Theologians at the center and in the periphery

The Second Vatican Council needed expert theologians, canonists, and other experts. They were nominated by the pope and called consultants of the council, that is in Latin “periti”. The periti are allowed to participate at the general congregation in the aula of St. Peter’s but could speak only at request of the presidency. The presidents of the commissions of the Council could ask the periti to help elaborate and correct the schemes for the council and to help editing relations for the aula. The Council Fathers were allowed to collaborate with private theological experts, canonists, and other experts. The later were not allowed to participate in general congregations or sessions of the commissions. All, the periti and the private experts, were to keep silence about their work. On September 28, 1962, a list of 224 periti was published, in November followed a list with another 100 names. Many of the periti had already collaborated in the preparing commissions for the Council and came from the Curia, Roman theological institutions, and Roman Universities. Taking experts from Rome did not produce additional costs. 53 periti were canonist experts coming from the curial bureaucracy, 84 came from Roman universities, religious institutes, colleges and from religious orders in Rome. This means that 60% of the experts came from the Roman center of the Church. The others came from Belgium (7), Germany (7), France (11), Italy (exclusively from outside of Rome 12), United States (12), there was only one expert from Africa, and only four experts from Asia. There were no pastoral experts coming from parishes, a fact that is strange for a Pastoral Council. There were 85 Italian experts, 44 from the Curia and 29 from Roman institutions and universities. The Roman Curia and the Roman universities were overrepresented, the World Church was not represented at all. The experts coming from Rome lacked the understanding of the reform agenda of Pope John XXIII and Roman theology was of no help in giving answers to the needs of a renewal of the Church. New answers came from a few theologians from outside. In France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and a few other European countries theologians had developed new answers to theological developments during the 20th century. In the decades before the Second Vatican Council, many of these innovative and modern voices were not allowed to publicly teach their innovative theologies. Pope John XXIII was pleased to get their expertise and nominated them periti of the Council (Wittstadt, Klaus. 1995. “Alla vivgilia del concilio.” In Il cattolicesimo verso una nuova stagione. L`annuncio e la preparazione gennaio 1959 – settembre 1962. Vol. 1 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 429–518. 469-71. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino).

I present three theologians who were decisive editors of schemes and documents for the Second Vatican Council.

Gérard Philips (1899-1972)

Philips was ordained priest in 1922. From 1925 to 1944 he was professor of dogmatic theology at the Great Seminary of Liege, from 1944 to 1969 at the Catholic University of Louvain. From 1953 to 1968 he was a member of the Belgian Senate. He was member of the preparing theological commission of the Second Vatican Council and second secretary of the theological commission. In 1968 he was asked by Cardinal Suenens to edit for the Belgian bishops-conference a negative statement on the ban of artificial birth control by Pope Paul VI (Karim Schelkens.Philips. In Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter Quisinky ed. 2013. Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, 213f. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder).

I turn to the picture and traits of Philips’ personality as Declerck describes them with the help of Philips’ diary (Declerck, Leo. 2006. “Introduction.” In Carnet Conciliaires de Mgr. Gérard Philips. Secrétaire adjoint de la commission doctrinale. Texte néerlandais avec traduction francaise et commentaires. By Karim Schlekens, ix–xx. Leuven: Maurits Sabbe Library, Faculty of Theology K.U. Leuven). Again, Philips is described as peaceable and conciliating (ibid. XVI). Philips describes himself in his diary as a conciliator. He remains between the two tendencies at the Council, the majority, and the minority (ibid.). On one point he explicitly stands with the modernizers of the majority: He is convinced that the authority of the college of bishops is not conceded by the pope but constitutes a proper power of the bishops (ibid. XVII). Philips confesses his difficulties to always stay polite and conciliating, especially with bishops. But he does not want to offend, he wants to make understood the theological points to everybody, also to the minority (ibid.). Paul VI thanks Philips on more than one occasion for his method of dialogue (ibid.). Philips visits his adversaries, for example Father Tromp, Cardinal Browne, or the French conservative theologian Marie-Roisaire Gagnebet, and all trust him (ibid.). One cannot overestimate the influence of the experience of the universal Church in Rome on the young Philips. At 20 years of age the seminarist Philips was sent by his bishop to Rome in order to study at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University. Philips stayed in Rome from 1919 to 1925 at the Belgian College that is an extraterritorial part of the Vatican. As a young student Philips had the chance to familiarize himself with the Roman ways of doing things by incidentally meeting and communicating with members of the Roman establishment of the Roman Catholic Church in a very informal and informative way. The students at the Gregorian came from all over the world and represented the World Church. They spoke Italian with each other and were united by the same Christian spirit of brotherhood. When returning to Rome as an expert for the Second Vatican Council Philips did not come as a stranger; he was quite familiar with Rome and recognized Rome as the home of his faith.

A very important element of Philips’ soft skills comes from his political work as senator in the bicameral Belgian Parliament. From 1953 to 1968 he is coopted as senator in the Christian Democratic Party. He had learned to treat the political adversary not as an enemy (ibid. XVIII). Philips had learned to practice the democratic rules between majorities and minorities, and he knew about the procedures to turn projects into laws, he had also learned to debate and speak in Parliament (ibid.). In the Council aula he noted every intervention of a bishop on a card. His file-card box for De Ecclesia, the document on the Roman Catholic Church, counted some thousands of cards. With the help of these cards, it was possible to work in the text by exactly knowing the sense of a bishop’s wish for a modification or an amendment. In the sessions of the Doctrinal Commission these cards were also an important instrument to demonstrate and prove to the commission members how many bishops wanted a change in the text and how many did not want to change and what were their arguments (ibid.). During the Council, Declerck is a testimony to the spirituality of Philips living with him at the Belgian College. Notwithstanding his high workload and fragile health Philips would celebrate mass every day, recite the breviary, make his evening meditation and then say the rosary in the garden of the college (ibid. XIX). His modesty was honest, and he liked his apostolic work as a priest. Since the 1950s, he was engaged in the movement of the Apostolate of the Lay. Philips had noted in his diary that the only way to take the right route is to directly regard Christ; doing this, one has to accept that one is not perfect and despite all efforts errs from time to time; one must never overestimate the proper opinion (ibid.).

By October 1964 Philips worked on the amendments for the documents on the Church, on Revelation and on scheme XIII. Additionally, he was also asked to join the work on religious liberty. How could he manage all this work? There are three possibility conditions for psychological health claims Karyn Hall and lists receptivity and openness to new experiences in order to learn, the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions and finally intimacy and connectedness with at least one other person (Hall, Karyn. 2018. “Working Towards Psychological Health.” Psychology Today. January 10. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201801/working-toward-psychological-health).

Philips disposed over the possibility conditions for staying resiliently healthy. We would not have noticed Gérard Philips’s intimate connectedness with his sister Roza Philips, if Miss Philips had not asked Leo Declerck for help to classify the literary estate of her brother including his notebooks (Declerck 2006, xvii). Declerck notes on Roza Philips (1901–1977), the sister of Gérard Philips, that she lived with her brother in Lessel-Lo, Leuven and worked for him as a secretary (ibid. 177). Yet, in the books XI and XII Gérard also leaves a testimony that he was emotionally very close and existentially connected with his sister Roza. He realized that Roza’s feedback and advice were important guidelines for his self-control in the social interactions at the Council. In his retreat during Holy Week 1963, he noted a visit of the sick and depressed Tromp, who was still fixed in his views on De Ecclesia after he had been replaced by Philips as major editor of the evolving text (ibid. 95–96). Philips writes that as editor of De Ecclesia, he must accept not to try dictating his own views and must not put himself on the pedestal (ibid. 96). He notes that Roza expressively (Dutch: uitdrukkelijk) gave him this advice (ibid. 18, 96). Philips is conscious of the fact that only by neither giving importance to his critics nor to the flattering compliments will he preserve his independence and be able to regard the Lord (ibid). Philips enjoyed public recognition but did not depend on it. When he encountered critique, obstacles, and defamation, he was flexible, tried different ways to reach compromise and always stayed polite and friendly. In July 1964, Philips documents that he had effectively relaxed on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Palestine with Roza and a group guided by biblical scholar Father Rigaux, who was also an expert at the biblical commission of the Second Vatican Council (ibid. 119). On Saturday November 14, 1964, after he had completed his work on De Ecclesia and the text on revelation, he hopes that his “suffering at the cross” may have an end; his dominant feeling is gratitude as regards Go’d and he communicates his happiness to Roza (ibid. 135). On Wednesday, October 20, 1965, he suffers again from chest pains, and he receives medical treatment. Philips fears for his weakened heart condition. He hopes that Roza will arrive the next day and that they can travel “home” together by train on Saturday (ibid. 154). There is not yet a real historic awareness for the contributions of women like Roza Philips to the Second Vatican Council. The historians do not yet describe the existentially important bonds of bishops and theologians with the women who influenced and enhanced their psychological health and work at the Second Vatican Council. We have to listen to these women talking about their sacrifices being suppressed and subjugated to the interests of the male celibate priests of the Church hierarchy.

On Wednesday November 18, 1964, the text of De Ecclesia, the document on the Church, is distributed to the Council Fathers and Philips receives warm congratulations from many fathers. Philips is disappointed that there is no word of thanks from Cardinal Suenens for whom he had loyally worked in the last years (ibid). The next entry in his notebook dates May 24, 1965. There, Philips calls November 21, 1964, an important day (ibid. 141). The pope had approved and promulgated Lumen Gentium, the document on the Church, the Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches Orientalium Ecclesiarum and the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio. Philips will finish his work on the text on scheme XIII, the later Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes before May 1, 1965 (ibid.). Philips reads Lumen Gentium and is incredibly happy with the results of chapter one and two (ibid. 142). Philips claims that the many additions in chapter three to assure the primacy of the pope were not necessary. Especially Lumen Gentium 22 on collegiality missed a big chance for a generous gesture towards the bishops of the Orient. He insisted, the doctrine of the document would have stayed the same without the precautionary additions (ibid). Philips had assured the pope several times that the primacy of the pope was not at stake. The pope had always consented to the collegiality of the episcopate, but his concern was primacy. Philips always respected this preoccupation of the pope and yet talked freely and openly in the two audiences with him. Paul VI thanked him on November 22, 1964, with the present of a golden chalice and Philips was moved by the gesture (ibid). The historian confirms that Philips stayed coherent with his convictions while moderating different views and opinions (Declerck 2006, xiv).

Karl Rahner (1904-1984)

Karl Rahner was born March 5, 1904, as the fourth of seven children, in the city of Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany. He entered the novitiate of the Jesuits on April 20, 1922, four years after his older brother Hugo entered the same Order. After the philosophical formation of his Order, after two years of practical work as Latin teacher of novices and after the prescribed theological studies, he got ordained a priest in 1932. In 1934 began his doctoral studies in philosophy at the University of his hometown Freiburg. In 1936 he completed theological studies at the University Innsbruck, Austria, and in 1937 started as a lecturer at the theological Faculty of Innsbruck University. In 1939 the Nazis took over the University and Rahner left for Vienna, where he taught theology and worked as a pastor until 1945. From 1945 to 1949 he lived through post-war chaos in Bavaria and in 1949 he returned to Innsbruck teaching theology. Rahner’s insistence on a concept of the responsible subject that freely decides on moral matters according to the values of its conscience, earned him the suspicious attention of Roman authorities. In 1961 Cardinal Franz König from Vienna asked Rahner to consult him during the preparation of the Second Vatican Council. In November 1962 John XXIII appointed Rahner as peritus (expert consulent) to the Second Vatican Council (Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology. https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/rahner.htm). In 1964 Rahner got the Romano Guardini Chair at Munich University and in 1967 he changed to the Chair for dogmatic theology and the history of dogma at Münster University.

To my knowledge, the only theologian peritus at the Second Vatican Council who had studied Hegel, the German philosopher of Enlightenment, was Karl Rahner. In the academic year running from the fall of 1934 to the summer of 1935, Rahner attended Martin Heidegger’s seminaries on the Phenomenology of the Spirit of Hegel, on the Monadology by Leibniz and on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at the University of Freiburg (Lotz 1985, Lotz, Johannes B. 1985. “Freiburger Studienjahre 1934–1936.” In Karl Rahner Bilder eines Lebens, edited by Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons, 26–27. Freiburg: Herder.26–27).

In January of 1987, I asked the director of the Karl Rahner Archive in Innsbruck, Walter Kern, if there were any notes in the archive that Rahner had taken in his seminaries with Heidegger. I was convinced that Rahner’s Foundations of Christian Faith (Rahner, Karl. 1984. Grundkurs des Glaubens. Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums. Freiburg: Herder) did not hide the inspiration by the Phenomenology of the Spirit of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and I wanted to find some evidence of Rahner’s study of Hegel. On January 9, 1987, Walter Kern handed me the photocopies from an autograph of twenty-five pages from Rahner, asking me not to copy, not to pass on and not to publish the text. I do not know why this autograph was not included in the complete edition of Rahner’s works that was finished in 2018. The autograph is titled “Hegel Phänomenologie” and Rahner’s notes follow the table of contents of the Phenomenology of the Spirit (Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1952. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hamburg: Felix Meiner). Rahner starts his notes with the Preface on the epistemology of science, he continues with the parts Introduction, Consciousness, Self-consciousness, and Reason. He takes notes on Observing Reason but does not any more treat the Realization of the reasonable Self-consciousness by itself and the following parts. The important chapters on The Spirit and on The Religion are not treated any more in Rahner’s notes. I do not think that Walter Kern was handing me over the incomplete autograph of Rahner. I rather suppose that Heidegger ended the study of the Phenomenology of the Spirit in his seminary at this point for some reason. Did Rahner go on studying the text by himself until the end of the Phenomenology of the Spirit? I do not know.

For Hegel, the problem of religion consists in the fact that religion represents the spirit for the subject but the subject itself does not yet recognize the spirit as consciousness of itself as spirit, that is as a concept of the self-consciousness of the subject (Hegel 1952, 489). According to Hegel, self-consciousness is a function of reason, and the spirit is a function of reason too, so to say the self-consciousness of reason as reason and spirit. There are many forms in history of the consciousness of the spirit and their representations make up the universe of religions (ibid.: 481). Hegel identifies the self-consciousness of reason as spirit as “faith of the world” that is as the general self-consciousness of the faith-community (ibid.: 532). The self-consciousness of the faith-community is capable of some reasoning but not capable of recognizing one’s faith as a concept of the self-consciousness of reason. According to Hegel’s reconstruction of the philosophy of religion, the self-conscious Christian subject is not capable of recognizing the spirit as a concept of the self-conscious conceptualizing mind. According to Hegel the Christian subject does not talk to the Christian community with the agency of the spirit that is conscious of itself as self-consciousness of reason, that is conceptualizing and reasoning as one’s spirit.

Hegel’s critique of the Christian subject that is not an autonomous self-reflecting subject that recognizes the self-conscious reason as spirit needs an answer. Hegel’s concepts like consciousness, self-consciousness, freedom, spirit, etc. are expressions of language and elements of sentences written by Hegel. Today we understand the explicit self-awareness of speaking, or simply the agency to speak, as doing things with words, as speech-acts. Yes, concepts or ideas like consciousness, self-consciousness, self-consciousness as freedom, self-consciousness of the subject as spirit, are concepts of thinking. We learned in the twentieth century to understand that the sentences and significant propositions are the logical pictures of thoughts and thinking. Our picture making uses language. In order to think we need to use language. Thinking about thinking and doing philosophy is philosophy of language.

Rahner discussed in the late 50ies of the 20th century language philosophy with his Jesuit brother Vladimir Richter at the Jesuit College in Innsbruck. Rahner was not ready to enter language philosophy and kept on defending his ideas about the transcendental nature of man’s existence. On the other side, Rahner was ready to accept the epistemological consequences of a three valued logic concerning the speech about Go’d. Richter published his article on a three valued logic, that is that the fact that we can neither falsify nor verify our concepts of Go’d and that we have to say “We do not know” when talking about the existence or non-existence of Go’d, in the Festschrift for Rahner’s 60th birthday (Richter, Vladimir. 1964. “Logik und Geheimnis.” In Philosophische Grundfragen, theologische Grundfragen, biblische Themen. Vol. 1 of Gott in Welt: Festgabe für Karl Rahner 1, edited by Johannes Baptist Metz, Walter Kern, Adolf Darlapp and Herbert Vorgrimler. 188–207. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder).

Rahner never had a political mind, not before 1938 and not after 1945. Social analysis was not his strength; he lived the life of a thinking and writing workaholic and when exhausted drew strength from meditation. His personal character was rather grumpily depressive, and his bad moods did not make him good company. His brother Hugo Rahner (1900-1968), on the contrary, was a popular person, an open and friendly diplomat, whose company was enjoyed by everyone. Despite already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he was able to present himself as a spirited entertainer (Neufeld, Karl H. 1994. Die Brüder Rahner. Eine Biographie. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. 327). After the Jesuit Theology Faculty in Innsbruck was closed by the Nazis in 1938, Karl Rahner continued his teaching and theological work in a small Jesuit community in Vienna until 1944 (ibid. 159). His Jesuit brother Hugo fled the Third Reich to Switzerland, where he stayed until the end of World War II. He managed to evacuate professors and students from Innsbruck to Sitten (ibid. 145-51). There was some conflict between the two brothers, when they continued their theological work together in Innsbruck after the war. Hugo had expected his brother to leave the Third Reich. Staying in Vienna was too little a sign of resistance for Hugo. Karl later admitted that his conscience was debating the question whether he should have shown more courage and should have more actively resisted the Nazis. He even asked if he was guilty of not resisting the Nazis. Biographers from the Jesuit Order like Father Neufeld do not mention the critical aspects of the Rahner brothers concerning exile during the Nazi dictatorship. Neufeld cites the cryptic words of Karl Rahner, who on April 27, 1982, celebrated his sixtieth anniversary as a Jesuit and reflected critically on his life as a Jesuit: “Where should we have spoken up instead of cowardly staying silent and where should we have kept quiet instead of making noise?” (ibid. 362). The whole religious Catholic academic cloud that worked for years with Rahner and knew him well did not dare to speak or write about his ambiguous love/hate relationship with Louise Rinser. Instead, they praised his intellectual strength and Ignation spirituality.

The traumatic experience of World War II shaped the personality of Karl Rahner. The experience of social and moral destruction of society by National Socialism, the life-threatening experience of the heavy bombardment of Vienna in 1945 and the constant angst of being killed at the last moment before the end of the war by some fanatical defenders of Hitler’s Reich, drove the horrors of dictatorship and war home to Rahner. Many of his Jesuit and religious brothers, priests and bishops started to question the legitimacy of the obedience that religious superiors and Church authorities simply requested of their inferiors without spiritual, moral, or rational arguments and legitimation. The understanding of a religious life practicing some personal responsibility, freedom of thinking and free acting within the limited setting of the autocratic Church structures developed in the first two decades after World War II.

With Karl Rahner we are allowed to take a look at the flip side of spirituality that is sexuality. I would suppose that Rahner never had sex with a woman or a man. Nevertheless, we meet in him the empowering force of eros that capacitates the theologian of spirituality and grace to enter a universe of emotions that most of his contemporary religious brothers and sisters were not familiar with. In 1962 the German novelist Luise Rinser (1911-2002) wrote Rahner to discuss with him her writing project on the specific type of spirituality of women, and they met in Innsbruck and kept meeting over and over again (Kainz, Howard. 2013. “The ʻBalancing Actʼ of Karl Rahner and Luise Rinser.” Crisis Magazine, May 8. https://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/the-balancing-act-of-karl-rahner-and-luise-rinser.). Rahner fell in love with her, but for the time being, Rinser told him that her primary commitment was to the Benedictine Abbott Johannes Maria Hoeck, whom she had met in 1955 (Henning 2001 Henning, Ulrike. 2001. “Luise Rinser”.Frauen.Biographieforschung. http://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/luise-rinser/).

Hoeck was an excellent Byzantinist and scholar of the Oriental Churches. He was an expert at the Second Vatican Council and an advocate for the cause of the Oriental Churches who defended in Rome their Greek Christian traditions that were much older than those of the Roman Latin Church (Quisinsky. “Hoeck” In Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, edited by Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter, 134–135. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder.143). Hoeck was not the brilliant intellectual theologian at the center of interest of the cardinals and bishops and the press, as was Rahner. For one short moment in 1964 Hoeck got the attention of the Council and the world press by suggesting that the Catholic Church be structured according to autonomous Patriarchats like Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch or Jerusalem had been when Rome was still a simple diocese (ibid.).

Rahner asked Rinser if there was room in her love for both, she affirmed and suffered, Rahner suffered and Hoeck suffered too (Kainz 2013). Rahner felt jealous of the other man in this love triangle and Hoeck seemed to be irritated but resigned to fight (ibid.). The psychological distress Rahner experienced must have been tremendous. On the one hand, “committed to celibacy, on the other passionately in love with a woman, but constantly suffering from the fact that his competitor had won out” (ibid.). During the Council Rinser stayed in Rome. “Rahner would show up at her house unexpectedly, she said, sometimes very early in the morning. Sometimes Rahner celebrated Mass at her chapel,” but Rinser’s house in Rome was blessed by Hoeck, and Rahner was jealous “that she attended the abbot’s daily Mass during the Council years” (Schaeffer 1997 Schaeffer, Pamela. 1997. “Karl Rahner’s secret 22-year romance.” National Catholic Reporter December 19. http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1997d/121997/121997a.htm).

From 1962 to 1984 Rahner wrote 1.847 letters to Rinser and she wrote Rahner 366 (Kainz 2013). The Jesuits do not allow publication of Rahner’s letters to Rinser. We have to look at Rinser’s answers to Rahner’s letters in order to get an idea of Rahner’s passion, which to me sometimes looks as awkward adolescent and not as that of a 58-year-old adult. Rinser writes to Rahner on August 10, 1962: “My Fish, truly beloved, I cannot express how shaken I was as you knelt before me. You were kneeling before the Love that you are experiencing and before which I also kneel in amazement, in reverence, with trembling and with an exultation that I hardly dare to allow myself to feel. We are both touched in the innermost part of our being by something that is much stronger than we anticipated” (ibid.).

In 1982 Rahner was no longer in love with Rinser. On the contrary, he searched justifying why now he was just annoyed and nerved by Rinser. He told me she was a “stupid cow.” Rinser apparently was still eager to communicate with Rahner, but Rahner wanted nothing to do with her anymore. I remember sitting in his small office in the Jesuit College in Innsbruck. All of a sudden Rahner asked me if I thought Rinser was a good poet. I had not read anything by her and had no opinion. He was not telling me anything about his relationship with Rinser. From his emotions, something like anger mixed with artificial indignation, I could tell that the matter was important to him. He told me that he had written to Heinrich Böll, the German Nobel Price poet, who held Rinser in high esteem and respect. Rahner politely asked Böll to tell him whether Luise Rinser was an important poet or not. Rahner showed me the letter he had received from Böll in reply. The great writer could not write that Rinser was not a great author; it was simply impossible for Böll to do that. Instead, he wrote a few lines expressing his esteem for Rahner and by and by also remarked that Rinser deserves to be respected as a writer. Did Rahner really seek intellectual justification for no longer being interested in Rinser? Did he fear her reaction if he told her not to contact him anymore? I do not know, but I clearly felt uneasy in the presence of Rahner’s disturbing behavior on that occasion.

Yves Congar (1904-1995)

Yves Congar was co-developer of the new theology in France, censored by Rome in the 1950s and then an expert at the Council (Michael Quisinsky. “Congar”. In Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter Quisinky ed. 2013. Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, 82f. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder). It is not possible to understand the white European celibate men of the Second Vatican Council without some knowledge of how the historic events of the twentieth century influenced their lives. This mutual interaction of events and personality must be respected for every person. I want to describe some elements of this interaction between the life of a theologian and his embedment in history with the help of some very rudimentary and completely deficient pictures.

“Yves Congar was born in 1904 in Sedan, France, where he spent his youth, marked by the First World War” (Mahieu, Éric. 2012. “Introduction”. In My Journal of the Council. By Yves Congar. Translated from French by Mary John Ronayne OP and Mary Cecily Boulding OP. v-xxxv. v. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press). It is typical of the biographies on Yves Congar not to take much interest in his childhood, family, or youth (ibid.). These biographies quickly turn to his theology studies that he started in Paris in 1921. In 2011 the Dominican brothers of Yves Congar give us a biographic picture of Congar that paints his life in all colors, the bright ones as well as the more somber ones (Fouilloux, Étienne. 2001. “Presentation Generale.” In Journal d`un théologien 1946–1956. By Yves Congar. Edited by Étienne Fouilloux, 9–18. 1. Paris: Les Éditions du CERF).

Georges Congar, his father, had a complicated character and was quite unsuccessful as a banker. His very beloved mother Lucie Desoye raised three sons and one daughter. She encouraged her children to record in a diary their impressions of the terrible German occupation of Sedan from 1914 to 1918 (ibid.). This was a dreadful time for the young boy Yves, just as it was detestable for all French women, men and queer who lived through the German occupation. The 10-year-old Congar did not hesitate to express his hatred for the Germans: “The Germans, the boches, the scoundrels, gang of thieves, the murderers, the arsonists”, these expressions of a wounded child are repeatedly found in his diary (Routhier, Gilles. 1999. “L’Enfant Yves Congar. Journal de la Guerre 1914–1918.” Laval théologique et philosophique 55 (2): 321–323. 322. doi: 10.7202/401243ar). In 1999 Routhier is right to appreciate the long path to reconciliation that Europe had to travel after the end of World War II. It is a wonder, a grace, and a victory for the people of Europe to find peace and unity, because in 1945 nobody thought the necessary energies and resources for this improbable effort were available (ibid.). In 2023 we have to acknowledge that peace in Europe is over, and the brutal aggression of the Ukraine by Russia repeats the cruelties of the German aggressions of the Ukraine in World War II. In 1918, Congar’s father was taken hostage by the Germans and deported to Germany, as were many citizens of Sedan before him (Fouilloux 2011, 1). At the age of 15 Congar attended the seminary in Reims and in 1921 he entered the seminary of the Carmes Monastery in Paris. Dissatisfied with Thomism as it was taught at the Catholic Institute of Paris, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and attended the courses of Jacques Maritain. After his military service as officer cadet in Saint-Cyr and in Germany (1924-1925), he entered the Dominican Order of the Province of France (ibid.). He starts his theological work on ecclesiology and ecumenism that he had discovered when meeting Protestant theologians in Germany. On his frequent visits to Germany, he encounters Nazism and in 1934 and 1936 publishes three articles opposing the Nazi ideology (ibid. 7). Right at the beginning of the 1940 German Blitzkrieg invasion of France by General Guderian’s tanks, Captain Congar was taken prisoner. In May and June 1940, almost 2 million French soldiers were taken prisoner and sent to Germany. Congar was shocked by the humiliatingly quick defeat of the French army, at that time the world’s largest army, by the German aggressors. He blamed the catastrophe on the Radical Party that was liberal and radical-socialist, on the Front Populaire and the sympathizers with the Communist regime of the Soviets in Moscow; he blamed the journalists, the consumption of alcohol and the dancing in the music halls for the quick defeat of the Grand Nation (ibid.). With this kind of fake news, Congar followed Marshal Pétain’s progaganda and the propaganda machine of the Nazis that he was exposed to in Germany. Along with 20,000 other French officers he was held in an “Oflag,” a camp for officers, from 1940 to 1945. The camps for officers were administered by the Wehrmacht and the officer prisoners were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1929. Nevertheless, life was not easy for these prisoners. Congar continued to support Pétain’s policy of the “inner resurgence” of France that is nothing other than collaboration with Hitler including France’s own antisemitic legislation (ibid.). It is true that Pétain was a national hero in France following his defense of Verdun in World War I. It is true that Pétain’s armistice with Hitler brought some relief to the frightened French and explains Congar’s support for Pétain that extends until the spring of 1941 (ibid.). Slowly, Congar rejects Vichy and concentrates on fighting the Nazis. Congar repeatedly and chronically attempted to escape and suffered the consequent punishment. In 2001, Fouilloux was not ready to bring up Congar’s support of Pétain’s collaboration with Hitler when he presented Congar’s Journal for the years 1946 to 1956 (Fouilloux 2001, 14). Nevertheless, we are informed in this presentation that there is also a journal covering the years 1939 to 1942 (ibid.). Those who have access to these five diaries know what caused Congar to drastically change his world view. It must be remembered that Congar’s outlook on the world already started to change when he was 37 years of age. I suppose this change can be ascribed to the influence of other officers that were held prisoners with him in the camps. The camps contained persons from France, Great Britain, Poland, and other nations, who must have had a significant effect on Congar.

In his diary for the years 1946 to 1956 Congar does not speak often about his incarceration in the German camps (Congar, Yves. 2001. Journal d`un théologien 1946–1956. Edited by Étienne Fouilloux. Paris: Les Éditions du CERF). The French prisoners of war from 1940 did not rapidly enter into the collective memory of the French. The prisoners were associated with the trauma of France’s defeat and were not considered heroes, as were the members of the resistance. Recognition of their sufferings came a long time after World War II.

After World War II Congar continued his theological work at the Saulchoir, the theological academic center of the French province of the Dominicans, some kilometers south of Paris. He wrote on the importance of the laywomen and laymen in the Catholic Church, penned articles defending the worker-priests and the local Church. The worker-priests were regular priests working in factories as everyday workers. They shared the routine and fatigue of workers that had been forgotten by the Church; they participated in worker protests and unions and theologically reflected on their experiences in view of the social teaching of the Church that there is no social peace without justice. Congar criticized the central Roman government, the Magisterium of the pope and the hierarchical structures of the Church because they darken the mystery of the Church and do not put Jesus Christ at the center (Fouilloux 2011, 11). All this and the context of the Cold War since 1947 raised growing doubts concerning Congar’s orthodoxy. Suspicion held by his superiors and the ecclesiastic authorities in France and Rome concerning Congar and many of his Dominican and Jesuit friends led to a huge purge in February 1954 (ibid.). Congar was sent to Jerusalem, Cambridge and finally to Strasbourg and was only rehabilitated in 1963 (ibid.). Congar’s diary kept during the Council (Congar 2001) is the most important of all diaries that were written by men attending the Council. Starting with Giuseppe Alberigo, no historian of the Second Vatican Council could ignore Congar’s diary (Alberigo, Giuseppe. 1995. “L’ annuncio del concilio. Dalle sicurezze dell’arroccamento al fascino della ricerca.” In Il cattolicesimo verso una nuova stagione. L`annuncio e la preparazione gennaio 1959 – settembre 1962. Vol. 1 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 19–70. 23. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino).

On Tuesday March 23, 1954, Congar records in his diary a daring analogy. He compares the obedience exercised by the Father General of the Dominican Order in Rome to the order issued by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office - that is the Vatican’s former Holy Office of the Inquisition - to purge Congar and other theologians, with the obedience to and collaboration of Marshal Pétain with Hitler’s “abominable regime” (Congar 2001, 270). How is it possible to obey and not to collaborate, Congar asks and notes that during the years 1940 to 1945 he himself had to solve this dilemma between collaboration and resistance. Congar claims that he solved this problem well (ibid.). I am surprised by the facility with which Congar projects all morally bad collaboration onto Pétain and the Father General, without mentioning how painful it was for him to convert from supporting Pétain’s collaboration to resisting the Nazis. There is no doubt that from his youth in Sedan on, all his life long Congar experiences feelings of humiliation, anger and hatred. He is right to feel anger and resentment because he repeatedly experienced injustice. Were this anger and resentment the driving force for his theology that wanted to eliminate the injustice in the Catholic Church that was obscuring the Gospel’s message? “Without anger there is no intentionality or volition, and anger can be seen as the prerequisite for self-confidence” say the psychologist (Aichhorn and Kronberger 2011,522). Congar does not recognize the aggressive behavior of the Louvain theologians at the Second Vatican Council as a positive force that produces effective reform texts (Congar 2012, 510). Reading his journals, I get the impression that Congar is at least as aggressive as the Louvain theologians are, according to his judgement. On Tuesday, February 9, 1954, Congar calls the Holy Office the “supreme and inflexible Gestapo (Congar 2001, 242). The Gestapo (Secret State Police) was the secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. In my eyes, comparing the Holy Office with the Gestapo demonstrates a degree of hatred that borders on destructive behavior. I am not judging on a moral basis. By coming into contact with Congar’s hatred I acquire a feeling for the difficulties that inhabit his doing theology.

In the fall of 1962 French and German bishops and cardinals encouraged Congar and Rahner to write a common text that would replace the prepared schemes on revelation and the deposit of the faith. The collaboration of Rahner and Congar at that crucial moment of the beginning of the Council failed miserably. What are the personal factors that made it impossible for Rahner and Congar to collaborate on a single text in the fall of 1962? Their theological cultures were different, and the egos of their characters would not match.

All through the Council Yves Congar voiced criticism of Philips’ texts. At the same time Congar appreciated the work of Philips and was very conscious of the fact that he was irreplaceable at the Council (Declerck 2006, X-XI). In 1963 Congar and Rahner visited Monsignor Prignon and explicitly asked the Belgian theologian to fully assure Monsignor Philips of their loyal and complete collaboration. Congar attests Philips: “No one else could have done what he did and have succeeded as he has” (Congar, Yves. 2012. My Journal of the Council. Translated from French by Mary John Ronayne OP and Mary Cecily Boulding OP. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. 508). Yet, Congar’s description of Philips’ character is not free of ambiguity: Philip’s character is described as “peaceable, pleasant, conciliating. He is welcoming to everyone and everything. He then does what he wants … he is not passionate. He has the reputation of never having promoted a personal preference on any question. … In practice, Philip does as he pleases” (ibid.). “He knows how to propose a question in a such a way that, disarming preconceptions, neutralizing objectives in advance, he points the others towards the solution he wants without their realizing it” (ibid. 509-10). Congar concludes: “Without any doubt, Monsignor Philips is the architect No. 1 of the theological work of the Council” (ibid. 510).

On Friday, March 13, 1964, Congar notes about his “Belgian friends” at the Council that he does not want to criticize them or be impolite (Congar, Yves. 2002. Mon Journal du Concile. Vol. 2. Paris: Les Éditions du CERF. 53). “The Belgians are not numerous: five or six of them, but they are everywhere” (Congar 2012, 508). These Belgian theologians are the diocesan priests and theologians Gerard Philips (1899-1972), Charles Moeller (1912-1986), Albert Prignon (1919-2000), who is the confidant of the Belgian Cardinal Suenes, Gustave Thils (1909-2000), the Franciscan theologian Béda Rigaux (1899-1982), the bishops Jozef Maria Heuschen (1915-2002), André-Marie Charue (1889-1977) and the teacher of all Lucien Cerfaux (1883-1968). Congar is not able to analyze the causes for the success of the Belgians at the Council. The historian is very well capable of presenting an explanation: Rahner, Ratzinger and Congar together with their French and German bishops and cardinals had no strategy for getting their texts presented and discussed by the aula of the Council. Christ’s work of salvation in history, Go’d’s universal will for salvation and world peace were discussed by the Council much later and treated in two different documents. Christ as the Light of the World and the Church’s hope and joy for participating in the positive development of the World was to be treated in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern World, Gaudium et Spes (Fogarty, Gerald. 1996. “L’avvio dell’assemblea.” In La formazione della coscienza conciliare. Il primo period e la prima intersessione ottobre 1962 – settembre 1963. Vol. 2 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 87–128. 111. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino).

The small group of French and German theologians that prepared in the fall of 1962 alternative texts on revelation and the deposit of faith, had no strategy for getting their texts discussed by the Council and they forgot completely to include in their considerations the prepared scheme on ecclesiology (ibid. 102). It was Cardinal Suenens and his theologian Philips, who early recognized the need to work on improving the prepared document on the Church. They did not reject the Curia’s preparation; they accepted the preparation as a starting point. Philips did not work out an alternative text, but attempted to obtain a corrected version of the prepared text that would find the consensus of all. The strategy employed by Suenens and Philips was successful. Suenens and his theologian Philips strictly informed and discussed the matter with Martini and his theologian, Carlo Colombo. On October 19, 1962, Suenens and Montini jointly presented the need for a corrected version of the prepared scheme of the Church in the meeting of the Secretariat for Extraordinary Affairs of the Council (ibid.). Pope John XXIII had instituted the Secretariat for extraordinary affairs of the Council in October 1962 in order to limit the influence of the Roman Curia on the council. The members of this Secretariat like the Cardinals Siri, Montini, Suenens, Döpfner, Confalonieri, Meyer from the United States, Cardinal Wyszynski from Poland, and the president of the Secretariat Cardinal Cicognani were relatively open minded and supported the reform agenda of Pope John XXIII (Riccardi, Andrea. 1996. “La tumultuosa apertura dei lavori.” In La formazione della coscienza conciliare. Il primo period e la prima intersessione ottobre 1962 – settembre 1963. Vol. 2 ofStoria del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 21–86. 77. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino).

On October 22, 1962, the Council started its work on the prepared scheme on sacred liturgy (Fogarty 1996, 102). The Council got off the ground of confusion and insecurity by starting with the one preparatory document that was acceptable to a vast majority that is the document on liturgy. The German and French bishops and theologians who had been meeting since October 19 were still discussing the theological proposals of Rahner and Ratzinger, when the Council had already begun discussion on the preparded scheme on liturgical reform. Congar was writing on a mission statement for the Council and the Jesuit theologian Danielou was writing alternative texts for the Council. The uncoordinated French and German project to open the Council with alternative texts to the prepared schemes on revelation and on the deposit of the faith had failed (ibid. 106).