Congar was once silenced for his ideas, which some in Rome took to be dangerous at the time. Barred from teaching or engaging in ecumenical work with the local Anglicans, he was mainly remembered for exercising in the garden.
Congar was an early advocate of the ecumenical movement, encouraging openness to ideas stemming from the Eastern Orthodox Church and Protestant Christianity. He promoted the concept of a "collegial" papacy and criticised the Roman Curia, ultramontanism, and the clerical pomp that he observed at the Vatican. He also promoted the role of lay people in the church.
One of his most important books True and False Reform in the Church (1950) and all of its translations were forbidden by Rome in 1952. Congar was prevented from teaching or publishing after 1954, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, following publication of an article in support of the "worker-priest" movement in France.
Congar's reputation recovered in 1960 when Pope John XXIII invited him to serve on the preparatory theological commission of the Second Vatican Council. Although Congar had little influence on the preparatory schemas, as the council progressed his expertise was recognized and some would regard him as the single most formative influence on Vatican II. He was a member of several committees that drafted conciliar texts, an experience that he documented in great detail in his daily journal. Congar was hired as personal and expert theologian (peritus) at the council to Bishop Jean-Julien Weber of Strasbourg which allowed him to attend all the general sessions and to participate in discussions of any commission to which he was invited.
His principal allies during the council were “progressive” council fathers Cardinal Frings of Cologne and Archbishop Wojtyla of Krakow (later became Pope John Paul II), as well as fellow periti Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, Henri de Lubac, Hans Kung, and a young German theologian named Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). Interestingly post conciliar period, John Paul would create de Lubac and Congar as Cardinals, but would preside over a critical investigation of the works of both Kung and Schillebeeckx.
The thirty last years of his life were marked by illness, though he kept working and publishing throughout this period. Due to sclerosis, he was fairly quickly wheelchair-bound, and eventually hospital-bound during his last decade.
Yves Marie-Joseph Congar OP 13 April 1904 – 22 June 1995) was a French Dominican friar, priest, and theologian.
https://www.english.op.org/godzdogz/remembering-fr-yves-congar-o-p-1904-1995/
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