interprétation en termes de causalité efficiente et formelle.
d. Le jeu de ces deux causes.
2. En quoi les pouvoirs hiérarchiques sont semblables à ceux du

Christ, et en quoi différents
a. Le “pouvoir”, ministère et service
3. Quels sont ces pouvoirs? Distinction des trois compétences de
l’Eglise.
4. Rapports des pouvoirs hiérarchiques les uns avec les autres
a. Unité de la Hiérarchie: le Pastorat spirituel
b. L’Apostolat. Les apôtres et leur succession
c. Structure interne (divinement instituée) de l’Apostât
i. la Primauté de Pierre
ii. sa permanence dans l’Eglise
B. Section II: Etude particulière des trois fonctions de la Hiérarchie
1. Ch. I: La régence ou le pouvoir canonique
a. chez les évêques
b. dans le pape
i. la primauté papale
a. ses modes
b. son essence
2. Ch. II: Le Sacerdoce
a. baptismal
b. hiérarchique
i. l’épiscopat
ii. le souverain pontificat
3. Ch. III: Le Magistère
a. Sous sa forme hiérarchique
i. Etude du Magistère en général
a. ce qu’il est
b. ses modalités
c. son objet
ii. Magistère pontifical
a. L’infaillibilité
i. nature
ii. conditions
iii. Magistère épiscopal
a. des évêques isolés
b. des évêques réunis en concile
b. Le prophétisme de tout le corps: coopération des fidèles
i. au progrès dogmatique
ii. au témoignage apostolique
242 A ppendi x 2 : Outlines
II. Deuxième Partie: La forme d’unité ainsi réalisée

A. Dualité de la notion d’Eglise, ou les deux plans de l’unité (rappel de liv.
1, 3a partie, ch. II, “double réalité”.)
B. L’unité du Peuple de Dieu
1. Unité statique.
a. La constitution de l’Eglise (Structure, Type et Vie)
b. Unité dynamique
i. L’action commune; l’entre aide
ii. Principe hiérarchique et principe synodal
a. Le régime de l’Eglise (fin du Traités des conciles
b. commencé au liv. II, Ire part., sect. 2, ch. 3, par. 1)
c. L’unité du Corps du Christ (corps mystique)
d. L’unité totale de l’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu ET Corps du Christ
(rapport des deux unités l’une à l’autre pour former une seule
Eglise)
e. Les Membres de l’Eglise
i. Le Laïcat
a. sa vie selon les trois fonctions de l’Eglise
b. sa participation aux actes hiérarchiques selon les trois
fonctions
f. L’exclusion de l’Eglise
i. Excommunication
ii. Schisme
iii. Hérésie
Livre III: Propriétés et Vie de l’Eglise

I. Première Partie: Propriétés
A. Sainteté . . .
B. Unité (rappel synthétique)
C. Apostolicité (rappel synthétique)
D. Catholicité . . .
E. Etude sur le rapport de ces propriétés l’une avec l’autre
F. Autres marques de l’Eglise
II. Deuxième Partie: Vie de l’Eglise
A. Vie interne de l’Eglise. On ne peut qu’indiquer ici le genre de questions
qui seraient à traiter dans cette partie. Sans doute rattacherait-on ces
question à deux grandes divisions, selon que l’on considérerait:
1. La façon dont la vie elle-même est donnée à l’Eglise
a. Problème transcendance-immanence
b. Et on rencontrerait les problèmes de
i. immanence réalisée
a. loi d’amour
b. loi de liberté chrétienne
ii. immanence incomplète
a. transcendance du Saint Esprit à l’Eglise: charismes
b. loi de réformes
i. les tentation de l’Eglise
c. loi de progrès
i. doctrinal
ii. apostolique. Missions
d. L’Eglise et l’histoire du monde
2. La façon dont les parties se relient à la vie du tout, ou les problèmes
de la Communion catholique (cf. Vraie et fausse Réforme, Introduc-
tion)
B. Vie de relations de l’Eglise à ce qui n’est pas elle
1. Société temporelle et Monde (questions Eglise et Etat . . .)
2. Religions non-révélées. Salut des “infidèles”
3. Autres Communions chrétiennes (œcuménisme)
9. Ordre suivi en 1954 (Le Saulchoir, 1954)91

(Notes corresponding to Book One, Part III, Vue synthétique. La situation de
l’Eglise, Ch. 2, Condition de l’Eglise entre la Promesse et la Consomma-
tion.)
I. Dialectique de
A. Un seul et plusieurs
B. fait et encore à faire
C. Donné et agi
D. d’en bas et d’en haute; terrestre et céleste
II. Le Bien commun-fin et le Bien commun-moyen (res et sacramentum)
A. le fait hiérarchique
B. Deux biens communs
1. deux unîtes
2. deux lois
3. deux sacrifices, deux sacerdoce
4. deux participations aux énergies messianiques de Christ
5. extériorité et intériorité (grâce et loi)
91. Ordre suivi (1954). Outline derived from text interpreted in light of outlines from
1948 and 1951.
6. immédiateté et médiation
a. les questions de médiation
b. le Bien commun et l’unité de l’Eglise terrestre actuelle, mais de
les moyens de la vocation à salut
III. Etat pérégrinal et crucifié
1. Dualité de l’Eglise et Monde
2. Temps de patience
(Notes corresponding to Book Two, Part I, Les énergies du Christ à l’œuvre
dans l’Eglise.)
I. Le fait hiérarchique
II. Sens et philosophie générale de ce fait hiérarchique
A. place de la hiérarchie
B. sa nécessité
C. condition spéciale de ces pouvoirs de l’Eglise, par rapport à l’autorité
sociale
D. condition des pouvoirs de l’Eglise par rapport au Christ
III. La distribution des pouvoirs
IV. Unité de la Hiérarchie et rapports des pouvoirs entre eux
A. unité de la hiérarchie
1. Il y a une seule hiérarchie.
2. Le sacerdoce est le pouvoir le plus fondamental.
B. rapport des pouvoirs entre eux
1. Le sacerdoce qualifie
a. normalement
b. selon la natures des choses
2. Le sacerdoce est ordonnée aux autres pouvoirs, car il est, de soi,
prophétique et pastoral
a. le sacerdoce du Nouveau Testament
b. confirmation et harmonies
c. La consécration sacerdotale est dont députative aussi aux actes
de magistère et du pastorat
d. La question du sacerdoce des moines
3. Rapport entre sacerdoce et juridiction
• APPENDIX 3
BIBLIOGRAPHIES FROM THE

DE ECCLESIA DOCUMENTS
1. Thèse du Lectorat (1931)1

Bibliographie générale
S. Thomas:
Commentaire sur les Sentences, liv. II, dist. 9 et 10, dist. 44; liv. IV tout entier.
De Veritate, q. 27 (de gratia) et q. 29 (de gratia Christi).
Contra Gentiles: liv. IV, c. 20–22 et 74–77.
Contra impugnantes Dei cultum.
De perfectione vitae spiritualis.
De Regimine principum, lib I, c. 14 (et lib III, c. 10).
Somme théologique, Ia pars, 1. 108; Ia-IIae, q. 90–108; IIa-IIae, q. 11, 39 et
183–185; IIIa pars, toute entière.
1. Thèse du Lectorat (1931), 2–3. Bibliographies are provided for all documents in
which Congar included them. He did not provide a bibliography in 1934, and the docu-
ments from 1951 and 1954 apparently rely on the bibliography from 1948.
245
246 A ppendix 3 : B ibliographies
Subsidiairement: Contra errores graecorum.

De articulis fidei et Ecclesiae sacramentis.
In Symbolum (art. IX et X).
Ouvrages étudiés:
Dom Gréa. De l’Eglise et de sa divine constitution. 2 vol.
Ch. V. Héris. L’Eglise du Christ.
Ranft. Die Stellung der Lehre von der Kirche im dogmatischen System.
Leitner. Der hl. Thomas über das unfehlbare Lehramt des Papstes.
J. Geiselmann. “Christus und die Kirche nach Thomas von Aquin.” Theolo-
gische Quartalschrift
CVII (1926), 198–222 et CVII (1927), 233–55.
Ouvrages ou études lus:

Cathala. “La vie de l’Eglise.” Revue thomist XX (1912), 743–62 et XXI (1913),
1–16; 137–58; 655–77.
Anger. La doctrine du corps mystique de Jésus-Christ.
Cajetan. De institutione Pontificatus Pontificis romani.
Ouvrages qu’il aurait fallu lire:

M. Grabmann. Die Lehre des hl. Thomas v. Aquin von der Kirche als Gotteswerk.
Clérissac. Le mystère de l’Eglise.
Franzelin. Theses de Ecclesia Christi.
Dieckmann. De Ecclesia Christi.
M. d’Herbigny. De Ecclesia.
de Poulpiquet. L’Eglise catholique.
Sertillanges. L’Eglise. 2 vol.
P. Hurtevent. L’unité de l’Eglise du Christ.
R. Schultes. De Ecclesia.
2. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933)2

Documents du magistère:
Léon XII, Encyclique Satis Cognitum, 29 juin 1946.
Pie XI, Mortalium animos, 6 janvier 1928.
A. Les Sources
I. Collections et instruments du travail
Patrologies: Migne et Corpus Berlin et Vienne.
Mansi.
2. Cours d’Ecclésiologie (1932–1933), 3–10. In this course, Congar interwove his bibli-
ography entries with the history of ecclesiology he presented in his introduction, rather
than compiling it as a separate text.
A ppendi x 3 : B ibliographies 247
Dictionnaire Apologétique et Théologie catholique, Realencyclopedie,

and Die
Religion in Geschichete und Gegenwart.
Roccaberti. 21 vol. Rome 1698.
II. Petit aperçu
1. jusqu’au IX–X’s
S. Irénée, Adversus Haereses.
Tertullian.
S. Cyprian, Lettres et De unitate Ecclesiae.
Augustin, Contre les Donatists, De unitate Ecclesiae, Psalmus
contra partum Donati.
Denys.
2. IX–X’s au XV’s
S. Thomas. Contra errores Graecorum.
Boniface III, Bulle “Unam Sanctam,” 18 nov. 1302.
Gilles de Rome.
Jacques de Viterbe.
Philippe le Bel.
Occam.
S. Thomas.
Jean de Paris.
Hervé de Nédellec.
Pierre d’Ailly.
Jean Hus.
Jérome de Prague.
Wickliff, De Ecclesia.
Tourquemada, Summa de Ecclesia.
3. XVI–XVIII’s
Guibert, De Ecclesia.
Cajetan.
(Bacic)
Bellarmin, Controverses.
4. XIX’s
Chateaubriand.
Lacordaire.
Perrone.
Dechamps.
Collectio Lacentis, t. VII, col. 269 sq.
Mansi, Collectio conciliorum, t. 51, col. 539 sq.
Möhler.
248 A ppendix 3 : B ibliographies
B. Les manuels modernes

1. Traités († important)
a. traités généraux; manuels
Perrone. Praelectiones theologicae.
Brugére. De Ecclesia catholica pralectiones novae.
Mazzella. De religione et Ecclesia. 6e éd.
†
Franzelin. Theses de Ecclesia Christi.
Zigliara. Propaedeutica ad Sacram Theologiam.
de Groot. Summa apologetica de Ecclesia.
†
Billot. Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi.
Schultes, O. P. De Ecclesia Christi.
(de Guibert. De Christi Ecclesia breve schema. )
Barrival. De Ecclesia Christi.
de Maes, O. P. De Kerke von Christus. 2 vol.
plus spécialement au point de vue patristique et historique:
Ottiger. Theologie fundamentalis, t. II.
†
Dieckmann. De Ecclesia. 2 vol.
Manifestant un désir d’information large et de sens psycholo-
giques:
†
†
d’Herbigny. Theologica de Ecclesia. 2 vol.
†
Brunhes. Christianisme et catholicisme.
b. Etudes plus théologique et d’un sens religieux prenant:
Mgr. Benson. Le Christ dans l’Eglise.
†
†
†
Anger. Le corps mystique du Christ.
†
P. Héris.
2. Pour la discussion:
en général: Buyse. L’Eglise de Jésus.
historique: Batiffol.
orientaux/Protestants:
P. Janin. Les Eglises séparés d’Orient.
Dedieu. Instabilité du protestantisme.
Manning. La foi de nos Pères.
4. Cursus Minor: De Ecclesia (1937)3

Lieux théologiques du traité:
Ecriture Sainte:
Mersch. 1er vol.
Prat. Théologie de St. Paul.
Duperray. La vie chrétienne d’après St. Paul.
Lemonnyer. Théologie du Nouveau Testament.
L. Cerfaux. “L’Eglise et le règne de Dieu d’après Sait Paul,” Ephemerides Theolo-
gicae Lovanienses (1925), 181–98.
Les Pères:
Bardy: En lisant les Pères et La Vie spirituelle d’après les Pères des trois premiers
siècles.
Toute l’œuvre de Mgr. Batiffol.
Ne pas oublier que rien ne vaut un contact personnel avec un texte, si bref soit-
il. Noter en particulier:
Lettres de St. Ignace Martyr (coll. Hemmer et Lejay).
S. Cyprien. Correspondance (ed. et trad. Bayard dans collect. Bude, 2 vol.).
S. Cyprien. Petit traité: De unitate Ecclesiae.
S. Augustin: Traités anti-donatistes, Commentaires sur les Psaumes et S. Jean.
S. Léon. Sermons prononcés au jour anniversaire de son épiscopat.
Documents Pontificaux:
Lettre du Card. Patrizi, “Ad quosdam Puseistas anglicos.”
Schéma du Concile du Vatican, dans Denzinger.
Encyclique “Satis cognitum” de Léon XIII.
Encyclique “Mortalium animos” de Pie XI, 6 Janv. 1928.
Traités généraux:
Zigliara, Propaedeutica (apologétique, mais beaucoup de notions philoso-
phiques utiles).
Franzelin. Theses de Ecclesia. (incomplet, ouvrage posthume, mais belle théolo-
gie, nourrie de substance biblique et patristique).
Billot. De Ecclesia (une partie apologétique, une partie Théologique, mais
théologie des pouvoirs et de l’Eglise comme institution, non comme Corps
Mystique. )
Dom Gréa. De l’Eglise et de sa divine institution (pas très technique, ni très cri-
tique, mais quelques belles idées à y prendre).
Clérissac. Le Mystère de l’Eglise (IL FAUT l’avoir lu).
3. De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (1937), syllabus (a separately numbered folio inserted at

the cover), 2–5.
250 A ppendix 3 : Bibliographies
Abbé Journet. Série d’articles, surtout dans Nove et Vetera (Fribourg) et La Vie
Spirituelle.
P. Sertillanges. L’Eglise. 2 vol. (surtout côté sacramental).
Le miracle de l’Eglise (pas technique, mais grande vue de l’univer-
salisme de l’Eglise).
Sur le Corps Mystique:

D’abord les ouvrage généraux, puis en suivant l’ordre du cours.
Mersch, S. J. Le Corps Mystique du Christ. Etudes de théologique historiques. 2 vol.
Anger. La doctrine du Corps Mystique du Christ (panoramique. Rien de poussé,
mais une vue à peu près complète des questions qui se rattachent à ce
mystère, et quelques belles citations).
Mura. Le Corps Mystique du Christ. 2 vol. (spéculatif, et même scolastique;
élaboration assez technique des notions et de leur enchainement).
Le Christ, grâce capitale:

Héris. Le Mystère du Christ.
P. Schwalm. Le Christ d’après St. Thomas d’Aquin.
Rolland. Articles dans le Suppl. Vie Spirituelle, mars et avril 1929.
Richard. Articles dans Recherches de Science Religieuse (1923), 193–217 et 397–418.
P. Congar. “L’inclusion de l’humanité dans le Christ,” Revue des sciences philoso-
phiques et théologiques (1936), 489.
Notre vie dans le Christ:

P. Congar. “Le Corps Mystique du Christ.” Vie Spirituelle (Févr. 1937).
La Foi chrétienne:
P. Bernard. Vie Spirituelle (avril, mai, juin, oct. 1935).
La Charité chrétienne:
P. Bernard. Vie Spirituelle (février, mars, avril 1936).
L’Eucharistie et le Corps Mystique:

cf. “Florilège sur l’unité.”
Le “sacerdoce universel”:
cf. Semaine liturgique, 1933, Cours et Conférence
L’unité du Corps Mystique:

Le Saint-Esprit, âme de l’Eglise: Journet, passim.
Mura. Revue théologique (1936), 232.
Duvigneau. Supplement Vie Spirituelle (février 1937).
Sur l’Eglise comme institution et son unité visible:

Outre les ouvrages généraux cités: Congar, Principes d’un ‘œcuménisme’ catho-
lique à paraître en Juillet 1937 !!!!!
Sur les pouvoirs:

P. Héris. L’Eglise du Christ.
P. Congar. Art. dans Irénikon 1933.
Sur les membres du Christ dans l’Eglise:

Journet, dans Nova et Vetera 1933, 90–103.
P. Congar. op. cit. ch. VII.
5. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941)4

Bibliographie (pratique)
pour le sens de l’Eglise: Clérissac, Mystère de l’Eglise.
renseignements: Ecclesia (Bloud).
Apologétique:
A. de Poulpiquet. L’Eglise catholique.
K. Adams. Vrai visage du catholicisme.
P. Batiffol. différents volumes chez Gabalda.
P. Batiffol. Cathedra Petri.
P. Buyse. L’Eglise de Jésus.
P. Lippert.
En Latin:
Billot. De Ecclesia.
Dieckmann.
d’Herbigny. Theologica de Ecclesia.
Théologie:
Collection Unam Sanctam:
Congar. Chrétiens désunis.
H. de Lubac. Catholicisme.
(Möhler. L’unité dans l’Eglise.)
Mersch. Le Corps mystique.
Mura.
Ch. Anger. La doctrine du Corps Mystique.
dom Gréa. De l’Eglise et de sa divine constitution.
En Latin:
Billot.
Franzelin. Theses de Ecclesia.
4. Cours sur l’Eglise (1941), loose interleaf inserted at 56.

252 A ppendi x 3 : Bibliographies
6. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945)5

Bibliographie pratique:
†
livres existant au camp
‡
conseillé formellement
Biblique:
†
Cerfaux. La théologie de l’Eglise suivant S. Paul.
‡
Mersch. Le Corps mystique du Christ. Etudes de théologie historique. 2 vol.
Historique:
Mersch
†
S. Cyprien. De l’unité de l’Eglise catholique. Unam Sanctam.
†
Möhler. L’unité dans l’Eglise. Unam Sanctam.
†
Bardy. En lisant les Pères.
Batiffol. L’Eglise naissante, etc. . . .
Batiffol. Catholicisme de S. Augustin
Batiffol. Cathedra Petri. Unam Sanctam.
(pour le Moyen âge: Rupp, Arquillière, Riviére.)
Doctrinal:
Manuels:
‡
Billot. De Ecclesia Christi. 2 vol.
d’Herbigny. Theologica de Ecclesia.
‡
Bainvel.
Stolz.
Schultes. De Ecclesia catholica.
Corps mystique:
Mura. Le corps mystique du Christ. 2 vol.
†
Anger. La doctrine du Corps Mystique de Jésus-Christ.
†
Pie XII. EncycliqueMystici Corporis.
†
de Lubac.
†“
Tu es Petrus.” 6
Eglise totale:
†‡
5. Petit “De Ecclesia” (1945), 1.

6. Probably G. Jacquemet, ed., Tu es Petrus: encyclopédie populaire sur la papauté (Paris:
Bloud et Gay, 1934).
†‡
Hurtevent. L’unité de l’Eglise du Christ.
Quénet. L’unité de l’Eglise.
Lippert.
†
†
Congar. Esquisses du mystère de l’Eglise.
Carton de Viart.
†
Journet. L’Eglise du Verbe incarné.
†
L’Eglise est une: Hommage à Möhler.
Littèraire:
J. de Maistre. Du Pape.
Soloviev. La Russie et l’Eglise universelle.
†
Clérissac.
7. L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (1948)7

1. Ouvrage généraux
a. tout à fait généraux
Clérissac. Mystère de l’Eglise.
K. Adam. Vrai visage du catholicisme.
de Lubac. Catholicisme.
L’Eglise est une. Hommage à Möhler.
dom Gréa. De l’Eglise et de sa divine constitution.
b. Apologétique
Brugère. De Ecclesia Christi.
Les manuel plus modernes sont Zapelana et Vellico.
c. apologétique-théologique
Billot. De Ecclesia Christi. 2 vol.
Bainvel. De Ecclesia Christi.
d’Herbigny. Theologica de Ecclesia. 2 vol.
d. Théologie
Feckes. Das Mysterium der hl. Kirche.
S. Tromp. Corpus Christi quod est Ecclesia.
Broutin. Mysterium Ecclesiae.
7. L’Eglise (1948), interleaves inserted at 16.

254 A ppendix 3 : Bibliographies
2. Le Propos de Dieu. Sa réalisation progressive (causes finale, matérielle,

efficiente)
S. de Diétrich. Le dessein de Dieu.
Traugott Schmidt. Der Leib Christi.
K. L. Schmidt. Die Kirche des Urchristentums.
K. L. Schmidt. art. ecclesia, dans Kittel, Theol. Wörterb. zum
N. T.
Deimel. Leib Christi.
Cerfaux. La théologie de l’Eglise suivant S. Paul.
Mersch. Le corps mystique du Christ. 2 vol.
Braun. Aspects nouveaux du problème de l’Eglise.
Journet. L’Eglise du Verbe incarné. I. La hiérarchie
apostolique.
Batiffol. Eglise naissante.
3. L’œuvre de Dieu, ou la réalité de l’Eglise (cause formelle)
Congar. Esquisses du mystère de l’Eglise.
Congar. Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat.8
Hurtevent. L’unité de l’Eglise du Christ.
Quénet. L’unité de l’Eglise.
Tu es Petrus.9
Mura. Le corps mystique du Christ. 2 vol. 2e éd.
Anger. La doctrine du corps mystique de Jésus-Christ. 3e éd.
Pie XII. Encyclique “Mystici corporis”
4. Propriétés de l’Eglise (Notes)
livres indiqués supra pour l’apologétique.
Thils. Les notes de l’Eglise dans l’apologétique depuis la
Réforme.
Dewailly. “L’apostolicité.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et
théologiques (janv. 1948).
Congar. Chrétiens désunis. Ch. II et III.
Apologétique.10
5. Vie de l’Eglise
a. en elle-même
Clérissac, Broutin, cités supra
Leclercq. La vie du Christ dans son Eglise.
8. Handwritten addition to typewritten bibliography.

9. Probably Jacquemet, Tu es Petrus.
10. Probably Maurice Brillant and M. Nédoncelle, eds., Apologétique; nos raisons de
croire, réponses aux objections (Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1st ed. 1938, 2nd ed. 1948).
Congar. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise.11

Möhler.12
b. dans son rapport à ce qui n’est pas elle
i. la société temporelle
Journet. La juridiction de l’Eglise sur la cité
Leclercq. Jean de Paris et l’ecclésiologie du XIIe siecle.
Arquillère. Grégoire VII.
de Lubac. “Le pouvoir de l’Eglise en matière
temporelle.” Revue
des sciences religieuses (1932): 329–354.
Leclerq. L’Eglise et la souveraineté de l’Etat.
ii. Les religions non-chrétienne
Caréran. Le salut des infidèles.
de Grandmaison. “Le Sadhu Sundar Singh.”
Recherches de
Science Religieuse (1922): 1–29.
Apologétique.13
de Lubac. Catholicisme.
iii. Les autres communions chrétiennes.
Congar. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise.14
Bulgakov.15

13. Brillant and Nédoncelle, Apologétique.
• APPENDIX 4
TEXTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF

THOMAS AQUINAS
Principaux ouvrages et passages de S. Thomas contenant des éléments ecclé-

siologiques.1
Sentences:
peu de choses; le Lombard lui même n’a guère d’Ecclésiologie, sinon des
applications de textes
bibliques à l’Eglise, comme una est columba mea.
II Sent. d. 9: hiérarchie angélique.
Expositio Textus de la dist. 44: texte capital sur les rapports des “deux pouvoirs.”
III: quelques éléments à propos de la foi et du Christ.
IV: les sacrements: il y a à prendre presque partout: baptême, Pénitence-juris-
diction.
Contra impugantes Dei cultum.
Veritate:
q. 27 a. 3, 4, et 7, sur la causalité de la grâce. C’est dans cet intervalle que se fait
q. 29 sur la grâce du Christ: textes capitaux. l’évolution de S. Thomas.
1. Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (1934), 4–5.
256
A ppendi x 4 : T homas Aquinas 257
Contra Gentiles:
IV c. 21–22: Saint-Esprit
et le traité des sacrements (a. 56–78) surtout ce qui concerne l’Ordre (c.
74–76).
Des articulis fidei et Ecclesiae sacramentis.
Contra errores graecorum:
(peu de choses au point de vue constructif, sauf texte capital. )
De regimine principum:
beaucoup des choses dans les 15 premiers chapitres (= le 1olivre).
Le chapitre 14 du livre I est fondamental.
De perfectione vitae spiritualis.
Commentaria in I et II Decretalem.
Contra retrahentes.
Somme:
Ia pars: surtout anthropologie; gouvernement du monde (l’homme image de
Dieu).
I-II: traité de la loi (de la grâce)
II-II: traité de la foi: art. sur le Pape et Hérésie
traité de la charité et schisme
traité de la prudence: gouvernement
traité de la justice: religion
traité des Etats
III: q. 7 et 8: le grâce du Christ
q. 22: sacerdoce; 26 médiation; 48, passion; 59, pouvoir judiciaire
traité des sacrements, leur cause (q. 64: rapport du ministère de l’Eglise
à la
communication de la grâce; notion de caractère)
économie sacramentelle et chacun des sacrements:
baptême
confirmation
eucharistie
ordre
mariage
Ne pas employer le supplément qui = IV Sent.
Commentaria in Symbol:
credo in Sanctam Ecclesiam et Spiritum Sanctum.
Commentaires philosophiques:
sur Aristotle: Ethiques et politiques
sur Denys: Noms divines
Commentaires scripturaux:
S. Jean
258 Appendi x 4 : Thomas Aquinas
S. Paul: dont S. Thomas organise logiquement les épitres du point de vue de la

grâce du Christ in capite et in membris, surtout en Cor (sur l’Eucharistie),
en Ephes.
Quodlibet:
surtout 4, a. 13; 9, a. 16; 11, a. 7; 12 a. 19.
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Works by Yves Congar

Congar’s works are listed in chronological order; listings of original publica-
tions include information on later editions, and listings of later editions refer
to the original publication.
Monographs and Collections

Congar, Yves. Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un ‘oecumenisme’ catholique. Unam
Sanctam 1. Paris: Cerf, 1937. Translated by M. A. Bousefield as Divided
Christendom (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1939).
———. Divided Christendom. Translated by M. A. Bousefield. London: Geoffrey
Bles, 1939. Originally published as Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un ‘oecu-
menisme’ catholique, Unam Sanctam 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1937).
———. Esquisses du mystère de l’Église. Unam Sanctam 8. Paris: Cerf, 1941; 2nd
ed., 1953; 3rd ed., 1963. Translated as The Mystery of the Church, 2nd rev.
ed. (Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press, 1965).
———. Leur Résistance: Mémorial des officiers évadés anciens de Colditz et de
Lubeck morts pour la France. Paris: Renault, 1948.
———. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise. Paris: Cerf, 1950, 2nd ed., 1968.
Translated in part as True and False Reform in the Church, translated by
Paul Philibert (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2011).
———. Le Christ, Marie et l’Église. Paris, 1952. Translated by Henry St. John,
OP, as Christ, Our Lady and the Church: A Study in Eirenic Theology (West-
minster, Md.: Newman Press, 1957).
259
260 B ibliography
———. Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat. Unam Sanctam 23. Paris: Cerf, 1953;
2nd ed., 1954; 3rd rev. ed., 1964. Translated by Donald Attwater as Lay Peo-
ple in the Church: A Study for a Theology of the Laity, rev. ed. (Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1965).
———. Neuf cents ans après: notes sur le schisme oriental. Chevetogne: n.p., 1954.
Translated as After Nine Hundred Years (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1959).
———. Christ, Our Lady and the Church: A Study in Eirenic Theology. Translated
by Henry St. John, OP. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1957. Originally
published as Le Christ, Marie et l’Église (Paris, 1952).
———. Le mystère du Temple ou l’Économie de la Présence de Dieu à sa créature
de la Genèse à l’Apocalypse. Lectio divina 22. Paris: Cerf, 1958. Translated
by Reginald F. Trevett as The Mystery of the Temple (Westminster, Md.: New-
man Press, 1962).
______. After Nine Hundred Years. New York: Fordham University Press, 1959.
Originally published as Neuf cents ans après: notes sur le schisme oriental
(Chevetogne, 1954).
———. Aspects de l’oecuménisme. Brussels, 1962. Translated as Ecumenism and
the Future of the Church (Chicago: Priory Press, 1967).
———. The Mystery of the Temple. Translated by Reginald F. Trevett. West-
minster, Md.: Newman Press, 1962. Originally published as Le mystère
du Temple ou l’Économie de la Présence de Dieu à sa créature de la Genèse à
l’Apocalypse, Lectio divina 22 (Paris: Cerf, 1958).
———. Sacerdoce et laïcat devant leurs tâches d’évangélisation et de civilisation.
Paris: Cerf, 1962. Translated in 2 vols. by P. J. Hepburne-Scott as A Gospel
Priesthood and Christians Active in the World (New York: Herder and Herd-
er, 1967).
———. Les Voies du Dieu vivant. Paris: Cerf, 1962. Translated by A. Manson
and L. C. Sheppard in 2 vols. as The Revelation of God and Faith and the
Spiritual Life (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968).
———. Le Concile au jour le jour. 4 vols. Paris: Cerf, 1963–1966.
———. Chrétiens en dialogue: Contributions catholiques à l’Oecuménisme. Paris:
Cerf, 1964. Translated by Philip Loretz as Dialogue between Christians
(Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1966).
———. Sainte Église: Études et approches ecclésiologiques. Unam Sanctam 41.
Paris: Cerf, 1964.
———. Lay People in the Church: A Study for a Theology of the Laity. Rev. ed.
Translated by Donald Attwater. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1965.
Originally published as Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat. Unam Sanctam
23 (Paris: Cerf, 1953; 2nd ed., 1954; 3rd rev. ed., 1964).
———. The Mystery of the Church. 2nd rev. ed. Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press,
B ibliography 261
1965. Originally published as Esquisses du mystère de l’Église, Unam Sanct-

am 8 (Paris: Cerf, 1941).
———. Dialogue between Christians. Translated by Philip Loretz. Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1966. Originally published as Chrétiens en dialogue:
Contributions catholiques à l’Oecuménisme (Paris: Cerf, 1964).
———. Christians Active in the World. Translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott. New
York: Herder and Herder, 1967. Originally published as part 2 of Sacerdoce
et laïcat devant leurs tâches d’évangélisation et de civilisation (Paris: Cerf,
1962).
———. Ecumenism and the Future of the Church. Chicago: Priory Press, 1967.
Originally published as Aspects de l’oecuménisme (Brussels, 1962).
———. A Gospel Priesthood. Translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott. New York:
Herder and Herder, 1967. Originally published as part 1 of Sacerdoce et
laïcat devant leurs tâches d’évangélisation et de civilisation (Paris: Cerf, 1962).
———. Faith and the Spiritual Life. Translated by A. Manson and L. C. Shep-
pard. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968. Originally published as part 2
of Les Voies du Dieu vivant (Paris: Cerf, 1962).
———. The Revelation of God. Translated by A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard.
New York: Herder and Herder, 1968. Originally published as part 1 of Les
Voies du Dieu vivant (Paris: Cerf, 1962).
———. Ministères et communion ecclésiale. Paris: Cerf, 1971.
———. Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar: “Une vie pour la vérité.” Paris: Centu-
rion, 1975.
———. Un peuple messianique. L’Église, sacrement du salut. Salut et libération.
Cogitatio Fidei 85. Paris: Cerf, 1975.
———. Je crois en l’Esprit Saint. 3 vols. Paris: Cerf, 1979–1980. Translated by
David Smith as I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York: Crossroad Publish-
ing, 1997).
———. Le Concile de Vatican II: Son Église, Peuple de Dieu et corps du Christ.
Théologie historique 71. Paris: Beauchesne, 1984.
———. Entretiens d’automne. Paris: Cerf, 1987. Translated by John Bowden as
Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar (Philadel-
phia: Fortress Press, 1988).
———. Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar. Edited by
Bernard Lauret. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1988. Originally published as Entretiens d’automne (Paris: Cerf, 1987).
———. I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Translated by David Smith. New York:
Crossroad Publishing, 1997. Originally published as Je crois en l’Esprit
Saint, 3 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1979–1980).
———. Journal d’un théologien: 1946–1956. Edited and annotated by Étienne
Fouilloux. Paris: Cerf, 2001.
262 B ibliography
———. Mon Journal du Concile. 2 vols. Paris: Cerf, 2002. Translated by Mary
John Ronayn and Mary Cecily Boulding as My Journal of the Council (Col-
legeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2012).
———. True and False Reform in the Church. Translated by Paul Philibert.
Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2011. Originally published as Vraie et
fausse réforme dans l’Eglise (Paris: Cerf, 1950, 2nd ed., 1968).
———. My Journal of the Council. Translated by Mary John Ronayn and Mary
Cecily Boulding. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2012. Originally
published as Mon Journal du Concile, 2 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 2002).
Congar, Yves, and B.-D. Dupuy, eds. L’Episcopat et l’Eglise universelle. Unam
Sanctam 39. Paris: Cerf, 1962.
Articles and Unpublished Papers

Congar, Yves. “Bulletin de théologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et
théologiques 21 (1932): 680–86. Reprinted in Sainte Église, 457–63.
———. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église.” Vie Intellectuelle 15 (10
April 1932): 18–29. Reprinted in Sainte Église, 449–57.
———. “Bibliographie critique.” Bulletin Thomiste 3 (July–September 1933):
948–56. Reprinted in Sainte Église, 466–73.
———. “Bulletin de théologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
23 (1934): 680–87.
———. “Bulletin de théologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
24 (1935): 727–34.
———. “Ecclésiologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24
(1935): 727–34. Reprinted in Sainte Église, 481–88.
———. “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe.” Irenikon 12 (1935):
321–29.
———. “Une conclusion théologique à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles de
l’incroyance.” Vie Intellectuelle 37, no. 2 (1935): 214–49. Translated as “The
Reasons for the Unbelief of our Time,” Integration 2, no. 1 (1938): 13–21
and 2, no. 3 (1938), 10–26.
———. “Ecclesia de Trinitate.” Irenikon 14 (1937): 131–46.
———. “Rome, Oxford and Edinburgh.” Blackfriars 18 (September 1937):
646–59.
———. “Note sur l’évolution et l’interprétation de la pensée de Möhler.” Revue
des science philosophiques et théologiques 27 (1938): 205–12.
———. “The Reasons for the Unbelief of our Time.” Integration 2, no. 1 (1938):
13–21, and no. 3 (1938), 10–26. Originally published as “Une conclusion
théologique à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles del ’incroyance,” Vie Intel-
lectuelle 37, no. 2 (1935): 214–49.
B ibliography 263
———. “La signification oecuménique de l’oeuvre de Möhler.” Irenikon 15

(1938): 113–30.
———. “L’esprit des Pères d’après Möhler.” Supplement to La Vie Spirituelle
55 (April 1938): 1–25. Reprinted in Esquisses du mystère de l’Eglise, 1st ed.,
129–48 (Paris: Cerf, 1941).
———. “Je crois en la Sainte Église.” Revue des Jeunes (January 1938): 85–92.
Reprinted in Sainte Église, 9–17.
———. “Vie de l’Église et conscience de la catholicité.” Bulletin des Missions 18
(1938): 153–60. Translated as “The Life of the Church and Awareness of Its
Catholicity,” in The Mystery of the Church, 96–104.
______. “Autor du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie: La collection ‘Unam Sanct-
am.’” Vie Intellectuelle 61 (January 10, 1939): 9–32. Reprinted in Sainte
Église, 513–28.
———. “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas.” Thomist (October
1939): 331–59. Reprinted in The Mystery of the Church, 53–74.
———. “Théologie.” In Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, edited by A. Vacant
and E. Mangenot, 15:341–502. Paris: Editions Letouzey et Ané, 1943. Writ-
ten in 1939.
———. “L’Église: Corps Mystique du Christ.” La Vie Spirituelle 64 (1941):
241–54.
———. “L’esprit des Pères d’après Möhler.” In Esquisses du mystère de l’Eglise,
1st ed., 129–48. Paris: Cerf, 1941. Originally published in Supplement to La
Vie Spirituelle 55 (April 1938): 1–25.
———. “Rhythmes de l’Église.” Vie Intellectuelle 14 (1946): 6–22.
———. “Sacerdoce et laïcat dans l’Église.” Vie Intellectuelle 14 (1946): 6–39.
———. “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et
théologiques 31 (1947): 78–96 and 272–96. Reprinted in Sainte Église,
549–92.
———. “Sainteté et péche dans l’Eglise.” Vie Intellectuelle 15 (1947): 6–40.
———. “Trois livres de Pentecôte.” Vie Intellectuelle 15 (June 1947): 37–43.
Reprinted in Sainte Église, 535–42.
———. “Bibliographie critique.” Bulletin Thomiste 8, no. 2 (1947–1953):
975–77.
———. “Mission de la Paroisse.” In Structures sociales et Pastorale paroissiale
(Paris: National Conference, Lille, 1948), 48–65. Reprinted in Les voies de
Dieu vivant, 175–206. Translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott as “The Mission
of the Parish,” in A Gospel Priesthood, 151–81.
———. “Pour une théologie du laïcat.” Études 256 (January and February
1948): 42–54 and 194–218.
———. “Pourquoi le Peuple de Dieu doit-il sans cesse réformer.” Irenikon 22
(1948): 365–94.
264 B ibliography
———. “Sur deux aspects du travail apostolique: le prêtre, chef de people et

apôtre.” Prêtres diocésains (February 1949): 81–89. Reprinted in Sacerdoce
et laïcat, 207–26. Translated as “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work: The Priest
as Head of His People and as Apostle,” in A Gospel Priesthood, 182–200.
———. “L’Eucharistie et l’Église de la Nouvelle Alliance.” La Vie Spirituelle 82
(1950): 347–72. Reprinted in Les Voies de Dieu vivant, 185–206. Translated
by A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard as “The Eucharist and the Church of the
New Alliance,” in The Revelation of God, 168–88.
———. Preface. In F. Dvornik, Le schisme de Photius, 7–21. Unam Sanctam 19.
Paris: Cerf, 1950.
———. “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?” Supplement to La Vie Spirituelle 4 (November
1950): 363–92.
———. “Ecclesia ab Abel.” In Abhandlungen über Theologie und Kirche, edited by
Marcel Reding, 79–108 (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1952).
———. “La personne et la liberté humaine dans l’anthropologie orientale,”
Recherches et Débats 1 (May 1952): 99–111. Translated as “The Human
Person and Human Liberty in Oriental Anthropology,” in Dialogue between
Christians (1966), 232–45.
———. “Le Saint-Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du
Christ.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 36 (1952): 613–25,
and 37 (1953): 24–48. Translated as “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic
College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 105–45.
———. “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église.” Lumière et Vie (Lyons) 10 (June 1953):
51–74. Reprinted in Les Voies de Dieu vivant, 165–84. Translated by A.
Manson and L. C. Sheppard as “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The
Revelation of God, 148–67.
———. “Groupes sociaux humains et laïcat d’Église.” Masses ouvrières (Decem-
ber 1953): 25–40. Reprinted in Sacerdoce et laïcat, 315–28. Translated by
P. J. Hepburne-Scott as “Human Social Groups and the Laity of the
Church,” in Christians Active in the World, 48–61.
———. “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Vérité et limites d’un
parallèle.” In Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 3:
Chalkedon heute, edited by A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, 239–68 (Wurtz-
bourg: Echter-Verlag, 1954). Reprinted in Sainte Église, 69–104.
———. “Enquête parmi les chrétiens: Catholiques.” Esprit (December 1961):
690–700. Translated as “The Council in the Age of Dialogue,” Cross Cur-
rents 12, no. 2 (1962): 144–51.
———. “Kirche: Dogmengeschichtlich,” in Handbuch theologischer Grundbe-
griffe, edited by H. Fries, 1:801–12 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1961). Translated
as “Église II: Histoire dogmatique” in Encyclopédie de la Foi, edited by
H. Fries, 1:421–39 (Paris: Cerf, 1965.)
B ibliography 265
———. “Le laïcat et histoire.” Bulletin du Cercle Saint Jean-Baptiste (October–

November 1961): 15–22, and (December 1961): 15–26. Reprinted in Les
Laïcs et la mission de l’Eglise, edited by Jean Daniélou, 11–38 (Paris: 1962),
and as “Laïc” in Encyclopédie de la Foi, edited by H. Fries, 2:436–56 (Paris:
Cerf, 1965).
———. “Peut-on définir l’Église? Destin et valeur de quatre notions que s’of-
frent a le faire.” In Jacques Leclercq: L’homme, son oeuvre et ses amis, edited
by André Molitor, 233–54 (Paris: Casterman, 1961). Reprinted in Sainte
Église, 22–44.
———. “The Council in the Age of Dialogue.” Cross Currents 12, no. 2
(1962): 144–51. Originally published as “Enquête parmi les chrétiens:
Catholiques,” Esprit (December 1961): 690–700.
———. “Diversité et divisions.” In Catholicisme un et diverse, Semaine des
Intellectuels catholiques 1961 (Paris, 1961), 27–43. Reprinted as “Unité,
Diversités et Divisions” in Sainte Église, 105–30.
———. “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église.” In Les Voies de Dieu vivant (1962),
165–84. Originally published in Lumière et Vie (Lyons) 10 (June 1953):
51–74. Translated by A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard as “The Holy Spirit in
the Church,” in The Revelation of God (1968), 148–67.
———. “L’Eucharistie et l’Église de la Nouvelle Alliance.” In Les Voies de Dieu
vivant (1962), 185–206. Originally published in La Vie Spirituelle 82 (1950):
347–72. Translated by A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard as “The Eucharist and
the Church of the New Alliance,” in The Revelation of God (1968), 168–88.
———. “Groupes sociaux humains et laïcat d’Église.” In Sacerdoce et laïcat
(1962), 315–28. Originally published in Masses ouvrières (December 1953):
25–40. Translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott as “Human Social Groups and
the Laity of the Church,” in Christians Active in the World (1967), 48–61.
———. “Le laïcat et histoire.” In Les Laïcs et la mission de l’Eglise, edited by Jean
Daniélou, 11–38 (Paris: 1962). Originally published in Bulletin du Cercle
Saint Jean-Baptiste (October–November 1961): 15–22, and (December
1961): 15–26, and reprinted as “Laïc” in Encyclopédie de la Foi, edited by
H. Fries, 2:436–56 (Paris: Cerf, 1965).
———. “Mission de la Paroisse.” In Les voies de Dieu vivant (1962), 175–206.
Originally published in Structures sociales et Pastorale paroissiale (Paris: Na-
tional Conference, Lille, 1948), 48–65. Translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott
as “The Mission of the Parish,” in A Gospel Priesthood, 151–81.
———. “The Mission of the Parish.” In A Gospel Priesthood (1962), 151–81.
Originally published as “Mission de la Paroisse,” in Structures sociales et
Pastorale paroissiale (Paris: National Conference, Lille, 1948), 48–65, and
reprinted in Les voies de Dieu vivant, 175–206.
———. “Sur deux aspects du travail apostolique: le prêtre, chef de people et
266 B ibliography
apôtre.” In Sacerdoce et laïcat (1962), 207–26. Originally published in

Prêtres diocésains (February 1949): 81–89. Translated as “Two Aspects of
Apostolic Work: The Priest as Head of His People and as Apostle,” in A
Gospel Priesthood, 182–200.
———. “Two Aspects of Apostolic Work: The Priest as Head of His People and
as Apostle.” In A Gospel Priesthood (1962), 182–200. Originally published
as “Sur deux aspects du travail apostolique: le prêtre, chef de people et
apôtre,” Prêtres diocésains (Feburary 1949): 81–89, and reprinted in Sacer-
doce et laïcat (1962), 207–26.
———. “L’avenir de l’Église.” In L’Avenir, Actes de la Semaine des Intellectu-
els catholiques 1963, 207–221. Paris, 1964. Translated as “The Future of
the Church,” in Ecumenism and the Future of the Church, 154–81 (Chicago:
Priory Press, 1967).
______. “Autor du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie: La collection ‘Unam Sanct-
am.’” In Sainte Église (1964), 513–28. Originally published in Vie Intellectu-
elle 61 (January 10, 1939): 9–32.
———. “Bibliographie critique.” In Sainte Église (1964), 466–73. Originally
published in Bulletin Thomiste 3 (July–September 1933): 948–56.
———. “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie.” In Sainte Église (1964), 549–92. Original-
ly published in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 31 (1947):
78–96 and 272–96.
———. “Bulletin de théologie.” In Sainte Église (1964), 457–63. Originally pub-
lished in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 21 (1932): 680–86.
———. “Le Concile s’interroge sur l’Église et l’épiscopat.” Chapter 5 in Le
Concile au jour le jour, vol. 2, Deuxième session (1964).
———. “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Vérité et limites d’un par-
allèle.” In Sainte Église (1964), 69–104. Originally published in Das Konzil
von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 3, Chalkedon heute, edited by
A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, 239–68 (Wurtzbourg: Echter-Verlag, 1954).
———. “Ecclésiologie.” In Sainte Église (1964), 481–88. Originally published
in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24 (1935): 727–34.
———. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église.” In Sainte Église (1964),
449–57. Originally published in Vie Intellectuelle 15 (10 April 1932): 18–29.
———. “Je crois en la Sainte Église.” In Sainte Église (1964), 9–17. Originally
published in Revue des Jeunes (January 1938): 85–92.
———. “Peut-on définir l’Église? Destin et valeur de quatre notions que
s’offrent a le faire.” In Sainte Église (1964), 22–44. Originally published in
Jacques Leclercq: L’homme, son oeuvre et ses amis, edited by André Molitor,
233–54 (Paris: Casterman, 1961).
———. “Réouverture du Concile.” Chapter 4 in Le Concile au jour le jour, vol. 2,
Deuxième session (1964).
B ibliography 267
———. “Trois livres de Pentecôte.” In Sainte Église (1964), 535–42. Originally

published in Vie Intellectuelle 15 (June 1947): 37–43.
———. “Unité, Diversités et Divisions.” In Sainte Église (1964), 105–30. Orig-
inally published as “Diversité et divisions,” in Catholicisme un et diverse,
Semaine des Intellectuels catholiques 1961 (Paris, 1961), 27–43.
———. “Vers une ecclésiologie totale.” Chapter 7 in Le Concile au jour le jour,
vol. 2, Deuxième session (1964).
———. “Août 1964: Perspectives à la veille de la troisième session.” Chapter 1
in Le Concile au jour le jour, vol. 3, Troisième session (1965).
———. “The Church: The People of God.” Concilium 1 (1965): 7–19.
———. “Église II: Histoire dogmatique.” In Encyclopédie de la Foi, edited by
H. Fries, 1:421–39. Paris: Cerf, 1965. Originally published as “Kirche:
Dogmengeschichtlich,” in Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, edited by
H. Fries, 1:801–12 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1961).
———. “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas.” In The Mystery of
the Church (1965), 53–74. Originally published in Thomist (October 1939):
331–59.
———. “The Life of the Church and Awareness of Its Catholicity.” In The Mys-
tery of the Church (1965), 96–104. Originally published as “Vie de l’Église
et conscience de la catholicité,” Bulletin des Missions 18 (1938): 153–60.
———. “Laïc.” In Encyclopédie de la Foi, edited by H. Fries, 2:436–56. Paris:
Cerf, 1965. Originally published as “Le laïcat et histoire,” Bulletin du Cercle
Saint Jean-Baptiste (October–November 1961): 15–22, and (December
1961): 15–26, and reprinted in Les Laïcs et la mission de l’Eglise, edited by
Jean Daniélou, 11–38 (Paris: Centurion, 1962).
———. “The Human Person and Human Liberty in Oriental Anthropology.”
In Dialogue between Christians (1966), 232–45. Originally published as “La
personne et la liberté humaine dans l’anthropologie orientale,” Recherches
et Débats 1 (May 1952): 99–111.
———. “The Laity.” In Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, edited by John H.
Miller, 239–49. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1966.
———. “The People of God.” In Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, edited by
John H. Miller, 197–206. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame,
1966.
———. “Le sacerdoce chrétien. Celui des laïcs et celui des prêtres.” Vocation
236 (1966): 587–613.
———. “L’Apostolat des laïcs d’après le Decrét du Concile.” La Vie spirituelle
(February 1967): 129–60.
———. “The Future of the Church.” In Ecumenism and the Future of the Church
(1967), 154–81. Originally published as “L’avenir de l’Église,” in L’Avenir,
Actes de la Semaine des Intellectuels catholiques 1963, 207–21 (Paris, 1964).
268 B ibliography
———. “Human Social Groups and the Laity of the Church.” In Christians Ac-
tive in the World (1967), 48–61. Originally published as “Groupes sociaux
humains et laïcat d’Église,” Masses ouvrières (December 1953): 25–40, and
reprinted in Sacerdoce et laïcat (1962), 315–28.
———. “The Eucharist and the Church of the New Alliance,” in The Revelation
of God (1968), 168–88. Originally published as “L’Eucharistie et l’Église de
la Nouvelle Alliance,” La Vie Spirituelle 82 (1950): 347–72, and reprinted in
Les Voies de Dieu vivant (1962), 185–206.
———. “The Holy Spirit in the Church.” In The Revelation of God (1968),
148–67. Originally published as “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Lumière et
Vie (Lyons) 10 (June 1953): 51–74, and reprinted in Les Voies de Dieu vivant
(1962), 165–84.
———. “Entretien avec le Père Congar.” In Yves Congar and others, Sept
problèmes capitaux de l’Eglise, 9–15. Paris: Fayard, 1969. Translated as “Yves
Congar,” in Yves Congar and others, The Crucial Questions, 8–14 (New
York: Newman Press, 1969).
———. “Yves Congar.” In Yves Congar and others, The Crucial Questions, 8–14.
New York: Newman Press, 1969. Originally published as “Entretien avec
le Père Congar,” in Yves Congar and others, Sept problèmes capitaux de
l’Eglise, 9–15 (Paris: Fayard, 1969).
———. “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et
théologiques 54 (1970): 95–127.
———. “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des ministères.”
In Ministères et communion ecclésiale (1971), 9–30. Translated as “My
Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” Jurist 32 (1972):
169–88.
———. “Unité et pluralisme,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale (1971),
229–58.
———. “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries.” Jurist
32 (1972): 169–88. Originally published as “Mon cheminement dans la
théologie du laïcat et des ministères,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale,
9–30.
———. “Pneumatology Today.” American Ecclesiastical Review 167, no. 7 (1973):
435–49.
———. “Church Structures and Councils in the Relations between East and
West.” One in Christ 3 (1975): 224–65.
———. “Les théologiens, Vatican II et la théologie.” In Vingt ans de notre
histoire, edited by G. Defois, 171–93 (Paris, 1982). Reprinted in Le Concile
de Vatican II, 79–90.
———. Foreword. In Timothy I. MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar:
Foundational Themes, xxii–xxiii. Lanham, Md.: University Press of Ameri-
ca, 1984.
B ibliography 269
———. “Les théologiens, Vatican II et la théologie,” in Le Concile de Vatican II

(1984), 79–90. Originally published in Vingt ans de notre histoire, edited by
G. Defois, 171–93 (Paris, 1982).
———. “A Last Look at the Council.” In Vatican II Revisited by Those Who Were
There, edited by Alberic Stacpoole, 337–58. Minneapolis: Winston Press,
1986.
———. Yves Congar Papers. Archives of the Dominican Province of France.
Works by Other Authors

Alberigo, Giuseppe, ed. Les Églises après Vatican II: Dynamisme et Prospective.
Théologie Historique 61. Paris: Beauchesne, 1981.
Alberigo, Giuseppe, and Joseph Komonchak, eds. History of Vatican II. 5 vols.
Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995–2006.
Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1924.
Baraúna, Guiherme, ed. L’Église de Vatican II. Vol. 2. Paris: Cerf, 1967.
Beauchesne, Richard J. “Heeding the Early Congar Today, and Two Recent
Roman Catholic Issues: Seeking Hope on the Road Back.” Journal of Ecu-
menical Studies 27, no. 3 (1990): 535–60.
Billot, Louis. Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi. Rome: Univ. Gregoriana, 1903.
Bobrinskoy, Boris. “Le P. Yves Congar et l’orthodoxie.” Istina 48 (2003): 20–23.
Boulding, M. Cecily. “Yves Congar: Faithful Critic of the Church in Mon Jour-
nal du Concile.” Louvain Studies 29 (2004): 350–70.
Bouyer, Louis. The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit.
Translated by Charles Underhill Quinn. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1982. Originally published as L’Église de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1970).
Burke, Sister Teresa, CP. “The Abbé Paul Couturier: Pioneer of Spiritual Ecu-
menism.” In The Unity of Christians: The Vision of Paul Couturier, edited by
Mark Woodruff, 1–9. 2nd ed. London: Catholic League, Tufton Books, 2005.
Canavaris, Iakovos. The Ecclesiology of Yves M.-J. Congar: An Orthodox Evalua-
tion. Athens: P. Klissiounis Society Press, 1968.
Chabas, Yves. “Heirs of Abbé Couturier: Years of Efforts by French Priests Has
Led to Catholic-Protestant Dialogue.” Christian Century 82 (January 13,
1965): 41–43.
Clancy, Finbarr. “Breathing with Both Her Lungs: Yves Congar and Dialogue
with the East.” Louvain Studies 29 (2004): 320–49.
Colliard, Lauro-Aimé. Patrice de La Tour du Pin, Jean Guitton et Yves Congar
entre barbelés et miradors. Paris: Editions Don Bosco, n.d.
Connolly, James M. The Voices of France: A Survey of Contemporary Theology in
France. New York: Macmillan, 1961.
270 B ibliography
Coughlin, Peter Joseph. “The Search for a Positive Definition or Description

of the Laity from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, 1964, to John Paul II’s
Christifideles Laici, 1988: A No-Through Road.” PhD diss., University of
London, 2005.
Daly, Gabriel. Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism
and Integralism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
———. “Catholicism and Modernity.” Journal of the American Academy of Reli-
gion 53, no. 3 (1985): 773–96.
———. “Modernism.” In The New Dictionary of Theology, edited by Joseph A.
Komonchak, Mary Collins, and Dermot Lane, 668–70. Collegeville, Minn.:
Liturgical Press, 1987.
———. “Doctine as Symbol: Johann Adam Möhler in Dialogue with Kant
and Hegel.” In The Legacy of the Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nine-
teenth-Century Theology for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Donald J.
Dietrich and Michael J. Himes, 130–43. New York: Crossroad Publishing
Company, 1997.
De Lubac, Henri. The Splendour of the Church. Translated by Michael Mason.
New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956.
———. Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man. Paris: Cerf, 1947.
Translated by Lancelot C. Sheppard and Sister Elizabeth Englund, OCD
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988).
———. Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages. Ed-
ited by Laurence Paul Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons. Translated by
Gemma Simmonds with Richard Price and Christopher Stephens. Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Dieckmann, Hermann. De Ecclesia: Tractatus Historico-Dogmatici. Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1925.
Doyle, Dennis. Communion Ecclesiology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000.
Dulles, Avery Robert. “Paths to Doctrinal Agreement: Ten Theses.” Theological
Studies 47, no. 1 (1986): 32–47.
———. “Yves Congar: In Appreciation.” America 173, no. 2 (1995): 6–7.
———. “True and False Reform.” First Things (August 2003): 14–19.
Dupuis, Jacques. “Lay People in Church and World.” Gregorianum 68, no. 1–2
(1987): 347–90.
Dupuy, Bernard. “Le Père Yves Congar: pionnier de l’unité des chrétiens.”
Istina 48 (2003): 5–8.
Duval, André. “Yves Congar: A Life for the Truth.” Thomist 48 (1984): 505–11.
Famerée, Joseph. “L’ecclésiologie du Père Yves Congar: Essai de synthèse cri-
tique.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 76 (1992): 377–419.
———. L’ecclésiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II. Louvain: Presses Universi-
taires de Louvain, 1992.
B ibliography 271
———. “Originalité de l’ecclésiologie du Père Congar.” Bulletin de litterature

ecclésiastique 56 (2005): 89–112.
Famerée, Joseph, and Gilles Routhier. Yves Congar. Paris: Cerf, 2008.
Fernández Cordero, Ma. Jesús. “La naturaleza eclesiológica de la ‘retractación’
de Congar de Jalones (1953) a Minsterios y Comunión (1971).” Estudios
Eclesiásticos 76 (2001): 329–82 and 539–91.
Flynn, Gabriel. “‘Mon journal du Concile’: Yves Congar and the Battle for a
Renewed Ecclesiology at the Second Vatican Council.” Louvain Studies 28,
no. 1 (2003): 48–70.
———. “Yves Cardinal Congar, un Maître en Théologie.” Louvain Studies 29
(2004): 239–57.
———. Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief. Burlington,
Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2004.
———, ed. Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church. Louvain: Peeters Press, 2005.
Fouilloux, Étienne. Eglise en quête de liberté: La pensée catholique française entre
modernisme et Vatican II (1914–1962). Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1998.
———. “Frère Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominicain: Itinéraire d’un théologien.”
Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 79 (1995): 379–404. Trans-
lated by Christian Yves Dupont as “Friar Yves, Cardinal Congar, Domini-
can: Itinerary of a Theologian,” U.S. Catholic Historian 17 (1999): 62–90.
Fox, Zeni. “Laity, Ministry, and Secular Character.” In Ordering the Baptismal
Priesthood: Theologies of Lay and Ordained Ministry, edited by Susan K.
Wood, 121–51. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Franzelin, Johann Baptist. Theses de Ecclesia Christi. Rome: Typographia Poly-
glotta, 1887.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald. Christ the Savior. St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1950.
Originally published as De Christo salvatore : commentarius in IIIam partem
Summae theologicae sancti Thomae (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945).
Groppe, Elizabeth Teresa. “The Practice of Theology as Passion for Truth: Tes-
timony from the Journals of Yves Congar, OP.” Horizons 31, no. 2 (2004):
382–402.
———. Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004.
Guilmot, Paul. Fin d’une Église cléricale? Le débat en France de 1945 à nos jours.
Paris: Cerf, 1969.
Hahnenberg, Edward P. “The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Eccle-
siology: Historical Parallels.” Irish Theological Quarterly 70 (2005): 3–30.
Hanvey, James. “In the Presence of Love: The Pneumatological Realization of
the Economy: Yves Congar’s Le Mystère du Temple.” International Journal of
Systematic Theology 7, no. 4 (2005): 383–98.
Henn, William. “The Hierarchy of Truths Twenty Years Later.” Theological
Studies 48 (1987): 439–72.
272 B ibliography
———. “The Hierarchy of Truths and Christian Unity.” Ephemerides theologicae

lovanienses 66, no. 1 (1990): 111–42.
Hille, Rolf. “Transition from Modernity to Post-Modernity: A Theological Eval-
uation.” European Journal of Theology 11 (2002): 87–107.
Himes, Michael J. “The Development of Ecclesiology: Modernity to the Twen-
tieth Century.” In The Gift of the Church, edited by Peter C. Phan, 45–68.
Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000.
Jagdeo, Diane. “Holiness and Reform of the Church in the Writings of Yves
Congar, O. P.” PhD diss., The Catholic University of America, 1986.
Jodock, Darrell, ed. Catholicism Contending with Modernity: Roman Catholic
Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2000.
Jossua, Jean-Pierre, OP. Le Père Congar: La théologie au service du peuple de Dieu.
Paris: Cerf, 1967.
Keightley, Georgia Masters. “Lay Church and World: Practice as Conversation,
a Prolegomenon to a Total Ecclesiology.” In Theology and Conversation:
Towards a Relational Theology, edited by J. Haers and P. de Mey, 597–614.
Leuven: Peeters, 2003.
Kerr, Fergus. “Yves Congar: From Suspicion to Acclamation.” Louvain Studies
29 (2004): 273–87.
———. Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell,
2007.
Komonchak, Joseph. “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholicism.”
Cristianesimo nella Storia 18 (1997): 355–85.
———. “The Significance of Vatican Council II for Ecclesiology.” In The Gift
of the Church: A Textbook on Ecclesiology, 69–92, edited by Peter C. Phan.
Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000.
Koskela, Douglas M. Ecclesiality and Ecumenism: Yves Congar and the Road to
Unity. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2008.
Lagrange, M.-J. M. Loisy et le Modernisme. À propos des “Mémoires.” Juvisy,
France: Cerf, 1932.
Lakeland, Paul. The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church.
New York: Continuum, 2003.
———. “The Laity.” In From Trent to Vatican II, edited by Raymond F. Bulman
and Frederick J. Parrella, 193–207. New York: Oxford University Press,
2006.
Lane, Dermot. “Eschatology.” In The New Dictionary of Theology, edited by
Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Collins, and Dermot A. Lane, 329–42. Col-
legeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1987.
Le Guillou, M. J. “Yves Congar.” In Bilan de la théologie du XXI siècle, edited by
Robert Vander Gucht and Herbert Vorgrimler, 2:791–805. Tournai-Paris:
Casterman, 1970.
B ibliography 273
Leprieur, François. Quand Rome condamne: Dominicains et Prêtres-Ouvriers.

Paris: Cerf, 1969.
MacDonald, Timothy I. The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes.
Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984.
Mahieu, Eric. “Présentation de ‘Mon journal du Concile.’” Istina 48 (2003):
9–19.
McBrien, Richard. “Church and Ministry: The Achievement of Yves Congar.”
Theology Digest 32 (1985): 203–11.
———. “Yves Congar: Mentor for Theologians.” Louvain Studies 29 (2004):
258–72.
Melloni, Alberto. “Congar, Architect of Unam Sanctam.” Louvain Studies 29
(2004): 222–38.
Mercier, Desirée-Joseph. A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy. Vol. 1. 3rd
English ed. Translated by T. L. Parker and S. A. Parker. London: Kegan
Paul, Trench Trubner, 1926. Originally published as Traité élémentaire de
philosophie (Louvain, 1916).
Mersch, Émile. “Le Christ mystique, centre de la théologie comme science.”
Nouvelle Revue Théologique 61 (1934): 449–75.
———. The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mysti-
cal Body in Scripture and Tradition. Translated by John R. Kelly. Milwaukee,
Wis.: Bruce Publishing, 1938. Originally published as Le corps mystique du
Christ: Études de théologie historique (Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1933).
———. The Theology of the Mystical Body. Translated by Cyril Vollert. St. Louis,
Mo.: B. Herder, 1951. Originally published as La théologie du corps mystique
(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1944).
Möhler, Johann Adam. Symbolism or Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences
between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by their Symbolical Writings.
Translated by James Burton Robertson. New York: Crossroad, 1997. Orig-
inally published as Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze
der Katholiken und Protestanten nach ihren offentlichen Bekenntnisschriften
(Mainz, 1832).
________. Unity in the Church or the Principle of Catholicism Presented in the
Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries. Translated by Peter
C. Erb. Washington, D.C.: The CatholicUniversity of America Press,
1996. Originally published as Die Einheit in der Kirche oder das Prinzip des
Katholizismus dargestellt im Geiste der Kirchenväter der ersten drei Jahrhunder-
te (Tübingen: Heinrich Laupp, 1825).
Mullens, Patrick. “The Spirit Speaks to the Churches: Continuity and Develop-
ment in Congar’s Pneumatology.” Louvain Studies 29 (2004): 288–319.
Nichols, Aidan. Yves Congar. Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989.
________. The Shape of Catholic Theology. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
1991.
274 B ibliography
Nissiotis, Nikos A. “Le fondement ecclésiologique du plérôme de l’Eglise:

L’unité du laïcat et du clergé dans la tradition orthodoxe.” Verbum Caro 18
(1964): 158–72.
O’Meara, Thomas F. “Beyond ‘Hierarchology’: Johann Adam Möhler and Yves
Congar.” In The Legacy of the Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nine-
teenth-Century Theology for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Donald J.
Dietrich and Michael J. Himes, 173–91. New York: Crossroad, 1997.
———. “Reflections on Yves Congar and Theology in the United States.” U.S.
Catholic Historian 17 (1999): 91–105.
Passaglia, Carlo. De Ecclesia Christi: Commentariorum Libri Quinque. Vol. 2.
Regensburg: G. J. Manz, 1856.
Pellitero, Ramiro. La Teología del Laicado en la Obra de Yves Congar. Pamplona:
Universidad de Navarra, 1996.
________. “Congar’s Developing Understanding of the Laity and Their Mis-
sion.” Thomist 65, no. 3 (2001): 327–59.
Rahner, Karl. “Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated
Grace.” In Theological Investigations, 1:319–46. Baltimore: Helicon, 1964.
Originally published as “Zur scholastichen Begrifflichkeit der ungeschaff-
enen Gnade,” in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 63 (1939): 137–57.
Rigal, Jean. “L’ecclésiologie trinitaire du Père Congar.” Bulletin de Litterature
Ecclésiastique 56 (2005): 159–70.
Rodé, François. Le miracle dans la controverse moderniste. Théologie Historique
3. Paris: Beauchesne, 1965.
Schloesser, Stephen. Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris,
1919–1933. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
Schultes, Reginald, OP. De ecclesia Catholica praelectiones apologeticae. Paris:
Lethielleux, 1925, 1931.
Stacpoole, Alberic. “Early Ecumenism, Early Yves Congar, 1904–1940.” Month
21 (1988): 502–10.
Stevens, R. Paul. The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical
Perspective. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.
Torrell, Jean-Pierre. “Yves Congar et l’ecclésiologie de Saint Thomas d’Aquin.”
Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 82 (1998): 201–42.
Vezin, Jean-Marie. “Présentation raisonnée de la bibliographie d’Yves Congar.”
www. catho-theo.net 5, no. 2 (2006): 152–79.
Weber, Hans-Ruedi. “On Being Christian in the World: Reflection on the Ecu-
menical Discussion about the Laity.” Paper presented at the World Council
of Churches’ international consultation on “Towards a Common Under-
standing of the Theological Concepts of Laity/Laos: The People of God,”
Geneva, Switzerland, May 7–10, 1997. http://www. wcc-coe. org/wcc/what/
education/weber. html (accessed February 21, 2009).
B ibliography 275
Webster, John. “Purity and Plenitude: Evangelical Reflections on Congar’s

Tradition and Traditions.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 7,
no. 4 (2005): 399–413.
Winter, Michael. “Masters in Israel: VI. Yves Congar.” Clergy Review 55 (1970):
275–88.
Magisterial Documents
First Vatican Council. Dei Filius. 24 April 1870. Enchiridion Symbolorum, edited
by Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer, §§3000–3025. Barcelona:
Herder, 1963.
Leo XIII. Aeterni Patris. 4 August 1879. Acta Sanctae Sedis 12 (1879): 97–115.
Pius IX. Syllabus Errorum. 8 December 1864. Acta Sanctae Sedis 3 (1867):
160–76.
Pius X. Pascendi Domenici Gregis. 8 November 1907. Acta Sanctae Sedis 40
(1908): 593–650.
Pius XII. Mystici Corporis. 29 June 1943. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 35 (1943):
193–248.
________. Humani Generis. 12 August 1950. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950):
561–78.
Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. Lamentabili Sane Exitu. 3 July 1907.
Acta Sanctae Sedis 40 (1907): 470–78.
Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium. 21 November 1964. Acta Apostolicae
Sedis 57 (1965): 5–71.
________. Gaudium et Spes. 7 December 1965. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 58 (1966):
947–90.
• INDEX
Action Française, 29 Christian anthropology, 3, 21, 71, 147–48,

Adam, Karl, 17 208–9, 214
Aeterni Patris, 26–28 christology, 3, 21, 71, 95
apologetics, 6, 23, 66, 68, 69, 70, 72, church, apostolic body of, 144, 149, 153,
75–82, 83–84, 87–90, 98, 102, 106, 159, 164, 196–99
117, 119, 155, 171–74, 187 church, causes of, 132, 168, 213; efficient,
Arata, Antonino, 48 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 87, 99, 100, 102,
Aristotle, 28, 106; doctrine of causation, 107–9, 110, 113–17, 119, 125–27, 130–31,
106–8 136, 138–39, 143–45, 147, 150–54, 159,
Augustine, 71, 87, 113n31 161, 163, 164, 176, 183n33, 184, 188,
196, 198–200; final, 61–62, 64, 87,
Bea, Augustin, 204 88, 99–100, 108–9, 110–12, 116, 119,
Beauduin, Lambert, 33 120–24, 131, 136, 139, 145–47, 148–50,
Bellarmine, Robert, 112 153, 160, 176, 181, 183, 185, 187;
Blondel, Maurice, 27, 28, 29 formal, 60, 61, 62, 65, 88, 99, 100,
Boisselot, Pierre, 9 102, 107–8, 114–15, 117n52, 119, 125–
Boyer, Charles, 48 31, 138–39, 143–44, 145, 158, 160–61,
163, 176, 184, 191n77, 194; material,
canon law, 58, 66, 69–70, 71–72, 75–82, 61, 64, 65, 99–100, 107, 109n16, 117,
83, 102, 106 119, 124, 125n84, 139, 144, 145, 147,
captivity: covenant and, 138, 142; World 148, 153, 154n209, 208; quasi-formal,
War II and, 8, 43, 59, 142 60, 87, 108, 110, 113–18
Catholic Action, 73, 93 church, common good of, 86, 93, 95,
charity, 129, 143, 184, 192–94 108, 111–15, 120–23, 128, 129n112, 149,
Chenu, Marie-Dominique, 5, 7, 8, 9, 153, 156, 176, 181, 183, 194
29–30, 32, 47, 49 church, dialectic and duality in, 21, 40,
277
278 I nde x
church (cont.) church, institution/foundation of, 21, 41,

46, 90, 95–97, 119, 123, 130–31, 136, 77, 120–29, 139–40, 149, 213
146, 149, 151n195, 156–57, 161, 162–65, church, marks of, 76–77, 87, 98–100;
174–75, 177–79, 184, 188, 191–92, apostolicity, 97, 99, 100; catholicity,
196–99, 211, 213; communion and 33–34, 38, 74, 90, 99, 100, 174–75,
community, 30, 140, 148; gift (donné) 183–89; holiness, 99, 100; unity, 5, 19,
and task (agi), 21, 56, 92, 114, 156, 27, 33–34, 38, 40–41, 62, 67, 74, 81, 88,
166, 174, 177–79, 188, 191; institution 91, 92, 93–94, 97, 99–100, 107, 123–
and communion, 20, 21, 35, 149–50, 24, 128, 149, 155, 157, 165, 174–76, 178,
154, 176, 211; structure and life, 15–17, 183–89, 190–94, 204, 215, 200, 209
20–21, 41, 46, 99, 114, 174–75, 179, church, membership of, 37, 40, 62, 74,
181, 189–92, 199, 209, 215; two zones, 93, 96, 111–14, 124–25, 143, 147–48,
120, 123, 125, 184, 187, 211 157, 164, 180, 191, 194, 195, 198, 209
church, dimensions of, 1, 14–15, 16–24, church, mission of, 3, 21–22, 31, 46, 49,
35–36, 38–39, 41–42, 45–47, 50, 53, 113, 127, 152–53, 181, 191, 196–200,
56, 66, 67, 69, 74, 79, 102–3, 105–6, 203, 208, 212
109, 123, 132, 136, 142, 148, 150, 153, church, motherhood of, 21
157, 161–63, 165, 166, 169, 171, 173–79, Church, Roman Catholic, 17–18, 26–28,
181, 203, 205, 208, 210, 214 34, 38, 41, 74, 76–77, 96–98, 167, 172,
church, division within, 32, 157, 185 180–81, 183, 186–88; hierarchy of, 26,
Church, Eastern, 6, 33, 41–42, 79. See 27, 47–50, 73–74, 80–81, 112–13, 173
also Tradition church and state, 87, 94, 180
church, eschatological sense/status church and the world, 14, 19, 22–23, 26,
of, 56, 97, 147, 150, 154–58, 160–62, 30–34, 35, 49, 53–54, 157–158, 178,
165–66, 168, 177–78, 189–93, 196–97, 180–81, 191, 196–97, 199–200, 209,
199, 203, 212–13 212–13
Church Fathers, 19–20, 22, 39–42, 66, Clérissac, Humbert, 17
71, 103, 120, 150, 174, 203, 209, 213. communion, ecclesial, 3, 22, 39–40, 46,
See also individuals by name 50, 56, 74, 96–97, 111–12, 140, 147–51,
church, images of: body of Christ, 15, 155, 157, 162–65, 176, 181, 185, 192,
19, 21, 25, 36–37, 41–42, 46, 62, 72, 194, 203, 215. See also church, dialectic
74, 77n82, 85, 88–97, 99–100, 103, and duality in
108, 111, 113, 118, 119, 120n71, 128, Cours d’Ecclésiologie (Le Saulchoir, 1932–
130–36, 140–46, 149, 159, 161–65, 33), 60–61, 67–68, 72–73, 82, 86–89,
178, 184, 188, 197–98, 203, 209, 118–36, 176, 183, 186, 188, 198
211–12; people of God, 14–15, 19–20, Cours sur l’Eglise (Lübben, 1941), 62–63,
46, 85, 94, 96–97, 99–101, 103, 109, 68–69, 73–74, 82–83, 84–85, 93–94,
133–35, 138–42, 145–46, 162–65, 203, 137–44, 164, 177, 197
207, 209, 211–12; society (societas/ Couturier, Paul, 33
congregatio fidelium), 32, 36–37, 41–42, covenant, 96, 118, 133–39, 140, 154, 163,
46, 61–62, 67, 75, 80, 85–86, 89–98, 164, 181, 183, 191. See also captivity
103, 109, 111–15, 120–31, 139–40, Cursus brevior Ecclesiologiae (Le Saulchoir,
142–43, 148–51, 155, 160, 163–64, 1934), 61–62, 68, 73, 90–91, 118–19,
176, 180–81, 185–87, 194, 203, 210–11; 123–24, 130–31, 163, 182–83, 186, 188
temple of Holy Spirit, 97, 103, 161–62, Cyprian, 71
165, 209, 212
I nde x 279
De Ecclesia: Cursus Minor (Le Saulchoir, Gaudium et Spes, 209

1937), 62, 68, 91–93, 118–19, 123–24, Gillet, Martin, 47
130–31, 163, 182 Gilson, Étienne, 6, 33
de Lamennais, Felicité, 25 grace, 21, 22, 34, 37, 73, 76, 90, 91, 94,
Delhaye Karl, 204 112–13, 115, 125, 142–43, 149, 156, 164,
de Lubac, Henri, 17, 39, 203, 204 183n35, 191, 196–97, 199, 209–11
Divided Christendom, 6, 17, 38, 46–47, 50, Gratieux, Albert, 33
55, 69, 92, 170, 177–78, 182–89, 190, Groppe, Elizabeth, 3
192, 194
Dominican Purge of 1954, 2, 8–10, 50 hierarchology, 15, 18, 36, 52, 53, 56, 142,
Dupuis, Jacques, 3 163–64, 170–72, 205, 207–8, 212, 214
hierarchy, 3, 7, 15, 17–18, 20, 21, 30, 32,
ecclesiology: historical development, 39, 41–42, 46, 56, 66, 88, 101, 103,
70–72; renewal movement, 6, 17–19, 108, 113–17, 125–30, 136, 139, 142,
25, 30, 35–39, 43, 44, 47–48, 50–51, 55, 143–44, 150–52, 158–61, 163–64, 170,
68, 72–75, 81, 103, 175, 187, 192, 195, 171–75, 184, 188, 195–99, 203, 211–12,
202–3, 214 215; powers of, 62, 76, 80–81, 88, 93,
L’Ecole biblique de Jerusalem, 9, 167 95, 97, 101, 112–13, 115–16, 118, 125–27
ecumenism, 4–6, 8–9, 23, 25, 32–34, Holy Office, 8, 9, 28, 48–50, 204, 206.
38, 41, 43, 46, 48–49, 51, 55, 67, 68, See also documents by title
73, 82, 94, 170, 173, 175, 180, 182–89, Holy Spirit, 3, 10, 18, 38, 39, 41, 52, 71,
200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 214 73, 77, 90, 97, 103, 108, 125, 126n91,
L’Eglise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ 128–30, 136, 138, 139, 142, 144,
(Le Saulchoir, 1948), 64–65, 69, 146n177, 149, 150–51, 153, 157, 162, 171,
83–84, 94–101, 145–61, 162, 165–66, 173, 209–11, 212; charisms given by,
177–79, 181, 189, 195, 197, 198 125, 151–53, 161, 165, 197–98; double
episcopate, 20, 80, 83, 87, 93, 126–27, mission with apostolic body/hierarchy,
214 127, 144, 153, 159–61, 164–65, 188,
L’Episcopat et l’Eglise universelle, 202 196, 198–99
Étude de Théologie . . . “le Corps du Christ” Humani Generis, 8
et . . . S. Paul (Le Saulchoir, 1932–33),
61, 132–36 I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 10
Index of Forbidden Books, 8, 28, 51
faith, 20, 25–27, 29, 31–32, 34, 42, 67, Irenaeus, 71
76–77, 79, 83, 95, 112, 113, 115, 124,
129, 139, 143, 164, 172, 184, 188, 196 Jesus Christ, 23, 76–77, 101, 113, 120–22,
Famerée, Joseph, 10, 177n9 125, 134, 139, 140, 146, 159, 191, 196,
Father God, 76, 122, 143, 150, 211 210, 213; participation of church in
Felici, Pericle, 205 munera Christi, 100, 116, 125–27, 130,
Féret, Henri-Marie, 7, 8, 9, 29, 30, 32, 43, 143, 151–53, 158–59, 161, 164–65,
45, 47, 206 197–200, 212
Flynn, Gabriel, 3, 10 John XXIII, 9, 204
Gallicanism, 72 Kant, Immanuel, 26, 28

Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald, 4, 5, Khomiakov, Alexei, 33, 42
113n36 kingdom of God, 22, 138, 139, 154–58,
280 I nde x
kingdom of God (cont.) Newman, John Henry, 25, 30, 42

164–65, 177, 191, 196, 213; and “the
synagogue,” 156, 165, 177n10 Octave of Christian Unity, 9, 44, 50, 182
Koskela, Douglas, 10 Ordre suivi en 1954 (Le Saulchoir, 1954),
64, 66, 69, 102, 145, 156–57, 179
laicology, 14, 18, 23–24, 52–53, 202 Ottaviani, Alfredo, 204, 206–7
Les Laïcs et la mission de l’Église, 202
laity, 1, 3, 7, 8, 14–15, 18–19, 23, 35, 45, papacy, 26, 50, 71, 72n48, 74, 78, 93.
49, 51, 52–54, 55, 73–74, 143n167, 170, See also encyclicals by title and popes
173, 175, 182, 195–200, 201, 202–5, by name
207–8, 212, 214; spirituality of, 53–54; Parente, Pietro, 204, 206
theology of, 1, 8, 14, 18–19, 23, 29, 35, Pascendi Domenici Gregis, 28–29
45, 52–53, 55, 175, 195n94, 197, 199, Paul VI, 48
200, 201, 204, 208 Pellitero, Ramiro, 3
Lallement, Daniel, 4, 5, 6 Petit “De Ecclesia” (Lübeck, 1945), 63–64,
Lamentabili Sane Exitu, 26 68–69, 73–74, 94, 137, 138–39, 140,
law of incarnation, 160, 184–85 144, 164–65, 177, 198
Lay People in the Church, 1, 8, 11, 13, Philips, Gérard, 206–7
14–15, 16, 17n12, 19, 21, 23–24, 35, 42, philosophy, 5, 25–29, 32, 35, 72, 77, 83,
44, 45, 50–54, 55, 56, 69, 102, 170, 175, 85–86, 95, 106–8, 117–18, 122, 124,
180–82, 195–200, 212 132, 137, 160, 176, 213
Leo XIII, 26 Pius IX, 26, 74
Liénart, Achille, 205 Pius X, 27–29
liturgy, 19, 45, 53, 71, 73, 203, 209 Pius XII, 8, 48, 95
Loisy, Alfred, 27, 28, 29, 48n133 Plan du Traité de l’Eglise—Cours de 1951
Lumen Gentium, 203n7, 211–14 (Le Saulchoir, 1951), 64, 65–66, 69,
Luther, Martin, 26, 32, 33 101–2, 145, 156–57, 195
pneumatology, 3, 10, 18, 21, 42, 71, 186,
MacDonald, Timothy, 10, 177n9 214
magisterium, 26, 76, 78, 84, 103, 191, Protestant communities/Protestantism,
203 4, 6, 28, 33, 71–72, 93, 189
Maritain, Jacques, 5 Protestant Reformation, 17–18, 36, 72–73,
Mary, 37, 101, 147n179 171–72, 189
Mercier, Desirée-Joseph, 107–8
Mersch, Émile, 36–37, 113n36, 203 Rademacher, Arnold, 17, 35, 40
modernity, 23, 38, 39, 51, 56, 81, 84–85, reform, ecclesial, 17, 27, 49–50, 51, 55, 71,
102–3; and modernism, 23, 25–29, 73, 170, 182, 189–95
30–32, 40, 47–49 ressourcement, 7, 18–19, 72, 82, 84, 98,
Möhler, Johann Adam, 19, 25, 30, 38, 103, 187
39–43, 46, 73n53, 81, 151 Roman curia (Holy See), 4, 7–9, 24, 43,
Montini, Giovanni Battista. See 46–49, 50, 57, 74, 141
Paul VI Roman “system,” 46–50
The Mystery of the Church, 50, 96
The Mystery of the Temple, 51, 167 sacrament, 20, 37, 74, 76, 88, 90, 112, 113,
Mystici Corporis, 48, 81n96, 96, 206 115, 136, 139, 143, 152, 154, 164, 191,
I nde x 281
203, 208–10, 213; baptism, 125n88, Trinity, 37, 76, 90, 121–22, 124, 127–28,
129, 139, 143, 195, 212; eucharist, 150, 165, 183, 185–86, 190
125n88, 129, 134, 139, 143 Tromp, Sebastian, 48, 203, 204,
Scheeben, Matthias, 42 206–7
sobornost, 42, 214 True and False Reform in the Church,
Suárez, Emmanuel, 50 8, 44, 49, 50–54, 55, 69, 102, 170,
Suenens, Léon-J., 205 178n15, 180, 182, 183n34, 189–95
Syllabus of Errors, 26 Tyrrell, George, 27
Tertullian, 71 Unam Sanctam series, 6–7, 38–39

theology: baroque, 7, 30–31, 32, 37, 39,
132, 141; historical dimension of, 5, Vatican Council, First, 26–27, 72,
27, 28, 30–31, 47, 83–84, 98–99, 175, 77–78
190; task of, 34, 35, 171–72, 215 Vatican Council, Second, 1, 9–10, 12,
Thèse du Lectorat (Le Saulchoir, 1931), 167, 202–15. See also individual
60, 67, 77, 85–86, 110–18, 162–63, documents by name
176, 181, 186, 188 vocation, 111–12, 116, 120, 124, 144, 157,
Thomas Aquinas, 4–5, 28, 71, 85; 163, 187; Congar’s, 4–5, 32, 43, 47, 49,
Summa Theologiae, 61–62, 92 51, 67
Tisserant, Eugène, 48 von Döllinger, Ignaz, 25
tradition, 19–20, 26, 42, 81, 83–85, von Harnack, Adolf, 28
89, 103, 141, 150, 192–93; eastern, von Hügel, Friedrich, 27
41–42, 81 Vonier, Anscar, 17
• Mystery of the Church, People of God: Yves Congar’s Total Ecclesiology as a
Path to Vatican II was designed in Scala and Scala Sans and composed
by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed
on 60-pound Natures Book Natural and bound by Thomson-Shore of
Dexter, Michigan.

Mystery of The Church, People of God - Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology As A Path To Vatican II-The Catholic University of America Press (2014)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Mystery of The Church, People of God - Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology As A Path To Vatican II-The Catholic University of America Press (2014)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

• Mystery of the Church, People of God

The Catholic University of America Press • Washington, D.C.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1 Getting to Lay People in the Church 13

2 Yves Congar’s Treatise De Ecclesia, 1931–1954 57

3 Integration of Speculative and Biblical Methods 105

4 The Unified Pursuit of a “Total Ecclesiology” 169

The French Dominican theologian Yves Congar (1904–1995) coined

had repeatedly praised the work of theologians participating in what he

between Congar’s teaching activities and his preparations for writing

Yves Congar: A Life in Service of the Truth

at the Institut Catholique in Paris, he studied Thomism with Jacques

The lectorat qualified Congar as a teacher within the Dominican or-

time in the camps, resulting in a fuller incorporation of biblical theolo-

offering an ongoing theological interpretation of its documents. In his

In Search of a Comprehensive Reading of

ological synthesis, that is, a total ecclesiology. In chapter 3, the content

es surrounding Congar’s early theological development will help to

“Total Ecclesiology” in Lay People in the Church

5. Lay People in the Church, 38, 47, and 51.

to life and structure specifically in his statement about total ecclesiolo-

Integral Ecclesiology prior to Lay People in

In the 1930s, Congar was a young theologian, writing and teach-

World War II, Congar resumed his commentary on the ecclesiologi-

17. “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie” (1947), 554.

resides in its presupposition of “an entire ecclesiological synthesis where

cial, hierarchical and sacramental.”28 This, he wrote, is “the full, large

It is clear, then, that integral interrelationship, and not just a balancing

The historical dimension was essential to an integral ecclesiology be-

40. Ibid., 45. See also 196.

Congar also saw ecclesiological synthesis as part of the necessary

44. Ibid., 118. 45. Ibid., 119.

enable a fuller understanding of the object and method Congar asso-

Circumstances and Influences

Le Saulchoir (1931–1939): “Our Happy Years”

48. Journal d’un théologien, 62.

The Challenge of Modernity and the Modernist Response Congar’s ear-

49. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 450.

flected in the magisterial documents of the Catholic Church, rejected

As a result, Thomism became the test of orthodoxy for Catholic intellec-

an agnostic/atheistic philosophy of immanence. Its characterization of

The Young Professor at Le Saulchoir As a new professor at Le Saulchoir in

63. Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism, 50 and 189.

gether, they formed “a team conscious of a common mission,” namely

subject and the historical dimension of theology. Thus, the necessary

faith to regain “the totality of their visibility, i.e., of their expression, of

From the first, Congar’s concern was to give “a complete account of

Early Ecumenical Encounters As Congar prepared for ordination to the

73. Ibid., 25. 74. Journal d’un théologien, 29.

ters contributed to the notion of catholicity that became an important

76. Ibid., 20–23, and Dialogue between Christians, 6.

theology of catholicity was that it opened the way for participation by

In Congar’s view, the catholicity of the church encompassed the whole

81. Divided Christendom, 101.

The Movement for Ecclesiological Renewal When Congar began his

85. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 450.

the community as an organism, while Gesellschaft refers to “the visi-

89. “Bulletin de théologie” (1932), 460.

ship and leading publishing efforts to support ecclesiological renewal.

99. “En marge de quelques études sur l’Église,” 450.

as a response to shortfalls in contemporary theology. The third book

The Influence of Johann Adam Möhler Reading the works of Johann

104. “Autour du renouveau de l’ecclésiologie,” 518–22.