Abstract
The sexual abuse crisis has put into serious question the paradigms of Church reform of the twentieth century and of the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Yves Congar’s theology of reform represents a fundamental step on the Catholic Church’s path towards a new relationship with history and modernity. There is no possible path forward that does not begin with that step, denies that moment of development, or dreams to go back to a pre-Vatican II Church. On other hand, in order to be faithful to Vatican II, at almost sixty years from the beginning of the council, theology must acknowledge the inevitable limits and the unintended consequences of an intellectual tradition shaped by the first half of the twentieth century in a Europe-dominated Catholic Church.
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Notes
- 1.
See F. Ceragioli, “‘Il clericalismo è una peste nella Chiesa’. Riflessioni a partire dalla Evangelii gaudium e dal magistero complessivo di papa Francesco”, Archivio Teologico Torinese 24, no. 1 (2018): 147–162; J. Hanvey, “‘Sradicare la cultura dell’abuso’. La Lettera di papa Francesco al Popolo di Dio”, Civiltà Cattolica (La) 169, no. 4 (2018): 271–278.
- 2.
See For a Missionary Reform of the Church. The Civiltà Cattolica Seminar, eds. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, and Carlos Maria Galli. Foreword by Massimo Faggioli (New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2017).
- 3.
See Yves Congar, Journal of a Theologian 1946–1956. Edited with notes by Étienne Fouilloux. Translated by Denis Minns (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2015; Original French: Paris, Cerf, 2000), 235–287.
- 4.
See Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, transl. Paul Philibert (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2010. Original French: Paris, Cerf, 1950, 1968).
- 5.
Congar, True and False Reform, 216.
- 6.
Congar, True and False Reform, 230.
- 7.
Congar, True and False Reform, 265.
- 8.
Congar, True and False Reform, 298.
- 9.
Francis, Video message to participants in the international theological congress held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1–3 September 2015) https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/messages/pont-messages/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150903_videomessaggio-teologia-buenos-aires.html (accessed February 11, 2020).
- 10.
Congar, True and False Reform, 51–52.
- 11.
See Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015).
- 12.
Congar, True and False Reform, 101.
- 13.
See Marie Keenan, “The Organizational and Institutional Culture of the Catholic Church”, in Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 24–53.
- 14.
Especially L’ecclésiologie au XIXe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1960 in the series “Unam Sanctam” edited by Congar) and L’episcopat et l’Église universelle, eds. Yves Congar and Bernard Dominique Dupuy (Paris, Cerf 1962 in the same series “Unam Sanctam”).
- 15.
See Yves Marie-Joseph Congar, Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Paris: Cerf, 1953. English translation: Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1957). A detailed critique of Congar’s theology of the laity today in Marco Vergottini, Il cristiano testimone. Congedo dalla teologia del laicato (Bologna: EDB, 2017).
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Faggioli, M. (2021). Theology of Church Reform and Institutional Crisis: Reading Yves Congar in the Twenty-First Century. In: Chapman, M.D., Latinovic, V. (eds) Changing the Church. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53425-7_5
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