Vatican II?diary of a controversial expert

MY JOURNAL OF THE COUNCIL, by Yves Congar OP, translated from the French by Mary John Ronayne OP & Mary Cecily Boulding OP. Dominican Publications, Dublin, 979 pp. ISBN:?978-0814680292

Reviewed by Paddy Kearney
Dominican Father Yves Congar, one of the best known and most influential theological experts (periti) at the Second Vatican Council, kept a personal journal of that event, despite his crippling multiple sclerosis which caused intense fatigue and made it difficult for him to walk.

Yet he managed to attend endless meetings of numerous Council commissions, to do a vast amount of editing of Vatican documents, painstakingly weaving appropriate written and oral comments received from the bishops. Also to give a stream of lectures, talks, courses, as well as writing many articles and books, and being consulted extensively not only by bishops, but by hundreds of people of every rank in the Church and from all over the world.

Mary Cecily Boulding describes the journal as written “with a tone of such uninhibited and brutal frankness that publication was embargoed until the year 2000”, and calls Congar an “inveterate grumbler”, both qualities being amply borne out in this 979 page tome.

Congar describes one monsignor active in the Council: “Wretched creature, as full of piosity as he is limited in outlook.” Cardinal Spellman of New York he dismisses in these words: “Spellman presiding: one does not understand a word he says.” But his cruellest barbs are reserved for the conservative Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo whom he describes as an “idiot”, “imbecile and sub-human”, “stupid and empty-headed,” scandalised that such a man was prefect of the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities.

Congar could be scathing too in his description of some of the liturgical events of the Council. On one occasion, when there was a delay while bishops were waiting for the outcome of the vote on one of the documents, he describes the intervening time as being “filled with the Ave Maria, Magnificat, Salve Regina — abies’ dummies to keep them [the bishops] quiet while they waited”.

It was astonishing that Congar played such an important role in the Council, not only because of his disability but also because from 1947-56 he had had “nothing but an uninterrupted stream of denunciations, warnings, restrictive or discriminatory measures and distrustful interventions” from the Vatican.

In fact he never fully recovered from this negative response to his writings and teaching, being fearful even in 1964 that the Vatican might still take action against him — two years into the life of the Council whose decrees were a massive vindication of his views.

He still feared the Vatican,  “because they realise very well that the whole aim [of my work] is to bring back into circulation certain ideas, certain things that they have been endeavouring to shut out for four hundred years, and above all for the past hundred years. But that is my vocation and my service in the name of the Gospel and of the Tradition”.

It is perhaps surprising, given this description of his role, that Congar was not one of the periti who clung most resolutely to their own views. He realised that his ideas would never fully prevail and was therefore much more willing to accept compromise than someone like Fr Hans Küng.

Congar had an acute understanding of what Pope John XXIII had in mind when he said that he wanted a “pastoral” council; it should, said Congar, seek to “express the saving truth in a way that reaches out to the men and women of today, takes up their difficulties, replies to their questions” avoiding the definitions and denunciations that had been so common in the years before the Council.

It is clear from his Journal that Congar hoped the Council would bring about a genuine renewal of the Church that would prepare it for dialogue with, rather than rejection of, the modern world. He warmly welcomed the presence of other Christian churches and of the Eastern Catholics because he felt this would advance the process of reform.

He saw right from the start that the reunion of Christians was the ultimate aim of the Council, but was keenly aware that this would require being refreshed by the biblical, patristic and liturgical sources of Catholicism.

The Church should see itself as the “People of God” inserted into human history, rather than a citadel obsessed with a battle against enemy forces. It is called to enter into a true dialogue with the contemporary world, a dialogue in which the partners would enrich each other.

For Congar, dialogue was at the heart of the Council in another way too: it was dialogue between bishops and theologians that “made the Council possible”, but he feared that this cooperation would be most at risk after the Council — which, looking back over the past 50 years, has indeed been the case.

He realised that the curial officials who held sway in the Church before the Council would have a powerful influence on the extent to which the Council’s vision would be implemented. This makes the various conflicts vividly described by Congar all the more significant for a 2014 audience.

There is much to learn from this massive book. One of the most important discoveries is the realisation that the curia was clawing back its control even as the Council was in session.

Relentless pressure was kept up on Pope Paul VI, making him grant conservative concessions to endless delegations of powerful curial officials whose views had lost out heavily in vote after vote on the Council floor.

Congar’s Journal is fascinating and enlightening, but readers have to skip and skim through masses of detail unless they are attuned to the significance of every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph of the Vatican II documents.

Obviously it will be a treasure chest or encyclopaedia for Council scholars, but it would be helpful to produce a much shorter edited version to reach a wider audience.