chapter one - wrlc islandora

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

The Holy Spirit as the Principle of Ecclesial Unity, Catholicity, Apostolicity

and Holiness in the Thought of Yves Congar

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of Theology and Religious Sciences

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Sacred Theology

By

Lucian Paulet

Washington, D.C.

2018

The Holy Spirit as the Principle of Ecclesial Unity, Catholicity, Apostolicity

and Holiness in the Thought of Yves Congar

Lucian Paulet, S.T.D.

Director: John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol.

“The Holy Spirit has sometime been forgotten,” said Yves Congar (in 1979) referring to

the Catholic theology after the time of Counter-Reformation until the twentieth century. In the

same period of 400 years, ecclesiology focused on an almost external transmission of juridical

power and reduced the whole Church to the hierarchy. In response to this “baroque

ecclesiology,” Congar envisioned a “total ecclesiology,” in which the mystery of the Church is

presented in all its dimensions. The questions arise: how strong is the pneumatological

dimension in Congar’s vision of the Church and how early it appeared in his writings. Some

scholars claim that Congar’s early ecclesiology was mainly Christological and called for a more

pneumatological approach.

This study shows that the pneumatological aspect is stronger than usually acknowledged.

By looking at the continuity and the progress of Congar’s thought between 1937 and 1984,

regarding the role of the Holy Spirit (and of Christ) in relation to the Church, one, holy, catholic

and apostolic, the conclusion is reached that Congar’s developing understanding of ecclesiology

and of pneumatology mutually influenced each other.

The steps of this gradual development are examined chronologically in four chapters

corresponding to the four notes of the Church, showing also the contributing factors to this

growth. In conclusion, looking at the whole sweep of Congar’s works, a comparison is made

from two points of view: ecclesiologically, between the two models of the Church (the body of

Christ, in his early writings, and communion, in his late writings); and pneumatologically,

between the two functions of the Spirit (the Church’s soul and the co-instituting principle).

Thus, according to all the data, the present dissertation concludes that ecclesiology and

pneumatology developed simultaneously and cannot be understood separately in Congar’s

theological thought.

Congar’s ecclesiology, as determined by pneumatology (and not the other way around)

and by a trinitarian approach, corresponds thus to his vision of God: God is the living God of

history, who reveals and communicates himself to his people through the missions of the Son

and of the Spirit, who together build up the Church (one, holy, catholic and apostolic).

ii

This dissertation by Lucian Paulet fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in

the Department of Historical and Systematic Theology approved by John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol.,

as Director, and by Paul G. McPartlan, S.T.L., D. Phil., and Christopher J. Ruddy, Ph.D., as

readers.

_______________________________________

John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol., Director

_______________________________________

Paul G. McPartlan, S.T.L., D. Phil., Reader

_______________________________________

Christopher J. Ruddy, Ph.D., Reader

iii

DEDICATION

To my mother, Maria, and in loving memory of my father, Dumitru Paulet,

My first and most endearing teachers,

Whose lessons are the most enduring in my life

To Bishop Petru Gherghel,

Who met and heard Father Congar speaking with emotion on the time of the Spirit,

And whose vision and love for the Church and dedication to her unity

Are an inspiration to me

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But none of the ransomed ever knew

How deep were the waters crossed.

(From Yves Congar’s ordination card, July 25, 1930)

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... viii

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1

A. A Sketch of Congar’s Life and His Theological Projects ...................................................... 1 B. A Presentation of This Dissertation ..................................................................................... 20

PART I: CONGAR’S PNEUMATOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER ONE: THE PNEUMATOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES ................................................. 28

A. The First Principle: The Holy Spirit is Revealed Not Directly in Himself but Through His

Work ......................................................................................................................................... 30

B. The Second Principle: Christology Has To Be Pneumatological and Pneumatology Has To

Be Christological ...................................................................................................................... 39

1. Pneumatological Christology ............................................................................................ 39 2. Christological Pneumatology ............................................................................................ 49

C. The Third Principle: The Economic Trinity Is the Immanent Trinity and the Immanent

Trinity in Some Ways is the Economic Trinity ........................................................................ 55 1. Congar’s Comments on the Reciprocity of the Axiom ..................................................... 60

2. Applications of the Third Principle................................................................................... 63

CHAPTER TWO: THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES ................................................... 69

A. The Ecumenical Dimension of Congar’s Ecclesiology ....................................................... 72

B. History and the Church ........................................................................................................ 79 C. Structure and Life of the Church .......................................................................................... 85

D. Trinitarian and Pneumatological Dimensions of Congar’s Ecclesiology ............................ 90

PART II: THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES THE CHURCH ONE, CATHOLIC, APOSTOLIC

AND HOLY .................................................................................................................................. 94

CHAPTER THREE: THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAL UNITY ..... 99

A. Early Works: Unity as an Extension of the Unity of the Trinity: A Sacramental and

Christological Approach ........................................................................................................... 99

B. The Turning Point: Towards a More Pneumatological Approach ..................................... 113 C. Late Works: The Unity Brought About by the Holy Spirit is Communion ....................... 119

1. The Holy Spirit Brings about Communion in Diversity ................................................. 121 2. The Holy Spirit Builds Up Ecclesial Unity Through Mediated Realities ....................... 136

D. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making her Catholic, Apostolic, and Holy ... 146

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1. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making Her Catholic ................................. 146

2. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making Her Apostolic ............................... 148 3. In Sanctifying the Church, the Holy Spirit Makes Her One .......................................... 154

CHAPTER FOUR: THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAL

CATHOLICITY .......................................................................................................................... 160

A. Notions and Bases of Catholicity ....................................................................................... 162 1. Catholicity as Qualitative Universality of the Church .................................................... 162

2. Catholicity as a Differentiated Unity Animated by the Holy Spirit ............................... 169 B. The Role of the Holy Spirit in Making the Church Catholic ............................................. 179

1. The Spirit Makes the Church Catholic in Space, i.e. Over All Places and Cultures ...... 191

2. The Spirit Makes the Church Catholic in Time. ............................................................. 192 C. Critical Evaluation.............................................................................................................. 204

CHAPTER FIVE: THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAL

APOSTOLICITY ........................................................................................................................ 212

A. Apostolicity as Continuity and Growth Between the Alpha and Omega: A Mainly

Christological Approach ......................................................................................................... 213 1. The Two Missions of the Two Agents: To Continue the Work of Christ ...................... 214

2. The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic Institution Act Jointly to Form the Body of Christ .. 224 3. The Spirit Retains a Certain Freedom or Autonomy ...................................................... 229

4. Critical Evaluation of Congar’s Early Thought Regarding Apostolicity ........................ 236

B. From Structure du sacerdoce chrétien to L’Église, une: From Priesthood in Itself as

Instrumental Efficient Cause of Grace to a Theology of Ministries in the Service of

Communion............................................................................................................................. 244

1. Structure du sacerdoce chrétien (The Structure of Christian Priesthood) ....................... 244 2. L’Église une, sainte, catholique et apostolique ............................................................... 255 3. Ministères et communion ecclésiale ............................................................................... 264

C. Ministry in Service of Communion: A Pneumatological and Trinitarian Approach ......... 272

D. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 282

CHAPTER SIX: THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE HOLINESS OF THE

CHURCH .................................................................................................................................... 286

A. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church Holy in Her Formal Principles: A Mainly Christological

Approach ................................................................................................................................. 292 1. Chrétiens désunis (1937)................................................................................................ 292 2. “Je crois en la Sainte Église” (1938)............................................................................... 313

3. “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Verité et limites d’un parallèle” (1950) ....... 315 4. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église (1950) .................................................................. 317 5. Critical Evaluation .......................................................................................................... 321

vii

B. Towards a Turning Point: Le Mystère du Temple (1954/1958) ......................................... 324

C. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church Holy as the Co-Instituting Principle of the Church: A

Pneumatological Approach ..................................................................................................... 330 1. L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique (1970) .................................................. 330 2. I Believe in the Holy Spirit (1979-80) ............................................................................ 345

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 358

A. Reviewing the Present Study ............................................................................................. 358

1. Early Writings.The Church is a Society or the Body of Christ: a Mainly Christological

Model .................................................................................................................................. 367

2. The Transition Period: Gradual Developments .............................................................. 372

3. Late Writings. The Church is Communion: a Christological and Pneumatological

Model .................................................................................................................................. 374 B. The Consistency of Congar’s Later Ecclesiology with His Pneumatological Principles as

Described in Chapter I ............................................................................................................ 385 C. New Paths for the Future .................................................................................................... 390

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 393

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Completing a dissertation requires a personal and a common effort from many people.

All my professors at The Catholic University of America, especially my director and readers

played an essential part in it. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor John P.

Galvin, my dissertation director, who guided me with expert advice and subtle distinctions in the

writing of this study. My sincere gratitude goes to Msgr. Paul G. McPartlan and Dr. Christopher

J. Ruddy, for their time and effort in reading this dissertation. Their individual contributions,

suggestions and corrections provided essential help in the final stage of my work. Their efforts

built upon my education which I received during my years in the S.T.L. program at The Catholic

University of America and in my seminary in Romania. Having had such great professors is a

humbling experience and a call to excellence, duty and service. Or, to paraphrase Father Yves

Congar, it is a gift and a task. To all my professors I am in great debt of gratitude.

I express my sincere and deepest appreciation to Most Reverend Petru Gherghel, Bishop

of Iasi, Romania, who, along with Most Reverend Aurel Perca, Auxiliary Bishop of Iasi,

mandated me to pursue a doctorate at The Catholic University of America, and whose kindness,

constant patience, and hope offered me strong encouragement throughout my studies.

A word of thanks ought to be extended to the Office to Aid the Catholic Church in

Central and Eastern Europe of the United States Conference of Bishops and to its Executive

Directors, Msgr. R. George Sarauskas and Father James McCann, S.J, for supporting my studies

at The Catholic University of America.

ix

A distinctive note of appreciation is given to Msgr. Robert G. Amey, Pastor of St. Mary’s

Church in Rockville, Maryland, who welcomed me in residence and supported me with his

kindness, patience, and continuous encouragement. Many thanks to current and former priests in

residence at St. Mary’s Church: Fr. Valentine Keveny, Fr. Jorge Ubau, Fr. Charles Luckett, and

Fr. Charles Gallagher, whose friendship was a source of support. Fr. Doug Morrison, through

his vision, preaching, service and friendship, has been an unceasing inspiration to me. I am also

thankful to the staff and the people of Saint Mary’s Church in Rockville, and especially to Elissa

Speckmann, Kathy Yates, Cecil Galczynski, Kevin Daly, Carrie Somerville, Ann Nolan, Pat

Breen, Nadia and Hatsuya Azumi, Alex and Cerasela Cotoman-Jecu, Ken Masugi, and Althea

Nagai, whose prayers, help and friendship were a blessing and a source of growth for me.

My mother and father offered me the first, most lasting and important education.

Through their fervent prayers, long-enduring patience, sacrificial love and example of their life,

they gave me a second birth. My gratitude goes to my sisters, brothers in law, nieces and

nephews for their unconditional love and support.

On a personal level, this work could not have been done without my friends from

Romania. Their patience and understanding of my too-long absence, their hope and trust in me

went beyond what one can expect.

The completion of my doctoral degree is, in different but very real ways, the

accomplishment of all these people (and many more who are not mentioned here) to whom I am

in deep debt of gratitude. May God, the font and reward of all good works, repay all who helped

me, and make us grow in the service of the Church.

1

INTRODUCTION

A. A Sketch of Congar’s Life and His Theological Projects

Georges-Yves Congar was born in Sedan, in the northeast of France, on April 13, 1904.1

He was the youngest of four children, three boys and a girl, of George and Lucie. His childhood

was marked by the hardships of the World War I: his father was deported to Lithuania. Yves had

a special relationship with his mother to whom he was “close in spirit and heart”2 and who

“already had a very broad outlook and a profound feeling for the Church.”3 Congar himself

remembered “growing up in a pluralist atmosphere”4 together with his Protestant and Jewish

friends, and how, during the war, the Protestant minister in Sedan offered their chapel to the

Catholic community whose church was destroyed.5 Congar remembers how he prayed in that

Protestant chapel and recounts: “I was often fired with desire to make some return to the

Protestants for all I had received from them.”6 These facts must have helped Congar to be open

to the ecumenical vocation which he discovered later and pursued throughout his life.

1 Jean-Pierre Jossua, Le Père Congar: La théologie au service du peuple de Dieu, Chrétiens de tous les

temps 20 (Paris: Cerf, 1967), 13. Some authors refer to Congar’s birth day as May 13 (Aidan Nichols, Yves Congar,

Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989, 1). The most accepted date, however, is April 13.

2 Jean Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar: “Une vie pour la vérité” (Paris: Centurion, 1975), 25.

3 Yves Congar, Dialogue Between Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Philip Loretz

(Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1966), 5.

4 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge, 73.

5 Ibid., 14.

6 Congar, Dialogue Between Christians, 4.

2

In 1918, Congar experienced some of the horrors and disasters of the war as his

hometown was occupied by German troops:

The Germans took a lot of prisoners: Russians, English, Italians; then, especially

Romanians. […] For three weeks, they were crowded in the wagons, coming from

Romania without food. Walking corpses, the guards were harassing them with blows to

make them march. […] Surely, the view of this material and spiritual disaster will play a

role in the beginning of my vocation. […] I wanted to preach conversion to people. I

wanted to convert France.7

It was through this painful experience and the desire to help people that Congar’s priestly

vocation was born. After his initial theological training in Sedan under the guidance of his

parish priest, Canon R. Tonell, and the sub-deacon Daniel Lallement,8 he entered the minor

seminary in Reims, where he completed the baccalaureate, and in 1921 he joined the Carmelite

seminary and studied for three years at L’Institut Catholique in Paris.

In 1925, after one year of mandatory military service, Congar entered the Dominican

order. He had considered joining the Benedictine order to which he had been introduced in 1919

and whose liturgy fascinated him; yet he decided to enter the Dominicans because of their

charisma of preaching and his familiarity with the work of Saint Thomas and the lives of Saint

Dominic and Jean-Baptiste Henri Dominique Lacordaire.9 After a year of novitiate, he

completed his theological studies at the Dominican House of Studies in Kain-la-Tombe,

7 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge, 15-16.

8 Congar, Dialogues Between Christians, 4; idem, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with

Yves Congar, ed. Bernard Lauret, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 70.


3

Belgium.10 The house belonged to the French Dominican Province of Paris; it had been founded

in 1865 in Flavigny and it was moved to Belgium at the beginning of the 1900s, due to the

hostile French legislation, and named Le Saulchoir.11 It was here where Congar experienced one

of the most important influences of his theological formation. The Saulchoir theological method

considered the revealed truth not primarily through logical deduction, as did the neo-scholastic

method, but mostly taking into account the Bible, the Fathers of the Church and the history of

doctrines. The first leading figure at Le Saulchoir who influenced Congar was Ambroise

Gardeil (1859-1931),12 Regent of Studies between 1894-1911, whose book Le donné révélé et la

théologie (1909) was still dominant when Congar studied there and which Congar described it as

Le Saulchoir’s breviary.13 The second leading figure at Le Saulchoir who influenced Congar

was Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895-1990) who was not only his teacher but a very dear friend of

Congar.14 Chenu was Regent of Studies at Le Saulchoir between 1932 and 1942. He was one of

10 When he entered the novitiate he was given the name Marie-Joseph. His early publications are signed

M.-J. Congar. Eventually he dropped this name. Cf. Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians

(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 35, n.5.

11 The best-known book on the theology of this institution is by Marie-Dominique Chenu, Une école de

théologie: Le Saulchoir (Kain-lez-Tournai, Belgium, Le Saulchoir, 1937), reprinted in G. Alberigo et al., Une école

de théologie: le Saulchoir with a foreword by René Rémond, Théologies (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 91-173.

12 Ambroise Gardeil was succeeded at Le Saulchoir as Regent of Studies by Chenu. They both used a

historical approach to Thomas Aquinas. The method is presented by Chenu in the third part of his book, Une école

de théologie: le Saulchoir (1985),129-150. See also Jürgen Mettenpenningen, “The ‘Third Way’ of the Modernist

Crisis, Precursor of the Nouvelle Théologie: Ambroise Gardeil, O.P. and Léonace de Grandmaison, S.J.”

Theological Studies n75 (no. 4) (2014): 774-794; Camille de Belloy, Dieu Comme Soi-Meme : Connaissance De Soi

Et Connaissance De Dieu Selon Thomas D'Aquin : L'hermeneutique D'Ambroise Gardeil, Bibliothèque thomiste;

LXIII (Paris: Vrin, 2014).


14 Ibid., 45. Congar never forgot the words Etienne Gilson “who was not an enthusiast” said about Chenu:

“Un Père Chenu, il y en a un par siècle”, a father like Chenu only comes once per century.

4

the founders of ressourcement—“a new interrogation of the sources.”15 Chenu was inspired by a

Dominican biblical scholar Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855-1938; not to be confused with

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange). Just as M-J. Lagrange, the founder of École biblique in

Jerusalem, used the historico-critical method in the interpretation of the Bible, Chenu did the

same with medieval texts in order to bring out new insights that might enlighten his

contemporaries.16 This method and school was labeled new theology (la nouvelle théologie) by

Garrigou-Lagrange17 initially with the intent to mock its novelty. Chenu was removed from Le

Saulchoir in 1942 and his book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. The

ressourcement was vindicated through its use by the Second Vatican Council. As Walter Kasper

wrote in 1989: “there is no doubt that the outstanding event in the Catholic theology of our

century is the surmounting of neo-scholasticism.”18

Both Gardeil and Chenu inspired and influenced Congar to develop a theological method

that made use of history in the presentation of revealed truth: “Le Saulchoir was the historical

approach to St. Thomas, not in order to relativize that which cannot be relativized but in order to

put his thought in a period, since everything is historical—absolutely everything, including the

Bible and Jesus.”19

15 Congar, “Bulletin d’ecclésilogie,” 1939-1946, in Sainte Église: Études et approaches ecclésiologiques,

Unam Sanctam 41 (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 553, originally published in Revue des sciences philosophiques et

théologiques 31 (1947): 78-96.

16 Philip Kennedy, Twentieth-century Theologians (London – New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 152.

17 F. Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians, 31.

18 Walter Kasper, Theology and the Church (London: SCM Press, 1989), 1.

19 Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 73.

5

Congar was ordained as a priest on July 25, 1930, probably in Paris, by Archbishop

Luigi Maglione, nuncio apostolic in France.20 On his ordination card, which contained a picture

of St. Dominic at the foot of the cross, he wrote the words that he believed belonged to

Tennyson: “But none of the ransomed ever knew / How deep were the waters crossed.”21 In

preparation for his ordination he meditated on the Gospel of John, chapter 17, with commentaries

by Thomas Aquinas and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange and studied the theology of Eucharistic

sacrifice using Eugene Masure’s Le sacrifice du chef.22 During this year of preparation he

became aware of his ecumenical vocation as he felt “a great love for the unity of the Church and

of Christians.”23 He devoted his entire life to this cause of the unity of Christians.

After his ordination, Congar continued his studies. He wrote his Lectorat thesis in 1931

on the unity of the Church, but he never published it. This Lectorat degree allowed him to teach

within the Dominican order; so in the Fall of the same year he joined the Faculty at Le Saulchoir

where he taught apologetics but in a manner different from the way it was taught at that time.

His method was rather closer to fundamental theology and not a rational demonstration such as

was used in apologetics to convince others of the truth of Catholic positions. He confessed

toward the end of his career:

20 Yves Congar, Journal d’un theologien (1946-1956), ed. and annotated Étienne Fouilloux (Paris: Cerf,

2001), 22.

21 Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 20. In fact, the words belong to E.C. Clephane. Cf. Sacred

Songs and Solos: Twelve Hundred Hymns, Compiled under the direction of Ira D. Sankey, (Marshall, Morgan &

Scott, London, [189?]), no. 97.

22 Jossua, Le Père Congar, 20; Congar, Dialogues Between Christians, 2-3.

23 Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 20.

6

Finally, it is clear that after centuries of controversies, polemic, explanation, we have not

convinced one another. We have not convinced the Protestants, or even the Anglicans or

the Orthodox, of our position over the primacy of the Pope. […] Granted, at present we

are engaged in dialogue, and this dialogue often takes us a long way; I am a super-

champion of dialogue, of which I have been one of the promoters and in which I have

been much involved. 24

In this period of time, reading the autobiographical book of Alfred Loisy (1857-1940),

Mémoires, that had just been published, he became aware of modernism.25 A conviction was

formed in him that his “generation had the mission of successfully bringing about, within the

Church, that which was sound in the demands and the problems posed by modernism.”26 These

legitimate demands of modernism included according to Congar an application of history to

Christian data for a better understanding of revelation through the historical context, and,

secondly, a closer attention to the subject who receives the faith and is influenced by history

itself.27 This view and mission was shared by his mentor and friend, M.D. Chenu, and his

colleague at Le Saulchoir, Henri-Marie Féret (1904-1992). The goal of the theological work

undertaken by this team at Le Saulchoir was to propose a theological renewal using as primary

sources the Bible, the Fathers of the Church (ressourcement) and the Christian experience of the


25 Alfred Loisy was the main figure in the crisis of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The title of his autobiography is Mèmoires pour server à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, I-III, Paris, 1930-1931.

For a concise presentation of the modernist crisis, see Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics: Theological

Resources (London: Hutchinson, 1971), 202–12.

26 Yves Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 24. Emphasis original.

27 Aidan Nichols, Yves Congar, 5; see also Rose M. Beal, Mystery of the Church, People of God: Yves

Congar's Total Ecclesiology as a Path to Vatican II (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,

2014), 30; quoted from now on Mystery of the Church. See also 25-29 for a more detailed exposition of the context

and the challenge posed by modernism.

7

community. Thus, Chenu, Congar and Féret even wanted to write a history of theology (not only

of dogmas or of doctrines), a project that was never fulfilled.

Their main focus was, however, ecclesiology. Methodologically, their study of the

Church was envisioned to present the development of ecclesiological ideas in various stages of

the history of ecclesiology. The goal of this ecclesiology, according to Congar, was to present

the total mystery of the Church, that is the Church in all her dimensions. This project was a

reaction against what the Saulchoir team called “baroque theology.”28 This term was employed

to describe the Catholic theology in the post-Tridentine period, which reduced theology to a

logical deduction, usually using only Thomistic propositions, and for which faith was above all

submission to authority instead of being an adhesion of the mind to the truth of God. “Baroque”

ecclesiology presented the Church as a pyramidal, hierarchical society, in which there was little

attention given to the theology of lay people and of communion. Congar himself referred to this

ecclesiology as “hierarchology.”29 The weakness of “hierarchology” consisted not only in its

emphasis on the importance of the hierarchy; after all, Congar himself strived throughout his

career to incorporate in his ecclesiology the necessity and the role of the hierarchy, showing that

the hierarchy is (together with the sacraments and the deposit of faith) the “structure” of the

Church. Rather the limitation of “hierarchology” consisted in a presentation of an almost

external transmission of juridical power and in equating the whole Church with the hierarchy. It


29 Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32

(1972), 169-88, at, 170, originally published as “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des

ministères,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 9-30: “Ecclesiology consisted almost entirely

of a treatise of public law. I coined for this the word ‘hierarchology,’ which has been taken up often enough since.”

8

is to this restricted vision of the Church that Congar wanted to respond in his theological work.

To present a richer ecclesiology, Congar realized that it was not sufficient to add new chapters

on the laity or communion to those already in existence on the hierarchy, but a whole new vision

of the Church was needed: the Church was a communion with the Trinity, which included both

hierarchy and lay people, structure and life. In fact, some scholars argue convincingly that a

“total ecclesiology”—an ecclesiology that includes all dimensions of the Church and the method

required to reach this goal—was the main theological theme of Congar’s ecclesiology.30

From January to June 1932, Congar studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He

attended the classes of Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) on Luther at École Pratique des Hautes and

other classes on Protestant theology.31 He wanted to attend a class of Loisy but his superiors did

not allow him to do so. However, during that time he was part of a group of friends that included

Russian philosopher Nicolas Berdyaev (1874-1948), the Russian philosopher and theologian

Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944), the French philosopher Jacques Maritain(1882-1973), the

Protestant professor Auguste Lecerf (1872-1943).32 Congar appreciated the academic contacts

with theological positions that were outside the Catholic tradition but even more so the personal

contacts with non-Catholics. They expanded his vision and strengthened his desire to work on

30 Due to an impressive amount of works by Congar, scholars tried to find the main theological theme that

is present throughout his (early) work. Various themes were suggested: an ecclesiology of communion of all the

baptized (Jacques Dupuis), an ecclesiology as a response to the unbelief of the world (Gabriel Flynn), a

pneumatological ecclesiology (Elizabeth Groppe), an ecclesiology including both the hierarchy and the laity

(Ramiro Peliterro). Rose M. Beal argues that “total ecclesiology” was the theological framework in which Congar

envisioned his presentation of the Church. By “total ecclesiology” Congar meant, according to Beal, a synthesis of

all the dimensions of the Church and a method that used the Bible, the Fathers and the experience of the faithful as

sources. See Rose M. Beal, Mystery of the Church, especially 1-3.

31 Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 26; Jossua, Le Père Congar, 23; Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge, 76.

32 Yves Congar, Dialogue Between Christians, 7; Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge, 76.

9

ecumenism. Congar himself expressed this conviction: “More than the books, it was due to these

Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican friends that I was introduced to the intimate knowledge of

ecumenical realities.”33

Congar spent the period between 1932 and 1939 at Le Saulchoir in Belgium working on

various projects: teaching classes in ecclesiology, attending ecumenical meetings, giving

conferences and writing his first important theological works. Later in his life he described this

period as “our happy years”34, perhaps because it was in this time that he clarified his intellectual

project. Two enterprises in this period show Congar’s vision and project: the publication of his

first important article and the foundation of the collection Unam Sanctam.

In 1935 he published his first essay: “The Reasons for the Unbelief of Our Time,”35

which was Congar’s theological conclusion to a three-year inquiry conducted by the Dominicans

at the journal La Vie intellectuelle. As the causes for unbelief Congar identified first the

secularization of the modern world, a phenomenon that was pushing faith into the private sector

of life, and second an inadequate presentation of the Church from her part. The Church was

presented as defender of the deposit of faith, concerned only with the preservation of the truth of

the Catholic faith. This was a defensive position in face of the challenges posed by the modern

world. But in Congar’s opinion this was a limited presentation of the Church. Instead of



35 Yves Congar, “Une conclusion théologique à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles de l’incroyance,” La Vie

intellectuelle 37, no. 2 (1935): 214-49, English translation: “The Reasons for the Unbelief of Our Time,” Integration

II, no. 1, (August-September 1938):13-21, and no. 3 (December 1938-January 1939): 10-26.

10

entrenching herself in an apologetic position, the Church should rather engage the world and

present herself as the presence of God in the world. In Congar’s words, the Church

must be humanized in the sense that it must be embodied in every human thing, that

wherever there is man, humanity, there must be the mystical Body, the extension of the

redemptive Incarnation. Thus to all growth of humanity, to all “progress,” to all

extensions of the human in any one of the domains of creation […] there must correspond

a growth of the Church, an incorporation of faith, an incarnation of grace, a humanization

of God.36

In Congar’s opinion, this dialogue between the Church and the world was missing in

1935. Or, better put, the presence of the Church in every aspect of human life was missing and

he was determined to contribute to the implementation of faith in people’s life and to a better

presentation of the Church not as a religious group isolated from the world but as a “religious

humanity,” as “the universe as transfigured by grace into the image of God.”37 Congar’s

universal spirit and aspirations can be observed already at this young age of thirty-one.

The second project, far more important and extensive, of this period of time was the

founding of the series Unam Sanctam published by Les édition du Cerf. This eventually became

a collection of seventy-seven books issued between 1937 and 1967. The first number of the

series was his Chrétiens désunis (Divided Christendom).38 The purpose of the series was to

promote the renewal of ecclesiology by returning to traditional ecclesiological themes that had

36 Congar, “The Reasons for the Unbelief of Our Time,” Integration, II, no. 3 (December 1938-January

1939), 21. Emphasis original.

37 Ibid., 21.

38 Yves Congar, Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un ‘oecumenisme’ catholique. Unam Sanctam 1 (Paris:

Cerf, 1937). English translation: Divided Christendom, trans. M. A. Bousefield (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1939).

Congar intended to publish in the first volume of the series the French translation of Johann Adam Möhler’s Die

Einheit in der Kirche (1825), but due to some delays in translation that book was printed as the second volume.

11

been forgotten. Most important, Unam Sanctam was to revive “the whole of the Catholic

heritage” and to make “better understood the true nature of the Church, in order to restore to its

mystery all its dimensions.”39 Congar was for years the editor of Unam Sanctam and he edited

thousands of pages—a work that cannot be quantified and the results are not published, but it

came from a deep love for the Church. The series was extremely influential and contributed to a

“genuine ecclesiological breakthrough” in the theology of the time.40 The last book of the series

appeared in 1967, soon after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, as if with the work of

the council the goal of Unam Sanctam, a renewal of ecclesiology in method and content, was

accomplished.

The period of the Second World War contained a mixture of bad and happy events for

Congar’s personal life. On the one hand, it interrupted his work. He was a lieutenant in reserve

in the French army and when the war broke out he was called to arms and assigned to guard a

fuel depot in Northern Alsace.41 In June 1940, Congar was captured and held as a prisoner of

war at officer camps. Because he tried to escape, he was considered a Deutschfeindlicher

(enemy of Germany) and sent to high security prisons like Colditz and Lübeck until the end of

the war.42 However, the officers were allowed to give conferences and organize classes so as to


(Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1966), 24; IDEM, Preface to Le schisme de Photius, by F. Dvornik, 7-21. Unam

Sanctam 19. (Paris: Cerf, 1950), 7.

40 Étienne Fouilloux, “Frère Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominicain: Itinéraire d’un théologien” Revue des

science philosophiques et théologiques 79 (1995): 379-404, at 386.


42 Ibid., 89-91.

12

be preoccupied with something else than escaping. Congar gave courses in ecclesiology in

Lübben (1941) and Lübeck (1945) and, what is important, he introduced more biblical theology

in his classes and departed from scholastic formulations.43 He had to make these changes in

method because he was teaching fellow prisoners who were not Catholic and had no training in

scholasticism. That is a fact that can be numbered among the happy events during the war.

Another one is the friendship he forged with people of various nationalities and denominations,

who had a different education, jobs and views on life (some of the prisoners were socialists and

some anticlerical). So as the war ended, even though he lamented these years that he considered

lost, Congar changed for the better, being exposed to diversity and ecumenism, and having

developed his method incorporating biblical theology—a very significant fact.

In May 1945, Congar returned to France happy to be able to make up for the time lost

from his studies. According to him, the atmosphere in France was elated; the years 1946 and

1947 were “one of the finest moments in the life of the Church” while a great emulation and

creativity took place in the biblical, liturgical and missionary movements.44 Congar brought his

contribution to theology in several areas. He wrote a first draft of Vraie et fausse réforme dans

l’Église (True and False Reform in the Church) in 1946 or 1947 and published it in 1950.45 In

1953, he republished his Esquisses du mystère de l’Église (The Mystery of the Church), and to

43 Beal, Mystery of the Church, 7-8. In this book, based on her dissertation, R. Beal analyzes the courses

Congar gave in prisons during the war by using the manuscripts left by Congar in his archive.

44 Congar, Dialogue Between Christians,32.

45 Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, trans. and introd. Paul Philibert from the second

edition, 1968 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2011), originally published as Vraie et fausse réforme dans

l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1950). Congar offered conflicting dates regarding the time when he finished the draft: 1946 (in

Journal d’un theologien, 317) and 1947 (in Dialogue Between Christians, 32).

13

the themes that were contained in the first edition, ecclesial unity and catholicity, he added a new

chapter on the Holy Spirit and the apostolic corps as agents of the work of Christ.46 In the same

year he published Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Lay People in the Church).47 Even

though the themes of these books (reform in the Church, ecclesial unity and catholicity,

pneumatology, theology of lay people) seem to be separate chapters of ecclesiology, they are in

fact expressions of an ecclesiological synthesis with a one great common theme: the mystery of

the Church in all its dimensions.

Ecumenism, reform in the Church (not against but within the Church), theology of lay

people (described positively and not by comparison with the hierarchy) were themes that were

ground breaking at the time and not popular among some circles in the Roman curia. He came,

therefore, under suspicion and close scrutiny by the “Roman system,” 48 as he called it, namely

by some people in the Holy Office. However, the difficulties he had to go through came from

his superiors in the Dominican order. In 1947, he gave up publishing an article on ecumenism in

order to save the cause of Catholic ecumenism. On 4 August 1948, Congar finished working on

a second edition of Chrétiens désunis (he rewrote two chapters) at the request of his colleges at

Les édition du Cerf. Fr. Suarez, the Master General of the Dominicans, asked Congar “to submit

46 Yves Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 2nd rev. ed. (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1965), originally

published as Esquisses du mystère de l’Église. Unam Sanctam 8 (Paris: Cerf, 1941; 2nd ed, 1953).

47 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), originally published as Jalons pour une

théologie du laïcat (Paris: Cerf, 1953).

48 Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 89 and especially 303.

14

the book to him for censorship so that he might be in a better position to defend” Congar49.

Congar submitted the book to Fr. Suarez and then waited for two years. Father Suarez

designated two Dominican censors in Rome to give their nihit obstat. One of them had no

objections to the book, while the other asked for “some alterations” which were never specified.

Meanwhile, on August 12, 1950, pope Pius XII promulgated Humani Generis, a papal

encyclical where he warned against “false irenism.” On August 17, 1950, Father Suarez returned

to Congar the manuscript of the second edition of Chrétiens désunis and warned him too on

“false irenism.”50 He did not publish the second edition of Chrétiens désunis, because he

thought that the situation of ecumenism changed while he was waiting for the approval for

printing. As he notes, “from the beginning of 1947 to the end of 1956 I knew nothing from that

quarter [Rome] but an uninterrupted series of denunciations, warnings, restrictive or

discriminatory measures and mistrustful interventions.”51 In February 1952, the Holy Office

informed Congar that his Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église was prohibited to be republished

and translated in other languages, and he was to submit all his writings to the Dominican Master

General in Rome.52 It should be noted that the book was never put on the Index of Forbidden

Books. After February 1952, he submitted his writings to Roman and French Dominican


50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., 34. Congar most likely refers here to the Roman papal curia, with its congregations, “this

apparatus of authority and government,” as he describes this “Roman system of curia” on May 17 th, 1946 (Journal

d’un theologien), 89.

52 Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 181-83.

15

censors.53 The situation became more difficult in February 1954, when a “great purge” or “raid

on the Dominicans” took place and he was told to leave France, like Chenu, Féret and Fr. Pierre

Boisselot (director of Les éditions du Cerf.)54 Congar took the path of exile in April 1954 and

went to Jerusalem, and subsequently to Rome, Cambridge, and Strasbourg, in France.

Some remarks should be made about these years of “great patience.” First, Congar was

never asked to retract anything he had published. One can argue that he came under suspicion

because the topics on which he wrote (ecumenism, ecclesial reform) were suspicious and ground

breaking at that time and Congar was ahead of his time or even a prophet.55 Also he might have

been a victim of unfortunate circumstantial incidents. For instance, in 1951 in France there was

a group of Catholics who called themselves “The Community of Christian Hope.” They wanted

to renew the Church but did not pay close attention to a sine qua non condition for a true reform,

which Congar emphasized in his Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église: to remain in communion

with the whole. They were excommunicated together with their leader, Abbé Jean Massin, who

also left the Church afterwards. Congar tried to prevent him from schism by sending him a

letter.56 In September 1951, Congar was suspected of having acted as adviser of Massin while in


54 Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., “ ‘Raid on the Dominicans’: The Repression of 1954,” America 170 (4

February 1994): 8-16.

55 That Congar was a prophet can be supported by several facts: he was called to be a peritus in many

commissions that prepared the Second Vatican Council, his ideas were incorporated in the documents of this council

and he was made a cardinal in recognition of his work.


16

fact he had never met him. His book “Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église was read and

referred to in connection with this regrettable incident.”57

Second, Congar’s attitude was that of great patience during the times of suspicion and

exile. When he was asked to submit his writings to censorship, he never challenged publicly that

decision but obeyed it. At times he describes the pain and even humiliations that he had to

suffer, yet he never contested the decisions of his superiors.58 Even when he knew that during

the same time theological works of “hierarchology” were published, while his writings of a “total

ecclesiology” were restricted, he still did not complain in public to our knowledge. This attitude

of patience was formed in him through his convictions that great ideas need time to mature and

this maturation is always accompanied by a cross.

Anyone who is acquainted with me knows that I am impatient in little things. I am

incapable of waiting for a bus! I believe, however, that in big things I am patient in an

active way. […] It is a quality of mind, or better of the heart, which is rooted in the

profound, existential conviction, firstly that God is in charge and accomplishes his

gracious design through us, and secondly that, in all great things, delay is necessary for

their maturation. […] If this patience is that of the sower, it is necessarily accompanied

by a cross. […] Only by its means do our lives acquire a certain genuineness and depth.

Nothing is meant wholly seriously unless we are prepared to pay the price it demands.59


58 Ibid., 43. Here he describes the “odious restrictions” imposed on his ministry and movements by a local

superior. Other times he confesses that in exile he felt the lack of communion with his brothers; even though he was

in communion with God who is communion, he still needed to feel at a human level the brotherly communion,

which he was painfully missing (“they have reduced me to nothing”).

59 Ibid., 44-45.

17

Congar paid a great price (some say that it will never be known what price was paid by

Congar for Vatican II60), but in the end his ideas and vision of the Church prevailed at Vatican II.

As a matter of fact, he perceived the measures taken against him and the Dominican order in

1954 as a clash between two visions of the Church: one that was a mere juridical “hierarchology”

and another one that envisioned the Church as “a supernatural Communion at the interior of

which, within communion and submission, there would be a liberty of research and of

thought.”61 Fortunately or, better said, by divine Providence, Congar’s vision of the Church

prevailed and was expressed by Vatican II. It can be said, therefore, that Congar was a precursor

of the Council. It is interesting to see how Congar explained what a precursor was, in 1950,

when nobody could foresee the events that followed. “A precursor is only judged to be such

according to the scale of history; judged by too short a scale in the present, he or she looks like

nothing more than a utopian dreamer or a dangerous revolutionary.”62 But if in 1952 and 1954

he was considered a dangerous revolutionary, history proved him to be a precursor.

On January 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII (declared a saint on April 27, 2014) announced

that he would convoke an ecumenical council. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (elected pope on

October 28, 1958) was nuncio in Paris from 1945 to 1953, during the years when Congar was

regarded with suspicion. As a nuncio, Roncalli knew well the realities of the Church in France,

the situation of Yves Congar and la nouvelle théolgie. Congar was told by a missionary priest

60 René Laurentin (himself an expert at the Council) in an article published in Le Figaro, December 9,

1964, cited by Jossua, Le Père Congar, 35.

61 Congar, Journal d’un théologien, 242.

62 Congar, True and False Reform, 368.

18

who visited the nunciature that he found Roncalli reading and taking notes of Vraie et fausse

reform, and asked the visiting priest: “A reform of the Church, is such a thing possible?”63

Shortly after Pope John XXIII convened the council, he expressed his personal wish that Congar

be a consultant in the preparatory theological commission.64 That was a great vindication for

Congar and his work. At the beginning he had a small influence in that commission; he was only

a consultant and could express his opinion only when asked. After the majority of bishops

expressed their dissatisfaction with the first schema on the Church, an address of the Pope was

read which called for revision of the schema (also of the schema on divine revelation) discussed

during the first session of the council.65 So Congar became involved in the conciliar activities,

gave conferences and worked on several commissions. Regarding the contribution of Congar to

Vatican II, Joseph A. Komonchak said that "there is no theologian who did more to prepare for

Vatican II or who had a larger role in the orientation and even in the composition of the

documents."66 Congar put his mark on eight out of sixteen documents of the council: Lumen

Gentium, Dei Verbum, Gaudium et Spes, Nostra Aetate, Dignitatis Humanae, Ad Gentes,

Presbyterorum Ordinis, Unitatis Redintegratio. Regarding the energy that Congar put into that

work, he notes:

I worked on many conciliar commissions. I do not think that I had more than two days

rest in the four conciliar sessions of three months each. The work was enormous: I was

63 Ibid., 2 (Preface to the second edition – 1967).


65 Giuseppe Ruggieri, “Beyond an Ecclesiology of Polemics: The Debate on the Church,” in Giuseppe

Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak, (ed.), History of Vatican II, Vol. II: The Formation of the Council’s Identity, First

Period and Intersession, October 1962-September 1963 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 243.

66 Joseph A. Komonchak, “The Return of Yves Congar,” Commonweal 110 (July 15, 1983), 402-5, at 402.

19

on the theological commission presided over by Cardinal Ottaviani, where we laboured

unceasingly, always in Latin; the Commission for the Missions, a great grace in my life;

the Commission for the Clergy, for the decree on priests, Presbyterorum ordinis, in

which I was responsible for not a few texts. With the Secretariat for Christian Unity I

worked hard on the decree on ecumenism, on the declaration on religious freedom, which

demanded a great deal from us, and on the text on non-Christian religions. I also had a

part in other things, more or less, but in none more than in the famous Gaudium et spes

(The Church in the Modem World) which issued simultaneously from the commissions

on theology and the laity. It was an enormous structure, since each commission had

thirty members and at least as many periti.67

Congar had an influence not only on the content of the documents of the council, but

there is a great similarity between Congar’s method and the one used by the ecumenical council:

return to the sources (the Bible and the Fathers of the Church), ecumenical openness, attention to

the aspirations of the modern world and to the voice of the laypeople. All these are means of

theological investigations which Congar had advocated. His prophetic voice that had been

reduced to silence was now listened to and gradually respected by the bishops to whom Congar

was giving conferences and for whom was writing speeches, meanwhile being very attentive not

to give an impression that in the council there could exist an authority of the theologians parallel

to that of the bishops.68 He considered the council to be a common endeavor of the bishops and

experts under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This contribution to the council was appreciated

67 Yves Congar, “Letter from Father Yves Congar, O.P.”, trans. Ronald John Zawilla, Theology Digest, 32

(1985): 213-16, at 215.

68 Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne and Mary Cecily Boulding, ed. Denis

Minns (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier-Liturgical Press, 2012), xxi: “I have taken the following as a general

rule: not to undertake anything unless asked to do so by the bishops. It is they who are the council.” Once Congar

was asked to attend a meeting of the theologians and he refused to go precisely to avoid the impression that there are

two authorities in the council. For different approaches at Vatican II, see Christopher Ruddy, “Yves Congar and

Hans Küng at Vatican II: Different Paths of Church Reform,” Ecclesiology, 10 (2) (2014), 159-185.

20

by accomplished theologians so that some called Vatican II “Congar’s council.”69 After the

council, Congar worked to make known its documents, to promote its reception and to offer what

he thought was a correct interpretation of its spirit and teaching. Despite his health condition

that was deteriorating (the sclerosis was worsening), he continued to work and to offer his

contribution and life for the Church. His last major work was I Believe in the Holy Spirit.70

“Paul VI and John Paul II have stated publicly that the work of Congar had nurtured their own

spirit and instructed them in the ways of religious renewal. It is no small thing to be a teacher of

popes.”71 In November 1994, a few months before his death on June 22, 1995, he was created a

cardinal by Pope John Paul II, in recognition for his work and life as true servant of the Church

and, as he wished for himself, a true Aeolian harp in whom the breath of God made the strings

vibrate and sing.72

B. A Presentation of This Dissertation

Scholars who studied any area of Congar’s theology were confronted inevitably with two

common difficulties. First Congar was a very prolific writer.73 The second stumbling block in a

69 Avery Dulles, Preface to Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church, ed Gabriel Flynn, Louvain Theological

and Pastoral Monographs 32 (Louvain: Peeters Press; Dudley, MA: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005), 27; Fouilloux, “Frère

Yves,” 396.

70 Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, trans. David Smith, 3 vols. (New York: Crossroad Publishing,

1997), originally published as Je crois en l’Esprit Saint, 3 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1979-1980).

71 Justus George Lawler, Popes and Politics: Reform, Resentment and the Holocaust, (New York:

Continuum Publishing Group, 2002), 245.

72 Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 1, X.

73 In 1987, there were 1790 titles according to the two well-known bibliographies compiled by Pietro

Quattrocchi and Aidan Nichols. For more detailed presentation and classification of Congar’s works, see below,

Chapter II, pp. 72-74.

21

study of Congar is the unsystematic character of his writings, explicable through the fact that

many times they were responses to the theological questions and demands of the day and also

through the fact that those questions were in continuous development (e.g., ecumenism).

Given these two difficulties, there is a need for scholars to systematize Congar’s vast

work. For the sake of synthesis, it can be claimed that there is a comfortable agreement that

Congar’s pivotal theme is a “total ecclesiology” even though authors may differ when it comes

to defining what a total ecclesiology is. Later in his career (1970), Congar confessed that in

1928-29 he conceived a project to write a treatise on the Church that would be a “total

ecclesiology,” which he never wrote but he did not regret this.74 That ecclesiology was

elaborated by Vatican II. After the completion of the council, Congar was preoccupied with its

reception and with a number of works of synthesis: history of ecclesiological doctrines, theology

of ministries within ecclesial communion, reconciled diversity etc. The last major work that he

published was an impressive synthesis on the Holy Spirit, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (1979-80).

It could appear that Congar’s interest in pneumatology appears later in his career, when he was

content with ecclesiology and maybe had more time to turn his attention to other theological

areas. If that were the case, pneumatology could be a topic separate from his ecclesiological

project. In reality, Congar admits that he had had an interest in pneumatology for a long time.

“When I began working on my three volumes on the Holy Spirit – I Believe in the Holy Spirit –

74 Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32 (1972), 169-88,

at 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). His assertion that “there can be only be one sound

and sufficient theology of laity, and that is a ‘total ecclesiology’ ” dates from 1953, in Lay People in the Church,

xvi.

22

first of all I made a brief survey of my past publications and saw that I had written and published

eighteen or nineteen articles on the Spirit. So I had been preoccupied with the Spirit for quite a

long time.”75

A legitimate question arises: How early did Congar start to be preoccupied with

pneumatology, and what is the relation between ecclesiology and pneumatology? This is the

starting point of the present study. Scholars have different opinions. Joseph Famerée considers

that Congar’s ecclesiology in the first years of his career was mainly Christological and called

for a more pneumatological approach. 76 Gilles Routhier, a friend of Famerée, states that

pneumatology “was never a late-arriving theme in Congar and was never absent from his

ecclesiological horizon.”77 Jean-Pierre Jossua noticed that Congar published his first article on

the Holy Spirit in 1952 and that “emphasis on the action (‘actualisme’) of God, regarding the

pneumatological aspect of ecclesiology, will bring its fruits twenty years later.”78 This study will

show that his ecclesiology and pneumatology developed simultaneously and influenced each

other. This dissertation does not claim that pneumatology is the essential theme that structured

the entire thought of Congar. However, the research reaches the conclusion that ecclesiology

and pneumatology influenced each other mutually and cannot be understood separately. Even

the early ecclesiology presupposed pneumatology, even though the references are not fully


76 Cf. Famerée, L’ecclésiologie d’Yves Congar, 148-51. This is just one example of the critique of

Famerée.

77 Gilles Routhier, “Un cheminement dans la théologie du ministère,” in Joseph Famerée and Gilles

Routhier, Yves Congar, (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 102-103: “pneumatologie, qui n’est pas un thème tardif chez Congar et

qui n’a jamais été absente de son ecclésiologique.”

78 Jossua, Le Père Congar, 28-29.

23

developed. Special attention will be paid to both the continuity and the differences between

Congar’s writings in various stages of his career. This balance will guarantee a true

understanding of Congar’s thought. On the one hand, if one tries to search only for differences

between the beginning and the end of Congar’s thought (Jossua and Famerée compare Divided

Christendom – 1937 with Diversity and Communion – 1982), the danger is to miss the continuity

of his thought. One the other hand, there are differences, development and even “retractations”

in Congar’s writings79, but not to the extent that Congar contradicts himself.

The relation between the Holy Spirit and the Church is ontological: the Spirit gives life to

the Church; he is the principle of ecclesial life or, as Congar expressed it in his I Believe in Holy

Spirit, the co-instituting principle of the Church, together with Christ. However, in our order of

knowledge the relation is reverse: the Holy Spirit is known through the works that he

accomplishes. This is also the methodology that Congar uses: he looks at the Church one, holy,

catholic, and apostolic as the work of the Holy Spirit. This dissertation follows Congar’s

method: it will analyze the important books and articles of Congar’s ecclesiology in

chronological order and then infer from them the role of the Holy Spirit in building up the

Church. But before that, a look into Congar’s basic principles in pneumatology and ecclesiology

is needed. The dissertation has, then, the following parts.

The first part contains two chapters dealing with Congar’s basic pneumatological and

ecclesiological principles. Chapter one reviews Congar’s major writings on pneumatology and

deduces from them three basic principles: a. the Holy Spirit is revealed not directly in himself

79 Cf. Rémi Chéno, “Les Retractationes d’Yves Congar sur le role de l’Esprit Saint dans les institutions

ecclésiales, Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 90 (2) (2007): 265-284.

24

but through his works, b. Christology has to be pneumatological and the pneumatology has to be

Christological, and c. the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity in

some ways is the economic Trinity. The relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit is

essential for Congar’s theology, even though the precise roles of them were defined and

developed gradually. The balance between Christology and pneumatology is the basis for a

sound ecclesiology and an important key to the understanding of Congar’s theology.

Chapter two is an examination of four main themes in Congar’s ecclesiology:

ecumenism, the historical dimension, communion, and the trinitarian and pneumatological

dimensions. The study follows the chronological order of his writings in order to show how his

ecclesiology developed organically.

The second part has four chapters containing the main research work and deals with

Congar’s developing understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church one,

holy, catholic and apostolic. It is important to mention ahead that these are qualities and not

marks of the Church; in other words, Congar is interested in the true nature of the Church and

not in apologetics (a demonstration that the Catholic Church is the true Church). In I Believe in

the Holy Spirit, Congar changes the order of the notes from the Nicene creed, linking catholicity

to the unity of the Church, consequently placing holiness the last of the properties in his study.

This dissertation follows, therefore, that order.

Chapter three shows how the ecclesial unity of the Church is brought about by the Holy

Spirit who introduces the Church into the unity of God. Congar’s developing understanding of

ecclesial unity is presented from his first ecclesiological work Chrétiens désunis (1937) to his

25

late pneumatological trilogy I Believe in the Holy Spirit (1979-80). Since that divine unity is a

communion of persons, ecclesial unity is a communion in which the Spirit stimulates unity and

diversity at the same time. Finally, that communion is built up by the Spirit through mediated

realities in the Church (faith, sacraments and charity) — this is an application of the first

principle: The Spirit reveals and works through mediating realities. The Holy Spirit is the

principle of ecclesial unity because he is the bond of unity between the Father and the Son—it is

an application of the third principle (stated in 1979): the mission of the Spirit is a prolongation of

his eternal procession from the Father and the Son (a theme which he mentioned already in

1952).

Chapter four examines first the development of the notion of catholicity in Congar’s

thought: from a qualitative extension of unity to a differentiated unity. Then, it shows that there

is a relation of direct proportion between Congar’s notion of catholicity and his understanding of

the role of the Spirit: the more Congar emphasizes diversity, the more he underlines the role of

the Spirit. This is supported through a chronological research from the first to the last book. In

the end, a critical evaluation of the opinions of some scholars on the subject is offered.

Chapter five presents the evolution of Congar’s thought regarding the apostolicity of the

Church and the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church apostolic. It shows how the Spirit is

understood first as the principle of continuity of the work of Christ together with the apostolic

body, and later as the co-instituting principle of the life of the Church. The development of

Congar’s thought from the earlier to the later stages of his work is gradual; there is a change in

perspective but that does not imply major retractions of the previous position. Methodologically,

26

this chapter analyzes the important books and some articles in chronological order with the

purpose of making clear the evolution of Congar’s theological thinking regarding apostolicity

and the role of the Spirit in bringing about ecclesial apostolicity.

Chapter six discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church holy; it does not

treat the personal holiness of the members of the Church, but rather the property of holiness of

the Church as such and the role of the Spirit in its realization. At first, an examination of

Congar’s early works shows how he defines holiness as a property given to the formal principles

of the Church—faith, sacraments and priestly powers. This description corresponds to a

particular model of the Church, which is mainly Christological. However, the role of the Spirit

is united and conjoined to that of Christ through a covenant bond in building up ecclesial

holiness. In his later works, Congar develops in a clearer manner the relation between Christ and

the Holy Spirit and therefore holiness is understood in a more balanced way as realized by both

Christ and the Holy Spirit. It will be shown that the evolution of ecclesiology affects the

understanding of pneumatology. There is, in this evolution, a continuity of thought and also a

progression; Congar’s thought develops organically and not in contradiction with his earlier

position.

The conclusion will have three parts. The first part will review this study now looking

across the chapters, with a special attention to: the four notes of the Church, their sources (from

above and below), the roles of Christ and the Holy Spirit. This presentation will highlight the

consistency of Congar’s ecclesiology: the same model of the Church will be found across his

early writings. The process will be repeated, although in a different order, for the late writings,

27

identifying thus a different ecclesiological model. Then a comparison between the models will

show the development of Congar’s thought with regard to the Holy Spirit and the four notes of

the Church. This comparison will also show the mutual influence between ecclesiology and

pneumatology throughout Congar’s career; and the importance of balance between Christology

and Pneumatology for a sound ecclesiology. The second part of the conclusion will show the

consistency of Congar’s later ecclesiology with his pneumatological principles as described in

chapter one. Finally, a few sketches for further development will be suggested.

28

PART I: CONGAR’S PNEUMATOLOGICAL

AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER ONE

THE PNEUMATOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

Congar is known primarily as an ecclesiologist. His early major works treat

ecclesiological themes, such as the nature of the Church, ecumenism, reform, lay people in the

Church. However, his interest in pneumatology developed early in his career, too. In his

Entretiens d’automne (Fifty Years of Catholic Theology) an interview book published toward the

end of his life, Congar declared that before he wrote his major book in pneumatology, I Believe

in the Holy Spirit, he made a survey of his published works and noticed that he had written

eighteen or nineteen articles on the Holy Spirit and he realized that he had been preoccupied with

pneumatology for a long time.1 This interest in pneumatology comes to complete fruition in two

works: Je crois en L’Esprit Saint (I Believe in the Holy Spirit) and La Parole et le Souffle (The

Word and the Spirit).2 These two books represent Congar’s mature thought in pneumatology.

This first chapter will present three principles of Yves Congar’s pneumatology, based

mainly on these major works. The need for a presentation of these basic principles comes from

1 Yves Congar, Entretiens d’automne, Théologies (Cerf: Paris, 1987), 80, translated as Fifty Years of

Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar, ed. by Bernard Lauret, trans. John Boweden (Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1988), 61.

2 Yves Congar, Je crois en l’Esprit Saint, vols. 1-3, (Paris: Cerf, 1979-1980), translated as I Believe in the

Holy Spirit, vol. 1-3, trans. David Smith (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1983) from now on I Believe; IDEM, La

Parole et le Souffle (Paris: Desclée, 1984), translated as The Word and the Spirit (San Francisco: Harper and Row,

1986).

29

the fact that the main body of this presentation (part two) will focus on the work of the Spirit in

making the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic. But in Congar’s pneumatology there are

some primary operational principles, which will be presented in this chapter, as follows.

First, Congar asserts that there is no other way of knowing the Holy Spirit but through his

work. In order to support this principle, Congar analyzes Scripture and the writings of the

Fathers, and he demonstrates that the Holy Spirit does not reveal his nature directly but only

indirectly through his actions in the economy of salvation.

This analysis of the work of the Holy Spirit in the history of salvation leads Congar to the

second principle of his pneumatology: there is “no Christology without pneumatology and no

pneumatology without Christology.”3 The Spirit comes and works fully in history only after and

due to the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit’s main task is to lead people to Christ, to constitute

him as Messiah and Lord, and to conform the Church to the resurrected Christ.

Finally, the intimate connection between Christ and the Holy Spirit leads Congar to

address the issue of the immanent, ontological relationship between the Word and the Holy

Spirit. For this, he needs to address the relationship between the economy of salvation and God

as existing in himself. He begins with Karl Rahner’s trinitarian axiom: “The economic Trinity is

the immanent Trinity and vice versa.” In basic agreement with Rahner, Congar nuances the

second half of the axiom, saying that the immanent Trinity is really communicated in the

economy, but “this takes place in a mode that is not connatural with the being of the divine

3 Congar, The Word and the Spirit¸1.

30

Persons.”4 For this reason, Congar qualified Rahner’s axiom in a manner that could be

synthesized like this: the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is

in some ways the economic Trinity. The relationship between the economy and the eternal

Trinity is identified in this chapter as Congar’s third pneumatological principle. It can also be

expressed by the statement that the missions of the Son and of the Spirit are rooted in the

immanent processions of the divine persons within the Trinity.

Congar’s methodology in the three volumes of I Believe follows the order of knowing:

from economy to the eternal Trinity. He begins his study of the Holy Spirit with the testimony

of Scripture and Tradition about the work of the Spirit (vol. 1), continues with the work of the

Spirit in the Church and the personal lives of the believers (vol.2), and ends by showing who the

Spirit is in the immanent Trinity (vol.3).

A. The First Principle: The Holy Spirit is Revealed Not Directly in Himself but

Through His Work

The first basic principle that Congar recognizes as fundamental in theology is that of

“faith seeking understanding.”5 Theologians appeal to the sources of theology, namely Scripture

and Tradition, while they also keep in mind that the understanding of faith should be done in

communion with witnesses to the Christian experience not only from the past but from the

present as well. In his pneumatological writings, Congar is not interested in discussing the

4 Congar, I Believe, vol. 3, 15.

5 Congar, I Believe, vol.1, vii.

31

relation between the history of revelation and the history of mankind, nor the relation between

“transcendental revelation” and “categorical revelation.”6 The issue of the revelation of the Holy

Spirit outside the Church is also not a point of discussion when he presents his methodological

principles. He affirms that Catholic theologians recognize Scripture as the primary source of

revelation, and that “the canonical Scriptures bear witness to that revelation and that they act as

our criteria in our evaluation of our experience of God.”7

This method is necessary in theology, since we can affirm something about God only if

God has revealed it to us. Congar points out, however, a first difficulty in the theology of the

Holy Spirit: a lack of conceptual mediation. If the names “Father” and “Son” point to an

experience of fatherhood and begetting, which are related to each other, they are referred to the

first and second person, who are mutually related. But the term “Spirit” lacks these

connotations. Heribert Mühlen, professor of dogmatic and historical theology at the University

of Paderborn and a theological expert at Vatican II, explained that Yahweh in the Old Testament

and Jesus in the New Testament revealed themselves by using the personal noun “I,” but the

Holy Spirit did not use it in his revelation.8 Unlike the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit does

not reveal himself directly. Congar, therefore, draws a first basic principle in pneumatology:

6 Ibid., ix.

7 Ibid.

8 Heribert Mühlen, "Das Christusereignis als Tat des Heiligen Geistes," in Mysterium Salutis 3/2 (ed. J.

Feiner and M. Löhrer; Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1969) 524-530, in French in Mysterium Salutis (Paris: Cerf, 1972) vol.

13, 182.

32

“The Holy Spirit is revealed to us and known to us not in himself, or at least not directly in

himself, but through what he brings about in us.”9

The Holy Spirit is present throughout revelation. Starting with the Scriptures and

continuing with Tradition, Congar discovers a great diversity in the activity of the Holy Spirit

which corresponds to the richness of God. In spite of this diversity, there is no instance in

revelation, that is, in Scripture or the life of the Church, where the Spirit directly reveals his own

nature.

Congar’s analysis of the Holy Spirit’s work in the Old Testament demonstrates this

principle. He points out that “Ruah”—Breath or Spirit—is not a substance for Jews (only Greek

thought operated with the categories of substance) but a force, an energy, and a principle of

action.10 The Spirit is always connected to a mission or a task: “The Spirit-Breath is first and

foremost what causes man to act so that God’s plan in history be fulfilled.”11

Throughout the Old Testament, the Breath-Spirit is present and known through the

effects that he produces in people whom he inspires. He gives the gifts of “seeing” or having

visions to Balaam (Num 24:2-10) and to other “prophets” or “seers” (1 Sam 9:9).12 The Spirit

transforms the Judges into men with extraordinary power (Jg 14:6). During the Deuteronomic

period (ca. 620) and the exile, the Spirit inspired the prophets to speak for God and make known

9 Congar, I Believe, vol.1, viii.

10 Ibid.,.3.

11 Ibid., 4.

12 Unless otherwise noted, all the quotations are from The New Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday,

1990).

33

his will (Ez 2:2; Is 48:16). Christians, beginning with Irenaeus, profess their faith in the Spirit

“who has spoken through the prophets,” that is, they believe that the same Spirit by whom Jesus

was conceived and who inspired the gospels acted in the old dispensation.13 After the Exile, the

Spirit-Breath purifies human hearts and makes them a people renewed, a people of a new

covenant (Ez 36:25-27; 37:3-5.10). In wisdom literature, Wisdom is almost identified with the

Spirit. Wisdom’s real function, Congar says, is very similar to that of the Spirit, namely, to

guide people in accordance with God’s will.14

Congar discusses many aspects of the Spirit-Breath in the Old Testament: the gift of

strength, seeing, prophecy, wisdom. In conclusion, he notices a movement toward an

interiorization of the action of the Spirit, leading to a quasi-personalization of wisdom in the

Wisdom literature (the wisdom and Breath do the same work in Wis 1:4-5; 7:22-23; 9:17, they

both make known God’s plan).15 In spite of this movement toward interiorization, the Spirit

reveals himself only through his actions and not directly.

The method of Congar’s study of the Spirit in the Old Testament is a chronological and

selective presentation of the texts. In doing so, he is able to show, as said above, a progression in

the revelation of the Spirit. There is progress from an action of momentary inspiration of the

seers and judges toward a stable action of interior anointing of souls. This perpetual unction

13 Congar, I Believe, vol. 1, 6-7.

14 Ibid., 10.

15 Ibid., 11.

34

relates both to the Messiah and to the Church. Yet, the nature of the Spirit is not directly

revealed in the Old Testament.

Unlike his analysis of the Old Testament, his analysis of the New Testament’s

pneumatology follows not so much a chronological but a thematic order: the Spirit in the life of

Jesus and in the life of the early Church. Congar’s approach does not follow the historical

redactional order of the New Testament’s writings. Rather he begins with the Synoptics and

continues with the Pauline writings and the Acts of the Apostles. He does so because, as he

explains, the Gospel has a “tetramorphic” form. It has a unity of content in a diversity of

expressions, which corresponds to the unity and diversity of God himself. Due to this diversity,

the four evangelists speak of different descents of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. The first

communication of the Spirit took place at his conception in Mary’s womb (Lk 1:35). A new

communication of the Spirit occurs at his baptism when Jesus is anointed as Messiah.16 Both of

these communications of the Spirit to Jesus show that the revelation of the Holy Spirit does not

take place in itself but in the life of Jesus.

Jesus’ entire ministry is accomplished in the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, he defeats the tempter (Lk 4:1-13). The proclamation of the good

news of liberation from evil takes place under the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Lk 4: 18-19).

Jesus drives out Satan through the “finger” of God, which is the Holy Spirit (Lk 11:20). Jesus

16 Congar, I Believe, vol. 1, 16. The theme of the nature of the relationship between Christ and the Holy

Spirit and what this anointing meant for Jesus will not be discussed here. That topic will be the subject of the

second principle of Congar.

35

offered himself as an innocent sacrifice through the “eternal spirit,” that is, the Holy Spirit (Heb

9:14).17

The same principle of knowing the Holy Spirit through his works can be found not only

in the Synoptics but also in the pneumatology of St. Paul. Congar claims, first of all, that for St.

Paul “the experience of the Spirit is exclusively and directly related to the event of Easter and to

the resurrection and glorification of Jesus as Christ and Lord.”18 It is the Spirit who makes the

humanity of Jesus complete by his resurrection (Rm 1:4; Eph 1:20-22). The same Spirit

accomplishes an identical work in us when he makes us sons of God (Rm 8:14-17). This process

will later be called “deification” by the Fathers of the Church and consists in an indwelling of the

Spirit in individuals and in the Church as a whole. By this indwelling, the Spirit conforms us

more to Christ so that “Christ is all in all” (Col 3:11) and he lives in us (Gal 2:20). It is precisely

due to the Spirit that God’s indwelling in people through grace is possible without becoming one

ontological being with them.19 Congar explains that the Spirit communicates to people the gifts

of Christ, thus uniting them in fellowship; yet the Spirit remains subtle and sovereign.

Furthermore, even the charisms that are given to the community (for example to the

Church of Corinth) by the Holy Spirit are gifts granted “for the common good” to build up the

Church, which is the body of Christ. For Paul, “there could be no Church of the Spirit based

either on individual inspiration or on a greedy personal enjoyment of the gifts of the Spirit. The

17 Ibid.,19.

18 Ibid., 30. Emphasis mine.

19 Ibid., 32-33.

36

apostle traces everything back to […] Christ,” Congar says.20 The revelation of the Spirit is a

revelation of Christ.

St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles validates the same truth. For Luke, the work of the

Spirit consists in spreading the Church. This takes place in a dynamic continuity with the work

of Christ. The same Spirit who formed Jesus in Mary’s womb also brings the Church into the

world at Pentecost. The constitution of the Church is formed by the descent of the Spirit who

makes present Christ’s saving activity in the community. According to Luke, there are many

descents of the Holy Spirit upon the Church: in Jerusalem (2:4,25-31), in Samaria (8:14-17), in

Caesarea (10:44-48), and in Ephesus (19:1-6). These descents constitute a history of the coming

of the Spirit, Congar affirms.21 He agrees with Haya-Prats’ claim that these repeated

interventions of the Holy Spirit can be regarded as a process of the personification of the Holy

Spirit.22 The pneumatology of Luke is an advance over the impersonal character of the Holy

Spirit in the Old Testament.

As with the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is revealed in the New Testament not in

himself but by the work which he accomplishes in Christ and in the Church.23 The issue of his

divine nature is not posed as such. A systematic development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit

20 Ibid., 34.


22 Ibid., 47. Gonzalo Haya-Prats is a biblical scholar who wrote his dissertation, The Holy Spirit in the Acts

of the Apostles, in 1967 at the Gregorian University under the guidance of Ignace de la Potterie. The dissertation

was published as a book, Empowered Believers: the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, ed. Paul Elbert; trans. Scott A.

Ellington (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012). Congar cites Gonzalo Haya-Prats “L’Esprit force de l’Église. Sa

nature et son activité d’après les Actes des Apôtres,” Lectio Divina 81 (1975): 82-90.

23 Congar’s analysis of the Johannine writings is concerned with the relationship between Jesus and the

Spirit, which supports the second principle of Congar’s pneumatology (49-59).

37

occurred during the time of the early Fathers of the Church, in their response to trinitarian

heresies. However, this pneumatological development still took place in terms of the work of the

Holy Spirit.

Congar finds the first principle of his pneumatology used by the Eastern Fathers who

wrote against the heresy of the Pneumatomachi.24 They thought that the Holy Spirit was simply

a power of God through which he acted in the economy of salvation. They thought that the Holy

Spirit was created by God and therefore not a Person of the Trinity. In order to combat this false

doctrine, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory Nazianzen affirmed the true deity of the

Holy Spirit.25 Athanasius especially appealed to the work of the Holy Spirit in the human soul.

The Holy Spirit deifies man; therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. He cannot deify man unless he is

God in substance, Athanasius declared in 356.26 In September 374, Basil changed the liturgical

doxology: “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit” to “Glory to the Father, to the

Son, and to the Holy Spirit.” In his work, On the Holy Spirit, Basil justifies his new formula

saying that it is necessary to praise God as one believes, and all three persons are praised or

glorified by the Church as God. One can note that the experience of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy

is a “locus theologicus.” Professing that the same honor and adoration is due to the Holy Spirit

as to the Father and the Son, the First Council of Constantinople (381) confesses the same divine

24 The heresy of the Pneumatomachi was attributed to Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople between 342

and 360 (see Congar, I Believe vol. 1, 82, n. 9).

25 Congar, I Believe, vol.1, 74.

26 Athanase d’ Alexandre, “Lettres a Sérapion sur la divinité du Saint-Esprit,” Sources Chrétiennes (Paris:

Cerf, 1947), vol. 15, 127.

38

nature of all three Persons.27 Congar notes that this approach toward the divine nature of the

Holy Spirit through his work of sanctification and the liturgical worship given to him is

developed especially by the Greek Fathers.28

In conclusion, the first principle of Congar’s pneumatology follows the order of knowing:

the Holy Spirit can be known only through the works that he accomplishes. Therefore, Congar

begins his pneumatological investigation by looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in the

economy of salvation: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the experience of the Spirit in

the life of the Church. His method follows a chronological order not for its own sake but in

order to show the development of the revelation of the Holy Spirit. For the same reason, in his

study of the New Testament, he does not analyze the texts in the order in which they were

written29 but according to a thematic organization: the conception of Jesus, his baptism and

resurrection, and the Christian experience of the Spirit. He follows the stages of revelation itself,

whose understanding progresses from the work of the Holy Spirit to his divine nature.

27 DS 150.


29 Congar justifies his method saying that he is not writing a study in exegesis, but he read relevant works

(that use the historical-critical method, he implies) and with their help he disengages “the meaning of the most

important elements in the experience in the revelation of the Spirit.” I Believe, vol. 1, ix and 15. However, at times

he considers questions raised by the historical-critical method, for instance the difference between Paul and Acts. I

Believe, vol. 1, 46.

39

B. The Second Principle: Christology Has To Be Pneumatological and

Pneumatology Has To Be Christological

A few years after the publication of his trilogy on the Holy Spirit, Congar wrote another

book, The Word and the Spirit, in which he addressed mainly the relationship between Christ and

the Holy Spirit. In the introduction to this new book, Congar wrote: “If I were to draw but one

conclusion from the whole of my work on the Holy Spirit, I would express it in these words: no

Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology.”30 Congar

considered this principle to be the fundamental key to reading his pneumatology. This section

will address briefly Congar’s presentation of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit

according to his major pneumatological books, I Believe in the Holy Spirit and The Word and the

Spirit.

1. Pneumatological Christology

At the time when Congar wrote his book I Believe in the Holy Spirit, there had been

published works treating Christ and the Spirit, and he mentions the most important of them.31 A

Christology based on the intervention of the Holy Spirit, and not on the incarnation, was

emerging. This pneumatological Christology was not in contradiction with the classic

30 Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 1.

31 Congar. I Believe, vol. 3, 171, n.1. Heribert Mühlen, Una mystica persona (1964), J.D.G. Dunn,

“Rediscovering the Spirit,” Expository Times 84 (1972-73), 9-12; Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (1974- English

translation in 1976), IDEM, “Esprit- Christ- Eglise,” L’experience de l’Esprit. Melanges E. Schillebeeckx (Paris,

1976), 47-69; P. J. Rosato, “Spirit Christology: Ambiguity and Promise,” Theological Studies 38 (1977), 423-449.

40

Christology of Chalcedon, but explored aspects contained in the New Testament that were not

developed by Christology up to that moment.

Pneumatological Christology has two preconditions that are also its strong points. First,

Christology should not be separated from soteriology. Christ has come into the world (he

descended—the katabasis of Christ’s mystery) to raise up to God the human race (the ascending

or anabasis of Christ’s mystery). The incarnation has as its final point the resurrection and

eschatological fulfillment. Due to the emphasis on the hypostatic union and the care to define it

precisely, the “propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem” was not fully developed.

Pneumatological Christology intends to recover its full meaning. Second, pneumatological

Christology emphasizes the importance of history in the unfolding of salvation. God’s revelation

takes place in the economy of salvation and each moment (kairos) brings something new in the

whole economy. If for non-historical theology and for Thomas Aquinas Christ possessed

everything from the time of his incarnation while the baptism of Jesus represented only a

manifestation of him for others as Messiah, for pneumatological Christology events (kairoi) like

the baptism “are true qualitative moments in his [God’s] communication of himself to and in

Jesus Christ.”32

There is no surprise that Congar, one of the proponents of ressourcement, embraces

pneumatological Christology. One of Congar’s greatest contributions in theology is his

understanding of salvific realities in an historical perspective and in the economy of salvation.33

32 Ibid., 166.

33 Congar himself acknowledged by the end of his life that, while he was thankful to the Scholastics, he

enlarged his vision through the study of history (The Word and the Spirit¸ 6).

41

The historical character of this economy of salvation gives the theologian the opportunity to look

at the interventions of God in our history as events (kairoi) in which God communicates

repeatedly to humanity. This method has a particular importance for understanding

pneumatological Christology. Starting from the historical dimension of the economy of

redemption, Congar’s main goal is to emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit in Christology and

subsequently in ecclesiology.

In the New Testament, there is a continuous dynamic between Jesus and the Holy Spirit:

Jesus in his human nature is anointed and led by the Holy Spirit and he, the glorified Lord, gives

the Spirit to the Church. When Congar examines the texts of the New Testament, he discovers

that the work of Christ is accompanied by a pouring of the Spirit and is accomplished in a

condition of kenosis (Phil 2:6-8), obedience (Heb 10:5-9) and prayer (Mt 6: 9-11). Jesus fulfilled

the Father’s will by the way of the cross. Congar insists that this way was “not the way of

(beatific) vision, but the way of obedience. That obedience consisted in going where God

wanted him to go without knowing where it led (see Heb 11:8).”34 Furthermore, it was the Spirit

who sanctified Jesus in that condition and enabled him to understand more deeply of the will of

the Father (Lk 2:40). In passing, it should be noted that Congar shows that everything said

above is in agreement with much Scholastic Christology, which grounds the holiness of Christ in

the hypostatic union, but both the grace of the union and the sanctifying grace which follows that

union require the work of the Spirit.


42

The question then arises how it was possible that Jesus grew in his understanding of the

Father’s will or how he was conscious, in his human soul, of his relationship with the Father and

of his divine sonship. Scholasticism formulated an answer based on the hypostatic union.

Congar claims, in agreement with the majority of contemporary theologians, that “because of the

hypostatic union, the Word or Son of ‘God’ is the principle of Jesus’ existence and the

metaphysical subject to which his actions are attributed, but […] this union leaves the play of his

faculties of knowledge and willing a matter of his true and full humanity.”35 His human

knowledge and power of will grew while he was carrying out his mission. “The ‘categorial’ way

of expressing and representing this consciousness is made explicit by the experiences, encounters

and actions that take place in his life.”36

Congar points out that, according to the New Testament texts, there are several descents

of the Spirit in Jesus’ life. In Luke, Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (1:35).

However, Congar identifies two moments of decisive importance when he experiences the

Father’s words and the Spirit intervenes effectively in Jesus’ human nature. The first is the

baptism by John the Baptist because this event is a theophany of the Trinity. It will be shown

how Congar thinks that Jesus is constituted, and not merely proclaimed, as Messiah and

Servant.37 The second decisive moment is his resurrection and glorification when Jesus was

made Lord in his human nature and, therefore, made able to communicate the Spirit as man.38

35 Ibid., vol. 1, 18; also vol. 3, 166-167.

36 Ibid., vol. 1, 18.

37 Congar will show that the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism was not merely for the

sake of disciples (that they may believe) but that Jesus was empowered in his humanity to be Messiah. However,

this did not add anything to his divine eternal sonship.

43

First, Jesus’ baptism constitutes a decisive moment when he “was called and sent as

Messiah” due to a new communication of the Spirit.39 It is important to note that Congar shows

how Matthew and Luke, who wrote on the infancy of Jesus (especially Luke who attributes his

conception to the Spirit—Lk 1:35), do not connect Jesus’ acting in the Spirit and fulfilling his

mission in the Spirit to his birth. They both connect it with his baptism. Before baptism, Jesus

was not known by the people in Nazareth to walk and act in the Spirit. Therefore, baptism is not

an event subordinate to the cycle of infancy, but rather it opens a new phase in Jesus’ life and in

the economy of salvation. The baptism of Jesus constitutes a moment which makes explicit his

human consciousness of his calling as Messiah precisely by the Spirit’s anointing of his human

nature. Even though Congar affirms the conception of Jesus in the framework of redemption,40

he claims that, from the point of view of the economy of salvation, baptism constitutes Jesus as

Christ or Messiah for his mission.

Congar supports his idea with several biblical texts. The announcement of the voice from

heaven, which proclaims that Jesus is God’s beloved Son and the chosen one, has to be

connected with the words of Psalm 2:7: You are my son, today I have become your father (New

Jerusalem Bible). These words also have to be read in the context of the messianism present in

Nathan’s prophecy (2 Sam 7:14),41 and of the beginning of the first song of the Servant (Is


39 Ibid., vol. 1. 16-17.

40 Congar, The Word and the Spirit¸ 86.

41 “I shall be a father to him and he a son to me” (2 Sam 7:14).

44

42:1).42 In Congar’s vision, the baptism is the first anointing of Jesus by the Spirit. There is no

anointing previous to this one in the New Testament. Therefore, this is the decisive moment

when Jesus was anointed and made the Christ. “He was able to express in an entirely new way,

in the perspective of his mission, his consciousness, at the human level, of his quality as the Son

of God and of his condition as the Servant.”43

This view does not support the heresy of Adoptionism.44 At baptism there is no

ontological change in Jesus. Congar agrees with scholastic theology that the hypostatic union is

a metaphysical act by which Jesus’ human nature subsists through the second Person of the

Trinity. Congar, however, departs from the Thomistic teaching that Jesus as man knew his

Father’s will through his beatific vision. His human soul was in a condition of kenosis (Phil 2:6-

8), obedience and prayer. In Congar’s opinion, nobody knows the human consciousness which

Jesus had of his being the Son of God but this consciousness was brought about in Jesus through

his acts. The Holy Spirit was the source of these spiritual acts in him, but this does not mean that

he becomes Son at his baptism.45

The Christology based on the hypostatic union was developed by the early Fathers of the

Church against the Arians. St. Thomas brought about further developments. For him, the role of

42 “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have sent my spirit

upon him” Is 42:1.

43 Congar, The Word and the Spirit¸ 88.

44 Adoptionism holds that Jesus was a man endowed with a special power. Jesus became son of God (or he

was adopted) at his baptism. Adoptionism appeared in Rome, as professed by Theodotus the Tanner (around 190).

It was also held by Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch (ca.200-275). It was condemned by a local synod in

Antioch in 268 (Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church, Peabody,

Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2000, 96-99).


45

the Holy Spirit in this Christology was to form the body of Christ in Mary’s womb.46 Here,

Thomas works with the idea of created grace. He calls this hypostatic union the grace of union.

On the basis of this grace, Christ received in his humanity sanctifying grace and charisms in

order to work in a holy manner. The role of the Holy Spirit was presupposed in the incarnation,

but it is due to the hypostatic union that Christ received created grace in a full manner.

Therefore, these gifts could not increase and could not bring something new in the life of

Christ.47 It is important to understand Thomas’ approach, because he shaped the Christology of

the following centuries. It was precisely against this unhistorical Christology, in which Jesus

always had the fullness of grace on account of the hypostatic union, that Congar tried to

emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life and activity.

Although he had a great respect for Thomas, Congar criticizes his Christology for two

reasons. First, a Christology based on the hypostatic union does not pay sufficient attention to

the historical character of the economy of salvation in which Christ repeatedly received the Holy

Spirit. Second, it does not allow the theologian to understand these interventions of the Spirit as

qualitative moments in which God communicates in a real sense to Christ himself in his status as

Messiah and Redeemer.48 In this regard, Congar considers the baptism as a decisive moment in

which the Spirit anointed Jesus and constituted him as the Christ.

46 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica tr. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, Texas;

Christian Classics, 1981), IIIa, q. 32, a.1-2.

47 ST IIIa, q.7, a. 12.

48 Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 86-87.

46

Congar also sees a constitutive dimension to the Holy Spirit’s role in the resurrection of

Christ. According to this “Christology of exaltation,”49 at his resurrection Jesus is glorified in

his human nature when he receives the Spirit. He is assimilated to God and communicates the

Spirit as a man. The Scholastics taught that Christ received the Spirit as man and communicated

him as God. The newness of Congar’s more pneumatological Christology consists in the fact the

glorified Lord communicates the Spirit as man. Congar emphasizes that this new perspective is

possible only from the point of view of the economy of salvation. From the point of view of the

ontological status of Christ, Jesus is the Son of God from the moment of his conception; he is

monogenitus or monogenēs.50 However, from the perspective of the realization of God’s plan in

the history of salvation, through successive moments, Jesus becomes in his human nature

prōtotokos, the first-born to divine life for us and for our redemption. This event is the work of

the Holy Spirit whom Jesus receives through his glorification at his resurrection.

It is important to understand the quality of the “first-born” in its context in order to have a

full insight into its content. One could think that “the first-born” refers to the incarnation of the

Word. The title appears in the Epistle to the Hebrews:

God has never said to any angel: You are my Son, today I have become your father; or: I

will be a father to him and he a son to me. Again, when he brings the First-born into the

world, he says: Let all the angels of God worship him. (Dt 32:43). (Heb 1:5-6)

49 Ibid., 89-90. One of the most powerful biblical texts which is a source of this “Christology of exaltation”

is Acts 2:32-33: “God raised this man Jesus to life […]. Now raised to the heights by God’s right hand, he has

received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that

Spirit.”

50 Ibid., 92.

47

Congar points out that the context of this text is that of Christ’s resurrection.51 The title

“the first-born” is given to Christ at his enthronement in glory. It is not a merely honorific title

or a simple recognition by the Father of his redemptive work but a new status received in relation

to us. According to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is presented as a priest in his weakness

prior to his resurrection,52 but his priesthood is brought to its fullness at his glorification,53

Congar says.54 In an historical Christology, one has to distinguish two conditions of the Son of

God. Before his resurrection, Jesus was the Son of God in forma servi; after his glorification, he

was the Son of God in forma Dei.55 At the moment of resurrection, Jesus was constituted Son of

God in power (see Rom 1:3-4), not from the point of view of the hypostatic union (since he was

always Monogenitus), but from the perspective of the work of redemption completed by him by

passing from death to life (when he became Prototokos).56

This new begetting in the economy of salvation is at the level where he relates to us.

Christ’s body was not merely glorified but Christ became a “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:42-45),

the source of spiritual life for us. Jesus is glorified and receives the Spirit so that by

communicating the Spirit to us we should be fully sons of God. Following the same pattern, we

51 Ibid., 90.

52 “For the high priest we have is not incapable of feeling our weakness with us, but has been put to the test

in exactly the same way as ourselves, apart from sin.” (Heb 4:15)

53 “When he had been perfected, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation.” (Heb 5:9)


55 Congar, “Pneumatologie dogmatique,” in Initiation à la pratique de la théologie, ed. Bernard Lauret and

François Refoulé (Paris: Cerf, 1982), vol.2, 493.


48

will be fully sons only at the resurrection. It will be a divine sonship received as a gift of God’s

grace, as Jesus received it in his humanity.

These conditions of Son of God, in forma servi and in glory, are the work of the Holy

Spirit, who effects this sonship in Christ on our behalf. This divine filiation in human form is the

work of the Holy Spirit, a consequence of grace and a historical reality in the economy of

salvation.

An important distinction needs to be made in order to avoid Adoptionism. Some

Gnostics believed that the Redeemer on high came down in Jesus at his baptism. In order to

defeat this heresy, Irenaeus stated that it was not Christ who descended on Jesus since the Christ

was none other than Jesus.57 The Word of God, assuming human nature, became Jesus Christ.

This happened at the incarnation. However, the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism so

that Jesus can accomplish the work of redemption. The key is to clearly identify and distinguish

the ontological and historical-salvific orders, as Congar himself does. He explains that during

the Arian controversy, the Fathers of the Church started to emphasize the hypostatic union as the

source of sanctifying activity of Jesus Christ.58 This approach had the effect of diminishing the

role of the Holy Spirit in Christology, and subsequently, in ecclesiology. Especially the

ecclesiologies of the nineteenth century considered the Church in relation to the incarnation and

the Trinity on the basis of the hypostatic union, Congar concludes.59 His goal, therefore, was, as

57 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 9,3, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1952), no. 34, 107-113.


59 Ibid., 22.

49

stated previously, to rediscover the role of the Holy Spirit in Christology and subsequently in

ecclesiology, without falling into Adoptionism.

2. Christological Pneumatology

The study of pneumatological Christology leads to Christological pneumatology. The

Spirit whom the Church receives is the Spirit of Christ. He reveals Christ and acts in relation to

Christ. In order to prove this ontological relationship, Congar develops the following themes:

first, the Word and the Spirit are linked in Scripture; second, they do God’s work together; third,

the content of the Spirit’s work is to make present the work of the Incarnate Word here and now;

fourth, the Spirit brings about the acceptance and participation of the Church in the reality of the

Incarnate Word.

First, Scripture links the Word and the Spirit-Breath in creation: “By the word of the Lord

the heavens were made and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps 33:6). The Spirit

inspires the prophesies of Balaam, “And the Spirit of God came upon him and he took up his

discourse and said….” (Num 24:2-3), and of Ezekiel, “And when he spoke to me, the Spirit

entered into me” (Ezek 2:2). These are just three of the several examples from the Old

Testament provided by Congar where the Spirit and the Word are linked.60 In the synoptics, the

voice of the Father is joined with the descent of the Spirit on Jesus at his baptism (Mt 3:16-17;

Mk 1:10-11; Lk 3:22). The Spirit will inspire the words of the faithful when they answer to their

persecutors (Mt 10:19-20; Mk 13:9-11; Lk 12:11-12). In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the one

who speaks the words of the Father and the one who also gives the Spirit (Jn 3:34). The living

60 For more examples see Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 16-17.

50

water from Jn 4:10 is a symbol of the revealing word and of the Spirit, for the words that Jesus

speaks are spirit and life (Jn 6:33). Congar emphasizes that it is the Spirit who makes the words

alive in the sense that it is the Spirit who assures that the words will be received in faith and that

the receivers will live through that faith. In Paul’s writings, the Spirit and the words

communicate faith (1 Cor 2:4-5; Gal 3:2-5). In the Acts of the Apostles, the prophetic mission of

Christ continues in the Church and through the ministry of the apostles due to the Holy Spirit

who testifies with them (Acts 1:8; 2:4). Finally, in the Book of Revelation, the Spirit brings

witness to Jesus, that is, to his words, “for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev

19:10). Congar concludes that throughout the Scripture there is a close link between the word

and the Spirit.61

Second, Congar shows that pneumatology has to be Christological not only because the

Word and the Spirit are intimately connected but even more so because the Spirit comes from

Christ, leads to Christ and continues his work. Congar uses the Pauline Letters to demonstrate

that the Spirit comes from Christ or is the Spirit of Christ (Gal 4:6-7; Rm 8:9; Phil 1:19).62

Congar notes that the biblical texts that speak of the Spirit of the Son or of Christ are concerned

with the economy of salvation: the Spirit comes from Christ and works in us to accomplish in us

our assimilation in Christ.63 That the Spirit is sent in the economy of salvation by Christ is a

truth accepted by both Latin and Greek Traditions.


62 Ibid., 101-102.

63 Ibid., 103.

51

Third, Christological pneumatology has to show, according to Congar, that the Spirit not

only comes from Christ but also leads to Christ. Giving us faith, the Spirit introduces us into the

mystery of Christ. The Word of God has to be received in faith which is a gift of God.64 Congar

states that the human heart needs a supernatural capacity that corresponds to the Word of God in

order to accept him. Without this supernatural capacity, man cannot respond to the

transcendental call of the Word of God. This capacity is granted by the Holy Spirit.65 God

communicates himself through his words and they are received in the act of faith. Faith is the

attitude of obedience to the word of God (Rm 1:5; 16:26). This disposition to receive not only

the external word but also the inner reality expressed by it is formed in us by the illumination and

inspiration of the Holy Spirit. “The word is therefore effective in and by the faith that receives it.

It is here, theologically, that the Spirit intervenes.”66

Fourth, faith is an act of each believer but is also the faith of the Church. Listening to the

word of God and receiving it in faith, the people of God are constituted as the body of Christ.

The Word of God received in the faith stimulated by the Spirit and the same Holy Spirit together

build the congregatio fidelium. In the acceptance and progress of the word and of faith consists

the origin and the growth of the Church (Acts 2:4). Congar emphasizes that the role of the Holy

Spirit in Tradition is not merely a message or an interpretation of Jesus words but a living

experience of Christ under the guidance of the Spirit. It is essential to note that the Spirit leads

64 First Vatican Council, session III, c.3. DS 3010.


66 Ibid., 12.

52

the Church to the mystery of Christ. The life of the Church is nourished by the revealed truth

and the truth is received and nourished in the life of the Church.67 This connection is very

important for Congar as he claims that the Church in her life interprets the Scripture. Tradition is

a living reality in the Church. Communicating the tradition, the Church “perpetuates and

transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all she believes.”68

The transcendent principle of tradition is the Holy Spirit. He is the living memory of the

Church, the one who makes present the words and deeds of Christ in the Church. The Holy

Spirit accomplishes a double task in perpetuating tradition. On the one hand, he teaches us and

brings to our remembrance the teaching of Jesus (see Jn 14:26). He assures the authentic and

historical link with the teaching of Christ. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit carries the Church

beyond that memory because he communicates “the things that are to come” (Jn 16:13).69 These

new things that are to come are always in relation to the death and resurrection of Christ; they are

new in the sense of not yet realized in us, but not in the sense of something beyond or other than

Christ. These two aspects of the mission of the Holy Spirit, that is memory of Christ and

realization of the new things to come, are mutually dependent. First, the Holy Spirit

communicates to the Church “what he hears by receiving from Christ. That is, from the glorified

Christ, who is the same Christ who speaks in the flesh.”70 Second, “things that are to come” will

be new events even though they are events of Christ at the same time. “ ‘Things that are to


68 Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 8.


70 Ibid., 30.

53

come’ are the future of Christ, what there will be of Christ in historical time.”71 The Holy Spirit

builds up the Church as the body of Christ in the economy of salvation after the resurrection of

Jesus. The content of the mission of the Holy Spirit is Christological and simultaneously new in

the Church of our time. Christology is pneumatological and pneumatology is Christological.

The guarding and development of the teaching of Jesus is assured by the assistance of the

Holy Spirit, particularly through the magisterium. Both the continuity of Church teaching with

the apostolic deposit and the development of tradition are accomplished particularly by the

magisterium, especially in councils under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.72 It is very important

to place the magisterium within the People of God, the community of believers. In a theology of

communion, there is a close relationship between the sense of faith entrusted to every believer

and to the community as such by the Holy Spirit and the structure that emerged from the work of

the incarnate Word. The details of this relationship will be discussed later in the fifth chapter.

For now, regarding the explanation of the relation between the work of the Word and the role of

the Holy Spirit, it is sufficient to conclude with Congar that the three realities, that is, the

normative teachings of the magisterium, the sense of faith of the faithful, and the charism of the

ordained ministers, are to be considered as a single whole brought about by the Christological

Spirit.73 The Word and the Spirit work together with distinct but not interchangeable roles.


72 Congar, Tradition and Traditions: The Biblical, Historical, and Theological Evidence for Catholic

Teaching on Tradition (San Diego: Basilica Press and Simon & Schuster, 1966), 343-46.


54

The sacraments and the liturgy of the Church are also the work of the Word and the

Spirit. From a classical perspective, the sacraments connect people with the humanity of Jesus.

They are a consequence of the incarnation of the Word. Augustine considered the Church as a

communio sacramentorum, which he attributed to the work of Christ, and also as a societas

sanctorum, which he attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit.74 The Holy Spirit makes the

Passover of Christ present and effective in the sacramental signs. The action of the Holy Spirit is

needed in order to make Christ’s work present here and now.75

In summary, the Word and the Spirit do God’s work together but in distinctive roles.

“There is no work of the Spirit which is other, in its content and aim, than the work of Christ.”76

Furthermore, the functional reality presupposes an ontological reality. The Spirit is the Spirit of

the Son. He takes what is of Christ, who also has everything from the Father (Jn. 16:13-15).

“The things that are to come” will be brought by the Spirit in relation to the glorified Christ and

the Father.

This principle of intimate connection between pneumatological Christology and

Christological Pneumatology is of great importance for ecclesiology. The Church is the work of

the glorified Christ and of the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, everything that comes in the Church

is from Christ through the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit constituted Jesus as Messiah and Lord, his

work is needed in the Church. The Spirit accomplishes in the Church what he realized in

74 Congar, I Believe, vol. 1, 80. For references to Augustine, see Congar’s introduction in Augustine,

Traités antidonatistes in Oeuvres de Saint Augustine, Bibliothèque augustinienne 28 (Paris: Desclée, 1963), 100-24.

Against Donatists, Book I, chapter 11, no. 15: the Holy Spirit is given by Jesus to the disciples, the Holy Spirit

remits sins only in the communion of the Church.


76 Congar, Yves “Renewed Actuality of the Holy Spirit,” Lumen Vitae 28 (1973), 21.

55

Christ’s humanity. He conforms us to the glorified Lord, making us sons in the Son, not only as

individuals but also communally as the Church, the body of Christ. On the other hand, the Spirit

is communicated by Jesus glorified in his human nature. Everything, therefore, that the Spirit

works in the Church is related to the mystery of Christ. Even though the Church that the Spirit

builds is a new kairos, and the Spirit brings newness to the Church, the Church is always the

body of Christ. True pneumatology is not restricted to what the Spirit accomplishes in the souls

of individuals. It also is related to the work of the Holy Spirit in the whole Church. The work of

the Spirit in individuals would be a theology of the Third Person, Congar states.77 The Spirit

does not only distribute his gifts, he also builds the body of Christ together with Christ.

C. The Third Principle: The Economic Trinity Is the Immanent Trinity and the

Immanent Trinity in Some Ways is the Economic Trinity

The relationship between the economy of salvation and the mystery of God in himself is

an important issue not only for the purpose of this study but also for trinitarian and ecumenical

theology. The main issue at stake is that there is no knowledge of the mystery of God except

through what God has revealed about himself in the economy. One can know about God only

through what God revealed about himself in the history of salvation. This implies that the way in

which God acts and reveals himself to people corresponds to the way in which God exists

eternally in himself. If this were not true, then there would be no knowledge of the eternal

mystery of God. The greatest contribution to this theme was made by Karl Rahner. In fact,

77 Congar, I Believe, vol.1, 156-157.

56

Congar considers that “Karl Rahner has provided the most original contemporary contribution to

the theology of the Trinity.”78

Rahner’s position will be presented below, but first it should be noted that the

relationship between the economic Trinity and immanent Trinity is not only identified in this

study as the third principle of Congar’s pneumatology, but it also represents his mature thought

(in his early works he only mentioned the issue but did not explore it79) and it has relevance for a

sound ecclesiology. The Church is the fruit of the missions of the Word and of the Spirit in the

economy of salvation, which are rooted in the immanent trinitarian processions. This section

will present Rahner’s position, Congar’s reception of the first part of the axiom and some

implications, and Congar’s comments on the second part of the axiom.

Congar takes over Karl Rahner’s argument, which he calls a Grundaxiom or

“fundamental axiom:” “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’

Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity.”80 Rahner basic point is that there is a correspondence between

the way in which God acts and reveals himself in the economy of salvation, and the way in

which God exists eternally. Were this not so, the economy of salvation would not be truly

revelatory of God.


79 See below, p. “but in 1937, he only mentions in passing”

80 Karl Rahner, “Der Dreifaltige Gott als transzendtener Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte,” in Johannes Feiner

and Magnus Löhrer, eds, Mysterium Salutis: Grundriß heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik 2 (Einsiedeln: Benziger,

1967), 317-401, at 328. English translation: The Trinity. trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: The Crossroad

Publishing Company, 1998), 22.

57

Congar accepted Rahner’s axiom but he added two qualifications regarding the second

statement of the axiom which, in Congar’s opinion, help to avoid possible confusions.

Therefore, Congar’s basic agreement will be presented first, followed by his remarks on the

reciprocity of the axiom. First, Congar agrees that the economic Trinity reveals the eternal

Trinity. He states, “We have no other way of knowing the mystery of God apart from his

revelation in the economy.”81 Furthermore, the fact that God revealed himself as Trinity in the

economy means that we know that God exists eternally in himself as Trinity. To show the

importance of this statement, Congar engages in discussion with Piet Schoonenberg who holds a

contrary position. Schoonenberg published an essay in trinitarian theology in 1967 containing

thirty-six theses, and he claimed that due to our limited knowledge in the economy of salvation,

we cannot know what God is in himself.82 “That God is trinitarian, apart from his self-

communication in the history of salvation, can neither be presupposed as a matter of course nor

denied” (Thesis 7). According to his view, human knowledge being limited cannot affirm, based

on the experience of God as triune in the economy of salvation, that God is trinitarian in himself.

Congar considers this stance an apophaticism: a position in which it is impossible to affirm or

deny anything about the divine life in itself. Congar accepts that there is a distinction between

the revealed Trinity and the immanent Trinity. However, he believes that there cannot be a


82 Piet Schoonbenberg, “Trinität – der vollendete Bund. Thesen zur Lehre von dreipersönlichem Gott”,

Orientierung, 37 (Zürich, 1973, fascicle of 31 May), translated as “Trinity—The Consummated Covenant,” Studies

in Religion 5 (1975-76), 111-116, quoted by Congar in I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol.3., 13-14 (see also Congar’s

comments in notes 9 and 10).

58

communication of the three persons if there are not three persons to begin with.83 Therefore, the

economic Trinity truly reveals the immanent Trinity.

Congar offers a second reason to support the assertion that the economic Trinity is the

eternal Trinity. Revelation is not simply a communication of the truth; it is also God’s self-

communication to us. He is the content of revelation. If revelation is communication of God

himself, it follows that what God communicates to us in the Son and the Spirit is true to what

God is in himself. Therefore, the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity.84

Furthermore, granted that there is a relation between what God brings about in us in the

economy of salvation and what God is in himself, the Western Tradition sees the missions of the

Son and of the Spirit in the world as extensions of the eternal processions within the Trinity

itself.

This close relationship between the economy and eternity was explained in the West by

the doctrine of “divine missions.” This doctrine can be synthetized as following: The Father

sends the Son. The Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, send the Spirit. These missions are

temporal; they take place in the history of salvation for the sanctification of creatures. The most

influential Latin Church Father who wrote on the theology of divine missions was Augustine.85

In his view, the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit reveal the persons of the Son and the

Spirit in their eternal origins.


84 Ibid., 12.

85 Augustine discusses the missions in De Trinitate, II, 5, 7-10; IV 18, 24 to 20,29. See Congar, I Believe,

vol. 3, 92, n. 18.

59

As for the Son to be born is to be from the Father, so for the Son to be sent is to be known

in his origin from the Father. In the same way, as for the Holy Spirit to be the gift of God

is to proceed from the Father, so to be sent is to be known in his procession from the

Father. What is more, we cannot deny that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son. (…) I

cannot see what he could otherwise have meant when, breathing on the faces of the

disciples, the Lord declared: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20;20).86

The doctrine of divine missions was developed further by Scholastic theology and

especially by Thomas Aquinas.87 His emphasis was on the indwelling of the persons who are

sent into the souls of Christians through sanctifying grace.88 To summarize, in the West,

theology has emphasized the importance of an ontological continuity between the economic

Trinity and the immanent Trinity, between the divine missions and the eternal processions of the

persons within the Trinity.

The Eastern Church took a different path regarding the continuity between the immanent

and the revealed Trinity, especially with regard to the mission of the Holy Spirit and his eternal

relation with the Father and the Son. In the Eastern interpretation, Christ gives the Spirit: there is

a relation of causality between Christ and the Spirit but only at the level of the economy of

salvation. In the intra-divine life, there is no such relation of causality. The Spirit proceeds

hypostatically from the Father alone. It would go beyond the proposal of this thesis to analyze

86 Augustine, De Trinitate, IV, 20, 29. See also Congar I Believe, vol. 3, 92 n. 19.

87 Congar mentions Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q.43, in The Word and the Spirit, 117, n. 4.

88 The Father also dwells in souls through sanctifying grace but not as one sent since he is not sent.

Sanctifying grace is God’s mode of dwelling in us as the object known in the knower and as the beloved in the lover.

Since creatures attain God himself through the operation of knowledge and love, God dwells in creatures as in his

own temple. The reality of grace goes back to the Father but its origin for us is in the Son who is born from the

Father, and in the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 104.

60

the issues of the Filioque and deification.89 What is important is the fact pointed out by Congar

that based on this principle of God’s self-communication to the Word, the Latin Tradition speaks

about an ontological continuity between the economic missions of the divine Persons and the

immanent processions of the same persons.90

1. Congar’s Comments on the Reciprocity of the Axiom

As shown above, Congar accepts the first part of Rahner’s fundamental axiom, but he

expresses some concerns regarding the way the second half could be misinterpreted: the

economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and vice versa [umgekert]. The difficulty for Congar

consists precisely in the “vice versa” or in the reciprocity of the axiom. The free mystery of the

economy and the necessary mystery of the Triune God cannot be fully identified. Even if God

had not created the world, he would still have existed as Trinity. This was the argument used by

the Fathers to combat Arianism. The creation of the world is an act of free will of God, but the

processions of the Persons within the immanent Trinity take place according to the nature of

God.91 It is true that we derive our knowledge of God from revelation. Therefore, the missions

of the Son and of the Spirit are necessary for our knowledge of the immanent Trinity, but they

are not necessary for God in order to be Trinity in eternity. Rahner’s axiom does not say that,

89 The Filioque is closely related to the doctrine of dwelling of the divine Persons in human souls through

sanctifying grace. In the Orthodox Tradition, God’s self-communication takes place through the uncreated energies.

From their point of view, a true deification cannot take place through sanctifying grace but through deification,

which is a participation in the uncreated energies of God. God remains unknown in himself. Therefore, there is a

great difference between the eternal origins of the Persons and the economic Trinity.



61

but Congar points to it in order to affirm the free will of God regarding his revelation in the

economy of salvation.

Furthermore, God communicates himself in revelation. Yet, Congar asks if God

communicates the whole of his mystery. He claims that God’s self-communication, as the

Trinity, will be a full communication of himself only at the end of time, in the beatific vision. In

the economy of salvation, God’s communication of himself takes place in the condition of

kenosis and the cross. Because of this condition of humiliation, “[w]e have […] to recognize that

there is a distance between the economic, revealed Trinity and the eternal Trinity. The Trinity is

the same in each case and God is really communicated, but this takes place in a mode that is not

connatural with the being of the divine Persons.”92 In The Word and the Spirit, Congar repeats

that there is a distinction between the reality of the immanent trinitarian mystery of God and the

way that reality is communicated to us.93

This criticism does not contradict the validity of Rahner’s fundamental axiom, Congar

states. Rahner says: “What Jesus is and does as man reveals the Logos himself; it is the reality of

the Logos as our salvation amidst us.”94 Jesus in his kenosis is still the Word, and the Word

reveals the Father. The economic Trinity reveals the immanent Trinity even though the

revelation must reflect the limiting created conditions in which it takes place. Precisely because

of these limits, one cannot assert that the economic relationships of the divine Persons

92 Ibid., 15.


94 Rahner, The Trinity, 33.

62

correspond in every way to the immanent relationships within the eternal Trinity. If all the data

of the incarnation were transferred to the Person of the Son, then the intervention of the Holy

Spirit in the incarnation would lead to the conclusion that the Son is begotten from the Father

and the Holy Spirit.95 Congar concludes that the economic relationships reveal truly but not fully

the immanent processions within the Trinity. That is the reason for which Congar considers that

theologians should be cautious when saying “and vice-versa.”96 It should be repeated here that

this is not in contradiction with Rahner’s axiom, but rather it is Congar’s comment in order to

avoid possible misunderstandings. “There is nothing in anything that has been said above that

contradicts Rahner’s fundamental axiom.”97

In passing, it can be noted that Congar was appreciated by the Orthodox theologian John

Zizioulas for noting that not all the data of the economy can be transposed to eternity98 and also

that people’s full participation in God’s mystery will take place at the end of the time. The Latin

position holds that this participation will take place through the beatific vision. According to

much Eastern theology, God’s communication will take place through the uncreated energies of

God. Congar states that these two theologies are not dogmatically incompatible. The matter of

how exactly that participation will take place is beyond the scope of this dissertation. But it can

95 “If all the data of the incarnation were transposed into the eternity of the Logos, it would be necessary to

say that the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit,” Congar says (I Believe, vol. 3,16).

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid.

98 John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, ed. Paul

McPartlan (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 201: “In dealing with K Rahner’s view on this question, Y. Congar

discusses this problem in such a brilliant way that I regard it as sufficient to repeat here what he writes in criticism

of Rahner’s position.”

63

be noted that both theologies agree that the full self-communication of God will take place only

in the eschatological era and that there will be no participation in the aseity or essence of God.99

2. Applications of the Third Principle

The main point of this section is to show that it is theologically fitting and

soteriologically significant that the missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, even though they

are free acts of God in the economy, follow the immanent processions which are necessary and

are situated at the level of intra-divine life. More important for the topic of this study, the

following discussion will demonstrate that it is fitting that the properties of the Church be

attributed by appropriation to the Holy Spirit, since he is the bond of unity between the Father

and the Son in the immanent Trinity.

Regarding the begetting and the mission of the second divine Person, Congar’s main

point is that it was fitting that the Son become incarnate. Even though the incarnation is a free

act, there is a predisposition in the Son to become flesh. In Congar’s words, there is a general

agreement that the Word was conceived incarnandum, crucifigendum, glorificandum, caput

multorum Dei filiorum.100 Several biblical texts would support that the Person of Jesus Christ

existed in God before revealing himself in the economy of salvation and he was predestined to

become incarnate: “He [Christ] was marked out before the world was made, and was revealed at

the final point of time for your sake” (1 Pt 1:20- New Jerusalem Bible); “He [Christ] was

destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your



64

sake” (1 Pt 1:20- New Revised Standard Version). Other texts can be interpreted as affirmations

of Jesus Christ’s pre-existence: “Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God…” (Phil

2:5); “…in your love for me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 17:24). These texts can

also be interpreted as referring to an election, which is a gratuitous act of God.

As a Thomist, Congar sympathizes with the position of Thomas Aquinas regarding the

distinction between the eternal begetting of the Son and his incarnation in time. Due to the

hypostatic union, God is man.101 Yet, it pertains to God to be man not from eternity but from the

time of the incarnation.102 Congar continues:

The claim to attribute hypostasis to the Word is one thing and that of nature is another.

Nature was only assumed and united in time. Is it therefore possible to speak, in case of

the Word, of an existence before human nature was assumed? Thomas’s answer is ‘no’,

because ‘before’ is not meaningful in the context of the present and eternity of God.103

Congar shares the position of Louis Bouyer who says that the incarnation takes place in

time, when our human nature is assumed by the Word of God. Regarding the Son himself, he

assumes it eternally.104 Congar concludes that the eternal begetting of the Word has, as its end,

the Word assuming the human nature of Jesus Christ in time. In other words, the immanent

begetting of the Son belongs to the necessary mystery of the Tri-unity of God, while the

101 Thomas Aquinas, ST IIIa, q.16, a.1.

102 Ibid., a.6.


104 Louis Bouyer, The Eternal Son. A Theology of the Word of God and Christology (Huntington, Indiana,

1978), 401. Quoted by Congar in The Word and the Spirit, 97.

65

temporal assumption of the human nature of Jesus Christ belongs to the free mystery of his

election.105

In one of his theological reflections on the Holy Spirit, Congar follows a similar pattern.

He explains that especially in the West, a theology developed which saw the Holy Spirit as the

bond of love between the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son are related to each other.

It is in the Spirit that they are united; in him they receive each other and communicate with one

another. In this sense, this relation between the Father and the Son is hypostatized in the Holy

Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the “completion” of the immanent Trinity.106 To demonstrate how the

Spirit is the “completion” of the Trinity, Congar follows especially St. Augustine. The Father is

only the Father of the Son; the Son is only the Son of the Father, but the Spirit is common to both

even though he is distinct from them.107 Augustine also explains that in the relation between the

Father and the Son there is a common “enjoyment,” “charity,” “happiness,’’ “love,” “delight,”

“felicity” or “blessedness.”108 It is important to note that Augustine does not speak here about

one nature that the Father and the Son have as one God, but he describes what is common to both

at the level of the relation between persons (the perichoresis of persons). Congar concludes that

the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son and is common to both, “as their Love and


106 Congar, I Believe, vol.3, 147-48.

107 Ibid., vol. 1, 78. Here Congar quotes De Trinitate vi, 5,7.

108 Augustine, De Trinitate, vi, 11. The Trinity. trans. Edmund Hill (New York: New City Press, 1991),

213.

66

as their substantial Communion.”109 The Spirit, therefore, is the “completion” of the Trinity, the

one in whom the Father and the Son are united.

Quoting Christian Duquoc, Congar goes further by saying that this communion between

the Father and the Son is open to what is not divine. It does not remain closed in on itself, but it

opens to “outside himself.” The Holy Spirit is, therefore, love, God’s “ecstasy” directed toward

the creature.110

Furthermore, since each Person exists in a relation with the others and the Persons are

different due to that relation, it follows that what individuates hypostatically the Holy Spirit is an

openness to the communion between God and man. Thus, Congar argues that “if the Spirit is, in

God, the term of the substantial communication that goes out from the Father, it is suitable,

though not necessary, that this movement should continue, no longer by mode of substantial

transference, but by mode of free and creative will.”111 Being love, God communicates himself

freely outside himself. The Holy Spirit is the bond of unity not only within the immanent Trinity

but also between God and men. Congar says that there is in God not only the possibility of

communicating himself “ad extra” but also the inclination. This hypostatized love is the Holy

Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the term of the communication of the intra-divine life in eternity, and

the principle of that communication outside itself.


110 Christian Duquoc, Dieu différent: essai sur la symbolique trinitaire (Paris: Cerf, 1977), 121-22, quoted

by Congar in I Believe, vol.3, 148.


67

One can draw the following conclusions, according to Congar’s perspective. It is suitable

that, since the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son in eternity, he

should be the most proper way for God to communicate himself outside himself. Every divine

Person communicates to creatures in a way that carries his hypostatic mark, since every Person is

different from the others. However, it belongs to the Holy Spirit to communicate himself as the

bond of unity between God and men. In this sense, it can be said that the Holy Spirit is the most

proper agent of communion between God and people.

Congar’s approach to Rahner’s fundamental axiom has been examined from both

directions, from economy to eternity and vice versa. This principle has great ecclesiological

implications. As the work of salvation, that is, the result of the work “ad extra” of the Trinity,

the Church is the fruit of the missions of the Son and the Spirit in the world, which are rooted in

the divine eternal processions. Due to the true correspondence between the immanent Trinity

and the economic Trinity, the Church is seen not as merely a result of God’s self-communication

but as divine life communicated to us. Therefore, the Church is one, holy catholic and apostolic,

not only because she is the work of the Triune God, but also because she participates in the life

and the unity of Trinity.

Furthermore, the order of our deification will follow the order of revelation but in the

opposite way, that is, in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. It is fitting to follow this

pattern and necessary from our perspective because this belongs to the free will of God. Yet

even more, the way in which the Church is made one, holy, catholic and apostolic can be traced

68

back to the necessary way of existence of God as immanent Trinity. This is the importance of

the third principle of Congar’s pneumatology.

The application of the second principle also has important ecclesiological significance.

The Church is the fruit of the missions of Christ and the Spirit. Everything that Christ

accomplishes in the Church takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit. In return, the

Spirit brings about unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity in the Church by making her in

the image of Christ (the body of Christ, the bride of Christ).

69

CHAPTER TWO

THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

This chapter is dedicated to Congar’s ecclesiology. The work of Yves Congar is

impressive not only for its profound ideas and prescience for its time but also by the great

number of his writings. In 2002, his bibliography contained 1856 books and articles,1 the

majority concerning ecclesiology. The vastness of this ecclesiological output requires a

particular method of study. Joseph Famerée, professor of ecclesiology at The Catholic

University in Louvain and an expert in Congar’s ecclesiology, says that Congar’s ecclesiology

has been studied from two points of view.

First, some scholars have found major themes in Congar’s ecclesiology. Aidan Nichols

has classified Congar’s work according to various theological areas and three ecclesiological

themes.2 Corneliu Berea has identified four key concepts in Congar’s ecclesiology before the

council.3 Timothy I. MacDonald and Douglas M. Koskela have claimed, with different nuances,

1 Pietro Quattrocchi, “General Bibliography of Yves Congar,” in Jossua, Le Père Congar, 219-272, for the

years 1924-67; Aidan Nichols, “An Yves Congar Bibliography 1967-1987,” Angelicum 66 (1989):422-66. Gabriel

Flynn, “Appendix: An Yves Congar bibliography 1987-1995, with Addenda 1996-2002” in Yves Congar's Vision of

the Church in a World of Unbelief (London; New York: Routledge, 2017). Flynn’s bibliography is found only in

the 2017 edition.

2 Aidan Nichols, Yves Congar (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989). Nichols classifies Congar’s

ecclesiology in three chapters: 1. “the Church at large,” where Nichols discusses unity and plurality; structure and

life; models and images of the Church; and pneumatological ecclesiology; 2. theology of the laity; 3. the apostolic

ministry.

3 Corneliu Berea, Il pensiero teologico di Yves Congar sulla definizione della missione nel periodo

preconciliare, Documenta Missionalia 34 (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universitá Gregoriana, 2009). According to

70

that the dialectic of structure and life is the foundational theme in Congar’s ecclesiology.4

Gabriel Flynn has argued that Congar’s ecclesiology includes a range of aspects (pneumatology,

anthropology, theology of creation) and its main goal was to respond to modern unbelief.5

Elizabeth Groppe advocates for an inseparability of Congar’s pneumatological anthropology and

pneumatological ecclesiology.6 A more recent study by Rose Beal shows that even though

Congar treated various ecclesiological themes during his career, his main desire was to elaborate

a “total” ecclesiology, in which the nature of the Church itself would be explored in all its

dimensions.7 Beal seems to prove, using published and unpublished materials, that indeed

Congar’s main concern in ecclesiology was to present the full mystery of the Church. He may

have written on various topics to respond to particular challenges, in a determined period of time,

but his interest was to construct an ecclesiology that reflected the plenitude of the reality of the

Church.8 Other studies concerned with major axes of Congar’s ecclesiology include the

Berea, the key concepts are: 1. structure and life, 2. catholicity, 3. the kingdom - the Church - the world, 4.

redemption of the world - missionary activity.

4 Timothy I MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes (Lanham, MD:

University Press of America,1984); Douglas M. Koskela, Ecclesiality and Ecumenism: Yves Congar and the Road

to Unity (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2008). Koskela emphasizes the tension between the divine

and human elements in the Church.

5 Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Burlington, VT: Ashgate

Publishing, 2004), 214.

6 Elizabeth T. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (New York: Oxford University

Press, 2004).

7 Rose M. Beal, Mystery of the Church, People of God: Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology as a Path to

Vatican II (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014).

8 Ibid., 10-11.

71

following topics: the hierarchical Church and the community of faithful, Christological and

pneumatological dimensions of the Church, Tradition and traditions, diversity and unity, etc.9

Second, other studies treat one theme through the whole of his work: reform in the

Church, ecumenism, lay people, ministries, the Church-world relation, etc.10

It is obvious that anyone who tries to present, even shortly, Congar’s ecclesiology has to

make some methodological choices. This chapter will present some of the major themes of

Congar’s theology of the Church. The following major themes of Congar’s ecclesiology will be

presented in this chapter: a) ecumenism, b) the historical dimension of the Church, c) the

9 Joseph Famerée, L’ ecclesiologie d’ Yves Congar avant Vatican II: Histoire et Église (Leuven:

University Press, 1992), 18, n. 7, quoted from now on L’ ecclesiologie d’ Yves Congar. Famerée offers some titles

as an exemplification of this classification. The following references are not included in Famerée’s list. Richard

McBrien, “Church and Ministry. The Achievement of Yves Congar,” Theology Digest 32 (1985), 203-11; Diane

Jagdeo, The Holiness and Reform of the Church in the Writing of Yves Congar, a doctoral dissertation, CUA,

Washington D.C., 1986; Thomas F. O’Meara, “Beyond ‘Hierarchology’: Johann Adam Möhler and Yves Congar,”

in The Legacy of the Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nineteenth-Century Theology for the Twenty-First Century,

Donald D. Dietrich and Michael J. Himes, eds. New York: Crossroad, 1995), 173-191; Gabriel Flynn et al., Yves

Congar: Theologian of the Church, Gabriel Flynn ed., Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs 32 (Louvain :

Peeters Press; Dudley, MA : W.B. Eerdmans, 2005)- accomplished theologians, Catholic and non-Catholic

contributed to this Monograph; Joseph Famerée and Gilles Routhier, Yves Congar, (Paris: Cerf, 2008)- all the topics

mentioned in the body of the text are found in this book; François-Marie Humann, La relation de l’Esprit-Saint au

Christ: Une relecture d’Yves Congar, Cogitatio Fidei (Paris: Cerf, 2010); Brother Émile of Taizé, Faithful to the

Future: Listening to Yves Congar, trans. Karen Scott and br. Émile (London : Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013).

10 Joseph Famerée, L’ ecclesiologie d’ Yves Congar, 19, n. 8. Other references, not included in Famerée’s

list, in chronological order are: Cornelis Th. M. Van Vliet, Communio Sacramentalis: Das Kirchenverständis von

Yves Congar—genetisch und systematish betrachtet (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1995); Dennis M. Doyle, Journet,

Congar, and the Roots of Communion Ecclesiology, Theological Studies 58 (1997): 461-79; Idem, Communion

Ecclesiology, (New York: Orbis, 2000); Elizabeth T. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief

(Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004); Rémi Chéno, “Les Retractationes d’Yves Congar sur le role de l’Esprit

Saint dans les institutions ecclésiales, Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 90 (2) (2007): 265-284;

Avery Dulles, “True and False Reform,” in First Things (August-2003); Douglas M. Koskela, Ecclesiality and

Ecumenism: Yves Congar and the Road to Unity (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2008); Corneliu

Berea, Il pensiero teologico di Yves Congar sulla definizione della missione nel periodo preconciliare, Documenta

Missionalia 34 (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universitá Gregoriana, 2009); Paul D. Murray, “Expanding Catholicity

through Ecumenicity in the Work of Yves Congar: Ressourcement, Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Reform,” in

International Journal of Systematic Theology vol. 13, no. 3 (July; 2011): 272-302; Stephen Ebo Annan, “ ‘Do Not

Stifle the Spirit’: The Vision of Yves Congar for Charismatic Ecclesiology,” in New Blackfriars, vol . 95, no. 12024

(December 2013): 443-67.

72

structure and life of the Church, and d) the trinitarian and pneumatological dimensions of the

Church. The themes, which are presented chronologically, show that Congar’s ecclesiology

developed organically. The second part of this dissertation is dedicated to Congar’s

pneumatology. However, before discussing his pneumatology, a very short presentation of his

ecclesiology is considered helpful.

A. The Ecumenical Dimension of Congar’s Ecclesiology

Congar may have discerned his ecumenical vocation in 1928 or 1929, but his ecumenical

openness was present in his childhood, because he lived in a pluralist atmosphere with many

non-Catholic friends.11 During 1928 and 1929, at Le Saulchoir, he attended the courses on

ecumenism given by Father M.-D. Chenu, particularly regarding the first world conference on

Faith and Order, held in Lausanne in 1927.12 From January to June of 1932, Congar attended

Gilson’s course on Luther in Paris at Les Hautes Études,13 and he also met Berdiaeff and

Bulgakov.14 More than through books, however, he was introduced to the knowledge of

ecumenical realities by his Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican friends.15

11 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar: “Une vie pour la verite” (Paris: Centurion, 1975), 73.

12 Ibid., 75.

13 Congar, Journal d’un theologien, 26; Journal of a Theologian, 38.

14 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 76.

15 Ibid., 77.

73

An important moment in Congar’s understanding of the Church was the publication in La

Vie intellectuelle in 1933 of his article that surveyed the reasons for unbelief at that time.16

Asked to write a theological analysis of those reasons, Congar argued that a major obstacle to

faith was the defective image that people had of the Church as too juridical and authoritative. He

decided to renew this image of the Church by theological, historical and ecumenical studies–an

initiative which later led to the foundation of the collection Unam Sanctam.17

In order to renew ecclesiology, Congar envisioned a return to the sources of the Bible and

Christian tradition—ressourcement—and a study of the history of the Church. In this approach,

ecumenism and ecclesiology were viewed not as two separate things but two parts of the same

theological project. On the one hand, Congar’s desire to present a better understanding of the

nature of the Church led him toward ressourcement and ecumenism; on the other hand, historical

and ecumenical studies offered him new insights into the nature of the Church. In the words of

J.-P. Jossua, Congar does not separate the Church “in herself’ from the Church “with others” or

“for others.” For Congar, ecumenism, mission, and the Church-world relationship are not

appendices to study of the Church; they are parts of the essential nature of the Church.18

This principle implies a certain ecclesiological view: the Church is by her nature one and

catholic. These are two dimensions of great importance for the purpose of this dissertation. Our

16 Yves Congar, “Une conclusion théologique à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles de l’incroyance,” Vie

intellectuelle 37, no. 2 (1935): 214-49, English translation: “The Reasons for the Unbelief of Our Time,” Integration

II, no. 1, (August-September 1938): 13-21, and no. 3 (December 1938-January 1939): 10-26.

17 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 81-82.

18 Jean-Pierre Jossua, O.P., Le Père Congar: La théologie au service du peuple de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1967),

67.

74

focus, therefore, will be on these two dimensions and not on the historical causes that led to the

separations among Christians or the concrete ecumenical steps proposed by Congar. The next

stage of this study will analyze these two marks of the Church as presented in his book,

Chrétiens désunis. Later we will also discuss the development of Congar’s thinking in his

subsequent writings regarding ecclesial unity and catholicity.

According to Chrétiens désunis, the source of ecclesial unity is divine: Ecclesia de

Trinitate and Ecclesia in Christo indicate that the Church’s life comes from the Trinity and is

given in Christ.19 The divine unity and life communicated within the Trinity is communicated

further to creatures in the Church. “The oneness of the Church is a communication and

extension of the oneness of God himself. […] The Church is not merely a Society, men

associated with God, but the divine Society itself.”20 The unity of the Church is not made firstly

by the gathering together of the people but is given by participation in the life of the Godhead.

This unity is given in Christ. In Chrétiens désunis, Congar says, “in order that the

Church de Trinitate could be Ecclesia ex hominibus, it behoved [sic] that Deum de Deo, lumen

de lumine, should become homo factus ex Maria Virgine. Ex hominibus and de Trinitate are

only linked in Christo, for ‘there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus’

19 Congar, Chretiens dèsunis: Principles d’un “oecumenisme”catholique (Paris: Cerf, 1937), 59-113.

Divided Christendom: A Catholic Study of the Problem of Reunion. Translated by M. A. Bousfield (London: The

Centenary Press, 1939), 48-92.

20 Congar, Divided Christendom, 48. Emphasis original. At this stage of his ecclesiology Congar uses the

term “societas” for the Church.

75

(1Tim 2:2).”21 We become members of the Church and partakers of the divine nature by being

incorporated into Christ. This incorporation takes place through the sacraments.

The divine life is given to us in Christ, and thus, the Church is composed of people:

Ecclesia ex hominibus. The communication of trinitarian life in Christ adapts itself to the

condition of human beings. “The divine life is not now given to us under its normal

homogeneous connatural mode, and under the conditions of life in heaven, but in a human mode

adapted to the condition of sinful men.”22 The ground for this adaptation of the divine life to our

human conditions is the incarnation of the Word. “He assumed our condition, submitted to the

physical and social limitations of manhood.”23 Since we as human beings are “destined by

nature to live socially,”24 and since the Word assumed our nature with its conditions, Congar

concludes that “we must expect to find a Church in the form of a society, embodied in realities of

sense”—a teaching, ruling, active and militant Church.25

As a consequence of the incarnational principle, Congar develops an explanation of the

unity of the Church on a twofold plane, divine and human. The Church is the family of God and

also an organized institution of those who share in the divine life.26 These are not two different

realities, since the Mystical Body is the ecclesiastical societas itself. In order to support this

21 Ibid., 60.

22 Ibid., 64.

23 Ibid., 65.

24 Ibid., 66.

25 Ibid., 67.

26 Ibid., 75-80.

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affirmation, Congar uses the analogy of the unity of soul and body, as will be seen in the next

chapter. For now, Congar’s conclusions regarding his understanding of the unity of the Church

need to be presented. First, the Church as an institution embodies and serves the interior unity of

the life of the Blessed Trinity communicated to us; therefore, this institutional Church is unique

because the divine life and its communication to human nature are unique.27 Second, since the

Church is an organization of human beings, she needs to adapt herself to the diversity of

humans.28 According to Congar, this accommodation to the diversity of human reality in order

to assimilate it into Christ constitutes the Church’s catholicity.

Catholicity, in Congar’s early work Chrétiens désunis, is the capacity of the Church to

apply her principles of unity to human diversity in order “to assimilate, fulfill and raise to God in

oneness with him all men and every man and every human value.”29 It is important to note that

for Congar catholicity is not merely quantitative (universal in a geographical and temporal sense,

as it has often been presented in apologetics), but rather it is especially qualitative.30 This

qualitative catholicity consists in the universality of truth, redemption, and the divine gifts, which

are based on the oneness of the Church as an extension of the unity of God. “Thus understood

the Catholicity of the Church is essentially Trinitarian and Christological.”31 Catholicity is an

expression of the relation which exists between the unity of God and the multiplicity of the

27 Ibid., 88.

28 Ibid., 89.

29 Ibid., 94-95.

30 Ibid., 93.

31 Ibid., 95.

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human race. The Church has this capacity to incorporate all human beings in Christ, so that they

participate in his life and receive what has already been given to him. Like the oneness of the

Church, catholicity is a reality that is already given in Christ yet is to be accomplished by us.32

The principle of catholicity requires the Church to accommodate the diversity of human

forms. Congar holds that since the Church is ex hominibus she “must follow up the human

material that is dispersed, in order to reassume it into the unity” of God.33 In doing so, the

Church respects the diversity of nations, languages, temperaments, customs, and religious

experiences.34 To absorb the nations according to the lowest common denominator would mean

an impoverishment of the incarnation.35 A great diversity of religious experience and theological

traditions is not only legitimate but also necessary in the Church.36 This diversity, however, is

subordinated to a higher unity, which in the end is supreme for it is ordered to the interests of the

whole.37

Congar’s understanding of the unity and catholicity of the Church according to his first

work, Chrétiens désunis, has been presented so far. We can now study the development of

Congar’s thought regarding ecclesial unity and catholicity according to his later writings. Joseph

Famerée has shown that there is a significant evolution in Congar’s ecclesiology but also a basic

32 Ibid., 96-97.

33 Ibid., 102.

34 Ibid., 108.

35 Ibid., 109

. 36 Ibid., 110. The English version of Chrétiens dèsunis translated “nécessaire” (Chrétiens dèsunis, 140)

with “desirable” (Divided Christendom, 110). Congar’s thought is that the diversity in the Church is necessary.

37 Ibid., 111-112.

78

continuity.38 In Chrétiens désunis and Esquisses du mystère de l’Église (1941), Congar saw

human diversity as assimilated by the unity of the Church in order to be recapitulated in Christ.39

In Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église (1950), he explained that the Church, even though she is

immutable in her structure (deposit of faith, sacraments, ordained ministry) because she receives

from above the divine life, has to follow humanity in its historical and cultural development and,

therefore, the Church is subject to growth and change in her historical form.40 The Church does

not only assume the world; she is also in dialogue with the world. Also, the hierarchy of the

Church receives and approves initiatives from the base or the periphery and the laity.41 The

progress in Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église consists in the fact that the Church not only

assumes the diversity of human realities, but that she enters into dialogue with them and follows

their movement. The continuity of Congar’s thought lies in the immutability of the ecclesial

unity which comes from God through Jesus Christ.

A more explicit evolution is present in Diversités et communion (1982) (Diversity and

Communion).42 According to Dennis Doyle, the key theme in the ecclesiology of Congar is

38 Famerée, L’ ecclesiologie d’ Yves Congar, 439. Famerée explains that there is no “Copernican turn” in

Congar’s theological itinerary before and after Vatican II because he anticipated and prepared the main themes of

the Council.

39 Congar, Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, (Paris: Cerf, 1941), 112-113.

40 Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, trans. Paul Philibert (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,

2011), 148, originally published as Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, (Paris: Cerf, 1950), at 149. However, the

translation is made from the second and revised edition from 1968.

41 Ibid., 282.

42 Congar, Diversity and Communion, trans. John Bowden (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-third

Publications, 1985), originally published as Diversités et communion: Dossier historique et conclusion théologique,

Cogitatio Fidei, no. 112 (Paris: Cerf, 1982).

79

communion.43 Famerée also notes that Congar uses the term “communion” to replace the earlier

term “unity.”44 More explicitly than in Chrétiens désunis, Congar in Diversités et communion

observes that pluralism is a necessity and an interior richness within communion. The

fundamental reasons for this pluralism are the transcendence of the divine mystery and the

reception of it by different subjects who are conditioned by their cultures.45 Finally, Famerée

shows that Congar’s first model of the Church contained the image of the Church as societas

perfecta or societas hierarchica, while the second model is more open to a vision of the Church

as a communion of local Churches placed in a specific time, space, and culture.46 The first

model is more static while the second vision is more dynamic and historical. This study,

therefore, will now present the historical dimension of the Church which has emerged in the

thought of Congar.

B. History and the Church

A major contribution of Congar’s ecclesiology is its acknowledgment of the historicity of

the Church. Historical consciousness is a constant aspect of his ecclesiological methodology.

His analysis of theological topics most often refers to their historical development.47 Congar’s

43 Dennis M. Doyle, Communion Ecclesiology, (New York: Orbis, 2000), 46-51.

44 Famerée, L’ ecclesiologie d’ Yves Congar, 454.

45 Ibid., 454, quoting Diversités et communion, 65, Diversity and Communion, 40.

46 Ibid., 455-56.

47 Some examples that support this affirmation are the following: Divided Christendom (especially chapter

one), Esquisses du mystere de l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1941), The Mystery of the Temple or the Manner of God’s

Presence to His Creature from Genesis to the Apocalypse (Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1962), Église et

papauté (Paris: Cerf, 1994), Tradition and Traditions.

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historical method includes “ressourcement,” i.e., a return to the sources of the faith. A return to

the Bible, liturgy, and patristic writings provides a better understanding of the Church and

enables a reform within the Church without schism.48 “Ressourcement” means to think of the

present situation in the light of tradition, avoiding mechanical repetitions and artificial

adaptations to new circumstances. It recognizes the development of the tradition.49

Congar confesses that he has always had “un goût irrésistible pour l’histoire.”50 The

theological school at Le Saulchoir used an historical approach toward dogmas, insisting that they

be presented in their development and not in an abstract and merely speculative way.51 Church

historians appreciate today even more the fact that in Congar’s presentations the history of

doctrines and ideas are not “utterly divorced from context.”52 This approach influenced Congar

so greatly that he planned to write a history of theology together with Chenu and Henri-Marie

Féret, his colleague at Le Saulchoir, in order to react against what they called “théologie

baroque.”53 This view was, according to them, a theology that developed between the

seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, which emphasized the authority of God rather than his

48 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 334 (True and False Reform, 292).

49 Ibid., 335-348; idem, La tradition et la vie de l’Église, 2d ed., Traditions Chrétiennes, no.18 (Paris: Cerf,

1984), 84-95.

50 Jossua, Le Père Congar, 166.

51 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 35. See M.-D. Chenu, Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir,

reprinted in G. Alberigo et al., Une école de théologie: le Saulchoir (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 134-44, where Chenu

explains the role of history in the theological method at Le Saulchoir.

52 John W. O’Malley, “Yves Congar as Historian of Ecclesiology,” in Yves Congar: Theologian of the

Church, ed Gabriel Flynn, (Louvain: Peeters, 2005), 232.

53 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar 45.

81

truth. As a consequence, there was little room for the pursuit of human understanding. In

“baroque” ecclesiology, the Church was presented as a hierarchical pyramid.54 According to

Congar, this juridical vision was also present in the beginning of the discussions on the Church

during the council, even though its supporters were a minority.55 During the conciliar

discussions, he identified two ecclesiologies: one was static, juridical, hierarchical, and grounded

on a “Christomonism;” the other one was dynamic, historic, and open to the pneumatological

dimension. But Congar affirms that the final document on the Church, Lumen gentium,

surpassed “Christomonism,” while remaining Christocentric (Christ is the founder of the Church

together with the Spirit).56

These two ecclesiologies (one juridical and one trinitarian) are, in Congar’s

opinion, the extensions of two theologies of God. For some, God is “suprême ordonnateur d’un

monde hiérarchisé et statique.”57 For others, and also for Congar, God is the living God of

history. Furthermore, for Congar, the God of the Bible does not reveal himself in himself but is

54 Ibid., 46-47.

55 Ibid., 140-41. Here, Congar does not specify who were these supporters; he only says that this position is

represented by “the scholastic of the Roman colleges, with its rigid intellectual structure, its predilection for a

juridical sense” (141). Remarkably, Congar says that the supporters of the juridical vision “made us a great service,

because they forced us to be more specific in our thinking [and to] show the fundaments of our reasoning” (141).

56 Congar, Le Concile de Vatican II: Son Église: peuple de Dieu et corps du Christ, Théologie historique 71

(Paris: Beuchesne, 1984), 163-176, at 164-65, and 169, where Congar says that the Spirit is co-institutive principle

of the Church.

57 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar: “the supreme organizer of a world which is static and

hierarchical,” 142.

82

“God-who-made-Israel-exit-from-Egypt,” God who works in history, and God-in-relation-with-

us through history.58

God, moreover, is not only involved in human history but became a subject of this

history through the incarnation of the Word.59 This event has great consequences for Christian

anthropology. Assuming human nature in a definitive way, God redeems us and the world in the

economy of salvation, according to his plan developed historically.60 Congar supports the Greek

Fathers’ theology of synergy.61 God works with us for our salvation. The creation of the world

is not a singular moment of God’s power but is continuous and joins with human activity so that

the entirety of human existence becomes a spiritual sacrifice with a redemptive value.62

Theology and anthropology are related precisely because God reveals himself not as in eternity

but in the temporal revelation of the incarnation. According to Congar, the connection between

theology and anthropology is an issue that constitutes the greatest challenge facing modern

theology.63

The historical approach leads Congar to understand the Church as an historical reality.

To name the historical character of the Church, he uses the notion “people of God” taken from

58 Ibid., 171-172. Congar spells the name of God in expressions like that mentioned above because he

believes they are the proper name of God who reveals himself in history.

59 Yves Congar, Entretiens d’automne, 92-93, (Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 71-72.)

60 Jossua, Le Père Congar, 149-150.


62 For the issue of collaboration of humanity to the work of salvation, see also Congar, Ecrits Reformateurs,

ed.by Jean-Pierre Jossua (Paris: Cerf, 1995).

63 Patrick Granfield, Theologians at Work, (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 249; Elizabeth Groppe dedicates

two chapters on this topic in her dissertation: Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit, 85-135.

83

the Bible, the Fathers, and the liturgy.64 “People of God” means for Congar “a multitude of

people under the reign of God”, having as their goal the kingdom of God.65 While this image is

only a descriptive definition of the Church, it has the advantages of showing its continuity with

the people of God in the Old Testament, and presenting the idea of society in a less juridical

manner.66 The category of the “people of God” supplies a dynamic quality to ecclesiology; it

portrays the Church in a state of pilgrimage and, therefore, is open to eschatology.67 The Second

Vatican Council uses this image to describe the Church. In fact, Congar says, the newness of

Vatican II was that it recognized the historicity of the Church and of the Bible.68

Congar recognizes, however, that the theological notion of the “people of God” has its

limits because it does not show the newness brought in history by the incarnation and Pentecost.

He supplements it with the categories of “body of Christ” and “temple of the Holy Spirit” in

order to define the new status of Christians: members incorporated in the body of Christ by the

Holy Spirit.69

The historical character of the Church brings up the issue of continuity and historical

development. For Congar, the Holy Spirit is the principle of both continuity and development in

64 Congar, “Peut-on définir l'Église? Destin et valeur de quatre notions que s'offrent a le faire,” in Sainte

Église: Études et approches ecclésiologiques, Unam Sanctam, no. 41, (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 22-44, at 22-23, first

published in Jaques Leclerq, L’homme, l’oeuvre et ses amis (Tournai-Paris: Casterman, 1961), 233-254.

65 Ibid., 24-25.

66 Ibid., 25.

67 Congar, L’Église: De Saint Augustine à l’Époque Moderne, 2d. ed., (Paris: Cerf; 1970; 2d ed.,1997),

468-469. The reference is taken from the second edition.

68 Congar, Entretiens d’automne, 14-15 (Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 8).

69 Congar, “Peut-on définir l'Église? Destin et valeur de quatre notions que s'offrent a le faire,” in Sainte

Église, 26; idem, Le Concile de Vatican II, 121-122.

84

the Church: he is the transcendent subject of tradition.70 The work of Christ accomplished once

and for all time has to be made present to all people living in successive generations, coexisting

separately in space; the Spirit is the one who ensures that the Church will be faithful to the faith

of the apostles.71 This continuity cannot be established by human decisions, since these

decisions constitute “neither a principle of unity nor a principle of divine life.”72 The continuity

of truth and life in the Church can be guaranteed and brought about only by the Holy Spirit. At

the same time, the Church grows precisely because the Spirit imparts his gifts to all Christians

according to the nature and vocation of each person, “for the good of all” (1 Cor 12:7).73 The

Holy Spirit is responsible for both continuity and authentic ecclesial development in the history

of the Church.

To summarize, Congar’s historical approach demonstrates how the theology of God,

Christ, the Church, and the human person are related to each other in historical terms. The

historical method enables one to understand the Church as a divine-human reality inscribed in

history. Within the tradition there is always continuity with the past and also development and

openness to the future. The Church is the body of Christ which grows in history due to the work

of the Holy Spirit. Precisely because the Church is placed in time, she is a reality that contains

structure and life, which will now be discussed.

70 Congar, Tradition and Traditions, 338.



73 Ibid.

85

C. Structure and Life of the Church

The dialectic of structure and life is already contained in the previous two dimensions

presented above—naturally so, since all the elements of ecclesiology are interrelated. The

assertion that the Church is de Trinitate, in Christo, and ex hominibus implies the presence of a

structure given in Christ and also expressed in time in various forms of life, which are

conditioned by the historical dimension of the Church.

Congar’s first made this dialectic explicit in Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église (1950).

For Congar the Church exists in two ways: as an institution or structure and as a community or

congregatio fidelium.74 This institution is founded in Christ through the incarnation. The

Church exists already in Christ, because the Son of God assumed human nature and, in a certain

way, the whole human race. Due to the incarnation, the Church existed as mystery already in

Christ before she became the congregatio fidelium.75 The institution is the complex assemblage

of the means by which Christ unites his disciples with himself: the deposit of faith, the

sacraments of grace, and the apostolic ministries. Christ gave structure to the Church by

revealing the true faith, instituting the sacraments, and giving the prophetic, sacerdotal, and royal

office. This structure precedes the Church as communion, because it generates and forms the

various communities of believers.76

74 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église, 94; True and False Reform, 85.

75 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 95; True and False Reform, 86.

76 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 96-97; True and False Reform, 86.

86

The second term of Congar’s dialectical framework is life or community. The institution

engenders and becomes a community; the Church is comprised of people.77 In Vraie et fausse

réforme, Congar applies the model de Trinitate – ex hominibus- in Christo that he had used in

Chrétiens désunis. The Church is made up of people who receive salvation from the Trinity and

are united with the Trinity in Christ.78 The Church is the union of “the divine formal principle

with the human material principle, […] the divine-human reality which is formed by this

union.”79 This union takes place in Christ. In this early stage of his thinking, Congar claims that

while the institution derives from Christ (acta Christi in carne), it is the Holy Spirit who

introduces us into this reality and gives life to the Church.80 In his later writings, Congar held a

more balanced position, as will be shown. But even at this early stage structure and life function

as a dialectic by which Congar describes the Church as a divine-human reality, visible and

invisible, immutable and changeable, Christological and pneumatological.

An accurate evaluation of the category structure–life is difficult because it was used at

different stages of Congar’s ecclesiology to respond to various issues arising from the life of the

Church, as he acknowledges.81 It is useful for the purpose of this study to discuss only how,

77 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 97; True and False Reform, 88-89.

78 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 98-99; True and False Reform, 90.

79 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 100: “l’union du principe formel divin et du principe

matériel humain, la réalité divino-humaine qui naît de cette union”; True and False Reform, 89.

80 Congar, The Mystery of the Church. Translated by A. V. Littledale (Baltimore, Helicon Press, 1960),

151. This book is a translation of Esquisses du Mystère de l’Égise, whose first edition was published in 1941 and

the second in 1953. Therefore, it can be claimed that this pneumatological understanding is present in Congar’s

ecclesiology at this time.

81 Timothy I. MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes, (New York:

University Press of America, 1984). xxii.

87

chronologically and systematically, Congar placed different emphases on the relationship

between structure as deriving from Christ and life as deriving from the Holy Spirit.82

In his earlier writings, in 1950, Congar insists on the precedence of structure over the life

of the Church.83 Some critics have observed that he restricted structure to the elements

constitutive of the Church (jus divinum), and they have pointed out that the life of the Church

(the historical relative form) is also structured.84 Congar himself admits that the emphasis on the

primacy of structure has limits: it defines the laity in relation to the hierarchy, as he did in Jalons

pour une théologie du laïcat.85 Later, he stated that the hierarchy had to be defined in

relationship to lay people. The vision in which the institution takes precedence over the

community is close to a christomonism, which dominated ecclesiology until Vatican II.86

Congar, however, avoids christomonism by ascribing to the Holy Spirit the foundation, the

progress, and the activity of the Church.87

82 Not all the themes implied by this dialectic can be discussed here. Some of the issues which derive from

structure-life are the following: reform within the tradition, the role of the laity, the Church and the world, the

Church as communion, discussed by MacDonald, Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, 41-276. For the distinction between

the structure and the structures of the Church and their stability in time, see Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église,

57. Another important remark: presenting the Church as institution and life, Congar does not assign the grace of the

Spirit only to the life of the Church; he does not deny that the institution is also filled with grace (Joseph Famerée,

L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 112, n. 308).

83 Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 95-96.

84 Famerée, L ’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 112; MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, 280.

85 Congar, Entretiens d’ automne, 81-87.

86 Congar, Le Councile de Vatican II, 164.

87 Congar, Chrétiens désunis, 68.

88

Later, Congar emphasized the second term of the dialectical category—the life of the

Church.88 He stressed the importance of the Holy Spirit and charisms in the ecclesial life. In Le

Saint Esprit et le Corps apostolique, realisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ (1953), while using the

categories of structure and life, he affirmed that the role of the Holy Spirit, as the soul of the

Church, is to animate what Christ has instituted.89 Here, however, he goes further than his earlier

works and now attributes a certain freedom or autonomy to the Holy Spirit which shows itself in

charisms and unpredictable events.90 Congar recognizes that the use of the gifts of the Spirit is

under the rule of the apostolicity of doctrine and the apostolicity of ministry because these

charisms are given for the unity of the Church. Yet he points out that the Holy Spirit intervenes

directly both in the missionary activity of the apostles by indicating to them where to preach, and

also in other people’s lives (Philip, Cornelius) by interior inspirations.91 Therefore, Congar can

conclude:

The Body of Christ is built up by the regular mediation, functional and hierarchical, of

the appointed ministers, the sacraments and the other rites of the Church, but also by

unpredictable, occasional and fraternal mediation of the various conjunctures and

unexpected happenings brought about by the Spirit and signs of his working[…] Thus we

are led by various ways to admit that, if the Church is always the work of the Holy Spirit

who dwells in it, it is not that of the Spirit exclusively as bound to the institution and

working in and through it. The Holy Spirit retains a kind of freedom of action which is

88 MacDonald says that for Congar in some sense “life as fundamentally expressive of the relationship in

praxis of human beings with God is the source of structure within the Christian community” (The Ecclesiology of

Yves Congar, 284). Famerée disagrees with MacDonald (L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 112, n. 306). The present

author agrees with Famerée’s position.

89 Congar, Le Saint Esprit et le Corps apostolique, realisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ, in Esquisses du

mystère de l’Église. Unam Sanctam 8, 2nd ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1953), translated as The Mystery of the Church, 168 and

170.

90 Ibid., 174-176.

91 Ibid.,178-179.

89

immediate, autonomous and personal. In this way, there exists a kind of free sector

which constitutes one of the most salient features of the life of the Church.92

To summarize, Congar emphasized at different times both the structure and the life of the

Church. Yet, while he originally distinguished and tended to contrast them, ultimately he saw

them as distinct but interpenetrating dimensions of the mystery of the Church. This correct and

complete evaluation of his view can be achieved by an analysis of his last writings. In I Believe

in the Holy Spirit, he recognizes that he made too radical a distinction between the institution

which derives from Christ and the charisms which are the work of the free interventions of the

Holy Spirit.93 In his last major work, The Word and the Spirit, Congar states: “It is a mistake to

think, as I did in 1953 that a kind of ‘free sector’ reserved for the Holy Spirit exists alongside the

operation of the instituted structures and means of grace.”94 Congar’s final position is well

balanced. Both institution and charisms have their own place in building up the unity of the

Church which is the Body of the glorified Christ. Both the Word and the Spirit are present in the

structure and the life of the Church.95 The charisms, as interventions of the Holy Spirit, may be

new elements in history, but they are always related to the work of Christ.96 This position is a

92 Ibid., 179-180.


94 Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 61. The article that Congar refers to is Le Saint Esprit et le Corps

apostolique, realisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ. See n.84 above for bibliographical details.

95 Ibid., 82.


90

consequence of the second principle of Congar’s pneumatology—that is, there is no Christology

without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology.

D. Trinitarian and Pneumatological Dimensions of Congar’s Ecclesiology

In 1937, Congar’s intention was to renew ecclesiology using a method of returning to the

sources of faith.97 Biblical, patristic, and historical studies were important means in order to

achieve his goal of a better and fuller understanding of the nature of the Church. The order of

discovery precedes the order of doctrine. This concluding section will summarize the mystery of

the Church as understood by Congar (the previous sections dealt only with major themes of his

ecclesiology). Fundamentally, Congar defines the Church as a divine-human society which

shares in the life of the Trinity.98 To the unity and richness of God correspond the unity and

diversity of the Church. The same divine life is communicated not only within the Trinity but

also to humanity by grace. Congar maintained this fundamental assertion throughout his work.

He used other categories instead of society but he always kept the trinitarian reference as

essential in defining the Church. He writes in one of his latest major works that “the profound

life of that great body, which is both scattered and one, is the culmination and the fruit, in the

creature, of the very life of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”99 This position is

consistent with the third principle of his pneumatology: the Church is the fruit of the divine

missions of the Word and of the Spirit, which are rooted in the trinitarian processions.

97 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 81-82.

98 Congar, Divided Christendom, 48-49.


91

Communion with the trinitarian life is brought about in the Church by the work of Christ

and of the Holy Spirit. Congar acknowledged that, inspired by Johann Adam Möhler, he

describes the life of the Church as a spiritual organism animated by the Holy Spirit.100 The Holy

Spirit as the soul of the Church is her active and unifying principle.101 Congar uses the soul-

body analogy to explain the Holy Spirit-Church union, while also presenting its limitations. The

soul is the substantial form of the human body. In contrast, the union of the Holy Spirit and the

Church is not substantial and non-personal because the Church is not the body of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives life and unity to the Church; the Spirit dwells in the Church according to

created grace. The immanent principle of the Church’s unity is the created realities of grace,

charity, and faith which come from God and from the Holy Spirit by appropriation.102 These

created gifts of God are in us and assimilate us to him by orienting us to the very life of God.

Thus, the Church shares in the divine life of the Trinity not in terms of a substantial union of soul

and body, but in a real and mystical union.103 The source of life in the Church is divine and

transcendent and also immanent in us through the created grace poured into our hearts by the

Holy Spirit.104 Congar’s assertion, that in the union between the Spirit and the Church the Spirit


101 Congar, Divided Christendom, 57.

102 Ibid., 57. Here Congar is inspired by the teaching of St. Thomas. As stated in previous chapter, Congar

criticized Thomas only because the created grace was given to Christ at the moment of his conception in such a

manner that it would not increase. This would not allow theologians to develop a theology based on the economy of

salvation where the role of the Spirit can be described properly. See The Word and the Spirit, 86-87.


104 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 127.

92

dwells in the Church through created grace, is consistent with his first principle: the Spirit is

known to us not directly in himself but through his works.

Some theologians have noted a development in Congar’s pneumatological ecclesiology.

Famerée has noticed Congar’s later assertion that the Holy Spirit is the co-instituting principle of

the Church. For Famerée this affirmation is new and explains better the roles of Christ and the

Holy Spirit in the Church.105 The Holy Spirit co-institutes the Church founded historically by

Christ. Aidan Nichols also writes:

Thus Congar’s ecclesiology, in sharp contrast to that of his original inspiration, Möhler,

became less Christological and more pneumatic as he grew older. Convinced as he was

that Western Catholics have not done justice in recent centuries to the person and work of

the Holy Spirit… it was understandable that Congar should end his theological career by,

at least in appearance, turning away from his great love, ecclesiology, to what was, in

fact, its own deepest basis, the doctrine of the Spirit.106

While Nichols’ assertion is true, one must not understand it unilaterally as if Congar

would have given an autonomy to the role of the Holy Spirit in regard with Christ’s work.

Congar’s late ecclesiology is both Christological and pneumatological, and it is grounded in the

theological equilibrium between his pneumatological Christology and Christological

pneumatology, which is his second pneumatological principle.

In conclusion, Congar’s ecclesiological goal was to present the Church as a mystery in

opposition to a static understanding of the Church. His methodology of returning to the sources

enabled him to develop an ecumenical and historical analysis of the Church. He presents the

105 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 451. Congar made the statement that the Spirit is the co-

instituting principle of the Church in 1979, in I Believe in the Holy Spirit (vol. 2, 9).

106 Aidan Nichols, Yves Congar, Outstanding Christians Series, ed. Brian Davies OP. (Wilton, CT:

Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 61.

93

mystery of the Church as a communion with the life of God, an actualization of the work of

Christ in history by the work of the Holy Spirit. Congar’s late ecclesiology articulates and is

based on the principles of his pneumatology. Part II of this dissertation treats his developing

pneumatology with particular reference to the four marks of the Church.

94

PART II:

THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES THE CHURCH ONE,

CATHOLIC, APOSTOLIC AND HOLY1

It has been said at the end of the previous chapter that some theologians claimed that

Congar’s ecclesiology developed from a Christological emphasis toward a pneumatological

model of the Church. Even though there is no major revolution in Congar’s thinking, in his later

writings he expresses better the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The Church is the fruit of

the two divine missions of the Son and of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is, therefore, the “co-

instituting” principle of the Church. The role of the Holy Spirit is not only to make present the

work of Christ but also to bring into history new realities which are always connected with the

glorified Christ. On these premises Congar builds his ecclesiological pneumatology. The entire

section on the work of the Spirit in the Church, in his I Believe in the Holy Spirit, called “The

Spirit Animates the Church,” is grounded in this understanding of the Holy Spirit as the “co-

instituting” principle of the Church.2

However, Congar arrived gradually at this trinitarian and pneumatological perspective.

His late ecclesiology developed from an early view that envisioned, in scope and content, a

1 This is the order in which Congar treats the properties of the Church in I Believe, vol 2. For a detailed

explanation see below, Chapter IV, p. 170.

2 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 5-64. First chapter of volume two, “The Church is made by the Spirit,” qualifies

the Holy Spirit as the “co-instituting” principle of the Church (p. 9). The following chapters—regarding unity,

catholicity, apostolicity and holiness of the Church—are theological consequences of his first chapter.

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trinitarian dimension of the Church. But there are at the same time differences in his method of

approaching the mystery of the Church. The second part of this dissertation traces Congar’s

ecclesiological and pneumatological development; it will try to show not only the differences

between his early and late writings, but also the small steps of development between the

beginning and the end of his career.

Methodologically, in order to show this development, Congar’s works are presented

almost always in a chronological order. While working on this study, a few partial conclusions

became clear from Congar’s data. Congar’s initial interest was in ecclesiology: he presented the

Church as an extension of the Trinity, built up by the work of Christ and the Spirit, but there was

an emphasis on the role of Christ. In time, his interest in pneumatology grew and this brought

further developments in his ecclesiology. So, two partial conclusions were reached: first,

ecclesiology and pneumatology influenced mutually. Second, methodologically ecclesiology

came first in the order of study of Congar—which was consistent with the first principle of his

pneumatology: the Spirit is known through his works.

It was also observed that no matter from what point of view Congar described the Church

(i.e. from the point of view of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity), Congar followed

more or less the same pattern of thought. For instance, he always presented the sources of unity,

catholicity, holiness and apostolicity in a similar way in his early writings; and he explained the

roles of Christ and of the Spirit in building the Church, throughout his career. Of course,

Congar’s presentation is not always very systematic; the data are scattered in various writings.

But there is consistency of ideas and a certain pattern in his writings.

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It is possible, therefore, to organize the vast amount of his works from the point of view

of the relation between ecclesiology and pneumatology as following. From the point of view of

his ecclesiology there are two periods: in the first period, before the Second Vatican Council, the

Church is understood mainly as a society, or the body of Christ. It is a sacramental model of the

Church, with a strong emphasis of the role of Christ. In the second period of his ecclesiology,

after the council, the Church is understood as a communion from a trinitarian and

pneumatological perspective. More importantly, from the point of view of the relationship

between the roles of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church, this dissertation identifies three

periods in Congar’s writings. The first period is characterized by a Christological emphasis

(Christ founds the structure of the Church and the Spirit animates it). There is a middle or

transitional period of Congar’s writings, which begins with the publishing of his article “Le

Saint-Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ” (“The Holy Spirit and the

Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ”) (1952-53). This article opened a period

when Congar emphasized a certain freedom of the Spirit with regard to the institutions of the

Church (not with regard to the mission of Christ). The third period, beginning with the council,

is trinitarian and pneumatological, and the roles of Christ (the institutor of the Church) and of the

Holy Spirit (the co-institutor of the Church) are balanced in the end.

But two observations should be made. First it is almost impossible to establish a definite

time when this middle period begins and ends. This is because Congar’s thought developed

gradually, in small steps, as this study will show. Second, during this middle period Congar still

uses a Christological model for the Church (probably influenced by the topics he addresses).

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Therefore, this middle or transitional period is defined as such mainly from a pneumatological

and not ecclesiological point of view. However, some classifications, even approximative and

imperfect, are necessary for a systematic presentation of Congar’s works and theological

thought, which span for a period of over fifty years. In short, this classification is not an end in

itself but just a tool, though a necessary and helpful instrument in the study of Congar’s

ecclesiology and pneumatology.3

Finally, a word about the four notes of the Church should be said. It is worth noting, as

Congar points out, that these notes or marks of the Church were used in apologetics to

distinguish the true Church of Christ from other ecclesial communities. In his opinion, the

degree of success of this enterprise varied.4 However, Congar does not use the notes of the

Church apologetically; he is interested in describing the nature of the Church by showing that

this Church is the work of the Holy Spirit. Congar indicates that the creeds have always

connected the Spirit with the Church: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Church”, no

matter how old these professions of faith are.5 It is actually one and the same article of faith:

Christians believe in the Holy Spirit who works in the Church. Furthermore, Congar specifies

that these attributes of the Church—one, holy, catholic and apostolic—were introduced in the

Creed at the First Council of Constantinople (381) not with the intent to defend the true Church

of Christ but to describe better the belief in the Holy Spirit who makes the Church to be one,

3 This classification was not done a priori, when the writing process of this dissertation started, but after

writing some parts of it, and it made sense to organize the material in three periods. Also, this organization of the

material helps the writer and any reader as well.

4 Congar, I Believe, vol 2., 6.

5 Ibid., 5.

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holy, catholic and apostolic. The second part of this study will try to show Congar’s

development in understanding that the unity, the catholicity, apostolicity and holiness of the

Church are precisely the work of the Spirit.

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CHAPTER THREE:

THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAL UNITY

This chapter presents the evolution of Congar’s understanding regarding the unity of the

Church and the role of the Spirit in bringing it about. More precisely, it will show how in

Congar’s thought ecclesial unity became communion. At the same time, the role of the Spirit as

understood by Congar developed from the soul of the Church to the co-institutor of the Church.

In this process, there is continuity and progress.

Methodologically this chapter follows chronologically Congar’s writings (with one

exception that will be explained). The last section deals with the relations between the notes of

the Church as realized by the Holy Spirit.

A. Early Works: Unity as an Extension of the Unity of the Trinity: A Sacramental

and Christological Approach

Chrétiens Désunis (1937)1

Jean-Pierre Jossua, a Congar scholar and also a colleague at Le Saulchoir and a friend of

his, has noted in an article dedicated to the memory of Congar on the occasion of the centenary

of his birth:

1 A more detailed and extended examination of Chrétiens désunis is present in Chapter VI on the holiness

of the Church. Since Congar does not treat holiness in Chrétiens désunis, a more detailed study is needed in chapter

VI in order to infer his understanding of holiness based on the ecclesiological model that he employs in Chrétiens

désunis. However, some repetitions are unavoidable.

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It seems to me to be something of a waste of time to ask oneself what comes first in Yves

Congar’s commitment and research: whether it is the Church or the cause of unity. […]

Historically speaking a passion for the Church came first: he was to say that he had

experienced an early awaking of “a very deep sense of the Church.” Yet, once the

concern for unity appeared to him as stemming from a personal call, it would move into

the centre of his perspective, and would soon culminate with his major work, Divided

Christendom.2

But this close relationship between unity and the Church in Congar’s works is true not

only from a methodological point of view; but it is also true at the deeper level of content: unity

describes the very nature of the Church in the early works of Congar. In Chrétiens désunis,

ecclesial unity is defined as the life of the Trinity communicated to the Church: “The oneness of

the Church is a communication and extension of the oneness of God himself.”3 This

communication, however, does not take place in a direct, non-mediated way, but through a

society, which mediates and in which the life of God flows. Therefore, for Congar, “[t]he

Church is not a merely a Society, men associated with God, but the divine Societas itself, the life

of the Godhead reaching out to humanity and taking up humanity into itself.”4

It can be observed already that Congar pays close attention to both dimensions of the

Church: divine and human, and therefore visible, aspects. He supports his description of the

mystery of the Church on the basis of revelation itself: God chose a people and made a covenant

with them through Abraham and Moses. Furthermore, the promises made to the whole people of

2 Jean-Pierre Jossua, “In hope of Unity,” in Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church, ed. Gabriel Flynn,

Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs, no. 32 (Louvain: Peeters, 2005),167-181, at 169.

3 Congar, Divided Christendom, 48. See also 48, n.1. It is worth noting that in the first footnote on the

chapter on unity, Congar cites St. Cyprian’s De Unitate Ecclesiae (VI) and De Dominica Oratione, 23: “de unitate

Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti plebs adunata” which was introduced in Lumen Gentium 4.

4 Congar, Divided Christendom, 48-49. Emphasis original.

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Israel through Abraham and Moses are brought to fulfillment in Christ.5 Thus, it is in Christo

that the Church is realized: “The Church is this communio sanctorum in two senses: she is at

once the communication and the community of the blessed and divine realities […]; she is also

the community of the people of God, the brotherly fellowship in one mind of those who […] are

one in Christ.”6 In short, the Church is a people gathered by the life of the Trinity (Ecclesia is de

Trinitate and ex hominibus).

Another way of describing the Church is the body of Christ. In Christ the Christians

receive the life of God and are incorporated in his body: “we are members of Christ, integral

parts of the body in which He is the Head; we are the body of Christ […]; we are collectively the

manifestation of this lifegiving spirit in one visible organic reality: the Church is the visible

Body of Christ, his σωμα, a Christophany: she is his own flesh, His Bride.”7 This image of the

body of Christ offers Congar the instrument to present the Church from a sacramental

perspective, in which the invisible life of God is given in a visible and mediated way to

Christians. These two dimensions form a single reality, the Church.

Having defined what ecclesial unity is, Congar looked for and described the source of

this unity. The plurality of the members of the society or of the body of Christ is brought

together by the oneness of God. “Hence the ground of the Church’s existence is the

communication to many of the life of the Father. It is because there is only one God that there is

5 Ibid., 49-50.

6 Ibid., 51.

7 Ibid., 61.

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only one Church.”8 While the source of the unity is from above, from God, it is communicated

through the created gifts which proceed from God, following in this way the law of incarnation

and taking the visible form of an institution: “the Church as an institution, is the human form of

the divine interior unity of the Church as the mystical body.” 9 Created grace, which includes

faith, charity and the sacraments,10 constitutes “the inward or immanent principle of the

Church.”11

Finally, the roles or functions of Christ and the Holy Spirit should be addressed.

Showing their tasks is important because this is one of the most significant points in the

development of Congar’s thought. While Congar uses various biblical titles and images for

Christ (the sole door to the fold of God - Jn 10:1; the mediator of the new covenant sealed in his

blood - 1Cor 11:25; the High Priest - Heb 9:11; the image of God - 2 Cor 4:4),12 the main

Christological image is the head of the body. Congar bases his explanation of Christ as the head

of the body not on the death and resurrection of Jesus, but rather on his incarnation.13 Christ

gives unity to the body primarily because in the hypostatic union the Word united himself to

human nature. There is, however, a difference between the mystery of Christ and the mystery of

the Church. While Jesus’ human and divine natures are united substantially in the person of the

8 Ibid., 51.

9 Ibid., 74.

10 Ibid., 53-54, 62-63.

11 Ibid., 57.

12 Ibid., 60-61

13 Ibid., 58.

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Son to form ontologically one divine-human being, the union between Christ and the Church is a

mystical union. It is a real union, but Christ does not assume ontologically the Church: he gives

“the uncreated life of God” to many Christians through created grace, and, in this way, the

Church becomes “mystically one.”14

The role of the Spirit in the ecclesial body is described as similar (but not the same) with

the role of a human spirit in a human body. The analogy of unity of soul and body in human

person offers Congar two main traits of the work of the Spirit in the Church. First, the Spirit is

the “form” or the principle of the Church, meaning that the Spirit “animates” the body, i.e. the

Church.15 Thus, the Spirit “is actually the interior form of unity in the Church.”16 This unity is

both invisible and visible, internal and external: uncreated grace of Christ and the created reality

of grace and sacraments. Both forms of unity are given by the Spirit, and they are “organically

united so as to form a single reality, which is ‘the Church’.”17 Regarding the visible unity of the

Church, Congar says that the Church as an institution or its visible social organization serves the

invisible unity, “as the body is the instrument and the manifestation of the soul.”18 This is the

second task of the Spirit as the soul of the Church; as the soul tends to be in a body, the Spirit

tends to be in the Church, whom he makes his instrument.

14 Ibid., 58.

15 Ibid., 81

16 Ibid., 57.

17 Ibid., 82.

18 Ibid.

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In conclusion, Chrétiens désunis offers a sacramental perspective regarding the ecclesial

unity. The Church is a divine and human society, and the body of Christ, in which the life of the

Trinity is communicated in Christ to Christians through faith and sacraments. From this

sacramental perspective, Congar’s interest is to present the close relationship between the

invisible and visible unity. This was the way which he considered fit in 1937 to present the total

mystery of the Church; ecumenism and the mystery of the Church were not two separate

chapters for Congar.19 Congar maintained this sacramental view throughout his career. For

instance, in L’ Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique (1970) he still presented the

sacraments as means of building the ecclesial unity, as will be shown in this chapter. Also, the

same sacramental logic is operational in subsequent works, for instance in Esquisses du mystère

de l’Église (1941) and in Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église (1950) (this time from the point

of view of reform in the Church). All these facts show the continuity of Congar’s thought.

However, in Chrétiens désunis there is data that signals a development. First, there is an

inherent tension between the visible unity and the invisible unity. At times Congar emphasizes

the inner unity to the extent that one has the impression that the institution is subordinated to the

invisible unity and that there is a dichotomy between them.20 This certainly is not Congar’s

19 Hervé Legrand: “Yves Congar (1904-1995) : Une passion pour l’unité. Note sur ses intuitions et son

herméneutique œcuménique, à l’occasion du centenaire de sa naissance,” in “Nouvelle revue théologique” 4 vol.

126 (2004), (529-554), at 539: “For Congar ecumenical work could not therefore be a specialization to ensure the

management of our relations with other Christians: it must be a dimension of the whole life of the Church.”

20 For instance, Congar, Divided Christendom, 24: “The Church as ‘Institution’ is the instrument of the

Church as ‘mystical Body’.” Famerée also notes that Congar’s “formulation …induces the idea of a descent of the

celestial realities in a terrestrial Church, and, therefore, a certain dualism.” L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 54-56, at

55.

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intention. He states repeatedly and clearly that there are not two Churches.21 But the tension

between institution and the internal nature of the Church continues to exist. Later he solved this

tension by shifting his interest on catholicity: by understanding catholicity as an enrichment of

unity, the visible unity does not appear as subordinated to the invisible unity. His understanding

of unity evolved, thus, slowly towards communion. However, that inherent tension can be

considered a cause of the development of Congar’s thought.

Second, unity of the Church is based on the life of the Trinity; the source of unity is not

the one nature of God, but the Trinity. Congar explained this difference later, when he explicitly

based unity on the perichoresis of persons (“Le Saint Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs

de l’oeuvre du Christ,” 1952), and when his ecclesiological model became trinitarian, with

emphasis on the Spirit’s co-institutive role, in his final works (I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 1979).

Nonetheless, this development would not have been the same, had he not based ecclesial unity

on the life of the Trinity, and not on the one nature of God.

There is further and stronger evidence pointing to this development in a short observation

of Congar. When he states that the divine life of the Trinity is communicated to people through

grace, he adds: “St. Thomas explains this with great force and beauty when he makes the ‘divine

processions’ the principal cause of the divine ‘missions,’ that is of the gift and presence of God

by grace. All this bears upon a very profound doctrine which we have no space to deal with

here. […] Faith and charity are the effects respectively of the double procession of knowledge

21 Congar, Divided Christendom, 80 and 82.

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and love.”22 Congar developed fully this subject later, in I Believe in the Holy Spirit (1979-80).23

But in 1937, he mentions in passing the “great force and beauty” of the doctrine of divine

processions and missions. To develop this doctrine implied to define more clearly and

extensively the roles of Christ and the Spirit. This meant ultimately a more developed

pneumatology. It seems that Congar was aware of the need for a stronger pneumatological

dimension in ecclesiology as early as 1937, even though the details regarding the precise role of

the Spirit remained to be worked out.

A reason why Congar did not elaborate on the doctrine of divine processions and

missions could be the lack of time and the concrete circumstances of that moment. In 1937,

Congar founded the collection Unam Sanctam. His intention was to open the series with the

work of Johann Adam Möhler, Die Einheit in der Kirche (1825) but due to delays in the

translation into French, Congar decided to publish his Chrétiens désunis.24 So, first, Congar did

not have the time needed to elaborate on the doctrine of the divine missions.

Second, Congar said in 1963: “I am very conscious of the limitations and defects of

Chrétiens désunis […] At the time I was still too close to scholastic Thomism.”25 Yet despite of

those defects, in 1965 there was a republication of the first edition of Chrétiens désunis in

22 Ibid., 55-56. The references to Aquinas are in I Sent, d. 14 and ST Ia, q. 43.

23 Congar, I Believe, vol 2, 7-12; vol. 3, 11-17.

24 Congar, Preface to Dialogue Between Christians, 24; IDEM, Jean Puyo interroge, 48.

25 Congar, Preface to Dialogue Between Christians, 24. For some of the reasons for departure from

scholastics, see below, Chapter IV, p. 222.

107

facsimile, without any change.26 It is hard to believe that was done without Congar’s approval.

Congar had written a second edition of Chrétiens désunis in 1947-48, which was never

published. He made over a hundred changes and rewrote completely two chapters.27 After he

finished the work on August 4, 1948, he waited for two years for the nihil obstat from two

Dominican censors. One of them demanded some changes but they were not specified. Also,

the ecumenical situation changed after the foundation of the World Council of Churches in

Amsterdam (August 22 – September 4, 1948). Under these circumstances, Congar gave up the

idea of publishing his new edition of Chrétiens désunis, thinking that he might have to wait a

year or two to find out if his text was approved, and after that he needed to make the corrections

required by censors.28 It is helpful to know Congar’s own assessment of the second edition

which remained unpublished:

I therefore gave up the idea of a new edition, although I have often been asked for one

since. From Rome itself, I have been repeatedly told that there would no longer be any

difficulty, but I myself no longer wish to republish it. Certainly there is much in the book

that is still of value but these portions I now see differently and more clearly. The

situation of ecumenism has altered too much. The book has had its effects.29

The factors that played a part in Congar’s decision not to publish a second edition were

the historical circumstances (the delay from the censors), the change of the ecumenical state of

affairs, and a change in Congar’s own view on how to present better the unity of the Church.

26 Jossua, Le Père Congar, 31.

27 Congar, Preface to Dialogue Between Christians, 35.

28 Ibid., 35.

29 Ibid., 36.

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In conclusion, Congar’s perspective on the Church in 1937 was sacramental, with a

strong emphasis on unity perceived as the life of the Trinity communicated through created

grace. This ecclesiological model is basically Christological, or more precisely incarnational.

However, there is evidence that points to a movement toward a more pneumatological model.

This evidence could be classified in three categories: first, an inbuilt tendency in the model itself:

the inherent tension between invisible and visible unity—this led to a definition of the Church as

communion; and the source of unity based on the life of the Trinity—this led eventually Congar

to a more elaborate thinking of the roles of Christ and the Spirit. Second, from a subjective point

of view of the writer of Chrétiens désunis, there is strong evidence of Congar’s awareness of a

need for a more pneumatological dimension in his explicit mention of the doctrine of divine

missions. Third, the historical circumstances also contribute to development: the change of the

ecumenical situation led Congar to “see differently and more clearly.” Congar’s ecclesiological

model remained mainly Christological in his early writings, but in time and under the influence

of other factors, it became more pneumatological.

“Je crois en la Sainte Église” (1938)30

Congar wrote this article on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the German

theologian Johan Adam Möhler (1796-1838). Congar acknowledged that he was introduced to

Möhler by Chenu, but he “has not really read him [Möhler] until 1937, in preparation of the

30 Congar, “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” in Sainte Église, 9-17, originally published in “Revue des Jeunes”

(January 1938): 85–92.

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studies for his centenary.”31 Möhler’s most important works were two ecclesiological books:

Die Einheit32 (1825)—from a pneumatological perspective, and Symbolik33 (1832)—from a

Christological perspective. In Die Einheit Möhler presents the Church as a living organism that

derives its life and unity from the Holy Spirit. This is an inspiration for Congar who writes: “She

[the Church] is a living whole, realized by the Holy Spirit.”34 There are two closely connected

aspects that Congar emphasizes: on the one hand, the Spirit dwells in and animates all members

of the Church, uniting them in the body of Christ; he is the soul of the Church. On the other

hand, the life of the Spirit is given “only in the Church;” the Church being “the life of fraternal

communion” or “the condition and the vital context (milieu)” of all Christians. 35

Möhler inspired Congar in other areas as well. His works offered Congar a way of

revalorization of resources by returning to the Fathers.36 Möhler, whom Congar considered “a

prophetic man,” provided a model for a response to the modernist crisis.37 Congar does not


32 Johan Adam Möhler, Die Einheit in der Kirche oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus dargestellt im Geiste

der Kirchenväter der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Tübingen: Heinrich Laupp, 1825), trans. by Peter C. Erb as Unity in

the Church or the Principle of Catholicism Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three

Centuries (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

33 Möhler, Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken und Protestanten nach

ihren offentlichen Bekenntnisschriften (Mainz, 1832), trans. by James Burton Robertson as Symbolism or Exposition

of the Doctrinal Differences Between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by their Symbolical Writings (New

York: Crossroad, 1997).

34 Congar, “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” in Sainte Église, 13.

35 Ibid., 13. Emphasis original.

36 Ibid. 12; IDEM, “L’Esprit des Péres d’aprés Moeler” Supplement to La Vie Spirituelle 55 (April 1938),

1-25, republished in Esquisses du mystère de l'Église, 1st ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1941), 129-48.


110

specify which are the issues of the modernists which Möhler treats in anticipation. Rose Beal

thinks that “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.”38

In short, due to the influence of Möhler,39 Congar became more sensitive to a unity

understood as “fraternal communion.” Later he defines unity as communion. Also, under

Möhler’s inspiration Congar became more open to the need to engage theological issues from a

point of view of the subjectivity of his readers. This openness became clearer later, for instance

in “Unité, Diversités et Divisions” (1961).40 Finally and most importantly, the influence of

Möhler’s’ book Die Einheit led Congar to develop a more pneumatological theology. As noted

before, Nichols states that “Congar’s ecclesiology, in sharp contrast to that of his original

inspiration, Möhler, became less Christological and more pneumatic as he grew older.”41

Other Early Writings

Other writings of Congar in the period 1937-1941 express the same view. In “L’Église et

son unité”42 (“The Church and its Unity)” the Church is the body of Christ in which the Spirit

38 Beal, Mystery of the Church, 40.

39 Congar acknowledges that his appreciation of Möhler grew “in time” (Journal d’un theologien, 60).

40 Yves Congar, “Unité, Diversités et Divisions,” in Sainte Église, 105-130. For more details, see below,

Chapter IV, pp. 181-84.

41 Aidan Nichols, Yves Congar, 61.

42 Congar, “L’Église et son unité” in Esquisses du mystère de l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1941; 2nd ed, 1953),

trans. as The Mystery of the Church, 2nd rev. ed. (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1965). The text was written in

1937.

111

“works inwardly”43 and “vivifies the Spouse of Christ.”44 Between 1940 and 1945 Congar was a

prisoner of war. He described those years as a time of “fellowship of courageous men in an

atmosphere of resistance which was a great tonic. I then began to realize that one of the most

important things in life […] is to seek our men of courage and enlightenment with whom one can

associate and keep faith. In this respect I was overwhelmed for I had some wonderful friends

and comrades.”45 One can observe an openness toward the world that lived outside the Church.

Later Congar said that in 1963 he discovered that “the future of the Church is linked with the

future of the world.”46

When he returned from captivity, he discovered that during the years 1946 and 1947

France was living a great time of liberty in which “men sought to regain evangelical contact with

[the] world.”47 Congar assessed that the captivity was not a loss of time. “Although I had been

isolated for five years […], I was nevertheless attuned to the various directions [theology] had

taken: the biblical movement, the liturgical movement […], the revival of the Christian

community, missionary work as exemplified by the worker-priests and the search on the part of

the clergy for a theology which would clarify the genuine demands of apostolate.”48

43 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 35.

44 Ibid., 49.


46 Ibid., 32 and n.19.

47 Ibid. 32. Jossua calls this discovery of Congar as a task to “Rejoindre évangéliquement le monde”

(“Rejoin evangelically the world”) (Le Père Congar, 29-30).


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Under the influence of these factors, Congar’s understanding of unity must have changed:

it became more sensitive to the world, to missionary work and diversity. Congar never

understood unity as uniformity, but after 1946-1947, he became increasingly attentive to

diversity and even defined the visible unity of the Church as communion. In Vraie et fausse

réforme he writes: “The Church has its structure, which she receives from her constitutive

elements; but once structured, she lives and the believers live in her, in unity. The Church is not

only a frame, an apparatus (“appareil”), an institution: she is a communion.”49 It should be

added that besides “communion,” Congar employs two other images that were already “for long

time in [his] mind: people of God and body of Christ.”50 It is true that his ecclesiological view

remains basically sacramental (by the use of the dialectical pair of structure and life) and

Christological (Christ founded the structure of the Church which “precedes” the life which the

Spirit animates)51. But structure and life should not be opposed too much: they constitute

together the Church as communion. Congar’s understanding of unity was moving forward

toward a vision of communion in which both Christ and the Spirit had balanced roles. This

theme is treated now.

49 Congar, Avertissment to Vraie et fausse réforme, 8. The text is part of the first French edition (published

in 1950, but written in 1946 or 1947, and the final draft in 1949). The English translation as True and False Reform

is done from the second edition (1968) and therefore does not include the Avertissment.

50 Congar, Avertissment to Vraie et fausse réforme, 7.

51 Congar, True and False Reform, 85. Emphasis original.

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B. The Turning Point: Towards a More Pneumatological Approach

This section examines what can be called a turning point in Congar’s theological

approach regarding the unity and the role of the Spirit. This middle stage is not in opposition

with his early stance, however there is progress especially with regard to the mission of the

Spirit.

“Le Saint-Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ” (“The Holy Spirit

and the Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ”) (1952-53)52

In this essay Congar treats explicitly the roles of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church

in a more elaborated way. This theme is important for all the notes of the Church, so it is treated

in all subsequent chapters. This particular essay is especially important for the apostolic ministry

in the Church, so it is analyzed in Chapter V in more detail. From the point of view of unity, it is

important to note that here Congar considers the perichoresis of divine persons as the source for

ecclesial unity. When Congar speaks about the works or missions of Christ and of the Spirit, he

notices that their works are so homogenous in content and purpose that the work of the Spirit can

be identified with the presence of Christ. And then Congar adds: “Our own conviction is, though

we cannot argue it here, [...] that indeed the equivalence of action of Christ and the Spirit can

only be explained ultimately by the profound Trinitarian concepts of the perfect consubstantiality

52 Congar, “Le Saint Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ,” in Esquisses du

mystère de l’Église. Unam Sanctam 8, 2d. ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1953), first published in Revue des sciences

philosophiques et théologiques 36 (1952): 613-25 and 37 (1953): 24-48. Translated as “The Holy Spirit and the

Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ,” in The Mystery of the Church, 2d. ed. (Baltimore: Helicon

Press, 1965), 105-145.

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of the divine Persons, their circumincession and perichoresis.”53 If this is true about any work of

Christ and of the Spirit, it is true also about the unity of the Church. In the view of the present

author, this represents an important development of what Congar said in passing in Chrétiens

désunis: that the unity of the Church should be understood in the light of the divine processions

and missions.54 The progress from Chrétiens désunis is not in a new definition of ecclesial unity

(there is no ground-breaking definition of unity) but in a more elaborate exposition of the works

of Christ and the Spirit. In this essay Congar treats this topic more extensively.

The missions of Christ and the Spirit can be summarized as following.

The mission of the Incarnate Word gives to each individual soul, as it gave to the Church,

existence in the new order of creation; it set up the structure of the Church and

established an objective salvation with the various sources of grace and truth. The

mission of the Holy Spirit makes these all fructify, gives the body of the Church its soul

and brings the saving gifts to fulfilment.55

The missions of Christ and the Spirit are thus distinctive, even though they work together.

Furthermore, the mission of the Spirit is dependent on the mission of Christ (Christ sends the

Spirit in John 15:26; 16:17).56 Also, Congar notes the catholic doctrine according to which the

“dependence in the sphere of the temporal ‘economy’ supposes a dependence in that of eternal

existence.”57 The distinction of missions of Christ and of the Spirit, and the relation between the

53 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 108.



56 Ibid., 110.

57 Ibid., 110-111.

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missions and processions brought fruit in Congar’s later works (I Believe and The Word and the

Spirit) where his Christology and pneumatology are balanced.

Finally, the distinction between the missions of Christ and the Holy Spirit led Congar to

affirm a free sector of the Holy Spirit with regard to the institutions of the Church (not to the

work of Christ), because he works also through charisms and unpredictable events.58 The issue

fits better and is treated in Chapter V since is related to the apostolicity of the Church. However,

from a pneumatological perspective it shows a turning point: Congar wanted so much to explain

the proper mission of the Spirit that he overstated it.59 Therefore, this section is titled a turning

point in pneumatology. But this struggle to explain the proper mission of the Spirit eventually

led Congar to assert the role of the Spirit as co-institutor of the Church, together with Christ, in a

trinitarian perspective.

Le Christ, Marie et l’Église (Christ, Our Lady and the Church) (1951-52)60

Congar wrote this book to commemorate the fifteenth centenary of the Council of

Chalcedon (451). The first part of this work was initially published as an article in 1951, and the

whole work was published a year later.61 Writing on the occasion of the commemoration of the

Council of Chalcedon, which defined the doctrine of hypostatic union of the two natures of

58 Ibid., 132-145.

59 For Congar’s “retractatio” of this position, see above, Chapter II, p. 89.

60 Yves Congar, Christ, Our Lady and the Church. A Study in Eirenic Theology, trans. and introd. Henry

St. John (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1957), originally published as Le Christ, Marie et l’Église. (Paris:

Desclée, 1952).

61 Yves Congar, “Marie, l’Église et le Christ. Pour une celebration oecuménique du concile de

Chalcédoine,” in Vie Intellectuelle, II (1951): 6-22 and 67-88, reprinted in Le Christ, Marie et l’Église, 9-53.

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Christ in one person of the Word, Congar draws an analogy (with similarities and differences)

between the incarnation and the Church. His intention was to engage an ecumenical dialogue

regarding the nature of the Church. Congar’s presentation of the Church is, naturally,

Christological and sacramental since it is based on the hypostatic union. However, from the

point of view of unity and the role of the Spirit Congar makes interesting remarks.

The Church is presented not only as founded by Jesus Christ. “The Church is the actual

realization, here and now, of the New Covenant between God and man. By the operation from

within it of the Holy Spirit, and through the external action of the Apostolic authority conferred

upon it by Christ, the power of his redemption is made available to mankind.”62 What is relevant

here is that the Church is built up by an actuality of the work of the Holy Spirit in time. The

Church has a divine origin by the gift of Pentecost.63 The unity of the Church, therefore, derives

from the work of Christ and the Spirit.

The importance of the actuality of the work of the Holy Spirit (or his ongoing action)

becomes more evident when one notices that it is made within a perspective that is strongly

Christological. Even when Congar wrote with the clear purpose to show the importance of the

incarnation for the Church (and consequently of the visible dimension of the Church), he stated

the continuous and internal role of the Holy Spirit.

Two points can be concluded from this presentation of Le Christ, Marie et l’Église. First,

in this period of his career, Congar was preoccupied to define the missions of Christ and of the

62 Congar, Christ, Our Lady and the Church, 55.

63 Ibid., 56.

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Holy Spirit. This interest brought further development in his understanding of the Spirit and his

role in the Church. Second, he continues to use a Christological and incarnational model in his

ecclesiology during this time. As said in the beginning of Part II of this dissertation, there is a

middle period of Congar’s career—beginning approximately in 1952-53, and ending with the

council—in which Congar still uses a Christological model for the Church (the structure comes

from Christ) even though he is interested in affirming the mission of the Spirit at the same time.

Trying to emphasize the mission of the Spirit within a Christological model seems a little

puzzling; but it shows the fact that Congar was searching to define more clearly the mission of

the Spirit. In the end, it points toward a development in Congar’s pneumatology and also in his

ecclesiology. In his later works, he describes the Church as the work of the two hands of God,

equally important.64

Other Writings

Some other writings from this period related to unity and the Holy Spirit are as following.

Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Lay People in the Church) (1953),65 where the Spirit

animates the Church’s communal life. “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église” (“The Holy Spirit in the

Church”) (1953),66 where the Spirit is the principle of renewal and adaptation in conformity with

64 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 9, the expression is taken from Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, V, 6, 1; V, 28, 4.

65 Yves Congar, Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Paris: Cerf, 1953). trans. as Lay People in the Church:

A Study for a Theology of the Laity, rev. ed., trans. Donald Attwater (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1965).

Scholars mention that the communitarian wholeness of the Church in Jalons is taken from Alexei Khomiakov’s

theology of sobornost (Beal, The Mystery of the Church, 42). See also Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy

Spirit, 47.

66 Yves Congar, “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Lumiere et Vie, June 1953: 51-74. “The Holy Spirit in the

Church,” in The Revelation of God, trans. A. Manson and L.C. Sheppard (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968).

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the unity of the whole Church. La Pentecȏte – Chartres 1956,67 where Congar says that the

Church was born during Jesus’ life and that Pentecost laid the foundation of the Church’s

universality. La Tradition et les traditions (Tradition and Traditions), (1960; 1963)68 where the

Spirit is the transcendent subject of tradition.

Factors that Influenced Congar’s Ecclesiological and Pneumatological Development

At the end of the year 1963, Congar wrote the Preface to his book Chrétiens en dialogue

(Dialogue Between Christians) which was published the following year.69 He concludes this

Preface, titled “Appels et acheminements” (“The Call and the Quest 1929-1963”), by indicating

some achievements in the ecumenical movement. Many of the Catholic discoveries can be

considered Congar’s personal achievements, in a double way: he contributed to those discoveries

in the Catholic Church (especially in ecclesiology), and they were steps of his theological

journey (the second part of the text quoted below most likely refers to his personal discoveries).

After all, he identified himself with the cause of ecumenism. Some of these discoveries were

already noted in this chapter, and they were identified as factors that influenced Congar’s

ecclesiology and pneumatology. At the end of this section dedicated to the transitional period of

67 Yves Congar, La Pentecȏte – Chartres 1956, (Paris: Cerf, 1956), trans. as “The Church and Pentecost,”

in The Mystery of the Church, 146-198.

68 Yves Congar, La Tradition et les traditions: Essai historique (Paris: Fayard, 1960) and La Tradition et

les traditions: Essai théologique (Paris: Fayard, 1963). Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and Theological

Essay trans. Michael Nasby and Thomas Rainborough (London: Burns and Oates, 1966).


(Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1966), originally published as Chrétiens en dialogue. Contributions catholiques

à l’Oecumenisme, Unam Sanctam 50 (Paris, Cerf, 1964).

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his work, it is helpful to quote almost entirely Congar’s text in order to offer an even broader

image of his development.

At the same time there has been a rediscovery on our part of evangelical truth of

many realities, whose substance we have preserved but whose meaning we have partially

forgotten, even though this meaning is eminently traditional. With what is this

concerned? With nothing less than the source and foundation of faith, of the Church, of

worship, of the climate of moral life, of the content of preaching, of the status and role of

the faithful, of the relation of the Church to the world, in short of all the most important

things. We have largely begun to rediscover the Bible, and the part of the Word in

worship. In ecclesiology we have progressed from a predominantly juridical conception

of the Church to an understanding of the Church as the people of God and the Body of

Christ; the faithful have been restored to their full status as active members of the people

of God, […] witnesses to the Gospel and missionaries. […] The Council is intent upon

recognizing the sacramental basis and structure of the Church as transcending the purely

juridical aspect; in its teaching on the episcopacy it shows that the priesthood is in itself

pastoral and apostolic and a ministry of the Gospel. […]

Many other individual discoveries or rediscoveries deserve mention. Let it suffice

to cite here a major example of wide general significance: the discovery of the ‘others’;

rediscovery of the eastern tradition; the beginnings of a rediscovery of the Reform; a

wide awareness of the modern ‘secular’ world. It is a mass sortie from the ghetto, which

could also be called an emergence from the era of Constantine or of the Counter-

Reformation with its largely polemical outlook. All this is under way and from it

vigorous and long-lasting seed has been sown.70

C. Late Works: The Unity Brought About by the Holy Spirit is Communion

In Ministères et communion ecclésiale (1971), Congar states that “The last centuries have

bequeathed us a rigid understanding of unity.”71 He refers to an understanding of unity which

absorbs the differences. He continues then: “Christianity is fundamentally a call and Jesus […]

leaves anyone free to give his answer. […] This will engage us in an understanding of the

70 Ibid. 50-51.

71 Yves Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 246.

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Church as communion and, even more radically in a rediscovery of pneumatology.”72 This

section treats the relationship between the Church understood as communion and the Holy Spirit.

In his late works, Congar’s understanding of communion is based on the mutual

relationship between Christology and pneumatology. The Church is the fruit of the two divine

missions, of the incarnate Word and of the Holy Spirit who work together. Ecclesial unity comes

from Christ and from the Holy Spirit, who is the co-instituting principle of the Church. Yet the

role of the Spirit in making the Church one is to unite to Christ or, more precisely, to make her

the body of Christ. This section on the late writing of Congar will present in two subsections his

perspective regarding the role of Holy Spirit in the realization of the Church’s unity. The first

subsection will describe ecclesial unity as a communion with the Trinity, with Christ and with

each other, which does not exclude a certain diversity. The second subsection will explain how

the Holy Spirit is the active transcendent principle of this ecclesial unity and how his unifying

activity is mediated in and through human historical realities. Methodologically, the first section

will focus on two fragments of I Believe in the Holy Spirit.73 The presentation will organize and

relate the material more systematically than Congar’s own discussion. Thus, the organization

which follows is my own, arranged for the purpose of showing more clearly the work of the Holy

Spirit in making the Church one. The second subsection will use L’Église: Une, Sainte,

Catholique et Apostolique.

72 Ibid., 247-48. Emphasis original.

73 Volume two, part one of this work (5-64): The Holy Spirit brings about a three-fold communion which is

unity as participation in Trinity, in Christ and communion of saints. Also volume three, part two: The Holy Spirit

realizes this communion through mediated realities—grace and sacraments.

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Congar understands the unity of the Church as a communion with God, Christ, and one

another, brought about by the Holy Spirit. This communion includes diversity because the

mystery of God is infinitely rich and also because those who participate in this mystery are

communities of different people, languages, cultures, theologies, and gifts. Unity and diversity

are two dialectical dimensions of the Church, which the Holy Spirit brings together in the Church

as communion.

1. The Holy Spirit Brings about Communion in Diversity

The Holy Spirit Brings about Communion

The work of the Holy Spirit in making the Church one can be best understood by

discussing the Church’s unity. Congar begins his discussion of the Holy Spirit as “co-

instituting” principle of the Church by grounding ecclesial unity in the communion of the

Trinity. The Church is one because God is one. The Church is “the culmination and the fruit, in

the creature, of the very life of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”74 Congar’s

understanding of divine unity accentuates not so much the oneness of the divine nature as the

unity of the divine persons—that is, the divine circumcession. It has been shown in the first

chapter that for Congar the self-communication of God outside himself takes place in a manner

according to the immanent relations within the Trinity. Thus, the Father communicates himself

in the world as the source of divine life. The Son communicates himself to the world as the one

who receives life from the Father and together with the Father gives the Spirit. The Holy Spirit

communicates himself in the economy of salvation as the bond of love between the Father and


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the Son. It follows that God’s unity communicated to creatures is based on the unity of the

divine Persons. Congar concludes: “The unity that is peculiar to the Church has its reality in the

Church itself, but it has its foundation in God. In Scripture, the Church is again and again related

to the absolute oneness of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.”75 The Church’s unity is first of all a

participation in tri-unity of God.

The agent of the unity between God and his people is the Holy Spirit. “By appropriation

[…] the Holy Spirit is the subject who brings about everything that depends on grace or, as C.

Journet said, the supreme and transcendent effective personality of the Church.”76 A short

explanation of what Congar means by appropriation and how he uses it is needed.

“Appropriation” means that a certain attribute or quality of God or a certain activity of God in

the economy of salvation is considered more aptly to be applied to one of the persons of the

Trinity on the basis of some sort of similarity between that attribute or activity and the person to

whom it is appropriated. The intent is to point to the distinction of persons, either by showing

the difference of personal attributes or the distinction of the divine activities in the economy.

Appropriation is found in the early creeds and liturgy, and in the West is established by the

Fathers of the fourth and fifth century.77 The use of appropriation is debatable because it assigns

75 Ibid., 20. Congar gives multiple references to Charles Journet. L’Église du Verbe incarne (Paris: Desclée

de Brouwer, 1951). In English one of these references is in Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate: An Essay in

Speculative Theology, trans. A.H.C. Downes, vol. 1 (London-New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 402-3.

76 Ibid., 20. The references to Journet are from L’Église du Verbe incarne, vol 2, 96, 232-34, 490, 508.

77 According to George Sauvage, ("Appropriation," in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York:

Robert Appleton Company, 1907), some of the Fathers who use appropriation are: Hilary, De Trinitate, II, n. 1; P.L.,

t. X, col. 50; Augustine, De Trinitate, VI, x, P.L., t. XLII, col. 931; Leo the Great, Sermo de Pentecoste, LXXVI, iii,

P.L., t. LIV, col. 405.

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to a person explicit causality in the economy of salvation even though the action belongs to all

three persons of the Trinity.

Congar’s position regarding appropriation is ambivalent. “This procedure has both

strength and weaknesses: it is suggestive, but at the same time it is open to criticism; it comes

near to poetry, it fosters prayer; it is close to Scripture, but is not entirely satisfactory in the

rational sense.”78 On the one hand, for him appropriation is not satisfactory because “we cannot

clarify it or say with certainty that there is an attribute peculiar to that one Person that would

exclude the other Persons from what is appropriated to the one.”79 On the other hand, Congar

himself uses appropriation in his early works. He appropriates to the Spirit the work of

communion between God and his Church: “With the help of the Bible we can (as the early

Fathers did) apportion the various parts of God’s work among the divine persons of the Blessed

Trinity […]. His particular part [Holy Spirit’s] is to bring to the heart of each one of us the work

that Christ did objectively for all.”80 Congar makes this appropriation on the basis of the fact

that the Spirit is the bond of the “inter-flow of life” between the persons of the Trinity. As early

as 1954, Congar appropriates to the Holy Spirit also the efficacy of the “major (institutional)

operations of the apostolic body—the celebration of the sacraments, the solemn definitions of

faith” and the work of “divinization” or of our return to the Father.81 He is careful to maintain a


79 Ibid.

80 Yves Congar, “Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Freedom”, address delivered in 1958, published in Laity,

Church and the World, at 17-18. Originally published as Si vous êtes mes témoins (Paris: Cerf: 1959).

81 Yves Congar, The Mystery of the Temple or God’s Presence to His Creatures from Genesis to

Apocalypse, trans. Reginald Travett (London: Burns and Oates, 1962), 288-89. For a more extended explanation of

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cautious balance: he mentions that the appropriation of these works to the Spirit does not exclude

the role of the other two persons and at the same time appropriation is not a “mere empty phrase”

but “it means that the fact of self-giving which applies to the Three Persons corresponds in a

mysterious way with what is proper to the Person of the Holy Spirit and to his order in the

eternal Processions.”82

In I Believe in the Holy Spirit Congar uses again the theory of appropriation with regard

to the work of the Spirit. While the three persons of the Trinity act as one in the economy of

salvation, every divine Person communicates himself to creatures in a way that carries his

hypostatic mark or according to the peculiar way in which each possesses the Godhead.83 The

Holy Spirit is the bond of unity between the Father and the Son. “The Holy Spirit is the one in

whom they are united, in whom they receive each other, in whom they communicate with one

another, and in whom they rest.”84 Because the Holy Spirit communicates himself carrying his

hypostatic mark as the unity between the Father and the Son, the realization of unity between

God and his people is appropriated to the Holy Spirit. Congar says that the inclination in God to

go outside himself and to unite creation with himself is attributed more properly to the Holy

the use of appropriation see 285-289. Originally published as Le Mystère du Temple ou l’Économie de la Presence

de Dieu à sa creature de la Genèse à l’Apocalypse, Lectio Divina, 22, (Paris: Cerf, 1958)—the book was written in

1954.

82 Ibid., 285 and 287. Emphasis original.


84 Ibid., 148.

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Spirit.85 In conclusion, for Congar the unity of the Church is first of all a communion in the very

divine life brought about by the Holy Spirit’s self-communication of his own personal mystery.

The unity given by the Spirit has not only a trinitarian character but also a Christological

one. The role of the Spirit is to form Christ in each Christian and to make all of them, together

and with each other, the body of Christ. Congar notices that the Fathers of the Church considered

the Spirit as the soul of the Church, since the soul gives life and unity to all members in the

human body.86 The analogy of soul and body borrows from the activity of the soul in the body—

to give life and to make all parts be of the one whole. Similarly, the Holy Spirit communicates

the life of Christ to all Christians and makes them members of the one body of Christ, the

Church.

As soul of the Church, the Holy Spirit is transcendent and immanent in the Church at the

same time. This double way of presence opens a theological debate: how can the Spirit be

immanent and transcendent at the same time?87 For Congar, the Spirit is always transcendent

and thus he is the ultimate principle of the Church’s unity. Yet the Spirit is immanent because he

85 Ibid.,149.

86 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 19. Here Congar does not give any specific reference; he just mentions “the

Fathers.” However, in other instances where he compares the Spirit’s activity with the role of the soul, he quotes

Augustin Sermo 267, 4 (PL 38, 1231) and Sermo 268, 2 (PL38, 1232-1233). See I Believe, vol. 1, 154, 158 n.20.

87 Charles Journet identifies two souls in the Church. One is the created soul which consists in gifts and

graces; the other one is the uncreated soul which is the Holy Spirit (Theologie de l’Église, new ed., Paris: Desclée,

1987,100-103). Congar remarks that other theologians do not accept these terms (Ernest Mura, Le Corps mystique

du Christ. Sa nature et sa vie divine. Synthèse de théologie dogmatique, ascétique et mystique, deux. éd., Paris:

Blot, 1937, quoted by Congar in Sainte Église, 503). They prefer to use the concept “formal principles” of the

Church instead of “uncreated soul,” reserving the term soul of the Church only to the Holy Spirit. Congar claims that

the debate is more verbal than real, and that he would use the terms of both opinions, although keeping a preference

for the language of Journet (Sainte Église, 504).

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works in the Church through created realities of grace, which are created principles of the

Church’s unity.

The point of the analogy of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church is that, as the Spirit

is present actively in Christ, the head of the body, so too is the same Spirit active in us, the

members of the mystical body. Congar draws from Aquinas to express the reality of the Holy

Spirit’s presence in Christ, the head, and in the Church, his body. Congar first shows that for

Aquinas “the personal grace, whereby the soul of Christ is justified, is essentially the same as His

grace, as He is the Head of the Church, and justifies others.”88 That personal grace of Christ was

communicated through created grace to Christians. Created grace was a consequence of his

hypostatic union and also was necessary so that the humanity of Christ could be active in the

Church. The effects of that created grace differ in each believer. Congar points to this

difference: “If there is a communication of the fullness of grace from Christ to those members,

that is to ourselves, it is only in a specific sense and not in an identical and numerical sense that

the grace is the same.”89 Secondly, Congar indicates that according to Aquinas the principle of

that communication of grace is the Holy Spirit: “the first and uncreated principle of that grace is

idem numero, identically the same, in Christ and in ourselves.”90

Congar fundamentally accepts Thomas’ explanation. For Congar, the ultimate

transcendent source of the Church’s unity is the same Holy Spirit, “personally identical in all

88 Thomas Aquinas, ST IIIa, q8. a. 5. Congar does not quote verbatim Aquinas, but he gives a reference to

the above quotation in The Word and the Spirit, 86.


90 Ibid., Congar quotes Aquinas, In III Sent. d. 13, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2; q. 2 a. 2.

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men and in them the transcendent principle of unity.”91 As with Thomas, Congar holds that there

is also a created principle that unites believers with each other and with God. This principle is

charity which is one and unique because of its object, namely, God. In other words, the same

Holy Spirit dwells by charity in both the head of the body and the members, and makes that

charity flow from the head into the body. The Spirit is like the soul of the Church, animating and

uniting her with Christ’s own charity. However, Congar is careful to point out that this “soul

does not form a substantial unity with the body in which it dwells and which it animates.”92 That

is why the Church is the body of Christ and not of the Spirit.

Congar notes that the idea of the Spirit as the soul of the Church was taken up by Pius

XII.93 The role of the Spirit as the Church’s soul is also explicitly described by the Second

Vatican Council: “In order that we might be unceasingly renewed in him (see Eph 4:23), he has

shared with us his Spirit who […] gives life to, unifies, and moves the whole body.

Consequently, his work could be compared by the Fathers to the function that the principle of

life, the soul, fulfils in the human body.”94 In conclusion, the unity of the Church is a


92 Ibid.

93 Ibid., Congar refers to numbers 54 and 77. But the best reference to the Spirit as the soul of the Church

is at number 57. Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis, (Boston: Pauline, 1943), #57: “To this Spirit of

Christ, also, as to an invisible principle is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the Body are joined one with the

other and with their exalted Head; for He is entire in the Head, entire in the Body, and entire in each of the members.

[…] It is He who, while He is personally present and divinely active in all the members […] Finally, while by His

grace He provides for the continual growth of the Church. […] This presence and activity of the Spirit of Jesus

Christ is tersely and vigorously described by Our predecessor of immortal memory Leo XIII in his Encyclical

Letter Divinum Illud in these words: "Let it suffice to say that, as Christ is the Head of the Church, so is the Holy

Spirit her soul.” (no.6).

94 Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, ed. by Austin Flannery, new

rev. ed., (New York: Costello Publishing Company; Dublin: Dominican Publications,1998), 7.

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communion with Christ in his body, whose soul is the Holy Spirit as the cause and the personal

source of the unity of the Church.

This presence of the Holy Spirit in the faithful makes them one community. The unity

wrought by the Holy Spirit is also a communion of the saints themselves. Congar points out that

this truth of faith, the communio sanctorum, is strictly ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the creeds.

He is the one who makes Christians conscious of being a part of the whole body. The Holy

Spirit is the true principle for Christians to behave “as part of an undivided people,” as Cajetan

says.95 Congar stresses the importance for Christians not only to be in Christ but also to be in

communion with his entire body. The communion of saints means for Congar that the Holy

Spirit makes each Christian a member of an organic whole. It is to live and behave “as thinking

and desiring in the spirit and the heart of all,” as Congar likes to quote Möhler.96

The communion of saints consists not only in having the same spirit and heart together

with the whole Church, but also in the communication of spiritual goods between them, which

expresses their love for and unity with each other. Little children, for example, receive faith

through this communion of saints in the whole Church.97 Following the Fathers and Thomas

95 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 18. Here Congar quotes Cajetan’s commentary on Thomas Aquinas, Comm. in

IIam IIae, q.39, a. 1.

96 Congar, I Believe, vol 2, 18 quotes Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctrinal

Differences Between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by Their Symbolical Writings, trans. by James Burton

Robertson, (New York: Crossroad Herder, 1997), 260.

97 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 22 n 15. Congar refers to the text of St. Thomas—who is quoting Augustine

(Letter 98 to Boniface, 5)—ST IIIa, q. 68, a. 9, ad. 2. “Little children are offered [for baptism] that they receive

grace in their souls, not so much from the hands of those that carry them (yet from these too, if they be good and

faithful), as from the whole company of the saints and faithful. For they are rightly considered to be offered by

those who are pleased at their being offered, and by whose charity they are united in communion with the Holy

Ghost.”

129

Aquinas, Congar states that the communication of spiritual goods is the work of the Holy

Spirit.98 For Congar, the communio sanctorum is both a communion of holy people (sancti et

sanctae) and of holy things (sancta).99

The communion of saints goes beyond the limits of time and space, because it is the work

of the Spirit. The Spirit makes present the words and acts of Jesus Christ in the sacraments (for

this reason Congar calls the Spirit “the memory” of the Church) and orients her toward the future

(the Spirit is the eschatological gift of God).100 As memory, “the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit

whom the Father will send in my name [Christ’s name] will teach you everything and remind

you all I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). The Holy Spirit brings into the present the acta and passa

Christi. Mentioning Odo Casel,101 Congar indicates that the words and acts of the incarnate

Word are made present in Christian worship not in a mental but in a real sacramental way. This

is possible due to both the hypostatic union through which the acts of Christ as man have the

Word as their subject, and the glorified humanity of Christ. This is a communication of Christ’s

98 Ibid.,8. ST IIIa, q. 68, a. 9, ad. 2: “But the faith of one, indeed of the whole Church, profits the child

through the operation of the Holy Ghost who unites the Church together, and communicates the goods of one

member to another.”

99 Ibid., 18.

100 Ibid.

101 Odo Casel (1886-1948) was a German Benedictine monk, a preeminent theologian of the liturgy who

influenced greatly the liturgical movement of the twentieth century. His most important contribution is the

understanding of liturgy (using a positive evaluation of the Old Testament worship) as a celebration of the mysteries

of Christ and his Church: the ritual and sacramental deed of the Church make present Christ's act of salvation,

through the power of the Holy Spirit given to the Church. Casel’s most influential work is Das christliche

Kultmysterium (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1932), translated as The Mystery of Christian Worship, ed. Burkhard

Neunheuser; introd. by Aidan Kavanagh. (New York: Crossroad, 1999). It is to this understanding of liturgy that

Congar refers, even though he does not cite any specific writing of Casel.

130

work to the Church and also a participation of all Christians in the sacra, that is, the death and

glorification of Christ. Due to this participation and to the exchanges of spiritual gifts, all

Christians are united under one plan of salvation. “The acta and passa of the incarnate Word

[…] received from the Spirit a wholly transcendent character.”102

Thus the Church is one because there is only one plan of salvation. The same Spirit is

present in all stages of this organic plan of salvation and in all members of the Church, from the

first man to the last, in those in heaven and those on earth. Since the same Spirit is present in all

things, the Church is one.103 Congar does not describe at this point all the activity of the Spirit in

the whole history of salvation. He does not insist on the role of the Spirit in the first creation, for

instance, or throughout the history of salvation, but simply on the fact that the Spirit

communicates to the Church the unity of the Father and the Son from whom he proceeds.104

This assertion can be connected to the third principle of Congar’s pneumatology, that the mission

of the Holy Spirit is rooted in his immanent procession from the Father and the Son.

It has been shown previously that Congar appropriates the unity between God and human

persons to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the most suitable way of uniting people to God in the

history of salvation since he is the bond of unity between the Father and the Son in eternity.

Before Christ’s glorification the people of the old dispensation had a grace of righteousness

102 Congar, Tradition and Traditions, 260 n. 2.


104 Ibid., 18.

131

oriented toward Christ.105 After his glorification, the Spirit is sent by God and by the Lord in

order to unite the redeemed and to make them the body of Christ.106 However, Congar believes

that there is “a unique plan of charis or grace” throughout the history of salvation.107 He

explains this by showing that we tend to understand grace only as a created reality within us, for

instance the concrete grace of Christ given to Christians is to be sons and daughters of God,

while the people before Christ did not enjoy this condition. But Congar thinks that while this is

true, there is also a divine act of love from which created grace is born. And the people in the

old dispensation enjoyed this grace, even though it had to be brought to its fullness by the

coming of Christ. In this sense, Congar believes in the unity of the plan of grace from the

patriarchs to the end of time. To summarize, the Holy Spirit brings into existence various and

new effects of the same grace, in various moments of a unique plan of salvation, an “economy.”

It is precisely the Holy Spirit’s work in the economy of salvation to unite humankind to God by

making all people the body of Christ.

This unity still has to be completely accomplished eschatologically. At the end, God will

be “everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15:28- RSV; “all in all”- NRSV, New Jerusalem Bible).

This perfect unity will be brought about by the Holy Spirit. In him, God himself will possess us

and we will possess God. In the present condition, the Church is already one. Christians live

now in this unity. Yet, we live as pilgrims, because this unity has only begun. The mystical

105 Congar believes that regarding the people of the Old Testament “their grace of righteousness can only

be attributed to its normal effectiveness if the coming of Christ and his passion are presupposed” (I Believe, vol. 2,

76).


107 Ibid., 75-76.

132

body lives in a condition of “already” and “not yet.” The Church possesses only the arrha, the

pledge of the Holy Spirit.108 It is more than a simple promise; it is the beginning of the definitive

reality.

The Holy Spirit Stimulates Diversity

It has been shown so far that the Holy Spirit brings about ecclesial unity as a communion

with the Trinity, in Christ and as a communion of saints. This unity also includes and stimulates

diversity. According to Congar, there are several kinds of diversities in the Church: a diversity

of persons, of cultures, languages, philosophies, theologies,109 and gifts.110 Congar claims that

the Holy Spirit inspires these different elements and brings them to unity.

The first issue in dealing with diversity in the Church is to harmonize the relationship

between community and individual persons. It is the Spirit who inspires and saves personal

initiatives in the Church. Congar contends that without the Spirit, the uniqueness of persons is

denied, unity is replaced by uniformity, authority by a juridical attitude, order by the observance

of rules.111 The Spirit brings into harmony a personal principle and a unifying principle in the

Church.112 It is possible to have both diversity and unity in the Church, because the Most

108 Ibid., 17.

109 Ibid., 16

110 Ibid.,18-19.

111 Ibid., 16.

112 Ibid., 16.

133

Blessed Trinity is infinite diversity and infinite unity. As with its unity, the source of the

Church’s diversity is the trinitarian life communicated by the Holy Spirit.

In the created order, human richness includes diverse cultures and languages. Congar

observes that the unity of the Church in a plurality of languages was noted by the Church

Fathers, as early as Irenaeus.

She [the Church] likewise believes these things as if she had but one soul and one and

the same heart; she preaches, teaches and hands them down harmoniously, as if she

possessed but one mouth. For, though the languages throughout the world are

dissimilar, nevertheless the meaning of the tradition is one and the same.113

Something more than simply translating expressions of the faith into new languages

occurs when the word of God is preached. There is a recognition and assimilation into the

Church of the cultural elements of various peoples. Congar, avoiding the terms “inculturation”

and “planting the Church,” prefers to speak about the birth of the Church in a country, culture,

and people, from this people.114 As has been shown in the previous chapter, the Church, being

made from people, incorporates natural human diversity, and takes it up into the unity of God.115

In doing so, the Church respects the diversity of nations, languages, temperaments, customs, and

religious experiences.116 To reduce the differences of people to the lowest common denominator

113 Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), I, 10, 2, p.49.

114 Congar, Diversity and Communion, trans. by John Bowden, (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-third

Publications, 1985), 34-35.

115 Congar Divided Christendom, 102.

116 Ibid., 108.

134

would mean an impoverishment of the incarnation.117 This great diversity is not only legitimate

but also Christologically necessary in the Church. However, in his early career, Congar

considered this cultural diversity as subordinated to a higher unity, which in the end is supreme

since it is ordered to the interests of the whole Church.118 The Holy Spirit works to integrate this

cultural diversity into ecclesial unity. “He is the bond of Catholicity as He is of unity, and

inspires souls from within by charity to subordinate themselves to the whole.119

The diversity of people within the Church includes a variety of ways of thinking and of

expressing in theology the same faith. This is theological pluralism—a reality which contains at

the same time diversity and unity. First, diversity is a result of different categories and structures

of theology and philosophy. Perhaps one of the best examples of theological pluralism is the

Filioque. Congar is convinced that the differences between Latin and Eastern traditions are

consequences of two different approaches, of two different anthropological understandings of the

image and likeness of God, and of two different philosophical orientations—towards Aristotle or

towards Plato, namely, towards causality or towards participation.120 These cultural and

philosophical differences lead to a diversity of expressions of the faith which Congar considers

not only compatible but also complementary.121 Theological pluralism does not exclude

different formulations of the same faith, but it rejects only what is contrary to the one faith. In

117 Ibid., 109.

118 Ibid., 111-112.




135

this way, Congar claims, the Spirit brings about unity in the Church not by imposing uniformity

but by way of communion.122 Furthermore, the Spirit not only supports diversity within the

Church but also stimulates it.

The diversity of people in the Church also entails a diversity of charisms. The Holy

Spirit gives particular gifts to individual persons123 and to the local churches.124 In each of these

two cases, the gifts have a particular character, since they are given to particular persons or

churches, but they are distributed for the sake of building up the common good of the entire

Church. Congar affirms that the Church has the fullness of the gifts only in the communion of

all of her members,125 and in the communion of all the churches: “The Spirit, who is the same in

all the churches, is a guarantee both of that communion and of the diversity of gifts.”126 By

distributing his gifts, the Holy Spirit preserves the diversity and builds up the Church as a

communion of local churches.

In conclusion, the ultimate reason why diversity in unity is possible is the presence of the

Holy Spirit in Christians and in the Church. His presence is immanent and transcendent, subtle

and sovereign. Only the Spirit, as the ultimate communication of God himself, can bring all into

unity without violating the particular characteristics of individuals. As a communion, the unity




125 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 217: “L’Esprit est donné à tous. L’Église n’a l’Esprit qu’en

tous.”


136

of the Church is one life animating many without merging them. Although the same Spirit truly

dwells in all, there is no confusion of human persons or loss of identities.127

2. The Holy Spirit Builds Up Ecclesial Unity Through Mediated Realities

As has been explained, the Holy Spirit is like the soul of the Church. He is the ultimate

transcendent, and at the same time most immanent, principle of the Church’s unity. He works,

however, in the Church through grace or mediated realities. Moreover, ecclesial unity is already

given, but it still has to be fully realized eschatologically. This corresponds to the dialectical

structure of the Church which Congar presents as sacramentum and res, external mediation and

reality.128 Therefore, unity can be considered at two levels, a level of sensible means and a level

of interior reality. The created means serve the invisible reality. The ideal situation in the

Church is to keep the fullness of the reality using the fullness of the means which God has given

us in order to maintain interior unity. This subsection will focus on the work of the Holy Spirit

who uses faith, sacraments, and charity as means to bring about, preserve, and increase the unity

of the Church. Methodologically, it will follow Congar’s presentation in his L’Église Une,

Sainte, Catholique et Apostolique,129 and also the section on the Holy Spirit and the sacraments

from the third volume of I Believe in the Holy Spirit.130 This section of I Believe in the Holy

Spirit differs from the first part of the second volume, “The Spirit Animates the Church,”

127 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2., 17-18.

128 Congar, L’ Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique in Mysterium Salutis: Dogmatique de l’

Histoire du Salut, no. 15 (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 22-23. Here, Congar refers to the sacramental theology of Augustine.

129 Ibid., 15-62. This section treats the theology of unity.

130 Congar, I Believe, vol. 3, 216-274. This is part two of volume 3, on the Holy Spirit and the sacraments.

137

because Congar wanted to develop a distinct pneumatological sacramentology. Nonetheless, the

Holy Spirit uses these sacramental means to make the Church one.

Faith

The one faith is not only the principle of personal Christian belief, but also the first

created principle of the unity of the whole Church. It is the principle of unity, because all

Christians believe in the same reality as the object of their faith. They trust in the same witness

of the apostles and in the Church’s mission of teaching. Sharing the same faith, and believing in

the same word of the same God, Christians participate in the same reality. This reality is not

merely an object of knowledge; it is our destiny. Congar says that faith is a “knowledge,” yet not

of the propositions of doctrine but of the reality in which we believe—i.e., God himself and his

saving works.131 Congar is very Thomistic in this respect: “Actus autem credentis non

terminatur ad enutiabile sed ad rem.”132 Christians are called to share the same supernatural

existence.133

Faith (as expressed in formulae) is the external principle of unity that implies a structure

of external mediations in the present phase of the economy of salvation. Because revelation is

public and for a community, there are some external means for communication of the faith, such

as the apostles and the magisterium of the Church.134 The absolute norm in the Church is the

131 Congar, L’Église: une 24.

132 Thomas Aquinas, ST, II-IIae, q.1, a.2, ad. 2.

133 Congar, L’Église: une, 24.

134 Ibid., 25.

138

object of faith, God, but the means linked with the communication of this faith are also

normative for those who want to receive the faith. Thus, revealed faith, the witness of the

apostles in Scripture and Tradition, and the role of the magisterium are means through which the

unity of the Church is communicated. The communication of the unity of faith through these

means is the work of grace which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit with the cooperation of the

holy humanity of Christ and our cooperation too.135

Unity in Worship and the Sacraments

Faith in God naturally leads to and is expressed in worship. Since liturgical worship is a

public, external expression of the faith, worship is by its nature social.136 The worship brought

to God by a community is a principle of unity for that community. Congar considers worship to

include a cultural unity, the use of the same language, gestures, and symbols. More importantly,

it forms a communal sensitivity and a consciousness of membership in that community. In this

context, Congar affirms that worship fashions our belief since “legem credendi statuit lex orandi

[…]. We come to understand many things through prayer and as a result of prayer: such is the

case, for example, with God’s attributes, by which we invoke him and in doing so enter into a

communion with him.”137

Faith is a personal and communal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, worship as

an expression of this faith unites Christians not only through its nature but also through its

135 Ibid., 28.

136 Ibid., 29.


139

content, which is Jesus Christ.138 Through him, as the head of his mystical body, and in the Holy

Spirit, the Church brings her spiritual worship to the Father. Congar remarks that the structure of

the Church’s liturgy is to the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit.139 For Congar, the

Church’s liturgy is a celebration “through which the Holy Spirit is made present for us and

makes our own the incarnation, Easter, Pentecost, the Last Supper and so on.”140 In this way, the

Holy Spirit makes the Church one.

Other means of the unity of the Church are the sacraments. Congar’s perspective

emphasizes the double aspect of the sacraments. They are not only signs through which we

express our faith, but they are also definitive acts of Christ’s salvific self-giving. We do not only

gather to share the same sacraments; it is Christ himself who makes present his supreme and

salvific act. In this discussion Congar does not explain the way in which Christ is made present.

However, he says that the sacraments are not merely a principle of an intentional or sociological

unity, but that they grant “a unity of being and existence which comes from a unique source.”141

Having defined the importance of the inner reality of the sacraments, Congar treats their

visible reality. The divine life is communicated by bodily means which are taken from our world

and are proper to human nature according to the divine plan.142 The ground for this theology of


139 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 113. He refers here to Cipriano Vagaggini, Theological Dimensions of the

Liturgy (Eng. trans.; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1976), chapter 7.

140 Ibid., 114.


142 Ibid., 31.

140

the sacraments is the incarnation of the Word. The Word assumed human nature, which implies

the materiality of human flesh. Through his incarnation, the Word made flesh is the basis for the

sacraments. Christ is the proto-sacrament of the Father. Therefore, the visible mediations are

means of inner communion. It is God’s plan to use these means in order for us to participate

fully in communion with God.

In an earlier stage of his thought (1970), Congar so emphasized that our redemption

comes from the Passion of Jesus Christ that he almost separated the divine missions of the Word

and the Spirit. Congar almost connected the visible realities of the Church (the sacraments) with

the event of Christ, and the invisible infusion of grace into souls to the work of the Holy Spirit.

The gifts which are received by the external signs are active only due to Christ’s passion.143 In

this position, it seems like the sacraments and the visible realities of the Church are the work of

Jesus Christ and the invisible infused graces are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Several years later,

Congar himself wrote: “I worked too exclusively in a context of dualism and made too radical a

distinction between the institution as derived from Christ and free interventions on the part of the

Spirit.”144 One might notice that in his earlier work L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et

apostolique Congar emphasizes the Christological aspect and not sufficiently the role of the Holy

Spirit. However, Congar later observed that “the glorified Lord and the Spirit […] are

functionally so united that we experience them together and we are able to accept one for

143 Ibid., 28. This position was expressed in 1970.

144 Congar, I Believe, vol.2., 11. The original was published in 1979.

141

another.”145 As means of building up communion, the sacraments are works both of Christ and

of the Holy Spirit.

All the sacraments build up unity, but this is true in a particular manner of the Eucharist.

Congar affirms that the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the mystical body since its

spiritual effect is unity. Different from baptism, Christ is substantially present in the Eucharist.

It is not only a communion with Christ but also a communion with the body and blood of Christ.

Drawing upon the insights of Augustine and Aquinas, Congar explains that in consuming the

Eucharistic bread, we do not assimilate Christ, but that Christ assimilates us. Moreover, Congar

states that this assimilation is not accidental but substantial. In begetting someone, the parent

gives to his child his similarity without assimilating him into his own substance. On the

contrary, the union between Christ and the Christian in the Eucharist implies a substantial

assimilation. At the same time, the distance between God and creatures remains because the

creature retains his identity. Although this assimilation is not a physical fusion, it is a mystical,

or spiritual, and thus, a real union.146

It seems that in treating the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity of the Church, in

L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique, Congar does not emphasize sufficiently the role

of the Holy Spirit. However, discussing the theological significance of the Eucharistic epiclesis

in I Believe in the Holy Spirit, he points out the link between both the missions of Christ and of

145 Ibid., vol. 2, 12.

146 Congar, L’Église: une, 32-33: “dans la nutrition, l’union va […] jusqu’à une assimilation substantielle.

Celle-ci est évidemment à comprendre d’une façon qui respecte et la distance entre la créature et Dieu, et la

distinction des existences personnelle: il n’y a pas de fusion physique entre le communiant et le Christ. Il y a

cependant assimilation mystique au corps du Christ par la manducation de son corps sacramentel: assimilation

spirituelle, mais réelle […].” Reference to Aquinas is ST IIIa, q. 73, ad 2 and to Augustine Confessiones, VII, 10.

142

the Holy Spirit. Their missions are distinct, but both of them work together to accomplish the

same salvation. Christ himself was sanctified, empowered, and guided by the Holy Spirit. The

Holy Spirit sent by the risen Christ empowers the mission of the apostles in order to make the

work of Christ present.147 Therefore, Congar concludes that the presence of Christ in the

Eucharist is an act of Christ through the minister and the Holy Spirit.148

To summarize, receiving the Eucharist, Christians become more fully what they already

are, the body of Christ. The unity of the Church in the Eucharist is a work of the Holy Spirit

making the reality and salvific work of Christ present. Congar emphasizes that in God’s plan the

means for unity have to be used in order to participate fully in the inner reality of the Church,

which is communion with God. Thus, participating in the Eucharist is the climax of communion

with God in this phase of the economy of salvation. This is especially true since in the Eucharist

Christians are assimilated to the substantial body of Christ and his self-offering to the Father.

The role of the Holy Spirit also is essential in the Eucharist not just because Christ and the Spirit

always work together for the same goal, but also because our humanity requires empowerment

by the Spirit for our active participation in the Eucharist. Moreover, in the Eucharist, the Holy

Spirit repeats in the Church (minister, community, sacraments) in a related but similar fashion

what he accomplished for the Word in the incarnation. Congar quotes a text attributed to St.

Augustine: “sicut per Spiritum Sanctum vera Christi caro sine coitu creatur, ita per eundem ex


148 Ibid., 236.

143

substantia panis et vini idem corpus Christi et sanguis consecratur.”149 Congar is consistent with

his second principle of pneumatology: there is no Christology without pneumatology and no

pneumatology without Christology. The unity of the Church brought about in the sacraments

and worship is a unity given by Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Charity

Another means of unity of the Church is charity. Charity in Christians is the same as

their love of the absolute Good. By charity, given to us by God, we form a unity of persons who

share the same final and total good. This Christian charity is different from other models of

human love which form communities. Unity which is achieved at the purely human or natural

level is based on the convergence of people’s intentions concerning the ends of this earthly life.

The ideas of common good are shared by the members of the community. The leader of the

community influences the others by propositions, advice and commands. This is a unity of

intention; the unity of the Church, however, is something different and deeper: a personal and

vital presence.150 It is also the unity of a transcendent end.

The personal and vital unity of the Church in charity arises because God enables us to

participate in that love through which he loves himself and through which he loves us. Congar

draws from Aquinas: “The Divine Essence Itself is charity […]. Wherefore just as we are said to

149 Ibid., 254: “Just as through the Holy Spirit the true flesh of Christ was created without intercourse, so

through the same [Holy Spirit] the same body and blood of Christ are consecrated from the substance of the bread

and wine.” A question of interpretation can be raised. Is this what Congar holds or is this what he presents as part of

the Western Tradition? He confesses to Jean Puyo that for him the Spirit does in the Eucharist what he did in the

incarnation of Christ and unites the believers with Christ (in Yves Congar, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar,

189). Peter Lombard attributes this text to Augustine (Sent. IV, d. x –Paris: Louis Vivès, 1892, p.579). However,

the text belongs to Paschasius Radbert (785–865), De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, c.4; PL 120, 1278).


144

be good with the goodness which is God, […] so too, the charity whereby formally we love our

neighbor is a participation of Divine charity.”151 Therefore, this participation of all in the same,

unique love of God makes the Church one and unique.

The love, which is common to all three Persons, is attributed or appropriated to the Holy

Spirit as having a similarity with his mode of procession, that is, with the way in which he

subsists as God.152 Actually, every activity of God in the history of salvation is common to all

three Persons, except the hypostatic union which can only be attributed to the Son.153 The reason

lies not only in the fact that all three Persons have the same divine essence by which they act, but

also in their perichoresis or circumincession, that is their mutual indwelling. However, in our

theological language we use appropriation because there is a similarity between a personal

property characterizing a divine Person and the work of the Blessed Trinity ad extra.154 This

idea applies to the role of the Holy Spirit as the bond of love. Love is the essence of God and is

thus common to all three divine Persons. But love proceeding is true of the third Person

distinctly. Therefore, love proceeding and fruitful is particular to the Holy Spirit as Fatherhood

is to the Father and Sonship is to the Son. Consistent with his third principle of pneumatology,

151 Thomas Aquinas, ST II-a II-ae, q.23, a. 2, ad. 1. Congar refers to Aquinas in L’Église: une, 39, n. 68.

152 Congar, L’Église: une, 40: “L’amour, qui est commun aux trois Personnes, est attribué ou approprié au

Saint-Esprit comme ayant une similitude et une convenace particulière avec son mode de procession, c’est-à-dire

avec la manière dont il subsiste comme Dieu, manière qui le pose comme troisième Personne.”

153 Rahner, The Trinity, 23: The hypostatic union “is not a mere effect of the efficient causality of the triune

God acting as one in the world, but something which belongs to the Logos alone.” The text is also quoted by

Congar in I Believe, vol. 3, 12.


145

Congar holds that it is fitting that the love proceeding from the Father and the Son be

communicated to us by the Holy Spirit.

This love is communicated to the members of the Church as coming from and leading to

a living source and personal center. This love is not something external like a principle of a

unity of intentions in order to reach the same goal, but is a unity which comes from the unity of

God. Congar uses a comparison to explain the difference between these two types of unity.

First, there is unity at the human level such as the unity of an orchestra which plays the same

symphony. The conductor influences the players only from outside by his directions. He does

not move their souls from within, through his personal presence in their souls.155 Second, the

unity of the Church is different: it comes from charity which is poured into human hearts and

moves them from within towards unity. It is as it were only one artist who plays the whole

concert.156 However, this charity does not destroy human diversity and does not violate human

freedom. The “human instruments” remain free persons. That charity is poured into human

hearts by the Holy Spirit who is simultaneously transcendent in himself and present in people

through charity.157


156 Ibid., 39 and especially 40.

157 Ibid., 40.

146

D. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making her Catholic, Apostolic, and

Holy

Consideration of the Church as the work of the glorified Christ and of his Spirit offers

Congar the possibility of further developments. The Church is not only one, but also holy,

catholic, and apostolic because she is the fruit of the Lord and of the Spirit. This implies that

“the marks of the Church are not only inseparable from each other, they are also contained

within each other.”158 The following section will show how the Holy Spirit makes the Church

one by making her catholic, apostolic, and holy—following the order that Congar pursues in I

Believe in the Holy Spirit.159

1. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making Her Catholic

As Congar understands it, the catholicity of the Church is grounded in Christ’s mystery

made present by the work of the Holy Spirit. This mystery contains two complementary

elements. The Word assumed a particular human nature, that of Jesus Christ; at the same time he

united himself with the whole human race. Because of the former, Christ’s mission was

circumscribed to a particular space, time and culture; because of the latter, the value of his

158 Congar, I Believe, vol.2., 47.

159 In his ecclesiological work L’Église: Une, Sainte, Catholique et Apostolique, the order of the notes of

the Church follows the order in the creeds. In his pneumatological work I Believe in the Holy Spirit, the order of

notes of the Church is as following: unity, catholicity, apostolicity, and holiness. Congar chooses this order to show

better the relations between them. When unity extends to many people it becomes catholicity; when unity extends

from the beginnings of the Church to the end is apostolic. Finally, the unity of the Church in the body of Christ is

holiness.

147

mission extends to all times, spaces and cultures. Congar, therefore, considers it “possible to

speak in Christ’s case of a concrete universal element.”160

In a manner similar to Christ, “the Church was born universal by being born manifold

and particular.”161 It will be shown that this is possible only due to the work of the Holy Spirit.

The same Gospel and faith are implanted in various and diverse cultural soils and human spaces.

Congar applies this dialectic between unity in faith and diversity of forms to the relation between

the local, or particular churches and the universal Church. In each local church, the universal

Church is truly present and operative. Each local church is the Church because the whole is

present in each part; each local church brings its own gifts and talents to the universal

communion.162

Theologically, for Congar catholicity is that capacity of the Church to harmonize

multiplicity with unity. This multiplicity is based on “the undefined variety of human nature, the

undefined potentialities of the first Adam.”163 The catholicity of the Church is the universality of

everything that is human as being able to form a whole by participating in the transcendental

unity of Christ. For Congar, catholicity is not merely a geographical extension of the Church but

an essential ecclesial quality based on the universality of truth, redemption, and divine gifts.


161 Ibid., 26.

162 Ibid: “This rediscovery and reassessment of local or particular Churches is the work and fruit of the

Second Vatican Council and, as Karl Rahner called it, its most novel contribution.”

163 Yves Congar, “Catholicité,” in the encyclopedia Catholicisme, hier, aujourd-hui, demain (Paris:

Letouzey), vol.2, 1949, col. 722-725. The note was republished in Sainte Église, 155-161, at 158: “la variéteté

indéfinie de la nature humaine, les potentialités indéfinies du Premier Adam.”

148

This point has been already shown in the previous chapter.164 However, the emphasis here lies in

the other direction, namely, from diversity to unity.

The Holy Spirit is the principle that stimulates diversity and guarantees the Church’s

unity. He bestows on each particular church its own gifts which are for the sake of the whole

Church. The Holy Spirit imparts charisms to each person “for the common good” to build up the

community of the Church.165 For Congar, the Spirit stimulates and resolves the fruitful tension

between the particular and universal. The bonds of faith and charity, as supernatural, transcend

human cultural diversity. In this way, the diversity of local churches adds to the rich unity of the

universal Church in so far as inculturated forms are of the same faith and are offered and

accepted by charity. Ecclesial unity and pluralism are both necessary—pluralism in unity and

unity without uniformity.166 The Holy Spirit makes the Church one in a profound and complex

manner by making her catholic.

2. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church One by Making Her Apostolic

In Congar’s thought, apostolicity is related to the apostles, to eschatology, and to

the sending of the Church. This logical and systematic order follows Congar’s thought faithfully.

His presentation, however, is less orderly partially due to the examples which he introduces.

164 See above, Chapter II, pp. 76-77.


166 Congar also holds that the Church is catholic in history, that is, the Church is one from the beginning

(the apostles) to the end of history. Therefore, this theme fits better in the next section, “The Holy Spirit makes the

Church one by making her apostolic” throughout history.

149

Congar considers apostolicity as the continuity of the Church throughout history from the

beginning to the eschaton. The Church maintains a historical link with her founder, Christ, due

to the witness given by the apostles. Congar points out that the New Testament uses the word

“martyr” for the eyewitnesses of Christ’s death and resurrection (Lk 24:48; Acts 1:21-22).

“Martyr” is not mainly one who dies for a cause, as modern people tend to think, but is one who

is an eyewitness to something that has happened and who can testify authentically about it.167

The apostles are the ones who bear witness to Christ’s death and resurrection.

After his departure, Christ entrusts the mission of carrying out his work to his qualified

witnesses, the apostles (Jn 13:20) and the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26). Congar notes that

these two missions bear witness together to the work of Christ that took place in the past but is

also to be continued in the future (Jn 15: 26-27; Lk 24: 48-49; Acts 1: 8; 5:32).168 Furthermore,

in Acts and the Pauline epistles, the Church is built up by the mission of apostles supported by

the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to Saul and Barnabas before they are sent on their

mission (Acts 13: 3-4). He makes their preaching fruitful (Acts 6: 7; 4: 33; 9: 31) and inspires

them where to direct their ministry (Acts 16:6-7). Briefly, for Congar “the Church was born and

increased because of the preaching and the help given by the Spirit.”169 The apostles are the

qualified witnesses of Christ and their apostolate is made fruitful by the Holy Spirit. The Holy

Spirit operates both in the witnesses and in the recipients who accept that witness.


168 Ibid., 42.

169 Ibid., 43.

150

The Church’s apostolicity is not only her historical link with Christ. It is also a sign of the

authenticity of its teaching. “The Spirit is also given to the Church as its transcendent principle

of faithfulness,” according to Congar.170 For the Fathers from the second and third centuries, the

“tradition” or communication of the Spirit ensured the unity in faith of the churches scattered

throughout the world. This transmission of the Holy Spirit, which guarantees the Church’s

faithfulness, is connected to the bishops. Through their apostolic succession and their reception

of the Holy Spirit, bishops are given a “sure charism of truth.”171 Congar expresses the Christian

belief that the Church, through the ministry of the bishops being helped by the Holy Spirit, is

unfailingly faithful to the faith received from the apostles.172 Congar does not reduce “apostolic

succession” to the historical succession of the bishops, but he places the latter within the

communion of the whole Church.173 The whole Church is apostolic because she participates in

the faith and the ministry of the apostles due to the Holy Spirit. In this universal apostolicity of

the Church, however, the bishops have a unique role of keeping authentically and developing

organically the apostolic faith.

The reason why Congar situates the “hierarchical” function of the bishops within the

communion of the Church is to avoid a narrow interpretation of “apostolic succession,” where

the focus was mainly on the imposition of hands, the validity of the consecratory rite and an

170 Ibid., 43.

171 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, 26, 2.


173 Ibid., 45.

151

uninterrupted historical continuity in an apostolic seat.174 Placing the hierarchical function

within the community of the Church and emphasizing the importance of the apostolicity of faith,

Congar offers the opportunity for dialogue with Protestant and Orthodox Christians. The

presence of the Spirit is not automatic or limited to the laying of hands and a historic continuity

from one bishop to his successor. The Spirit’s work is larger: he assists any activity of the

bishops when they exercise their function of teaching, of pastoral government, and of

sanctification. According to Congar, both the act of the ordained minister and the intervention of

the Spirit are necessary and complement one another. “Apostolic succession” is necessary but it

always calls for an epiclesis.175

In the conclusion of this section, Congar’s words are relevant: “The apostolicity of the

Church is a communion with the apostles, and with and through them a communion with the

Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1 Jn 1:3,7). The Holy Spirit is the principle of that communion

(2 Cor 13:13).”176 Making the Church apostolic, the Holy Spirit communicates the unity of faith

and communion, and, thus, makes the Church one.

The Church’s apostolicity is, for Congar, a continuity and a substantial unity between the

beginning and the end of the history of salvation.177 Christ is the Alpha and the Omega of

creation and salvation and it follows, therefore, that God’s intention and gifts are identical

throughout history and through all the developments which have taken place and will still take

174 See for instance, Congar, “My Path Findings,” 180 and L’Église: une, 205.


176 Ibid., 45.

177 Ibid., 39.

152

place. The ministry of the Twelve was given to them at the beginning of the new people of God

(Mk 3:14)—a moment which Congar calls “the Alpha” of the apostolic ministry. They will

judge whether what is reached at the Omega (namely at the full eschatological realization of the

Church) is in conformity with what was given at the Alpha when they were established as

witnesses (Mt 19:28; Lk 22:30);178 in other words, whether what they passed on to the Church

was kept and developed without alteration by the successive generations of Christians.

The apostles’ witness refers to the death and resurrection of Christ, which took place in

the past but is always oriented forwards. Their testimony is not merely a repetition but also an

affirmation of the present effectiveness of the realities to which they were eyewitnesses.179

Congar uses von Balthasar’s expression, “the Unknown One beyond the Word,” to explain that

the Spirit acts towards the eschatological future.180 This idea has to be understood in light of what

has been shown in the previous chapters that the Spirit has his own freedom and acts in a new

way in history but always in accordance with the work of Christ.

The Holy Spirit makes the Easter event of Christ present with the eschatological destiny

of creation in mind. […] There must be a link between what has already been given

and the unexpected, between what has been acquired once and for all time and what is

always new. This link is forged by the Holy Spirit.181

178 Ibid., 40

179 Ibid., 41-42.

180 Ibid., 33; Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Der Unbekannte jenseits des Wortes,” in Interpretation der Welt.

Festschrift für Romano Guardini, ed. Helmut Kuhn (Würzburg: Echter, 1966): 638-645, reprinted in Spiritus

Creator. Skizzen zur Theologie, III (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1967); English trans: Explorations in Theology: Spirit

Creator, vol. 3, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993).

181 Ibid., 34.

153

Since, for Congar, apostolicity means the continuity between the Alpha and the Omega

and since the Holy Spirit is the principle of this substantial identity throughout history, it can be

concluded that the Holy Spirit keeps the Church one by making her apostolic. In turn,

apostolicity means that the unity of the Church is original and eschatological.

The Church is also apostolic because she is sent forth. There is a profound connection

between apostolicity and the apostolate or evangelization. The apostles are “sent” to be

witnesses of Christ from Jerusalem to the earth’s remotest end (Acts 1:8), to evangelize and also

to sanctify. “The apostolate fills the ‘in-between [time]’ between the two comings of Christ in

order to make everything grow toward fullness while preserving the form of Alpha.”182 The

Church grows by founding new local churches which will be churches only by receiving the faith

and doctrine of the apostolic Church. Furthermore, Congar says that the apostolicity of these

churches is realized through the hierarchy that has apostolic succession.183 The Church is

apostolic by her nature because she is sent on mission.

The mission of the Church is grounded on the two missions of the Word and of the Spirit.

Both Christ and the Spirit are sent into the world. Their missions are those movements by which

the eternal and divine processions are freely extended in the history of the world. The Holy

Spirit, as the person who proceeds from the love of the Father and of the Son, dwells in Christ

and in the Church. Congar continues: “The Spirit is therefore the ultimate principle, that is, the

182 Congar, L’Église: une, 223: “L’apostolate remplit l’entre-deux des deux venus du Christ pour, en

gardent la forme de l”Alpha, faire tout croître vers la plénitude.”

183 Ibid., 224.

154

supreme and fulfilling principle of the identity of the supernatural and saving work of God.”184

The Holy Spirit makes the Church apostolic so that it is enabled to participate in the mission of

Christ. If to be missionary means participation in the mission of Christ with the goal of leading

all people to the unity of God, it can be understood how the Holy Spirit making the Church

missionary or apostolic makes her one. Furthermore, since the missions of the Son and the Spirit

correspond to their processions, the Church’s mission corresponds to her participation in the

communion of the Trinity.

In conclusion, the Holy Spirit makes the Church apostolic because he assures the

historical link with the apostles, because he directs the Church to the Omega which is in

conformity with the Alpha, and because he makes her apostolic mission fruitful. In all these

respects, the Holy Spirit makes the Church one through time by keeping her apostolic.

3. In Sanctifying the Church, the Holy Spirit Makes Her One

Congar does not refer here to the sanctification of individual souls but to the

sanctification of the Church as a whole. As usual, he goes to the sources of the faith and begins

with the Bible. He notes that the expression “holy Church” cannot be found explicitly in the

New Testament.185 There are, however, two ideas associated with that of “holiness,” namely, the

Church as a temple and as a bride.


185 Ibid., 52.

155

Church as a Temple

The Epistle to the Ephesians (2:18-22) and the First Letter of Peter (2:5) describe the

Church as God’s household and holy temple. It is holy because the one who dwells there is holy.

A temple is also holy because here true spiritual worship is brought to God “in spirit and truth”

(Jn 4:23-24). Congar considers this spiritual worship as the act in which the Church is most

perfectly itself.186 This spiritual worship comes from faith and expresses the theological realities

of faith, charity and hope. Congar agrees with Aquinas saying that external worship is an

expression of the inward cult, which consists in faith, hope, and charity.187 But true worship is

the work of the Spirit (Phil 3:3; Jude 20); therefore, the Church as true temple is the work of the

Holy Spirit.

The idea of the temple is related to the concept of habitation or dwelling. Congar points

out that there are several texts which speak about the dwelling of the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:15-17; 1

Cor 3:16-17, 6:19; 1 Jn 4: 12-13). Congar asks how the Spirit can dwell in the Church as such.

He answers that through the created grace of love the assembly of believers has as the object of

its knowledge and love the Tri-unity of God. This love is poured into our hearts by the Holy

Spirit. Given the fact that only through love the Spirit can fully dwell or be present, and also the

fact that an individual person can fail in charity, it follows that only the Church, as a whole, as

the body of Christ, can be always sure to have a faith fashioned by charity.188 Due to the

186 Ibid., 54.

187 Ibid., 54; Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia IIae, q. 99, a.3 and 4, IIa IIae, q.93, a.2; q. 101, a. 2, ad 3.


156

presence of the Spirit in the Church, holiness is already given to us. The Church’s sanctification

is an on-going process, in which her members collaborate with God’s grace. What makes the

Church holy first of all is the presence of the Holy One in the Church. In conclusion, the Holy

Spirit pours into the assembly of believers faith, hope, and charity, and thus makes it holy, and a

true temple of God. Making the Church holy, the Spirit dwells in her and unites her with God

through charity, thus making the Church to be one.

The Church as the Bride

Congar begins his presentation of this theme with the Pauline epistles that describe the

Church as Christ’s pure bride, with no spot or wrinkle, but holy and faultless (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:

25-27, 29-31). Then Congar continues by showing that the Church Fathers present the theme of

wedding between Christ and the Church as an election of grace and by means of an anticipatory

love. This love includes also the aspect of purification. Congar states that Christ assumed

human nature and purified it by making it his bride: “The Word, the Son, decided to marry

human nature through his incarnation.”189 Purification is accomplished through Christ’s

baptism—which is the foundation of Christian baptism—and through his death on the cross.

Both these events communicate the Spirit to the Church, the new Eve, Congar says.190 Christ

also nourishes the Church with his own glorified body in the Eucharist. Congar points out that

189 Ibid., 55.

190 Ibid.

157

through baptism, Eucharist and the Spirit, the Church as his bride becomes his body and forms

mystically with him “one flesh.”191

According to Congar, this mystical wedding between Christ and the Church will be

perfected only eschatologically. The Church has the Spirit as arrha, as first-fruits, and therefore

the qualities of fullness and purity are really possessed but not yet in an eschatological way.192

In this way, Congar explains how the Church as such is holy yet this holiness has not yet reached

eschatological fullness.193 Until the Church reaches the final fullness of holiness, the Holy Spirit

“inspires necessary reforms and prevents them from becoming merely external arrangements, so

that they are able to lead to a new life according to the spirit of Jesus.”194

The Holy Spirit purifies and sanctifies the Church by giving her new life. Doing so, the

Spirit makes the Church the bride of Christ, his mystical body. It can be concluded that,

sanctifying the Church, the Holy Spirit makes her one because he makes her “one flesh” with her

bridegroom, Christ.

In conclusion, this chapter has shown the development of Congar’s thought regarding

unity and the role of the Spirit in building it up. Development means both continuity and

progress. There is continuity in between the early and the late period in Congar’s ecclesiology:

191 Ibid., 56.

192 “Arrha” is a key term used by Congar when discussing something eschatologically. The scriptural

references are: Rm 8:23, 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14. See I Believe, vol. 2, 17 and 107.

193 Congar uses the expression “the Holy Church of sinners” (I Believe, vol. 2, 57). It is worthy to note that

all the marks of the Church are possessed eschatologically. For instance, the Church is one and undivided yet

Christendom is presently still divided.


158

ecclesial unity comes from the unity of the Trinity given to the Church (in time Congar stressed

the perichoresis of divine persons). There is also progress in Congar’s ecclesiology: from an

understanding of the Church as a society, then body of Christ and people of God to an un

understanding of the Church as communion.

The more important advancement is the difference between the roles of Christ and the

Spirit in building up the ecclesial unity. If in the early stage, Congar described Christ as the

founder of the Church and the Spirit as her animator (or her soul), in his late pneumatology, the

Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ because he comes from Christ and also because the content of

his mission is Christological. He builds up the Church as the body of Christ and enriches her

with his gifts, charisms (a dimension that Congar began developing in 1953). Therefore, the

Spirit is the “co-instituting” principle of the Church together with Christ. He brings about the

unity of the Church by making her the body of Christ and introducing her into the tri-unity of the

Blessed Trinity. Therefore, the unity brought about by the Spirit is a communion with the

Trinity, with Christ, and with the communion of saints, which includes diversity (also developed

beginning with 1953).

Finally, the doctrine of divine processions and missions was mentioned in Chrétiens

désunis.195 Congar kept working on it and so in his I Believe in the Holy Spirit, he says that the

Holy Spirit in this work keeps his hypostatic character: love as proceeding, which is different

from the Father’s and the Son’s. The Spirit, the term or the end of the immanent unity between

the Father and the Son, becomes the principle of the communion between the Trinity and the

Church. Even though this mission in the world does not take place by necessity, there is in God

195 Congar, Chrétiens désunis, 55-56. See above, Chapter III, pp. 105-106.

159

an inclination to unite humankind to himself, which belongs by appropriation to the Holy Spirit.

The work of the Holy Spirit in making the Church one is, thus, revelatory of his person or, in

other words, corresponds with his procession from the Father and the Son as the bond of unity

between them.

160

CHAPTER FOUR

THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAL

CATHOLICITY

The formula of faith proclaimed by the First Council of Constantinople (381) reads: “We

believe in the Holy Spirit…and in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”1 Theological

studies of these properties of the Church usually follow the order given by this ancient formula.

However, in I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Congar places the study of the catholicity of the Church

immediately after its unity because “unity has, by its very vocation, a universal extension, and

this is also incontestably an aspect of the mark of catholicity.”2 The inner relationship between

unity and catholicity in Congar’s vision is the reason why, after the chapter on the unity of the

Church, it is fitting to approach the theme of catholicity and not of holiness, as is the order of the

Constantinopolitan formula of faith.

Studying the vast work of Congar, it is evident that there are two understandings of

catholicity in his theological thought. From the start, it should be made clear that both meanings

refer to two kinds of qualitative catholicity, and not to quantitative and qualitative meanings of

catholicity. Congar did not give much attention to the quantitative meaning of catholicity

1 Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans. Roy J. Defferari from the thirtieth edition of

Henry Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum (Sl. Louis: Herder, 1957), D. 86.

2 Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, 24.

161

because he considered it as the domain of apologetics, while qualitative catholicity fits better in a

presentation of the mystery of the Church (ecclesiology being a theological domain), as Congar

himself acknowledges.3 Thus, the two kinds of qualitative catholicity are as follows: first,

catholicity is understood as a qualitative universality of the Church in which all humanity is

assimilated and taken up to God.4 This understanding is present mainly in the early writing of

Congar. Second, catholicity is presented as a differentiated unity animated by the Holy Spirit,

and is found preponderantly in the late works of Congar. Congar himself explains the evolution

of his thought in a discussion with Bernard Lauret, late in his life, where Congar states that he

started with solid claims influenced by his good Thomist formation. “I began […] with the idea

of catholicity which at that time seemed to me to include all the diversities; today I am more

sensitive to diversities as it is shown in my book Diversités et communion published by Cerf in

1982.”5 Methodologically, therefore, this chapter will present first these two conceptions of

catholicity, which are mainly ecclesiological themes, and secondly attempt to understand the

work and the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church catholic. Ecclesiology precedes

pneumatology in the order of study; and this is another application of the first principle of

Congar’s pneumatology: the Holy Spirit is revealed not directly in himself but through his work.

3 Congar, L’Église, une, 159-160. He considers himself as one of the theologians who contributed to the

recovery of qualitative meaning of catholicity at the beginning of the twentieth century (For details, see n. 84 in this

chapter).

4 The noun “catholicity” is spelled in this dissertation with lower case. However, there are some

translations of Congar’s works which use capital cases. In these situations, the quotations will follow the original

spelling.

5 Yves-Marie Congar, Entretiens d’automne, présentés par Bernard Lauret (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 104; see also

the English version Fifty Years of Catholic Theology: Conversations with Yves Congar, ed. and introd. Bernard

Lauret, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 81.

162

A. Notions and Bases of Catholicity

1. Catholicity as Qualitative Universality of the Church

In his early works, Congar describes the catholicity of the Church as flowing from the

nature of the Church herself. In Chrétiens désunis, he portrays the Church as the divine life

communicated to human creatures; the Church is the oneness of God (Ecclesia de Trinitate)

communicated to the people (Ecclesia ex hominibus).6 Starting from this understanding of the

Church, Congar explains the catholicity of the Church. If the fullness of divine life is given to

Christians, then this plenitude can be communicated to all people. In Christ all are united with

God. Thus, Congar defines the catholicity of the Church qualitatively as “the dynamic

universality of her unity, the capacity of her principles of unity to assimilate, fulfill and raise to

God in oneness with Him all men and every man and every human value.”7

“Thus understood the Catholicity of the Church is essentially Trinitarian and

Christological.”8 Catholicity is that quality of the Church that explains the relation between the

oneness of God and the multiplicity of human creatures: the whole of humanity is taken up to

God by incorporation into the mystical body of Christ.9 It can be noted that for Congar the

Church is catholic not primarily because it is extended to all human beings in time and space but

most of all “in virtue of the universal assimilative capacity of her constituent principles,” namely


7 Ibid., 94-95.

8 Ibid., 95.

9 Ibid., 95.

163

the Triune God and Christ.10 Congar recognizes the quantitative catholicity of the Church, that is

the catholicity in space and time, but he places little emphasis on it11, and he adds that “there

cannot be quantitative Catholicity without qualitative, this being the necessary cause of the

former.”12 He further writes: “The Catholicity of its Head is the principal cause of the

Catholicity of the Church. The one Church cannot but be Catholic: its unity comes from Christ

and through him from the Father.”13

All the constitutive elements of the Church make her to be one and at the same time to be

catholic. These elements as enumerated by Congar are as follows: the dynamic universality of

the divine truth of the faith handed down by the apostolic magisterium; the dynamic universality

of baptismal incorporation and conformity with Christ by the seal of baptism; the dynamic

universality of the sacraments and sacramental graces derived from Christ; and the dynamic

universality of the collective life of the Church with its various expressions.14

As already seen, Congar defines the catholicity of the Church starting from its unity;

therefore, catholicity has two sources, as does unity: one from above and one from below. The

Church is “a fellowship realized in the sharing of the divine life in Christ by grace, faith and

charity. The unity of the Church has therefore a human embodiment, an institutional actuality


11 Ibid., 93-94: The Church is catholic in space because “de jure [...] she is able and destined to extend

throughout the whole world; she is Catholic de facto in that she actually embraces a vast number of people and

counts her membership in every land and among all sorts and conditions of men.” Regarding the catholicity in time,

“the Church is assured of existing till the end of time and even beyond it.”

12 Ibid., 94.

13 Ibid., 98.

14 Ibid., 98-99.

164

willed by God […], but adapted in accordance with human requirements and those historical

cultural and social conditions.”15 The Church is a divine and human reality. Therefore, the

Church is guided by a twofold law: “the divine law is the communication of life by assumption

into unity; the human law is the communication of life by division and dispersion. Because she

is ex hominibus, the Church must follow up the human material that is dispersed, in order to

reassume it into the divine unity which is hers since she is also de Trinitate and in Christo.”16 In

summary, the catholicity of the Church is the universal capacity of unity or the capacity of the

Church to incorporate in Christ all various nations, cultures, languages, temperaments, customs,

religious experiences, and theological traditions.17

It has been noted that Congar’s understanding of catholicity underwent an evolution: at

first, he understood it as an extension of unity (in Chrétiens désunis, 1937), while later the

emphasis was on diversity and pluralism (in Diversités et Communion, 1982).18 Congar

maintained the idea of catholicity as an assimilative capacity of unity not only in Chrétiens

désunis but throughout his early books in which he addresses this question. Two of his major

works will be examined below from this perspective: Esquisses du mystère de l’Église (The

Mystery of the Church) and Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Lay People in the Church).

15 Ibid., 99.

16 Ibid., 101-102.

17 Ibid., 108-110 and 114.

18 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 454-455; Jean-Pierre Jossua, “L’oeuvre ecuménique du Père

Congar,” Études 357 (1982), 552 ss.

165

In Esquisses du mystère de l’Église (1941), Congar reiterates this understanding of

catholicity as built on unity.

Catholicity is the universal capacity for unity, or the dynamic universality of the Church’s

principles of unity. [...] This indicates, too, the capacity inherent in the Church’s

fountain-heads of unity—the grace of Christ, the baptismal character, the apostolic faith,

sacramental charity, community of life in fellowship—to assimilate, fill, win over to God,

reunite and bring to perfection in Christ, the whole man and all men, all human values.

Such a capacity implies that every human value, while retaining its own specific

character, can be “recapitulated” in Christ, that is to say revived by his spirit [sic]

(πνεϋμα) and taken up into the unit of his Body, which is the Church.19

However, the method and the categories used by Congar in Chrétiens désunis are

different from those used in Esquisses du mystère de l’Église. If in the former he used the term

societas to describe the Church, in the latter he appeals to the Bible and to the experience of the

apostles to show that the “awareness of Christian universalism was imposed by the life of the

Church, animated by the Holy Ghost.”20 Congar points out that Jesus, during his public life, told

the apostles to preach only to the Jews, and it was only after the resurrection that the missionary

mandate became universal. When Peter was asked why he preached to the Gentiles, he argued

not on the basis of the words of Jesus but on the fact that even the Gentiles received the Holy

Spirit (Acts 10:47). Congar concludes:

Thus, it was in the course of actually becoming universal that the Church became aware

of its universality. This conclusion was quite independent of the presence or absence of

words actually uttered by Christ affirming universality. What is certain, according to all

our documents, is that the primitive Church made no appeal to any such words and that it

19 Yves Congar, “The Life of the Church and Awareness of its Catholicity,” in The Mystery of the Church,

2d. ed. (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1965), 100-101, article originally published as “Vie de l’Église et conscience de

la catholicité,” Bulletin de Missions 18 (1938): 153-60.

20 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 98. The first five chapters of this book (pages 1-145) were

originally published as Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, Unam Sanctam 8 (Paris: Cerf, 1941). The last chapter was

originally published as La Pentecôte: Chartres, 1956 (Paris: Cerf, 1956).

166

recognized its actual call to expansion and its conditions only through the facts, by

undertaking such expansion and doing so under the pressure of certain events caused by

God.21

It is worth noticing already that as Congar employed the use of biblical methodology he

moved toward a more explicit understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church

catholic. It is true that at this point, Congar still defines catholicity as the capacity of the Church

to assimilate or even to “absorb” in its unity all the values of the world that seemed, at first, alien

to it.22 However, this assimilation, on the one hand, does not mean uniformity; on the other

hand, the Church’s self-understanding of her catholicity is brought about by the new events.

“That, after all, is the law of all living things.”23 And these events and the whole course of the

Church’s development are animated by the Holy Spirit.24

The same notion of catholicity as an extension of the unity of the Church is taken up

again by Congar, in 1953, in Jalons pour une theologie du laїcat.

We are thinking of what has been shown elsewhere (Divided Christendom, Ch. III) to

correspond with a qualitative notion of the Church’s catholicity or, if you will, with its

material cause. The whole work of this world is necessary in order that the first creation,

and above all the men for whom it was made, may make full use of all that is in them,

which has to be put under Christ as under a new head.25

21 Ibid., 99-100.

22 Ibid., 101: “[...] but can we say that we are really aware of the catholicity of the Church so long as we fail

to grasp it in its concreteness, as it actually absorbs values or realities that were, at first, or seemed to be, alien to

it?” Emphasis mine.

23 Ibid.101.

24 Ibid., 104.

25 Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church. A Study for a Theology of the Laity, trans. Donald Attwater

(Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957), 98, originally published as Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Paris:

Cerf, 1953). The reference to Divided Christendom is explicitly Congar’s.

167

Nevertheless, this catholicity should not be interpreted as a monolithic uniformity. In fact

Congar further points out that in the Middle Ages there was a sacral regime in which the

relationship between the world and the Church was regarded only in the light of the ultimate goal

of the world. Therefore, the temporal was not regarded for the value that had in itself, but only

for its use in the Church’s sacred work. However Congar claims that “a giving back to the

‘secular’ of whatever in the present economy belongs to the world is a necessary condition if the

world is to arrive at the Kingdom in a state of full development and activity. Without that, it will

still be immature and childish when it offers itself to the Spirit’s embrace.”26

It should be noted that Congar’s understanding of the catholicity of the Church is

developed here in relation to other themes of theology, the first of which is the relationship

between the world and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God, according to Congar, is a

gift that comes from above, but human effort is required in order to receive that gift that comes

from God. Human cooperation and the striving for unity and integrity are two ways in which the

world prepares the Kingdom.27 It is in this context that Congar recognizes the need for a full

development of everything that is valuable in the world. It is here that Congar sees the essence

of the lay vocation. It pertains, he states, precisely to the lay people, as children of God, to be

involved “in the activities of the world, in the realities of the primal creation, in the

disappointments, the achievements, the stuff of history. The laity is called to do God’s work in

26 Ibid., 99.

27 Ibid., 97.

168

the world.”28 This positive definition of laity—i.e. not by referring it to the clergy (lay people

were all those not ordained)—is closely linked, thus, with an understanding of the catholicity of

the Church in which all human richness is considered valuable and worthy to be taken up by

Christ.

Other important themes that contribute to a broader understanding of catholicity are

eschatology and pneumatology. Congar explains that the Church already has in her nature the

principles that make her to be the Church: the kingly, priestly and prophetical power of Christ,

and the Holy Spirit. At the same time, Christ and the Holy Spirit are “the self-same and decisive

causes of that renewal of which the Kingdom will be the consummation [...]. Therefore the

Church co-operates directly in the constitution of the Kingdom, through the exercise of energies

that are her own and constitute her reality as Church.”29 It seems that this understanding of the

eschatological status of the Church, as a reality that is already realized and yet to be fulfilled,

enables Congar to define the catholicity of the Church as the capacity to incorporate all human

values and yet to recognize the need to let these values grow and mature. Furthermore, Congar

affirms that the Holy Spirit “is already present and active in the Church, as the dowry befitting

the Bride of Christ,” as the “Principle which will calm the world’s groaning and dry our tears;

which brooded over creation at its beginning (Genesis i,2 [sic]) and always has been and is the

28 Ibid., 16.


169

quickening of the second creation, the Church; which makes and one day will make all things

new.”30

It can be concluded that in his early works Congar defined catholicity as a qualitative

universality of the Church based on the universal power of her principles. Congar thus moved

beyond a quantitative understanding of catholicity. Because the Church is united with the

Trinity and with Christ, she has the capacity of uniting and assimilating all human values and

richness and all people in herself. This is already a remarkable achievement of Congar, if one

thinks that he wrote these books at a time when there was little sensitivity toward pluralism and

diversity. However, it is more important to observe that even in his early thought, influenced by

the study of biblical theology, eschatology, the theology of the laity and pneumatology, Congar

moved slowly towards a vision that described catholicity as a differentiated unity animated by

the Holy Spirit. The next subsection will address this development.

2. Catholicity as a Differentiated Unity Animated by the Holy Spirit31

As early as 1950, in Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église,32 Congar’s thought and

language were more open to diversity. This slight evolution has been noticed by Joseph

30 Ibid., 89.

31 Congar has not used explicitly the term differentiated unity. However, Joseph Famerée points out that

Congar comes very close to using it when he says that the members of the Church are united by the Holy Spirit

according to the place that each has received and according to the role that each has to play (emphasis mine) in the

whole body of Christ. Cf. Joseph Famerée, L’eccesiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II. Histoire et Église:

Analyse et reprise critique (Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 1992), 325, especially n. 1180.

32 Yves Congar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église, 2d. ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1968). The first edition was

published in 1950. The first draft of the book was written in 1946 or 1947 and the last draft in 1949 (for details see

Rose Beal, Mystery of the Church, 8). The English translation is True and False Reform in the Church, trans. Paul

Philibert (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), quoted from now on as True and False Reform.

170

Famerée.33 If in Chrétiens désunis Congar described catholicity as an extension of unity or as a

capacity of the Church to assimilate (“assumer”) the diverse human material in herself, in the

later book he asserts that the Church has to follow (“suivre”) humankind in its development. The

whole of humankind grows into a variety of languages, cultures, situations, conditions and

activities: it follows an expansion and a movement which develops all the capacities placed in

Adam as in a seed, in order to fill time and space. Nonetheless, Congar states that, in order to

accomplish the plan of bringing all of humankind to God in Christ, “the Church [...], immutable

through what she receives from above, will have to follow humankind in its expansion and its

movement, and hence the Church also will have to undergo a movement.”34

In the Church’s relationship with the world, there is a need for dialogue or exchange. On

the one hand, the Church enriches the world. On the other hand, “the Church will have

something to receive” from the world35: the concrete historical forms in which the people of God

live and some understanding of these conditions. Sometimes “the administrative structures [of

the Church] have to welcome the richness of the world, that are temporal and perishable, which

God certainly does not need but which themselves need to be brought back to God in Christ in

33 Famerée, L’eccesiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II, 423; Joseph Famerée, “De la catholicité à la

diversité et de l’unité à la communion,” in Joseph Famerée and Gilles Routhier, Yves Congar, Initiations aux

théologiens (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 71.

34 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 138; True and False Reform, 130. In the following footnotes, the

quotations are given in parallel from the French and English editions. The translations in English used in the main

text are mine (from the first French edition, 1950) since it seems that the English edition misses some nuances that

are relevant for the development of Congar’s understanding of catholicity.

35 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 139; True and False Reform, 130. Emphasis original.

171

order to be redeemed.”36 The Church also receives questions from the world to which it should

listen and seek to clarify. “Sometimes, [the Church] receives not only questions from the world

but also elements of answer, positive values more or less pure.”37

Regarding the internal life of the Church, Congar also speaks of development. First, he

notices that the Bible presents the work of God in history as a development which includes

various stages: from Adam to Abraham, to Israel and finally culminating in the Church. In

God’s work, humankind has always been called to bring forth “new values and new forms” to

fulfil previous God-given promises. 38 Second, the Church also in her being needs to grow and

undergo development. Here, it has to be recalled that Congar wrote Vraie et fausse réforme

using the model of structure and life. Congar makes a distinction between the structure of the

Church and what he calls “the structures” of the Church. The structure, for him, includes

dogmas, sacraments and the hierarchical constitution of the Church. The ecclesial “structures”

include the way the catechism is written, the style and schema of the organization of parishes, the

types of liturgy. The structure of the Church is already given and unchangeable; however, the

life of the Church and even the ecclesial “structures”, being conditioned historically, are in need

of reform and development.39

36 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 139-40: “l’organisation administrative doit accueillir, pour les ramener

à Dieu dans le Christ, les richesses du monde, les richesses du temporel et du périssable, dont Dieu, certes, n’a pas

besoin, mais qui ont besoin, elles, pour être sauvées, de lui être données.” The English version by Paul Philibert

translates “accueillir” with “take over” which is slightly different from “welcome” (True and False Reform, 131).

37 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 140; True and False Reform 132. Emphasis mine.

38 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 125; True and False Reform, 117.

39 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 57-58, especially n. 50, where Congar himself admits that he makes use

of the distinction between structures (plural) and life in this book. For the English translation, 51 n.50.

172

Furthermore, even on the dogmatic level, the truth exists on two levels: it exists in its

own profound principle and it exists in the forms or formulae that it took in history. The Church

therefore has to be faithful to both levels of existence: there is fidelity to the letter and fidelity

that includes development, Congar affirms.40 It is here, at the level of the life of the Church

which is conditioned historically, that Congar locates the need for reform in the Church.41 This

reform will include not only a purification of the old forms but also new forms in the Church.

Congar keeps a fine balance: on the one hand, he identifies the risk of an excessive attachment to

historical forms, thereby blocking the living principle of the Church42; on the other hand, one

should avoid thinking that the old forms of the Church are outdated just because they are old.43

Congar concludes that the catholicity of the Church has to integrate the realities already achieved

and established, but also new forms in the process of development.44

This expansion of the Church is a very complex process. It is larger than the issue of

reform, which is just a particular aspect of the development of the Church. Even more, reform

should be studied only while keeping in mind the complex reality of the Church. Thus, the

expansion of the Church “is required by an external context, a law of internal maturation and a

40 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 166-67; True and False Reform, 156.





173

transcendent impulse of the Holy Spirit.”45 Later in the book, Congar describes one of the

conditions of true reform and development, namely to remain in communion with the whole.

This is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit: to keep the communion with the whole catholica.

This will be analyzed in the next section of this chapter.

In conclusion, it can be noted that in Vraie et fausse réforme, catholicity is an inner

capacity of the Church to grow and to find new forms of life. By comparison with previous

works, other new elements in Congar’s ecclesiology are: the recognition of the positive values of

the world, the need on the part of the Church to be in dialogue with the world and to receive

from the world, the need for reform which is driven by an internal law of maturation and by the

Holy Spirit. The more Congar developed an ecclesiology of diversity, the more he emphasized

the role of the Holy Spirit. This became clearer in his later books.

In a short article on ecumenism in the same year 1950, “The Call to Ecumenism and the

Work of the Holy Spirit,”46 Congar speaks of the role of the Holy Spirit as the one who leads the

Church into “all truth.” In ecumenical dialogue, Catholics can rediscover truths of their own

tradition that were forgotten and were kept with greater intensity by other traditions. This

process requires an effort to broaden minds but “it soon reaps its reward in the expansion of our

own catholicity and in countless discoveries and enrichment.”47 It becomes clear that for Congar


46 Yves Congar, “The Call to Ecumenism and the Work of the Holy Spirit,” in Dialogue between

Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Philip Loretz (Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1966),

100-106, originally published as Chretiens en dialogue. Contributions catholiques à l’Oecumenisme (Paris, Cerf,

1964), 71-78. The original article was published as “L’appel oecuménique et l’oeuvre du Saint-Esprit,” in La Vie

Spirituelle 82 (1950), 5-12.

47 Congar, “The Call to Ecumenism,” in Dialogue Between Christians, 105.

174

catholicity no longer means an expansion of the unity of the Church but rather “countless

discoveries and enrichment” under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To be really catholic for

Congar, here, means to be more “universal” or to know more about the truths that are revealed

by the Holy Spirit. One might note critically that in this article Congar still defines the goal of

the ecumenical movement as a “unity of integration.” That should not be understood as

“absorption” of other Christians into the Catholic Church; it must be said that that is not

Congar’s stance. While it is true that Congar still uses the language of integration, his emphasis

of the idea of enrichments that come to the Church through non-Catholic traditions constitutes a

step further in his understanding of catholicity as diversity. And this catholicity is the work of

the Holy Spirit as he guides us into “all truth.”

The further evolution of Congar’s thought with regard to catholicity can be observed in

one of his subsequent books, L’Église catholique devant la question raciale (The Catholic

Church and the Race Question), published in 1953.48 If in Vraie et fausse réforme Congar

acknowledged the positive value of diversity, in this later book he goes farther in admitting the

providential value of the diversity. “Christianity attaches to the existence of different peoples,

and contingently of different races, not merely a human and earthly value, but a Christian and

providentially intended value. Progress from unity in solitude to unity in plenitude, which is the

trend of human history, requires it.”49

48 Yves Congar, The Catholic Church and the Race Question, The Race Question and Modern Thought

(Paris: UNESCO, 1953), originally published as L’Église catholique devant la question raciale (Paris: UNESCO,

1953).


175

Furthermore, Congar says, diversity is not only a providential value but is constitutive of

the Church. “The Church [...] stands for the unity of the human family, yet for a unity which

does not exclude diversities but rather comprehends them, because it is <catholic>.”50 The

English translation uses the verb “comprehend” while the French version uses the verb “(se)

constituer.”51 There is a significant difference between these two verbs. The use of the verb “to

comprehend” would indicate a return to the prior position in which catholicity means to

assimilate diversity in unity. The French text, however, conveys the meaning that the Church is

constituted by this diversity. It can be noted how in Congar’s thought the understanding of

catholicity evolves from unity towards diversity or multiplicity. What changed in Congar’s

position is not his understanding of unity in itself (the principles of unity remain the same) but

rather the relationship between unity and diversity. If in Chrétiens désunis diversity was

subordinate to unity, by 1953 the two values of unity and diversity become equally important.

Slowly Congar’s understanding of catholicity was moving toward a “differentiated unity”

brought about by the providential work of God (appropriated later more clearly to the Holy

Spirit).

The principle of diversification resides in God and also in the people who make up the

Church.

The Church has much received [sic] from missions; it draws its strength not only from a

heavenly source, the Christ, the Second Adam, full of grace and truth, but also from an

50 Ibid., 56.

51 “L’Église [...] est l’unité de la famille humaine, mais une unite qui n’abolir pas les diversités, qui se

constitue d’elles, bient plutôt, parce qu’elle est <catholique>.” Emphasis mine, in L’Église catholique devant la

question raciale, 57.

176

earthly source, mankind, which is but the substance—multiplied and distributed

throughout all peoples, all civilizations, all languages and all the experiences of history—

of the First Adam, which is to be “resumed” in the Second. The proper place for a

justification of the part which the diversity of peoples, and possibly of races, may play in

the Church is a theology of catholicity.52

The source of this diversification is double: from above, from Christ who is so rich in his

being, and also from below, from the people who are called to be in communion with Christ.

And this diversity of peoples, languages, and civilizations is a constitutive part of the Church and

has a providential and “sanctified meaning.”53

In Si vous êtes mes témoins (Laity, Church and World) (1959), the connection between

the role of the Holy Spirit and the catholicity of the Church becomes more explicit.54 This book

is a collection of addresses that Congar delivered at three conferences the year before. If one

considers merely the titles and the topics of these conferences, one might think that Congar is

talking only about lay people in the Church and the world. In other words, one might ask the

question why would a book about the laity be important for a theology of catholicity. The reason

lies in Congar’s understanding of catholicity as a property of the Church that is a unified

ecclesiastical body yet differentiated at the same time due to the work of the Holy Spirit.

52 Congar, The Catholic Church and the Race Question, 39. Emphasis original.

53 Ibid., 58.

54 Yves Congar, Laity, Church and World. Three Addresses by Yves Congar, trans. Donald Attwater

(Baltimore: Helicon, 1960), originally published as Si vous êtes mes témoins. Trois conferences sur Laїcat, Église et

Monde (Paris: Cerf, 1959). The last two addresses were originally delivered in German and were published as Wenn

ihr meine Zeugen seid: Über das Apostolat und das Prophetenamt des Laien in der Kirche (Stuttgart:

Schwabenverlag, 1958).

177

First, ecclesial unity is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Congar emphasizes again that the Holy

Spirit is given only in the fellowship of the whole Church, only when the disciples were already

all together and of one mind.

The Spirit then is given to each, but in the company of the rest. He is the principle of

unity, as the soul is for the different parts of the human organism. [...] Just so He [sic]

who is the principle of personal faith and individual Christian life is given us within a

unified organism and for a unifying purpose. The office of the Holy Spirit is precisely to

bring together in unity the gifts that he implants in individual persons.55

Secondly, this unity is differentiated hierarchically by the Holy Spirit. He is given to

each member of the Church, to each man and woman, according to the role that he or she has to

play in the life of the Church. The Holy Spirit is given to the bishops to be shepherds and to care

for the Church; he is also given to lay people in order for them to believe. All these differences

are brought together through the working of the Holy Spirit.56 Even more explicitly, Congar

emphasizes these differences within the Church: “all the members do not have the same function

in the body, and so its one single soul, the Spirit of Christ, does not animate all the members for

the same purpose and in the same way.”57 So, it is the Holy Spirit, as the soul of the body, who

brings about these functional differences in the Church.

Congar explains further that the balance between unity and diversity is grounded in three

things: in the nature of the Church, in God’s plan for us, and in the being of God as Trinity.

First, there is in the Church’s nature a duality: institution and event, letter and spirit,

55 Ibid., 18-19.

56 Ibid., 19-20.

57 Ibid, 70.

178

communalism and mysticism, priesthood and prophecy, direct relationship with God and

mediation of the Church, lay people and hierarchy. According to Congar, the Holy Spirit is the

principle that brings together the two terms of this dialectic. “The Spirit is indeed the living

principle of personal religion; but he is given to each man or woman as a member of an organic

whole [...]. In this way Christianity brings together two things that are often in opposition to one

another: ‘inwardness’ or personal life, and the communal principle or unity.”58 Secondly, this

dialectic is also grounded in the economy of salvation: “There is a duality because there are two

divine missions, that of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit; but we know these two missions are

for one and the same work.”59 And finally, the unity and diversity are grounded in what Congar

calls “God’s very structure”: there is a communion between the three persons and also a

hierarchy of the Father. “In the end it all goes back to the fact that God himself is at the same

time both unity and plurality.”60

In conclusion, Congar’s understanding of catholicity evolved slowly over the years: from

a qualitative extension of the unity to a differentiated unity brought about by the Holy Spirit.

The more Congar appreciated the diversity or plurality, the more he emphasized the role of the

Holy Spirit in making the Church catholic. The next section of this chapter will analyze this

relation in further detail.

58 Ibid., 19-20.

59 Ibid., 20-21.

60 Ibid., 72.

179

B. The Role of the Holy Spirit in Making the Church Catholic

In 1953, in “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Congar wrote expressly on the role of the Holy

Spirit.61 “This indeed is the Holy Spirit’s special work: to bring plurality and diversity into

unity—without violence, and by an interior stimulation that acts as a spontaneous and joyful

initiative in the individual.”62 Here a clear connection is made by Congar between ecclesial

diversity and the role of the Holy Spirit. It is worth noting that here Congar describes the

personal nature of the Holy Spirit and also his mission: “as the Third Person in the divine

Trinitarian reality, the final moment of the fertility, it is his work to continue and in some sort to

extend to creation God’s fertility, the communication of his inmost being.”63 So, one of the

grounds of the theology of catholicity for Congar is the understanding of the Holy Spirit as a

Spirit of communion. This communion is with the Trinity but also within the Church: “The Holy

Spirit is given to the entire body and he gives life to all members of the body, to each member

according to his nature and function.”64

In an article on pluralism in the world, “Les conditions théologiques d’un pluralism”

(“The Theological Conditions of Pluralism”) in 1952, Congar states that there is reciprocity

61 Yves Congar, “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The Revelation of God, trans. A. Manson and L.C.

Sheppard (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), originally published as “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Lumière et

Vie 10 (June 1953): 51-74. The article was reprinted in Les Vois du Dieu Vivant. Théologie et vie spirituelle (Paris:

Cerf, 1962),165-84. The second part of Les Voies du Dieu vivant was published in English as Faith and Spiritual

Life, trans. A. Manson and L.C. Sheppard (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968).

62 Congar, The Revelation of God, 166.

63 Ibid., 166-67.

64 Ibid., 158.

180

between the Holy Spirit and the catholicity of the Church.65 “[T]here is only one soul of the

Church, which binds together the organic bundle of all the elements and makes it that integral

body which is, precisely, the Church. There is a bond, a reciprocity, between that soul of the

Church, which ultimately is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in her, and the integrity of the

elements which make up the body.”66 Congar discusses in this article the value of tolerance in

the dialogue between the Church and the world (and briefly between the Catholic Church and

other Christian churches and communities), and he searches for a common ground that makes

this tolerance possible. In his short discourse on the ecumenical situation, he states that the role

of the Holy Spirit is to bring together all the elements of the Church, i.e. pluralism is possible

due to the work of the Holy Spirit. By pluralism Congar does not understand just any arbitrary

religious, philosophical or political view that is contrary to the Christian truth. Pluralism is

rather a collaboration with people of different religious positions “for the building up of the work

of mankind” “in the field of natural law or the Decalogue.”67 Congar points out that, according

to Catholic teaching, all creation forms a single order and thus the natural values, e.g. respect for

65 Yves Congar, “The Theological Conditions of Pluralism,” in Christians Active in the World, trans. P. J.

Hepburne-Scott (NY: Herder and Herder, 1968), 131-63. The book was originally published as Part Two of

Sacerdoce et laïcat devant leurs tâches d’evangelisation et de civilisation (Paris: Cerf, 1962). In English there are

two editions of Sacerdoce et laïcat, one British and one American, both translated by P. J. Hepburne-Scott. The

British edition is Priest and Layman (London: Longman &Todd, 1967). The American edition is made in two

volumes: A Gospel Priesthood (NY: Herder and Herder, 1967) and Christians Active in the World (NY: Herder and

Herder, 1968). The article in French was originally published as “Les conditions théologiques d’un pluralism,” in

Tolérance et communauté humaine: chrétiens dans un monde divisé, Cahiers de l’Actualité religieuse, Casterman,

(Tournai and Paris, 1952), 191-223.

66 Congar, Christians Active in the World, 148-49. Emphasis original.

67 Ibid., 151.

181

truth and dignity of the human person, “derive their integrity [… ] only from their relation and

subordination to the higher elements, and ultimately to God.”68

The relation of these natural values to the “higher elements” constitutes a theological

condition for pluralism. Even though Congar does not present these natural values as

providential (as we have seen him do in The Catholic Church and the Race Question, in 1953)

and even though he is more interested in the unity of the Church, he still claims that the

pluralistic elements are given by the Holy Spirit. It is true that in his opinion “it is possible that

some elements of the body of the Church or of Catholicism exist outside it” and “they cry out to

be reintegrated, in communion with all others”, but the mere affirmation that these elements own

their existence to the Holy Spirit is significant for the period in which he wrote this article.69

This reciprocity between the Holy Spirit and catholicity seen as pluralism (as explained above)

can be considered already a remarkable achievement.

In “Unité, Diversités et Divisions” (1961), in Sainte Église,70 Congar takes over the same

pattern of two sources of catholicity, from above and from below, that he used in his early books

but with a new trinitarian emphasis on the diversity. First, there is in the Church a principle of

unity that comes from above, which is God himself. Christians share not only in the same faith,

ideas, ideals and goals, but also in the unity that comes from God. The principle of this unity is

personal, that is God himself. Just as in the Trinity there is a principle of unity who is the Father,

68 Ibid., 150.


70 Yves Congar, “Unité, Diversités et Divisions,” in Sainte Église, 105-130. The article was a paper

delivered at Semaine des Intellectuels Catholiques on November 8, 1961.

182

the source of all life in the Trinity, so in the Church there is a unity that comes from God and is

given to us through the Holy Spirit. “What makes us one is that each of us has a personal rapport

with the unique Living God, due to the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”71

Secondly, there is a principle of diversification in the Church which lies in the persons

who receive the faith. “Each person is a subject who lives in an incommunicable and

irreplaceable way: my joy is my joy, and my pain is my pain.”72 Even the most unifying

principles, and God himself who is their source, are received by a large number of persons, in

original and personal ways. Hence, diversity in the Church is a fact. Furthermore, the principle

of diversification is not only personal but also communitarian. The subject that receives the faith

is also a community. There are collective ways to pray, to do theology and to express the

Christian mysteries. The universality or the catholicity of the principles of unity is thus not a

simple quantitative expansion of an identical unity. But these principles of unity, precisely

because they are lived by various communities, take the form of diversity.73 Congar presents

thus far the principle of diversification from below as in his early works, but now with a new

emphasis on the subjectivity of those who live the faith.

More important is his presentation of the diversity coming from above. If in early books

and articles74 he grounded the diversity of the Church on the plurality of humankind and the

71 Ibid., 110.


73 Ibid., 115-116.

74 See Congar, Divided Christendom, 108-113 for human diversity, and 93-99 for the fullness of Christ;

idem, “Catholicité,” in the encyclopedia Catholicisme, hier, aujourd-hui, demain (Paris: Letouzey), vol.2, 1949, col.

183

catholicity of Christ, here Congar notably bases it on the trinitarian diversity. In the Holy

Trinity, there is a perfect communion of the three persons in unity. “The Church imitates, at her

level, the Holy Trinity. She is a multitude of persons that partake in the same life. But this unity

of life is not uniformity, it is enriched by an abundant diversity, by the reality of the individual or

collective persons who receive and live diversely its richness.”75 Participating in the life of the

trinitarian model, the Church is at the same time unity and diversity.

It is worth noting that the use of trinitarian theology has several implications. First,

Congar describes the Church as a communion. The Church is not merely a society but a

communion in which each member participates in the same gifts yet according to his or her own

mode of existence. In this communion there is room for differentiation and also a need for

openness in order to receive, to give and to exchange the gifts. However, the particularity of the

members needs to remain in communion with the whole Church: the parts need to always act as

parts of a whole. There is a need for each member to be aware that one is not alone or in

isolation but part of a greater community with which one is united. In this way, Congar defines

catholicity as an intimate quality of the Church in virtue of which the whole is present to each of

the parts, which themselves are in relationship with the whole and with each other. This

relationship between unity and diversity is described, thus, by Congar as a “mutual interiority” or

as the “law of existence of communion.”76 This balance between unity and multiplicity in the

722-725. The note was republished in Sainte Église, 155-161. “Considered from the point of view of multiplicity,

catholicity is founded on the material cause of the Church, human nature”, at 158.

75 Congar, “Unité, Diversités et Divisions,” in Sainte Église, 105-130, at 125. The text was presented on

November 8, 1961 to the Semaine des Intellectuels Catholiques.

76 Ibid., 125 and 126.

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Church as an effect of the use of the trinitarian model can be considered a second achievement of

Congar.

Third, the Holy Spirit is the one who guarantees that in this communion the diversity of

persons and their relation with the whole are realized at the same time. “[T]he principle of this

acting as parts of a whole, ‘agere ut pars’, without being schismatic but in communion, is not

only intellectual or psychological, but spiritual and mystical: it is nothing else than the Holy

Spirit who moves each to be and to live ‘according to the whole’, in a catholic way.”77 The Holy

Spirit, explains Congar further, frees people’s souls from their human limits78 (he refers here to

the limits of human knowledge) and from the risk that their particularity may become absolute.

He makes them share with others in the principles of unity that are common to all. Even though

Congar does not call the Holy Spirit expressly “the principle of catholicity”, he comes very close

to this expression. The Holy Spirit is the one who communicates to the Church the unity and

diversity of the Trinity and, in this way, makes the Church catholic, that is one and diverse at the

same time.

Perhaps the most systematic presentation of catholicity is found in his book from 1970,

L’Église, une, sainte, catholique et apostolique. Here Congar reiterates his previous positions

regarding catholicity but also adds new nuances. For the sake of avoiding repetition, only the

new developments will be presented here. Congar begins by giving an account of the origin and

77 Ibid., 127-128. Congar uses almost the same words in “Saint-Esprit en Théologie Catholique,” in

Vocabulaire Oecuménique, ed. Yves Congar (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 197-210, at 207.

78 Ibid. Referring to an article by the French essayist Jean Guéhenno, La marge de la fraternité, Congar

speaks about the limits of human knowledge: one should be aware of his limits not only because human knowledge

is limited but also out of charity towards others (who can offer a different or complementary view).

185

the value of the word catholic, showing that it comes etymologically from Greek philosophy,

namely from Aristotle where kath’olou means “according to the whole, in general”, while for

Philo katholikos meant “general, in opposition to the particular.”79 In Christian writings the term

appears for the first time in Ignatius of Antioch as an adjective applied to the Church: “Wherever

the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus

Christ is, there is the catholic Church.”80 “The catholic Church” is, according to scholars, either

the universal Church that is presided over by Christ while the local Church is led by the bishop,

or the authentic Church, i.e., the Church that possesses the truth.81 Regarding the meaning of

the idea of catholicity, Congar points out that Christians from the beginning had the feeling of

belonging to a unique group that has a universal expansion.82 The Church Fathers, beginning

with the third century, saw in the universal character of communion in faith a distinctive sign of

the true Church in opposition to the sects that are always particular, so that by the fifth century

the term “catholic” means a permanent duality: universal and veritable or orthodox.83 After the

sixteenth century, in apologetics catholicity was understood quantitatively as universality in

space with emphasis on the great number of the faithful and the transcendence of the universal

over the local and national realities. The return to a qualitative dimension took place in the

79 Congar, L’Église, une, 150.

80 Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 8, 2, quoted by Congar in L’Église, une, 150.

81 Congar, L’Église, une, 150-151.

82 Ibid., 152. References are to Clement of Rome (Letter to the Corinthians, XLV, 2), Didache (IX, 4 and

19,5) and The Martyrdom of Polycarp (V,1).

83 Ibid., 153-154. References from the third century are to Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses XVII,26),

Augustine (De vera religione 7,12), Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiae, IV,7,13).

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beginning of the twentieth century through the contributions of Ambroise de Poulpiquet, Yves

Congar, Henri de Lubac, Stanislaw Tyszkiewicz and Charles Journet.84 And Congar finishes his

short historical presentation with the conclusion: “The exclusive or dominant consideration of

local or numeric catholicity ended up understanding catholicity as a mere extension of unity. A

qualitative catholicity assumes better the consideration of the contribution of persons and it

values better the aspects of diversity.”85

Sources of Catholicity: God and Humankind

Regarding the theology of catholicity, Congar employs again the model of the two

sources: from above and from below. First, catholicity has its source in the Trinity. “It is

because God is unique, because he is the unique sovereign reason behind all that is, that his Plan

is universal. If God makes something according to his image, he makes it at the same time one

and universal. It is fitting to follow the reality of this Plan in the frame of the appropriations to

each of the divine Persons.”86 The Father envisages the universal plan of salvation which he will

realize through universal means: Christ and the Church. Jesus Christ is the universal principle of

84 Ibid., 159-160. A. Poulpiquet, “Essai sur la notion de catholicité,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et

théologiques 3 (1909): 17-36; idem, L’Église catholique: étude apologétique, foreword R.P. Gardeil (Paris: Revue

des Jeunes, 1923): 179-186; 271-304, H. de Lubac, Catholicisme: Les aspects sociaux du dogme, Unam Sanctam 3

(Paris: Cerf, 1938); S. Tyszkiewicz, La saintete de L'Église Christoconforme : Ébauche d'une ecclesiologie

unioniste (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1945); C. Journet, Theology of the Church, trans.

Victor Szczurek, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004): 325-35, originally published as Theologie de L’Église (Paris:

Desclée de Brouwer, 1958).

85 Ibid. 160.

86 Ibid., 161. A part of the English version is taken from Elisabeth Theresa Groppe, Yves Congar’s

Theology of the Holy Spirit, American Academy of Religion Academy Series (New York: Oxford University Press,

2004), 109.

187

salvation due to the union of his individual human nature with the hypostasis of the Second

Person. In him and by him, God engages definitively to give to the human race and to the world

the full realization of their profound aspirations. The plenitude of Christ, the head (kephalé), is

given to the Church, his body (sôma) and to all beings (ta panta). This is why Christ, filled by

God with energies due to which he can be a principle of existence for all humankind and the

entire cosmos (ta panta), is “the foundation of the catholicity of the Church.”87 It might seem

that Congar holds the same position that he held in Chrétiens désunis; however, he states that

“Christ plenifies the Church, but he is also plenified by it.”88 This emphasis on the source of

catholicity from below is new in comparison with Chrétiens désunis. More will be said about

this below when the issue of the second source of catholicity is discussed.

The Holy Spirit is the third divine person who works in the Church to make her catholic.

He was given to the Church as her soul and he does nothing but the work of Christ. He, being

present in all, appropriates to each person the fullness of Christ and causes the various gifts, the

initiatives of each and of all to merge together toward unity. “He does not only interiorize to

each the treasury of life-according-to-God constituted in Jesus Christ and in the ecclesial ‘relics’

of his redemptive Incarnation, but he also makes present the personal gifts of each and of all to

the other members, and makes them merge toward the building up of the entire ecclesial body.”89

In this way, Congar considers that the role of the Holy Spirit is, by appropriation, not only to

87 Ibid., 162-164, at 164

. 88 Ibid., 167. “Le Christ plénifie l’Église, mais il est aussi plénifié par elle.”

89 Ibid., 164.

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animate the structure founded by Christ but also to enrich the Church with new gifts. Quoting

Wis. 7:22-8:7 which describes the work of wisdom, attributed to the Holy Spirit by tradition and

liturgy, Congar affirms that it is precisely because the Spirit is transcendent and immanent in the

whole world that he endows the Church with new gifts and yet keeps them in the unity of the

whole. He concludes that “through the Holy Spirit catholicity assumes particularities without

destroying them; it is more than the undefined extension of a monist unity. Catholicity is the

assumption of the fruits of the plurality of persons by the way of communion. It is in the Holy

Spirit that the source from below of catholicity meets and is united with the source from

above.”90

Secondly, catholicity has its source in human nature and in the universe. Here Congar

repeats what he has said previously regarding the diversity of people. Even though all people

have human nature in common, there still exists extraordinary diversity. It exists in numerous

original subjects that have their own projects, feelings, ideas, values, and heritages, and are

influenced by various ethnic and cultural groups.91 However, Congar now adds a new element to

his perspective. Christ filled us with his plenitude but he is completed by us in his mystical body

that has to grow to its fullness (Eph. 4:13).92 This theological truth has consequences of great

importance. On the one hand, human realities have to be recapitulated and brought back to God;

90 Ibid., 165. Around the same time, Congar wrote that the unity of the Church is “not a unity that erases

legitimate differences. It is a unity that is not uniformity. We have to get used to [...] a unity that should not be

‘uniformity’, and that should be precisely this seeking together of a greater fullness.” in “Autorité et Liberté dans

l’Église,” in Yves Congar, René Voillaume and Jacques Loew, À temps et à contretemps: Retrouver dans l’Église le

visage de Jésus-Christ (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 35.

91 Ibid., 165-166.

92 Ibid., 168.

189

on the other hand, the Church has to be open to human efforts and initiatives. Nothing would be

less catholic than a certain apostolic haste, a clericalism and a spirit of “triumphalism” to make

all things uniform.93

Another new element that is incorporated in the theology of catholicity is the relationship

between the universal Church and the local Churches. Every local Church is catholic. “This

supposes clearly, by a true, active and profound communion, a presence of the universal and of

the whole in every particular realization of the unique Christianity.”94 This relation of a local

Church with the universal Church distinguishes it from a sect. It is not small numbers that make

a group a sect, but the lack of reference to the whole: the failure to read particular texts of the

Bible in the whole of the Revelation, according to the “analogy of faith,” the failure to situate the

particular facts of life in the structure of the whole.95 It is remaining in relation with the truth

and the life that is preserved in the catholic Church that a local Church is also catholic. In this

way, the qualitative and quantitative aspects of catholicity are indissociable. The catholicity of

extension is possible because the Church is authentically the institution born of the incarnation of

the Son of God and of Pentecost.96

To summarize, in Congar’s thought, the catholicity of the Church is the ecclesial quality

by which all the particular gifts of believers and of local Churches are brought into communion

with the whole of the faith and the life of the universal Church. This communion is a

93 Ibid., 168-169.

94 Ibid., 169.

95 Ibid., 170.

96 Ibid., 171.

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participation in the trinitarian life. The Holy Spirit makes possible that the unity and diversity of

the Trinity meet with the unity and diversity of the Church. “That supposes, on the one hand a

pneumatology, avoiding the reproach (a little too heavy) of ‘christomonism’ which the Orthodox

address to us; on the other hand, a theology of the local Churches.”97 So, one can observe how in

L’Église, une, sainte, catholique et apostolique Congar expresses the importance of

pneumatology for a good and balanced ecclesiology. He tried to fulfill this requirement in his

subsequent trilogy on pneumatology, I Believe in the Holy Spirit.

I Believe in the Holy Spirit represents the culmination of Congar’s thinking regarding the

person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Major themes of Congar’s theology find their place in

this trilogy that represents a synthesis of his pneumatological thought. However, Congar

emphasizes in a new and more powerful way the role of the Holy Spirit in the birth of the

Church. The Church was born from Christ himself and also from the Holy Spirit. This is one of

the principles that flow throughout his exposition of the role of the Holy Spirit in making the

Church catholic. Congar describes this role as a mission in space or in the world and as a

mission in time or in history.

97 Ibid., 173: ”Cela suppose, d’un côté, une pneumatologie évitant le reproche un peu gros de

‘christomonisme’ que nous adressent les Ortodoxes; d’un autre côté, une théologie des Églises locales.” On the

issue of “christomonism”, see Yves Congar, “Pneumatologie ou ‘christomonisme’ dans la tradition latine?”,

Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 45 (1969): 394-416. Reprinted in Ecclesia a Spiritu Sanctu edocta.

Mélanges théologiques. Hommage à Msgr. Gérard Philips (Gembloux: Duculot, 1970), 41-63. On the same

reproach of “christomonism” in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and Congar’s reply, see Yves Congar,

I Believe, vol. 1, 167-72.

191

1. The Spirit Makes the Church Catholic in Space, i.e. Over All Places and Cultures

Congar begins his presentation by pointing out that the Holy Spirit, present already in the

life of Jesus, was in the Church from the beginning of the apostolic mission and testimony as a

power to spread the faith and love (see Lk 24:6-9; Acts 1:6-11; Jn 20:21).98 The Church spread

outside the Jewish milieu and encountered the Greek and Graeco-Roman world. “This was the

beginning of a pluralism in the Church at a socio-cultural level.”99 The Church eventually spread

throughout Europe, Africa, North, Central and South America, and in Asia, encountering various

peoples, languages, cultures and religions. Often there was not enough appreciation of diversity,

and even in our time the Church still needs to welcome these cultures in a new way, or to be the

Church of these peoples in a new way.100 After this short presentation of the geographical

extension of the Church, Congar explains that the Church was born at Pentecost and this gave

her a vocation to universality which supposes not uniformity but an inclusion of the particular

gifts of her people, as is shown by the fact that each person understood the marvelous works of

God in their own language (Acts 2:6-11). “Through the mission and the gift of the Holy Spirit,

the Church was born universal by being born manifold and particular. The Church is catholic

because it is particular and it has the fullness of gifts because each has his own gifts.”101 In the

original French text, the words fullness of gifts and each has his own gifts are emphasized, which

points to the balance that Congar placed on the unity or plenitude of gifts and the particularity of


. 99 Ibid., 25.

100 Ibid., 25.

101 Ibid., 26.

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those gifts. This equilibrium, itself a gift of the Holy Spirit, can be observed in the Church in

two realms of reality.

First, the charisms or talents of the Holy Spirit are given to individual persons for the

common good. “The Church’s catholicity calls for these gifts to be gathered together and

exchanged, and for the different parties contributing them to be aware of the whole and of its

unity.”102 A reciprocity between the particularity of a gift and the welfare of the whole Church is

a gift of the Holy Spirit who this way makes the Church catholic.

Second, the Holy Spirit keeps local or particular Churches in communion with the

universal Church. Appreciative of the rediscovery of the importance of the local Churches at

Vatican II, Congar claims that “the Spirit is for those Churches the principle both of unity and of

their own gifts or talents. It is the task of the Spirit to contain and resolve this fertile tension

between the particular and unity. Unity and pluralism are both necessary—pluralism in unity

and unity without uniformity.”103 It is the task of the Holy Spirit to foster unity in diversity, that

is to build up communion.

2. The Spirit Makes the Church Catholic in Time.

In history, the mission of the Holy Spirit in making the Church catholic according to

Congar can be summarized in the assertion that the Holy Spirit is the principle of continuity or

identity and the principle of novelty at the same time. The continuity from the apostles is, of

102 Ibid., 26.

103 Ibid., 26-27.

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course, the apostolicity of the Church, but Congar underscores that the marks or the properties of

the Church exist only in relationship to each other, meaning that catholicity must be apostolic.104

The Holy Spirit Assures the Continuity with the Apostolic Faith.

First, the Church must have the faith of the apostles, which is realized in various ways.

There is, to begin with, a continuity in the understanding of the Bible. Congar points out the

belief that the Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of the Scriptures is also present in the Church

to help the understanding of the sacred texts. This belief is strongly and abundantly present

throughout the history of Christianity.105 It is not about a mere understanding of the meaning of

the words, but about the continuity of the same content which is transmitted from the apostles

throughout history. Congar explains that the content of the Scriptures and the life of the Church

is the same: Jesus Christ. There is the need for a reading of Scripture by the whole Church in

order to fully receive Christ. The understanding of Scripture is possible, in other words, “within

the living tradition of the whole Church” and Congar is appreciative of the Second Vatican

Council for stressing this principle.106 He then explains further: “If Scripture is, as far as its

content is concerned, the communication of the mystery of Christ, which is the work of the Holy

Spirit, then it is clear how [...] the Church’s Tradition, the Eucharist and even the Church itself

have become assimilated to it, since, because of the activity of the same Spirit, the content is

104 Ibid., 27.

105 Ibid., 27. Some of the references are to Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Jerome, Augustine, Isidore of

Seville, Abelard, Richard of Saint-Victor, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Eckhart (see 36, n. 7).

106 Ibid., 28. Here Congar quotes Dei Verbum 12. Emphasis Congar’s.

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fundamentally the same.”107 For Congar, a full understanding of apostolicity as a continuity in

understanding Scripture requires a theology of Tradition, the Eucharist and the Church. But it is

the Holy Spirit that brings them together, giving them a deep spiritual reality. For some “it is

possible to see nothing in Scripture but a literary text, nothing in Tradition but a human history,

nothing in the Eucharist but a ceremony and nothing in the Church but a sociological

phenomenon. Each, however, also has a deep spiritual aspect, to which God is committed

through his Spirit.”108

The true understanding of Scripture is a gift made not only to her pastors, but to the

whole Church by the Holy Spirit. Congar discusses later the role of pastors and of the

magisterium regarding the apostolicity of the Church in the strict sense, namely as referred to the

apostolic college.109 But here, Congar emphasizes the role of the entire Church in understanding

Scripture since the whole Church is apostolic, meaning catholic in time. “Although I would not

wish to overlook this aspect [of the hierarchy], I would prefer to stress here the part played by

the Spirit in making knowledge present in continuity with what has gone before, and to insist on

the fact that the whole Christian community, including its pastors, are helped by the Spirit.”110

Then he quotes Lumen Gentium 12, which explains that the sensus fidei is given to the whole

people of God by the Holy Spirit, and that through this supernatural sense of faith they cannot err

as a whole in matter of faith and morals. So, in Congar’s vision, the whole Church is catholic in

107 Ibid., 28.

108 Ibid., 28-29.

109 Ibid., 43-47, where Congar treats Church’s apostolicity.


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time because it holds the faith received from the apostles. This continuity is a gift and the work

of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Transcendent Subject of Tradition.

Another way to describe the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church catholic is to

discuss the meaning of tradition. Congar wrote extensively on this topic and with an expertise

widely recognized. The issue of the Holy Spirit as the transcendent subject of Tradition could be

summarized as following: the Holy Spirit who inspired the apostles and the writing of Scriptures

continues to live in the Church and to guide the councils, the Fathers, and the popes in those

matters regarding the Church’s rule of faith and conduct. This conviction is one of the surest

and most unanimously accepted throughout the course of history, both in the East and in the

West.111 Tradition is the whole life of the Church that guarantees the keeping of the deposit of

apostolic faith and also witnesses to the unfolding of this deposit in new situations of life. This

understanding of tradition presupposes an ecclesiology based on the two missions of the Son and

of the Spirit, each of equal importance in forming the Church. “The Word of God with the

sacraments of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ, form this Church unceasingly, according to the

pattern given to it by the incarnate Word. There is no break between the apostolic and the

historic moments of the Church.”112 But the one who operates in both apostolic times and the

time of the Church is the same: the Holy Spirit who is the transcendent principle of tradition.

However, Congar makes a distinction between apostolic times and the later life of the Church. “I

111 Congar, Tradition and Traditions, 169 and 49 (for references to Church Fathers and councils, see n. 2).

112 Ibid., 173.

196

am still convinced that it is not really possible to place at the same level on the one hand the

revelation or inspiration of the Spirit at the apostolic, constitutive period of the Church’s

foundation and, on the other hand, the continuing activity of the Spirit in the life of the Church

that was founded at that time.”113

The distinction is needed because “not [...] everything that occurs in the Church’s

historical life is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit”114 and because the historical forms of doctrine do

not have the same normative function as the apostolic revelation. But a continuity between the

apostolic era and the time of the Church, i.e. a genuine understanding of tradition, has always

been believed in the Church, and this is explained by the presence of the Holy Spirit. His

presence was described as an indwelling in the Church or by calling him the soul of the Church,

descriptions to which Congar subscribes. He also describes this relation between the Holy Spirit

and the Church as a covenant bond115 in order to show the continuity of tradition based on the

faithfulness of God to his promise to remain always with his Church. For this reason Congar

also calls the Holy Spirit the transcendent principle of tradition. His work is to interiorize the

work of Christ that has been handed on through a long historical process and it is received by

each succeeding generation which needs to make a personal appropriation in faith of the content

transmitted to them. This reception, which takes place in every person’s consciousness without

any violation, is a spiritual “event” brought about by the Holy Spirit and “not merely by a


114 Congar, Tradition and Traditions, 344; see also 175-176, where Congar prefers the word assistentia to

revelatio and inspiratio in order to describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church after the death of the apostles.

115 Ibid., 173 and 341-342; the Church and the Spirit are united by a “covenant link”, at 345.

197

decision taken by men, which would be neither a principle of unity nor a principle of divine life

[...]. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.”116 At the ecclesial level an analogical process takes

place.117 For this reason Congar calls the Holy Spirit the transcendent subject of tradition.

Rémi Chéno118 thinks that in The Word and the Spirit, Congar places more importance on

the post-apostolic or ongoing revelation than on the constitutive era of revelation.119 Chéno

quotes Congar who discusses the issue of the closure of revelation after the death of the last

apostle and Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of revelatio in a more objective way than the

Fathers:

We have honoured Thomas Aquinas in this instance for two reasons. Firstly, he used the

term revelatio not in the sense of an illumination of the spirit, but in an objective sense, as

meaning what is revealed. Secondly, he used it exclusively for public and constitutive

supernatural revelation. This use of the word is the one which has prevailed in theology.

We have, however, become more sensitive to the more fortunate aspect of the earlier use,

which expressed a feeling for the presence here and now of God building up his Church or

the fact that the Holy Spirit or Christ pneumatized and in glory is co-existent here and now

with the Church of the incarnate Word.120

In Chéno’s opinion this constitutes a revision by Congar, who in comparison to his earlier

works, seems more open in La Parole et le Souffle (1983) to the ongoing action of the Holy

Spirit in the Church (revelatio revelans) than to public, objective revelation during the time of

116 Ibid., 342.

117 Ibid., 343.

118 Rémi Chéno (b. 1959) is a French Dominican priest. He has a PhD in theology from the University of

Strasbourg with specialization in ecclesiology (2009), and later devoted his research to pneumatology and

eschatology. Since 2014, he is the general secretary of l’Institut dominicain d’études orientales (Cairo). His most

relevant work in pneumatology and ecclesiology is L'Esprit-Saint et l'Église : Institutionnalité et pneumatologie,

Vers un dépassement des antagonismes ecclésiologiques, Cogitatio fidei 275 (Paris: Cerf, 2010).

119 Rémi Chéno, “Les Retractationes d’ Yves Congar sur le role de l’Esprit Saint dans les institutions

ecclésiales,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 91 no 2 (2007): 265-84.

120 Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 57. Chéno quotes (in “Les Retractationes d’Yves Congar”, 275) the

French edition of Congar’s book, La Parole et le Souffle, 98-99.

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the apostles (revelatio revelata).121 However, Chéno judges that this revision was never

developed by Congar and it never had any precise application.122 Even if this is true, it still

points to the fact that Congar’s theology became more sensitive to the need for pneumatology in

order to have a better understanding of tradition and of catholicity in time. To summarize, the

Holy Spirit makes the Church catholic in time, that is universal, from the era of the apostles to

the present day by assisting the Church in understanding the word of God in the same spirit that

it was written, by endowing the whole Church with the sensus fidei and by being the

transcendent subject of tradition.

Secondly, tradition is the process by which the Holy Spirit not only preserves the word of

God, but also enables the Church to interpret it in the new situations of life. Congar calls this

process prophecy. According to him, there are several forms of prophecy in the Church,123 but

one of them is more important for this study: reading the signs of the times. This position is

connected with Congar’s understanding of the theology of history. In short, Congar argues that

human knowledge of God’s plan is general: people know the great lines of this design but they

do not know the details. To know the details and to understand them as signs from God is even

more difficult since the economy of salvation is interwoven with human history. For a correct

121 Chéno, “Les Retractationes d’Yves Congar”, 275. Chéno acknowledges that Congar did not use these

terms but he was very close to using them.

122 Ibid., 276.

123 Congar defines prophecy as knowledge of God and of God’s proposal of grace. Under this definition,

he considers prophecy the active revelation of God in both its forms: traditio constitutiva (Christ and the apostles

give God’s People its structure of faith) and traditio continuativa (the magisterium maintains and explains the

meaning of revelation) (True and False Reform, 194). Another form of prophecy is the mission of the reformers “to

judge their times and the things that exist in time in the light of the truths seen in relation to the Absolute and to the

end term toward which they are directed” (Ibid., 187). Private revelations also and even poetry are connected with

prophecy (Ibid., 184-85 and 187).

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understanding, it is required that revelation itself should show the connection between the events

of history and God’s plan. But revelation is closed and the interpretation of these post-apostolic

events is not guaranteed.124 For this reason he cautions against a tendency to interpret the signs

of the times superficially125 and he claims that only the charism of prophecy from the Holy Spirit

assures a true understanding of these signs. “It is true that God speaks through and in events,

but, without the prophetic charism, which neither the theologian nor the historian are sure to

have, we have, in order to interpret the events as ‘signs of times’, only the light of the revelation

attested in Scriptures and contemplated by the Church in the mediation of her centuries old

Tradition.”126 Despite this necessary prudence, Congar is convinced that the spirit of prophecy

still exists in the Church.127 However unclearly defined, there are signs of God’s presence both

within and outside the Church, which are mentioned by the Second Vatican Council: the

liturgical movement which is like a passage of the Holy Spirit in his Church, the ecumenical

movement, the solidarity of all peoples and nations, the recognition of religious freedom in

124 Yves Congar, “Pneumatologie et théologie de l’histoire,” in Herméneutique et Eschatologie: Actes du

colloque organisé par le Centre International d’Études Humanistes et par l’Institut d’Études Philosophiques de

Rome, ed. Enrico Castelli, La théologie de l’histoire (Rome: Aubier, 1971) 61-70, at 68-69.

125 Ibid., 69-70. Among several examples, Congar mentions the interpretation of the storm that occurred

during the declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council: adversaries saw in it a protest of heaven,

while supporters saw in it a sign of approval like the theophany on Sinai. Congar comments with humor: “it was not

theology, a false theology, that could say a reasonable word about the storm, but meteorology.” For other forms of

dubious “prophetism,” in his assessment, see The Word and the Spirit, 69.

126 Ibid., 70.

127 Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 66-67. Regarding persons whom Congar considers prophets, he

names only the deceased: Ozan, Lacordaire, de Mun, Bloy, Péguy, John XXIII, Cardinal Cardijn (True and False

Reform, 184), Martin Luther King, Teilhard de Chardin, Vincent Lebbe, Helder Cậmara, Solzhenitsyn, Dietrich

Bonhoeffer, and Mgr. Riobé (The Word and the Spirit, 70).

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legislation.128 “These broad facts point to developments in the history of mankind which provide

the Church, or, more precisely, its catholicity, with its matter. These developments in the history

of the first Adam have to be evangelized [...], and they also give a topicality to the Church’s

message, matter to its mission, and a new way of proclaiming the gospel.”129 It is clear how in

Congar’s view, the Holy Spirit makes the Church catholic in time because he who spoke through

the prophets still speaks today by enabling the Church to read the signs of the times, and thus

assuring the continuity of the present with the past. Thus, “the Holy Spirit is, in the same action,

in history, the principle of continuity or identity and the principle of novelty [...], who anticipates

eschatology and lifts [us] up towards it.”130

The Holy Spirit Moves the Church Towards Eschatological Times.

To describe the relation between the Holy Spirit and eschatology, Congar uses the

expression of Hans Urs von Balthasar: the Holy Spirit is the “Unknown One beyond the

Word.”131 This expression describes, according to Congar, the action of the Holy Spirit that is in

continuity with Christ’s work and thrusts forward in time and space with its aim towards

128 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 31, see n. 31 for references in the conciliar documents to each of these signs of

the times.

129 Ibid., 32.

130 Congar, “Pneumatologie et théologie de l’histoire”, 67.

131 Ibid., 62, here Congar praises this expression as “the most profound word, maybe, that was pronounced

by a theologian about the Holy Spirit”; Idem, I Believe, vol. 2, 33. Congar quotes von Balthasar “Der Unbekannte

jenseits des Wortes,” in Interpretation der Welt: Festschrift Romano Guardini zum achtizigsten Gerburtstag, ed.

Helmut Kuhn (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1965), 638-45, reprinted in Spiritus Creator. Skizzen zur Theologie, vol. 3,

(Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1967); English trans.: Explorations in Theology: Spirit Creator, vol. 3, trans. Brian

McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993).

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eschatology.132 The Holy Spirit’s activity displays something that is new in history. Although

the Church was established in her fulness by Christ and the Spirit, it is still possible and

necessary for the Church to grow because this “fullness has not been totally revealed or totally

fulfilled in Christ according to the flesh.”133 This fullness is still unfolding in the economy of

salvation. For this reason it can be said that the Holy Spirit moves the Church forward toward

eschatological fulfillment. But Congar’s contribution is valuable because he shows that this

activity is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, because when he acts in salvation history moving it to

its eschatological fulfilment, he carries his personal mark or hypostatic identity. God’s love is

ecstatic, points out Congar, meaning it has the property of expressing itself towards another

person, but it is more fitting to appropriate this ecstasy to the Holy Spirit who breaks the self-

sufficiency of the “face-to-face” of the first two persons. So, if the Holy Spirit is this ecstasy of

God within the immanent trinitarian relationships, in God’s work in the economy of salvation it

belongs more properly to the Holy Spirit to project the Church “forwards towards a future, the

principal characteristic of which is newness.”134 This theology is grounded on his third principle

of pneumatology: the divine missions are rooted in the divine processions within the Trinity. In

this way, the catholicity of the Church is based not only on the universality of humankind, but

also on the relationships between the divine persons.

132 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 33. Emphasis original.



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Catholicity is also grounded in the second principle of Congar’s pneumatology: the Word

and the Spirit work together to build up the Church, which is at once the established Church and

the Church of the future.135 In fact the expression “the Unknown One beyond the Word” points

precisely to this unity of the missions of Christ and the Spirit, the “two hands of God.”136 Yet

this unity does not hinder the movement towards the future and the eschatological end. “The

Holy Spirit makes the Easter event of Christ present with the eschatological destiny of creation

in mind.”137 The Spirit pushes forward Christ’s mystery into the time of the Church that has not

yet come, into novelty and an infinite variety of cultures. The Holy Spirit is the link between

what has been given once and for all (ephapax)138 and the unexpected, between what took place

just once and what is always new. Even more, the Holy Spirit unites the first Adam with the

eschatological Adam, Jesus Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega of the Church and of the

world. Keeping a fine balance between Christology and pneumatology, Congar stresses both the

continuity with the past—because the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and “the soundness of any

pneumatology is its reference to Christ”139— and also the Church’s call to encounter in a new

way peoples, cultures and religions. The catholicity of the Church is the catholicity of Christ, the


136 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, V, 6, 1; V, 28, 4. Congar calls Irenaeus “that great and beloved writer”

and points to his theology of the two divine missions that are closely connected (I Believe, vol. 2, 9).


138 Yves Congar, “Comment l’Église sainte doit se renouveler sans cesse,” Irénikon, 34 (1961): 322-45,

reprinted in Sainte Église, 131-54, at 148. “Tout doit être pris de l’ephapax de l’Acte salutaire de Dieu...”


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historical and eschatological Christ or “the Christ that is to be”140 at the same time, and is

brought about by the Holy Spirit. The second principle of Congar’s pneumatology, i.e. there is

no Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology, finds its

application in a sound and balanced theology of catholicity: “Christ is the Alpha and the Omega

of this new and wider catholicity which the ‘Unknown beyond the Word’ enables mysteriously

to develop to a greater and wider maturity.”141

In Congar’s penultimate major work, Diversités et communion (Diversity and

Communion) (1982), catholicity is presented as an “intrinsic value of unity” or as a

“differentiation of something held in common.”142 Pluralism is not new in the Church, but if, in

the past, attempts were made to conform others to one’s own model, nowadays “what is

relatively new is the recognition of the other as such” and an interest in precisely where the other

differs.143 This theological pluralism is grounded in the transcendence of the mystery of God and

in the great diversity of expressions of faith that are conditioned by various human subjects,

140 Congar seems to like this expression of Alfred Lord Tennyson, which he quotes in I Believe, vol. 2, 38,

n. 41, and in Sainte Église, 148. The quote is from poem CVI of In Memoriam, and not CV as it is stated in Sainte

Église.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.


142 Congar, Diversity and Communion, 40.


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groups of peoples and particular Churches, each coming from different cultures, traditions and

languages.144

C. Critical Evaluation

Some scholars of Congar’s theology compare this penultimate book, Diversités et

communion (1982), with his first, Chrétiens désunis (1937), and point out how Congar’s

theology of catholicity evolved. Jean-Pierre Jossua finds three transformations in Congar’s

thought. First, catholicity was presented in the first book as a universal capacity for unity, while

in the 1982 book catholicity is diversity or pluralism, understood as an internal value of unity.145

While the first model was, in Jossua’s opinion, doctrinal and “ideological, that is to say justifying

a certain state of affairs”, the second was historical, or more attentive to the facts of life, and was

characterized by an openness.146

Secondly, the unity of the first model had two sources: one from the Trinity in Christ and

one from the people in need of unifying structures. There was, in Jossua’s view, a risk in

identifying the Church as mystery with the visible Church. Despite this risk, Jossua

acknowledges that for Congar in 1937 the Church as mystery was more than what is visible of

her and that all Christians who are saved belonged in reality to the one Church, even though they

were outside the visible boundaries of the Church. In the 1982 vision, the same double logic

144 Ibid., 168-69.

145 Jean-Pierre Jossua, “In hope of Unity,” in Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church, ed. Gabriel Flynn,

Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs, no. 32 (Louvain: Peeters, 2005),167-181, at 179.

146 Ibid., 179.

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concerning unity is used, but it has “greatly” changed because the Church is described now as a

mystery “but from its roots as a communion of persons or of Churches, with a pneumatological

and not only Christological note. This reference to the Holy Spirit points to harmonious

diversity, liberty, the unforeseen.[...] On the other hand, the anthropological dimension is now

much less rooted in the ‘social order’ model, than in that of human historicity, a source of

differences rather than of uniformity.”147

Thirdly, regarding ecumenism, in Chrétiens désunis unity was perceived as something

belonging to the Roman Catholic Church to which the separated Christians are called “to return,

with all due respect, without being required to renounce anything positive.”148 In Diversités et

communion, unity is conceived as something for the future for which all Christians are searching

and pluralism is a not a defect but a source of richness. Ecumenism was regarded with reserve

by people in 1937, but in 1982 was seen as a “sign of the times” while the importance of the

hierarchy of truths had been recognized by Vatican II.149

Famerée’s analysis of the two books follows along the same lines but seems to emphasize

more the eschatological dimension of the unity which is already given, yet is still to come:

“perfect unity will be given eschatologically.”150 In Famerée’s opinion, Congar’s “book from


148 Ibid., Jossua does not exemplify which are “positive” things not required to be abandoned. One of them

could be for example, anything valuable in various forms of piety (e.g. in the Anglican or Eastern Orthodox piety),

see Divided Christendom, 256.

149 Ibid.

150 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 456. Emphasis original. Famerée quotes Diversités et

communion, 238. In the English translation Diversity and Communion, the quote is on page 163.

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1982 insists on the transcendence of the mystery, the eschatological and pneumatological

dimensions in the line of Lumen gentium, while Chrétiens désunis, despite well-developed

trinitarian and Christological dimensions, remains marked by a juridical perspective of the

Church seen as societas perfecta or societas hierarchica.”151 Famerée points out not only the

differences but also the continuity between the two books.

Gabriel Flynn also compares the two books of Congar:

Congar’s understanding of Catholicity underwent development. In his first major work

Chrétiens désunis, he placed a strong emphasis on the need to subordinate values outside

the Roman Catholic tradition. Later, while remaining faithful to the principle of his

earlier position, he came to a recognition of the contribution of other traditions to the

enrichment of the Roman Catholic Church in any future reunion.152

If one compares the first and the penultimate books of Congar, one can notice without

difficulty the difference in Congar’s perspective regarding catholicity, as the scholars mentioned

above did. These comparisons are needed due to the fact that Congar’s theological work is so

vast. However, analyzing only these two reference books does not seem to do full justice to the

entire evolution of Congar’s thought and runs the risk that an unaware reader might draw the

conclusion that Congar only developed a pneumatology towards the end of his theological

career. Therefore, it is equally important to point toward the continuity between these two

positions. The evolution of Congar’s theological thought took place gradually. Famerée calls

this process “a progression and also a profound dynamic fidelity” and he says that “all these

151 Ibid., 455-56. Emphasis original. The same critique is found also in “De la catholicité à la diversité et

de l’unité à la communion,” in Joseph Famerée and Gilles Routhier, Yves Congar, 78.

152 Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Aldershot, England:

Ashgate, 2004), 73, n. 250.

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differences of emphasis do not destroy a profound continuity.”153 Flynn also acknowledges that

Congar remained “faithful to the principle of his earlier position.”154

More important, Congar was seriously engaged with pneumatology before the

publication of I Believe in the Holy Spirit and Diversity and Communion. His own words testify

to this fact: “When I began working on my three volumes on the Holy Spirit—I Believe in the

Holy Spirit—first I made a brief survey of my past publications and saw that I had written and

published eighteen or nineteen articles on the Spirit. So I had been preoccupied with the Spirit

for quite a long time, but there were always other specific commitments and deadlines which I

had to meet.”155 Some of the articles about which Congar talks have been investigated briefly in

this chapter and they show Congar’s belief that a proper theology of catholicity requires the

understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit. As early as 1949, Congar wrote about catholicity:

The agent of the realization of this program cannot be but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of

Pentecost, together with the apostolic corps [...]. It is the Holy Spirit who appropriates to

persons the infinite riches which are in Christ; it is he, unique and sovereign, who is at

the same time present and active in all [...] and who makes each one act according to

one’s own gifts and measure, but also all and each ‘according to the whole.’156

Even though Congar presents catholicity as the universal capacity of the principles of

unity, he claims that it was given to the Church at Pentecost and yet it is possible to be effected

153 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 451 and 456.

154 Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church, 73, n. 250.


156 Yves Congar, “Catholicité,” in Sainte Église, 160-161. The article was originally published in the

encyclopedia Catholicisme (Paris: Letouzey, 1949), coll. 722-725.

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or actualized more completely.157 As has been rightly noted, catholicity had a Christological

emphasis in the first stage of Congar thought, but also valuable is the fact that he recognized the

Holy Spirit as the agent of this catholicity.

Congar could not have expressed an equal emphasis on pneumatology at that time for

various reasons. First, his interest was in the unity of the Church due to his involvement in the

ecumenical movement and due to the influence of Thomas Aquinas. As an effect, that idea of

catholicity seemed to him to encompass the diversities.158 Furthermore, in Congar’s view,

Aquinas’ ecclesiology lacks a “consideration of the elements that form a communional reality of

mediation of the grace of the Holy Spirit and of Christ; the consideration of the Church as

Communion, and even as a Communion of local or particular churches.”159 The particular

churches form a communion due to the primacy of a universal unity. That unity was linked at

that time and in Aquinas with profound values: the idea of the unity of the body required unity

with the head, as in a physical body; the idea of an absolute unity of the faith which was the

background (le fond) of the concept of catholicity.160 Secondly, the role of the Holy Spirit was

not enough emphasized because Congar was not addressing the relationship between Christology

and pneumatology. In his post-conciliar writings, Congar reached the conclusion that Christ and

the Holy Spirit were united, so that by the end of his career he calls the Holy Spirit the co-

157 Ibid.,159.


159 Yves Congar, “Vision de l’Église chez Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et

théologiques, 62 (1978): 523-42, at 536.

160 Ibid., 536-37.

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institutor of the Church, and his ecclesiology became more pneumatological.161 But this

development of his ecclesiology would not have been possible without a deep awareness of the

need for pneumatology. Even though his pneumatology was not yet fully developed, because he

did not have the time to explore it more due to the deadlines he had to meet, it can still be

affirmed that his theology could not have developed without a pneumatological background.

Two other facts can further support this statement. Already in 1952-53, Congar

described the union of the Holy Spirit with the Church as an alliance “the grounds of which are

the most stable, the most holy conceivable, because they are the products of God’s will and

faithfulness.”162 The Church has stability and a real infallibility because the Holy Spirit dwells

in her and he is “the supreme factor in the new and conclusive alliance.”163 The role of the Holy

Spirit is described as very stable and essential by Congar. Later this role will be described as

being co-institutor of the Church, but the seeds of this pneumatology can be observed even in

Congar’s early work, from 1952-53. Congar even goes so far as to overstate the freedom or the

autonomy of the Holy Spirit in rapport with the institutional Church in the same article from

1952-53.164 He retracted this position in I Believe in the Holy Spirit saying that the distinction

161 Elisabeth Teresa Groppe, “The Contribution of Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit,”

Theological Studies, 62 (2001), 451-78, at 461. Groppe mentions, on the same page, that Congar used the term

“pneumatological Ecclesiology” for the first time in 1973.

162 Congar, “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The Revelation of God, 152. Congar quotes here his

Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, 161 (The Mystery of the Church, 131). That particular chapter was originally

published as “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.

163 Ibid., 152.

164 Congar, Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, 2d. ed., 64-179; The Mystery of the Church, 132-145,

especially at 138: [I]f the Church is always the work of the Holy Spirit who dwells in it, it is not that of the Spirit

exclusively bound to the institution and working in and through it. The Holy Spirit retains a kind of freedom of

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between the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit should not be so radical; their activity and goal

are complementary in building up the Church. This overstatement proves precisely Congar’s

concern to define the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church in his pre-conciliar works. In this

way, it can be noticed that pneumatology and ecclesiology influenced each other in Congar’s

thought: as he became more sensitive to diversity he stressed the role of the Holy Spirit, and the

more he developed his pneumatology the more he emphasized the Spirit’s role as the principle of

catholicity understood as diversity.

Other areas that contributed to his development of pneumatology, as it was shown in this

chapter, are: the historical dimension of the Church and the need for reform, the theology of the

laity, the place of the local churches in ecclesiology, the meaning of tradition whose transcendent

subject is the Holy Spirit, eschatology, the immanent and economic relationship between Christ

and the Spirit. It appears that his thought grew organically in many theological disciplines. All

these factors enabled him to move from an understanding of catholicity as a universal capacity of

unity to a differentiated unity animated by the Holy Spirit, and to reach his final understanding of

the Holy Spirit as the principle of ecclesial catholicity, because he is the co-instituting principle

of the Church. This catholicity is the diversity in unity or the communion of the whole people of

God, both clergy and laity, throughout space and time, from the Alpha to the Omega of the

Church, that is, from Christ to the eschatological fulfillment of the Church, and this is the work

of the Holy Spirit. Also, the fact that the Holy Spirit is the principle of catholicity discloses

something about his person and his relationships within the Trinity. He is the principle (or more

action which is immediate, autonomous and personal. In this way, there exists a kind of free sector” of the Spirit.

See also 142 and 145.

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precise the term) of ecstasy in God or of an openness that goes beyond the love between the first

two persons. This openness toward the other is communicated to the Church by the Holy Spirit,

by appropriation, and therefore the Church is catholic and her catholicity reflects the unity and

diversity of the immanent Trinity from which the Church comes and toward which it goes.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF

ECCLESIAL APOSTOLICITY

This chapter will present the evolution of Congar’s thought regarding the apostolicity of

the Church and the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church apostolic. In the first section, it

will be shown how Congar understood the Spirit first as the principle of continuity of the work of

Christ together with the apostolic body. In his early works, the apostles work in the visible order

(through the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the sacraments) to continue the

work of Christ: to keep the continuity with the acta et passa Christi in carne. The Spirit works

at the same time, in the apostles and together with them, in the invisible order to bring the effects

of Christ’s redemptive work in the souls of Christians. In other words, the Spirit animates the

structures founded by Christ and the work of the apostles. Apostolicity is seen as the quality of

the Church to continue the work of Christ, through the work of the apostles and of the Holy

Spirit. It will be shown that this is basically a Christological approach, in which the role of the

Spirit is not fully developed.

The second section of this chapter will trace Congar’s development of the theology of

ministries between 1951 to 1970. It will be shown how Congar developed his understanding of

priesthood as an instrumental cause of apostolicity into an understanding of ministries in the

service of communion.

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The last section will present how Congar in his late writing understood the Holy Spirit as

the co-instituting principle of the life of the Church. The Church was described not as much as a

body which the Spirit animates, but as a communion. In this communion, the Spirit helps the

community and the hierarchy share the same faith in continuity with the faith of the apostles. He

is also the essential principle of the continuity of ministry between the apostles and the present

time.

The development of Congar’s thought from the earlier to the later stages of his work was

gradual; there was a change in perspective but that does not imply major retractions of his

previous position. There was a shift also in the method of study used by Congar. In the first

stage, he began with ecclesiology and developed his pneumatology. In his last works, Congar

begins with pneumatology and then he shows its ecclesiological implications. Methodologically,

this chapter will analyze important books and various articles in chronological order with the

purpose of making clear the evolution of Congar’s theological thinking regarding apostolicity

and the role of the Spirit in bringing about ecclesial apostolicity.

A. Apostolicity as Continuity and Growth Between the Alpha and Omega: A

Mainly Christological Approach

Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église (The Mystery of the Church) (1953)

In his article “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of

Christ”,1 Congar presents in detail his thought on the relation between the Holy Spirit and the

1 Yves Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ,” in The

Mystery of the Church, 2d. ed., (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1965), 105-145. The chapter was originally published as

“Le Saint-Esprit et le corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du Christ” in the second edition of Esquisses du

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ministry of the apostles. It should be noted that the article studies the role of the apostles in the

light of the entire mystery of the Church. In the preface of the book, Esquisses du Mystère de

l’Église, Congar notes that the ministries “involve a whole conception of the mystery of the

Church, of the conditions of life in the Church and of the understanding of its mystery. […]

[T]he Church is a living organism, animated and governed by the Holy Spirit, one which

contains, vitally, its law within itself.”2 This Church was built up after Jesus’ Ascension by two

agents, who, by Jesus’ disposition before leaving this world and returning to the Father, continue

his work. These two agents whom Jesus sends are the apostles (Jn 13:16, 20; 17:18) and the

Holy Spirit (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26).

1. The Two Missions of the Two Agents: To Continue the Work of Christ

The Role of the Apostles in Building Up the Church

The apostles were called by Jesus personally and as a college, and endowed with

ministerial powers (Lk 9:1; Mt 16:19-20, 18:18, 19:28; Lk 22:19). The characteristic of the

apostolic office is to have been witnesses of Christ’s public ministry, to have been connected

with what Jesus said and did during his earthly life, that is, with his acta et passa in carne.3

Therefore, the apostolic office “belongs to the sphere of the Incarnation, of the coming of the

Son of Man, whose own mission it continues.”4 In fact, the entire structure of the Church,

Mystère de l’Église, 2d ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1953) and it replaced two articles which were dedicated to J. A. Möhler in

the first edition.

2 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, xiii-xiv.

3 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 2d. ed., 113.

4 Ibid., 106.

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consisting of the deposit of faith, the sacraments and the apostolic ministry, derives from the

incarnation and the earthly ministry of Jesus.5 Being received from Jesus, as he received his

mission from the Father, the apostles’ mission has a double dimension: spiritual or mystical, as a

communication of God’s love; and juridical, conjoined in the same reality. In this prolongation

of mission and powers from Christ to the apostles, “the one sent represents the person of his

master and has the same authority”; he exercises the functions of his master. “This is,

undoubtedly, the whole idea of the apostolate instituted by Christ (cf. Jn 13:16, 20; 15:20; 17:9

ff., especially 18; also Lk 10:16; Mt 10:40).”6

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Building Up the Church

The Paschal Mystery of Christ is the Cause of the Outpouring of the Spirit. Unlike the

mission of the apostles that is inscribed in an incarnational line, the mission of the Holy Spirit

derives from the mystery of Christ’s passion which in the Johanine Gospel is the beginning of his

glorification.7 It was necessary for Christ to be glorified in his human nature that the Holy Spirit

be given (Jn 7:39, 16:17); the glorification of Christ, now Kyrios or Lord in his human nature

5 Ibid., 112.

6 Ibid., 107.

7 This does not mean that the Holy Spirit was not present beforehand in the economy of salvation; it

means that now the Spirit communicates Christ’s grace through which Christians are children of God. Until this

point the work of the Spirit was lacking the power of divine adoption: I Believe, vol. 2, 75. Congar stated also in

1953 that the Spirit was at work in “the old dispensation” (Congar, “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The

Revelation of God, 148-49; idem, Mystery of the Temple, 16-18; see also E. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of

the Holy Spirit, 54-56).

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over all things, becomes thus the cause of the sending and of the work of the Holy Spirit.8 In

“The Church and Pentecost”, Congar expresses the same truth: “Jesus Christ, by his death and

Resurrection, merited for us the gift of the Spirit.”9 Congar insists that the moment of the

flowing of water from the pierced side of Christ was the beginning of the outpouring of the

Spirit. What is important in the relation between the passion of Christ and the coming of the

Spirit is not the temporal succession of these two events; in fact, Congar points out that, without

Acts (1:3; 2:1), one could think that Pentecost took place on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection

(Jn 20:19-23). According to John, the connection is theological: the paschal mystery is the cause

of Pentecost, so that “Pentecost is simply the Passover brought to completion.”10 In fact,

“Pentecost is the final mystery of the christological cycle; there is no cycle proper to the Holy

Spirit. It is the completion of Easter, that is of the work of the Incarnate Word, but brought about

by a new Person sent by the Father and the Son.”11

The Spirit is Another Person and Not Merely the Vicar of Christ. This assertion that the

Spirit is another person, beside Christ, in the work of salvation is crucial in Congar’s thought.

The Holy Spirit has his own mission, distinct from Christ’s even though connected with it; it is

not its continuation, not reduced to a mere repetition of Christ’s mission, precisely because the


. 9 Yves Congar, “The Church and Pentecost,” in The Mystery of the Church, 146-198, at 152. This chapter

was originally published as a book, La Pentecȏte – Chartres 1956 (Paris: Cerf, 1956).

10 Ibid., 155-56. Emphasis mine. Congar does not use the word “cause” but he describes the relation

between the Passover and Pentecost in a logic of causality.

11 Ibid., 164-65.

217

Spirit is another Paraclete.12 Therefore, the Spirit is not the vicar of Christ. The title “vicar” was

used by Tertullian13 but the Church did not adopt it, as happened with other theological terms of

his. The Church Fathers were interested to present the order of the missions of the Son and the

Holy Spirit—missions received from the Father, and in this sense there was the need of some

kind of vicarious idea: the Son acts in the name of the Father, while the Holy Spirit acts in the

name of the Son. 14 However, in Congar’s vision, the Spirit “is not merely a vicar, he does not

simply exercise a ‘ministry’ of the Incarnate Word, he is not an ‘instrument.’ ”15 The Spirit’s

position is very different from that of the apostles who are the vicars of Christ. When their

apostolic mandate will be fulfilled, their mission will also cease in regard to our redemption, but

in heaven Christ and the Spirit will still maintain their roles: Christ remains our high priest and

the Spirit is the living water forever.16

12 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 107. Emphasis

original.

13 Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 28, De virginibus velandis 1. Tertullian says that the Church

cannot err because the Holy Spirit, “the vicar of Christ,” leads her into the whole truth (Jn 16:13).

14 See L’Église: une, 185, n.11, where Congar shows that the apostles received their mission from Christ,

who received his from the Father. References are to Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, XLII, 1-2; Ignatius

of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians 6 and Letter to the Ephesians 3 and 4. Congar also quotes Tertullian De

Praescriptione Haereticorum 21, 4: “id sine dubio tentem quod ecclesiae [sic] ab apostolis, apostoli a Christo,

Christus a Deo accepit.”


16 Ibid., 116. It seems that Congar uses occasionally the title “vicar of Christ” for the Holy Spirit. See

Yves Congar, “La catholicité en marche. Réalisations et espoirs de l’Église (XIXe-XXe siècles),” in Histoire

illustree de l’Église, ed. Georges de Plinval and Romain Pittet, II (Paris: Cerf; Genève: Ed. de l'écho illustré, 1948),

327-392, at 332. See also “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 112: “Now

Christ, as we know, builds up his Church by means of his apostles and his Spirit. These might almost be called his

agents whom he has empowered to execute his work in the time of his absence, his ‘vicars’ […]. Later we will

consider how the same expression may be used of the Holy Spirit.” Emphasis original. But the title “vicar of

Christ” is used only in a Christological context and Congar’s clear position is that the Holy Spirit is not the vicar of

Christ, as shown above.

218

The Two Missions of Christ and the Spirit Have the Same Content and Purpose

The roles of Christ and the Holy Spirit are, in the present stage of the economy of

salvation, to build up the Church. They are interrelated or even homogeneous because their

purpose and even their content are the same. Congar illustrates how in Scripture the

sanctification of Christians is attributed equally to Christ and to the Holy Spirit to the extent that

it is almost indifferent which of them performs the work.17 To be in the presence of the Spirit

means to be in the presence of Christ himself (Jn 14:18, 26: “I shall not leave you orphans; I

shall come to you…But the Paraclete… will teach you everything.”)

In spite of this homogeneity of goal and content between the roles of Christ and of the

Spirit, their missions are still distinct for two reasons: their origin and even the object of the

works that they accomplish are distinct. In the first place, the missions are distinct from each

other because they are rooted in the trinitarian processions. Even though the work ad extra of

the divine persons is accomplished together by all of them, there is something that is “proper” to

each person, “without which the words ‘mission’ and ‘application’ [appropriation] would have

no real meaning.”18 It is proper to the Son to become incarnate and establish the structures of

salvation and it is fitting to the Spirit, who is breath, to animate these structures. There is one

single work of redemption, “but it has two phases, of which the first is appropriated to the

17 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College” in The Mystery of the Church, 108. The bearing of

witness of the disciples in front of judges is attributed to the Holy Spirit in Mt 10:18-20 and Mk 13:10-12, and to

Christ in Lk 21:12-15.

18 Ibid., 110. The translator uses the word “application” but the correct term is “appropriation” : “Il y a

cependant […] quelque chose de <<propre>>, sans quoi le mots même de <<mission>> et d’<<appropriation>>

n’auraient pas de sens véritable.” (Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, 2d. ed., 135).

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Incarnate Word, the second to the Holy Spirit. In the first, salvation is structured and made

available; in the second, life is infused into it, the form is set in motion and produces its living

thing.”19 This relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit, revealed in the history of salvation,

whereby the Spirit is in some sense dependent on Christ, reflects the order of the immanent

processions: “It is a Catholic doctrine that this dependence in the sphere of the temporal

‘economy’ supposes a dependence in that of eternal existence.”20 Later in his career Congar

developed this argument using Karl Rahner’s Grundaxiom of trinitarian theology.21

Secondly, the fact that the missions of Christ and the Spirit are distinct can be observed in

the work they do for the salvation of people. Christ’s function is to found an objective

redemption and structures available for the people, while the Spirit’s function is subjective, that

is to bring that redemption into the souls of people and to animate the structures founded by

Christ. “Christ established an objective reality of grace and truth, of salvation and revelation; the

Holy Spirit establishes it within each of us. Christ effected once and for all, in himself, the union

of mankind with God; the Spirit brings within its scope a vast number of individuals.”22 Christ

proclaimed the word of God; the Holy Spirit brings it into people’s hearts and makes them

understand it.23 Christ instituted the sacraments and the Spirit makes them effective. Christ set

19 Congar, “The Church and Pentecost,” in The Mystery of the Church, 160.

20 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 110-11.



23 Congar, “Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Freedom”, address delivered in 1958, published in Laity, Church

and the World, originally published as Si vous êtes mes témoins (1959): “[T]he Holy Spirit is sent ‘into our hearts.’

His particular part is to bring to the heart of each one of us the work that Christ did objectively for all”, at 18.

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up the structure of the Church and the Spirit brings the saving graces to fulfillment in people’s

souls. “In short, if, as regards us, the Spirit is creative (‘Veni Creator Spiritus’), he is simply

completing what was established by Christ.”24 Congar observes that it seems that this is the

pattern in which God works in the history of salvation: first he creates man and then breathes

into him to bring him life (Gen 2, 7). The dry bones from Ezekiel’s vision (Ez 37:1-14) first

come together and then are brought to life by the spirit. Similarly, “Christ redeemed us and

established his Mystical Body, then he communicated to it life through his Spirit.”25

In summary, Congar presents the mission of the Holy Spirit in this early phase as a

“subjective redemption, which is the application to men, the ‘effectuation in men’, of the

Redemption acquired by and in Christ.”26 It is a completion “within us,” throughout history, of

what Christ did “for us” once and for ever at the beginning of our redemption, i.e. “at the time of

his Incarnation.”27 Due to this work of interiorizing and animating the structures founded by

Christ, Congar calls the Holy Spirit the soul of the Church, although the union between the two

is not substantial.28 In the same line of thought, because the Spirit brings to mind in the present

24 Congar, “The Church and Pentecost,” in The Mystery of the Church, 159.


26 Ibid., 161.


28 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 128-30 and 178.

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what Christ said in the past, Congar calls the Spirit’s mission prophetic and describes his task as

being to bring to fulfillment what Christ planted in the Church in embryonic form.29

The Apostles and the Holy Spirit Work Together Between the Alpha and the Omega

In the time between the two comings of Christ, the work of both agents, the apostles and

the Holy Spirit, has two aspects: one oriented to the past and one toward the future. First, their

mission is to assure continuity with the past, with what Congar calls the Alpha momentum, i.e.,

the Incarnation and Passover of Christ. Related to this aspect of their ministry of preservation

are the other elements of the institutional Church, the deposit of faith and the sacraments. The

apostles assure this continuation with what Christ set up in his messianic office as king, prophet

and priest, through external means of grace or in the visible realm of Church’s life. “The real

meaning of the apostolate and the hierarchy is […] that they ensure, in the visible order in which

we live and where the Body of Christ is to be formed, that all comes from the one single event of

the Incarnation and Passover of Christ.”30 As regards the Holy Spirit, his mission is also to

guarantee the identity of what Christ did, but his action is, in contrast yet not in opposition with

the apostles, in the spiritual and internal realm. He brings into human hearts what Christ spoke

(Jn 16:13-15) and he introduces people into mystical communion with Christ. Here it must be

observed that one must keep in mind that the whole study of the role of ministries and of the


30 Ibid., 117. In Christ, Our Lady and the Church, Congar states that apostolicity “exists for no other

reason than to be the connecting link between the two comings of Christ, between his Ascension and his coming

again.” (33) Christ, Our Lady and the Church. A Study in Eirenic Theology, trans. and introd. Henry St. John,

(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1957), originally published as Le Christ, Marie et l’Église (Paris: Desclée,

1952).

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Holy Spirit is circumscribed in a more general topic, namely that of the Church’s mystery. The

Church, Congar points out, is in her very nature sacramental and apostolic,31 a reality both

external and internal, and in this mystery, the apostles work in the external and objective order of

grace while the Spirit works in the internal order. Both agents build up the Church in Christ, the

Head and Principle, the Alpha and the First-born of all.

Secondly, the Church’s continuity with the past is not to be understood as a static or

frozen reality; it needs to grow until it reaches maturity in the fullness of Christ (Eph 4: 12-13).

On the one hand, the work of Christ is completed with his passion and glorification; on the other

hand, it still needs to be completed in people until the end of time. Christ is at the same time the

Alpha and the Omega (Rev 1:8, 21:6, 22:13), but he is the Alpha in himself alone, while he is the

Omega with us. In this sense, Congar interprets John 3:13 as a statement that there is indeed

only one who goes to heaven, the one who came down from heaven, but we all go to heaven

united with him, the Omega of our redemption.32 In the time between the two comings of Christ,

the time of the Church, there is growth. The Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth toward an

eschatological future (Jn 14: 26; 16: 13) and the apostles accomplish greater things than Christ

(Jn 14: 22) because through them the Church grows into the fullness of Christ, the Head of the

Church.

Thus, there is in the Church a double law: of identity and development at the same time, a

law of continuity with Christ and of growth in time and space. This law characterizes the whole

31 Congar, “The Church and Its Unity,” in The Mystery of the Church, 37.


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Church. Congar also describes it by using the dialectical pair “gift” and “task.” The structure of

the Church is given in the incarnation as a “gift” once and for all. As coming from Christ, this

gift is unique. At the same time, it needs to grow in time by being received by Christians. This

is their “task,” which derives from a single gift in Christ and joins it in time and space for the

growth of the body. Because of the participation in the same “gift” the Church keeps her

identity; there is continuity with the past. Because of the “task” of the many in time and space,

there is development and growth towards an eschatological fulfilment.33

This double law of continuity and development can be observed in the sacraments

because they are memorials of Christ’s mystery and also signs of its eschatological fulfillment,34

so that what Christ did in his earthly life fills the Church and makes her grow into the plenitude

of the parousia. The same law is also at work in tradition in its relation with Scripture and in the

apostles’ mission in relation to the mission of Christ. So the entire Church is sacramental and

apostolic in her very nature, as noted above, because she is the reality of Christ’s grace growing

within his disciples in time. In this process, between the Alpha and the Omega, the disciples’

“task” is to make grow and bring to plenitude the single “gift” that was given by Christ from the

initial stage.35

33 Ibid. 118-119.

34 Ibid., 118.

35 Ibid., 118-19.

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2. The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic Institution Act Jointly to Form the Body of Christ

In Congar’s vision the Spirit and the apostles work together, beginning with Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit and the apostles are manifested jointly at Pentecost; not that the

apostolate had not been founded beforehand or that the Spirit had not already been given,

but it was at Pentecost that the Church was definitely set up in the world and manifested

as a new creation with its own specific energies, which consist precisely in the Holy

Spirit and the apostolic ministry acting conjointly (cf. Jn 20:22-23).36

The Spirit works first in the constitution of the apostolic ministry, or more precisely in

animating interiorly and in reality (en vérité) what Christ has already instituted. Beginning with

Pentecost, the apostles act in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, and with his authority, in building

up the Church, the body of Christ. This is the pattern well established in Acts (2:4; 4:8 etc.) to

the point that even the details of the apostles’ mission are inspired by the Spirit (Acts 8:29; 10:19

etc.), and their authority is equated with the authority of the Spirit (Acts 5:3-4, where defrauding

the apostles means that people lied to God). The consecration of new ministers is also the work

both of the Spirit and of the apostles. The apostles, however, work as a group, not as separate

individuals, in taking decisions together with the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:18). The goal of this

cooperation is always to build up the body of Christ. This is the law of existence of the Church:

“The ultimate end and outcome of the ministry associated in this way with the Holy Spirit in its

constitution, in its authority and in its acts, is the building up of the Body of Christ.”37

There are, according to Congar’s presentation, two major domains in which this

cooperation is manifested powerfully: proclamation of the word of God and celebration of the

36 Ibid., 119.

37 Ibid., 120.

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sacraments. In the first place, one of the main duties of the apostles is to proclaim the word; in

fact, they are “men of the Word.” As soon as they receive the Spirit, they start preaching (Acts

2:4 etc.). Actually, it is by the Spirit that they proclaim the Gospel and preach (1 Pt 1:12).

Christ taught (Mt 5:27) but his teaching is continued by the apostles (Mt 28:20) and the Spirit (Jn

14:26).38 In this way, Christ’s work is continued jointly by his two agents, the Spirit and the

apostles.

Congar notices that at the time he wrote these articles there were no complete studies on

the joint work of the apostles and the Spirit.39 He emphasizes that the ministry of preaching does

not consist only in a repetition of what Jesus said and the events that took place, but also in a

proclamation that all the prophecies and events in the Old Testament referring to Christ are now

fulfilled (1 Jn 1:1-3; Acts 5:30-32). In their prophetic ministry, the apostles interpret in the

present the events that took place in the past. This ministry continues in the time between the

Alpha and the Omega and is also oriented to the eschatological future when the messianic acts

will be fulfilled.

On his part, the Holy Spirit strengthens the apostles in their witnessing (Acts 4: 31-33),

supports them through external signs and miracles (Heb 2:3-4) and opens the hearts of the

listeners to receive the apostolic message. “In a general way, he works within souls correlatively

with the work of the apostolate without, the work of conversion and salvation by the preaching

and reception of the Gospel. […] Thus, vocation […] is manifested to men by a twofold call to

38 Ibid., 121.

39 Ibid., 121: “On the joint witness of the apostles and the Holy Spirit there exist many excellent

monographs, but no complete treatise.”

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faith, one exterior, by the apostolic word, the other interior, by the prompting, the invitation and

the drawing of which the Holy Spirit is the originator.”40 The Spirit continues then his work

through the testimony that he brings in Christians that they are children of God (Rom 8:16; 1Jn

3:19-24), by praying in them (Rom 8:26-27) and by the conviction that the teaching they

received is true because he suffuses them with his inward unction (1Jn 2:20-27).41

In the second place, the Spirit and the apostles act together in the celebration of the

sacraments. Congar calls attention to the texts that show the presence of the Spirit in

sacramental signs: Christ’s Baptism (Jn 1: 32-33), the discourse to Nicodemus on the rebirth

from water and Spirit (Jn 3:5), the practice of the apostles to baptize and lay hands (Acts 19:2-6),

the sending of the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins (Jn 20:22-23), the imposition of hands for

spiritual gifts (Acts 8:14-17) and the exercise of the ministry (Acts 13:2-4). Congar admits that

all these texts require more detailed study, yet he asserts that the Holy Spirit is needed for the

sacraments to be efficacious. He regrets that the study of the epiclesis was done at that time only

in liturgical theology, while a proper understanding of the epiclesis relies upon the theology of

the Holy Spirit.42 Later in his career he returned to this topic showing that the entire life of the

Church is a continuous epiclesis.43 However, at the moment of this study, he pointed out the

necessity for the epiclesis because the Holy Spirit is, together with the apostles or the

institutional Church, the principle of the Church’s liturgy in which the work of Christ is

40 Ibid., 123.

41 Ibid., 124.

42 Ibid., 125.


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perpetuated throughout space and time. “The specific function of the Holy Spirit is, on the one

hand, to give the institution life and movement (and, in this sense of the word, efficacity) and, on

the other hand, to bring home to individuals and to their innermost being the gifts of God.”44

The basis for this cooperation between the Spirit and the apostles is the union of

operations of Christ and the Holy Spirit. It has been shown previously that the Spirit comes only

after and due to the Passover of Christ. This corresponds to the principle that pneumatology is

Christological. But here Congar also describes the reverse of this relation, showing that

Christology is pneumatological, even though he uses these terms only later.45 The Spirit’s first

mission, as regards the Word, was to cooperate in his incarnation so that the incarnate Word

united himself with human nature in its being and life. At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended

on Jesus who was proclaimed as Son of God to the Church. This event of Christ’s baptism is

enough reason, according to Congar, to see the joint action of the Spirit and the water in baptism,

yet Congar further developed the implications of this event. At his conception Jesus was

sanctified in himself by the Holy Spirit, at his baptism he was consecrated as a source of grace

for humankind by the same Spirit. Jesus is even called for a second time “Son” “as if sent into

the world a second time as source and ark of grace, in whom the Father was well pleased (Lk

3:22).”46 At his baptism, Jesus espoused the Church, as he had espoused human nature at his

conception; “Christ was constituted Son of God at his conception, but was proclaimed Son and




228

became such for us at his Baptism, in which was instituted the Baptism of the Spirit, that of our

own sonship.”47 This was, in Congar’s view, the beginning of the sacramental order, of the order

of the ministry, and of the association of the Spirit with both. In short, the reason for the unity of

missions of the Spirit and of the apostolic college, already instituted by Christ, resides in the

relation between the Spirit and Christ in his earthly mission. Since in history God is faithful to

the covenant made with the institution of the Church in the blood of his Son and never fails to

provide grace to the apostolic ministry, Congar reaches the conclusion that there is a “perfect

correspondence of the Church of the bishops and the Church of the Spirit.”48 However, in spite

of the fact that the ministry of the Church is “so sublimely fruitful, it is neither an entirely

sufficient nor an absolutely necessary condition for the gift of grace.”49 It is not sufficient

because the sacraments require also the faith of the people who receive them in order to be

effective. It is not a necessary condition because the Spirit is sovereignly free and is not bound

exclusively to the institution and its work.50

Furthermore, the union between Christ and the Spirit, observed in the economy of

salvation, is grounded in the mystery of divine ontology or of the eternal relationships and

circumincession of the divine persons, and is made manifest for Jesus at his baptism and for the

Church and the apostles at Pentecost, which was their baptism in the Holy Spirit.51


48 Ibid., 132.

49 Ibid., 132.

50 Ibid., 138.

51 Ibid., 127.

229

To summarize, in his early works52 Congar presented Christ and the Holy Spirit as two

agents who work together to do the same work in building up the Church. Christ founds the

ecclesial institutions in his acta et passa in carne, among which the apostles play a role of

continuing the work of Christ through external means. The Spirit animates these institutions and

works through internal means for the same goal: building up the Church. Later Congar clarified

even further the relation between Christ and the Spirit, asserting that there is no Christology

without pneumatology and vice versa, and defining the role of the Spirit as co-institutive of the

Church. He also placed more emphasis on the relation between the economic missions and the

immanent processions. However, it is worth noting that the seeds of these developments were

already present in his early works as he showed the joint work of Christ and the Spirit, and the

relation between their missions and their processions.

3. The Spirit Retains a Certain Freedom or Autonomy

The freedom or autonomy of the Holy Spirit which Congar discusses is not in regard to

Christ, but to the institutions of the Church established by Jesus. “There is no ‘freedom of spirit’

(either with capital S or a small s) with respect to revelation, because the Spirit of the new

covenant is the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Pentecost.”53 Therefore, the Spirit has a

freedom that is “not a radical autonomy” and the gifts he imparts to the Church are still for the

52 In 1948, in his article Apostolicité, in the encyclopedia Catholicism, Congar holds the same position:

“Jesus Christ ascended in heaven realizes his work in the Church by the sending of his Spirit and of his Apostles.

What he accomplishes interiorly they accomplish exteriorly. But the two together do the same work which is the

constitution of the Church, people of God and body of Christ.” Emphasis original. Reprinted in Sainte Église, 181-

85, at 182.

53 Congar, True and False Reform, 188-89.

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realization of the Church.54 However, the Spirit shows his freedom through the charisms and the

unpredictable impulses through which he builds up the Church.

The charisms are spiritual gifts publicly manifested and given directly by the Spirit or by

the glorified Christ (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12:4-11, by the Spirit; Eph 4:11-12, by the glorified Christ).

They do not oppose the hierarchical ministries for two reasons. First, the ministers were already

charismatic when they were appointed, and these appointments took place through the

intervention of the Spirit. Secondly, the charisms have an ecclesial functionality: they are given

for the unity of the Church. “[T]he charismatic inspiration was accommodated to the unity of the

Church by being made subject to an objective rule of faith (1 Cor 12:13) and to the apostolic

authority (1 Cor 14:37-8).”55 These are the two criteria of ecclesial unity. The gifts originate in

the work of the Spirit; they do not come from the hierarchy. But no matter how gifted

charismatic people are, they still need to submit to the apostolic ministry and through it to the

apostolic doctrine because through these the Church is built up. For instance, in his book on

reform in the Church, Congar places the charism of prophecy in the frame of apostolicity. “The

only valid prophecy in the church is in the service of the church’s apostolicity.”56 Congar even

identifies two forms of prophecy in the Church: a prophetic function of the magisterium (ex

officio) through which it interprets the deposit of faith belonging, therefore, to the structure of the

Church and which, even more, is “structural” for the Church, i.e., it gives structure to the


55 Ibid., 134.


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Church; the other form of prophecy (ex spiritu) is exercised by the prophets, belongs to the life

of the Church and is “structured”, i.e., is an act of obedience to “a revelation already given.”57

Both of these forms of prophecy come from the Spirit and interact mutually. The prophets,

obedient to the Spirit, call for growth in ecclesial life and are critical when the ends are replaced

with the means. They are not free, though, to do away with formal structures and hierarchical

authority for the reason of unity mentioned above.58 The hierarchy in its turn, which receives the

charism of truth, unity and apostolicity from the Spirit, has the duty to listen to new and

prophetic voices. “If there is a sin on the part of the reformist movement in refusing or

misunderstanding the demands for unity, there would be a parallel sin for the institution to

misconstrue or stifle prophetic impulses. […] However, these two related obligations are not on

the same level.”59

The second category of means through which the Spirit works is called by Congar

“unpredicted or unexpected events [irruptions et conduits imprévisibles].”60 These are sudden

visitations and leadings of the Spirit made first in the apostles themselves to direct their

apostolate (Acts 9:31, 13:2,4, 16:6-7). The Spirit dwells in the Church and animates her

institutions but his activity cannot be reduced to or bound only to these institutions. The Spirit

57 Ibid., 189 and n. 51. Emphasis original. In the second French edition, the text is at page 200 and the

original terms used by Congar are “structurants” (for the prophetic function of the magisterium) and “doivent se

lasser ‘structurer’ ” (for the prophecy of the prophets).

58 Ibid., 248. Here, Congar even calls the function of the hierarchy “pneumatological” and “prophetic.”

59 Ibid., 261.

60 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 136. Here, Congar

calls the charisms “institutions,” which are not to be confused with the ecclesial structures. And he calls the second

category “events.” This distinction, he admits, is relative but real. Through both “institution” and “event” the Spirit

builds up the Church.

232

“remains transcendent to the Church he dwells in; he is not just a divine force giving

supernatural efficacy both to the ministry and to the sacraments, but a Person sovereignly active

and free.”61

This way of action of the Holy Spirit is present not only in the Church described in the

New Testament, but there have always been unexpected happenings or even events that took

place by chance, through which the Spirit led the saints and the people of God. “Important

decisions about vocations, foundations, even canons of councils, have been taken as a result of a

dream, a word, a consultation of Scripture, in short an intervention in the ‘event’-pattern.”62

Congar is convinced that this is one of the most constant and most decisive elements of the life

of the Church, yet at the same time the “Spirit retains a kind of freedom of action which is

immediate, autonomous and personal. In this way, there exists a kind of free sector which

constitutes one of the most salient features of the life of the Church.”63

In his conclusion, Congar states that the Church is the work of Christ and of the Holy

Spirit. He says then that the ecclesiology centered on the structure of the Church is a Christ-

centered ecclesiology, and that the ecclesiology dedicated to the life of the Church is a Spirit-

centered ecclesiology.64 The task of ecclesiology, as he perceived it, was “to maintain both

poles”: the institutional aspect which derives from the acta Christi in carne and the life or


62 Ibid., 138.

63 Ibid., 138.

64 Ibid., 142.

233

internal aspect which comes from the glorified Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit.65 In his

book Le Christ, Marie et l’Église (Christ, Our Lady and the Church), 1952, Congar advocates

that a “due allowance must be made for the delicate balance of these elements”66, human, i.e., the

work of the apostles, and divine, the work of the Spirit.

Jalons pour une théologie du laicat (Lay People in the Church) (1953)

In his presentation of the theology of apostolicity in Jalons pour une théologie du laicat,

Congar follows the same line of thought as in The Mystery of the Church and True and False

Reform not only because he was writing during the same period of time, but also because he uses

the same ecclesiological model, although Congar’s purpose in this book is to lay the foundations

for a theology of laity. The Church is simultaneously a fellowship of grace and a sharing in the

means of salvation.67 Salvation and communion are given to everybody, while the charge over

the means of salvation, or ministry, is given only to some.68 The “space-between” Christ’s

Passover and the parousia “is filled with the action of the Holy Spirit and of the ecclesial

institution, sacraments and apostolic body.”69 In the time of the Church, the hierarchy has a

double mission: in relation to the beginning the Church (the earthly Christ), the hierarchy

mediates to people the acta et passa Christi in carne; in relation to the final fulfillment of the

65 Ibid., 144-45.

66 Congar, Christ, Our Lady and the Church, 55.

67 Congar, Lay People in the Church, 158.

68 Ibid., 161.

69 Ibid., 154.

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economy, the hierarchical representation and mediation are bound to the exteriority or visibility,

as a condition of Christians’ state as pilgrims.

The main issue is to know whether the salvation of Christ is brought to humanity in a

“vertical” way, i.e., a direct manner coming straight from Christ, or through a visible or

“horizontal” mediation, i.e., in a manner which involves tangible means of communion. Congar

thinks that it has been shown that theologically and historically the hierarchy mediates peoples’

communion with the incarnate and crucified Christ. “Theologically, the apostolic institutional

mediation manifests and realizes that grace and truth come to man from outside and on high,

from Jesus who was born, who lived and who died.”70 This reference to Christ as the essential

source of the ministry is the basis for Congar’s affirmation that the hierarchical priesthood “does

not come from below, from the community, but from above” even though the priests are “in and

for a community.”71 In the liturgy, the priests act as representatives of the community, presiding

in worship, yet the priestly power does not derive from the community but from Christ, whom

the priests represent.72 In this sense, Congar even affirms that the hierarchy existed before the

community of the faithful: “it represents a mystery given to her [the Church] from above and

ontologically anterior to the existence of a community: the Apostles were appointed to preach the

gospel and minister the sacraments before there was any community of faithful.”73 This

70 Ibid., 162.


72 Ibid., 162 and 199.

73 Ibid., 162; also 163-64: “[T]he Church as sacrament logically precedes the Church as fellowship: this

was the order even in its origins, for she was a church of priests before she was a church of faithful.”

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authority and mission to build up the Church belongs to the hierarchy ex officio because the

hierarchy constitutes the institution-structure to which life is added. “The warp had first been

set, but it needed a weft.”74

The second pole of the mystery of the Church is her life that is given by the Spirit not

only to some members but to all of them. It is a participation of all the members of the Church,

lay people and hierarchy, in the same messianic powers of Christ, yet this sharing is not as

leaders of the community but as “members living by the vitalizing energies [of Christ] within the

Body.”75 The mission of the members ex spiritu is also to build up the Church, yet not through

hierarchical powers but through the influence of their action or “doing” in the Church.76 “So the

mission of the faithful makes them co-operators with and complementary to the Apostles; like

their charisms, like all their Christian life, it has to be exercised in such a way as to assimilate it

to the work and activity of the Twelve, which is the norm.”77 In this way, the Church is built not

only from above but also “sideways” or “from below upwards” through the “life” of the people

of God, hierarchy and faithful.78

In short, the work of Christ in building the Church is twofold. It takes place externally

and visibly through the work of the apostolic body and inwardly through the work of the Holy

Spirit who animates the life of the Church. This is “the law of the Church’s existence: the

74 Ibid., 309 and 311.

75 Ibid., 312.

76 Ibid., 312 and 338.

77 Ibid., 339.

78 Ibid., 313

.

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inseparable duality of the hierarchical principle and the communal principle, an hierarchical

structure and a life of the whole body.”79

4. Critical Evaluation of Congar’s Early Thought Regarding Apostolicity

The Need for a More Pneumatological Ecclesiology

Joseph Famerée has remarked that in this first period of Congar’s theology regarding

ecclesial apostolicity and the role of the Spirit, his ecclesiology is mainly Christological.80 There

is in that period, according to Famerée, a certain lack of balance between the pre-paschal Jesus

and the glorious Christ of the resurrection: it seems that the historical Jesus has instituted the

means of grace that form the structure of the Church, while the life of the Church is governed by

the resurrected Christ together with the Spirit. In other words, the question is whether the Holy

Spirit exercises a role only to “finish” or fulfill the work of Christ, or also equally at the

beginning of the Church and constitutive of her. The Spirit’s relation with the Church is

described in terms of a stable alliance which constitutes the ground for his infallible action in the

Church, but this infallibility is seen only in the acts of the ordained ministers. The charisms and

other actions of the Holy Spirit do not constitute the Church in her essential structures, but only

build the Church “sideways” (“apports lateraux”); there should be, however, Famerée claims, no

room for an opposition between the “life” (lateral, free, and adventitious) and the “structure”

(founding and essential) in the Church.81

79 Ibid., 339.

80 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 148.

81 Ibid., 150.

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This criticism is accurate in reading Congar’s position and correct in evaluating it.

However, one must not forget that in Congar’s thinking there is no opposition between structure

and life. Congar offers his own assessment regarding this issue. “In Rome they accused me of

opposing structure and life as if the structures, hence the hierarchy, were not living realities.

This was a misunderstanding. By structure-life I meant, ultimately, jus divinum-relative

historical forms. But I did not think that I was denying grace and spiritual animation to what I

called ‘structure’.”82 Famerée is aware of this statement of Congar83 but he still thinks that

Congar over-evaluated the structure and separated it too rigidly from the life.84

Rose Beal appreciates the strength of Famerée’s study which presents Congar’s major

ecclesiological themes historically and dogmatically and thus shows the “internal evolution” of

Congar’s thought.85 However, she also points out that Famerée treated each theme in itself,

failing to recognize the relation between them. In Congar’s writings the topic of structure and

life is not separated from the means of grace or the history of the Church, for instance.

Therefore, “[h]aving given structure a more restrictive meaning than did Congar, Famerée […]

82 Yves Congar, Forward [sic] to Timothy I. MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar. Foundational

Themes (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), xxii.

83 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 112 n. 304.

84 Ibid., 112 n. 306 and 113 n. 308.

85 Rose Beal, In Pursuit of a ‘Total Ecclesiology’: Yves Congar’s ‘De Ecclesia’, 1931-1954 (PhD diss.,

Catholic University of America, 2009), 20. Beal republished her dissertation as Mystery of the Church, People of

God: Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology as a Path to Vatican II (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of

America Press, 2014), but in this book the analysis of Famerée’s method is omitted. For this reason, in this

particular case, the citation regarding Famerée is taken from her dissertation from 2009. The four major themes of

Congar’s ecclesiology before Vatican II are identified by Famerée as follows: structure and life, (cf. Famerée,

L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 407), causality and means of grace (410), unity and diversity (421), history and

Church (425).

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does not adequately account for the integration of structure and life that Congar intended.”86 A

correct evaluation of Congar’s thought should point to the distinction between the structure and

the life of the Church, and also to their unity, even though a certain tension exists between them.

Probably the most accurate description of Congar’s thought on structure and life is to affirm that

in the Church there is a structure that is essential and a life that is expressed in historical forms,

without the implication that the life is contingent in the Church. Famerée agrees with this

statement yet he holds the opinion that theology should go further than this and claim that the life

is also “structuring” (“structurante”) in the Church.87 Congar would agree that life is essential

to the mystery of the Church, but he would point out that life is not normative as is the structure,

“they are not on the same level”: “If the center does not respond to the initiatives and demands of

the periphery, […], it doesn’t call into question the very foundations of the church.”88 This

statement of Congar is not a way to “privilege structure in relation to life”, as Famerée says, but

rather a description of the mystery of the Church in which the hierarchy has a normative role,

which the “periphery” or life does not have. In fact, Congar’s intention was always to militate

against “hierarchology”: the hierarchy does not constitute the entire mystery of the Church, yet

Congar always maintained its role as normative for the Church, not considering it to be a

privilege but rather an ecclesial service. Congar elaborated in greater detail his stance in his later

writings.

86 Ibid., 21.

87 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 112. Emphasis Famerée’s. Famerée says that for Congar in his

early writing the life of the Church is non-structuring.

88 Congar, True and False Reform, 261 and 262.

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The Need for a Less “Incarnational” Comprehension of the Ministries and Sacraments

This Christological perspective is inscribed in a logic of visibility that prolongs the

humanity and the powers of Christ. Congar follows Thomas Aquinas in his presentation. But

this perspective has a downside, according to Famerée: it is a juridical vision, “instituted” and

static, rather than mystical, which is “institutive” and dynamic; it is oriented more toward the

past than to the future. The eschatological plenitude will not bring anything new because it was

already there like in a seed or Christic principle.89 In other words, eschatology does not

determine constitutively the definition of ministry and of sacrament.

Furthermore, Famerée thinks that Congar’s theology of sacraments and of ministries has

a pneumatological weakness. He asks whether it is sufficient to say that the Holy Spirit

accompanies the ministry; does he rather constitute it radically as the Spirit of Christ? In

Famerée’s judgment, Congar calls for the pneumatological constitution of the ministry, but is

still too restricted: “The Spirit does not only join in with the ministry in its work, but intervenes

to establish (constituer) and consecrate it, or rather to bring about interiorly and in reality the

consecration imparted in a visible manner by ministers already instituted.”90 Famerée states that

Congar’s words give the impression that the action of the Holy Spirit is only to internalize the

external work of the ministers and is somehow parallel to the action of these ministers, as if the

89 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 151. Famerée quotes Congar, Esquisses du Mystère de

l’Église, (2d. ed. 1953), 145; “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 118-19.

90 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 119 or Esquisses du

Mystère de l’Église, (2d. ed. 1953), 147.

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efficacy of the ministry would not come entirely from the Holy Spirit.91 The difficulty,

according to Famerée, is the existence of a duality of interiority and exteriority that characterizes

the rapport between the Spirit and the apostolic ministry; he wonders whether one can

distinguish between an external efficacy of ministries and an internal efficacy of the Spirit. The

Holy Spirit works at the same time both in the sacraments and in those who receive them:

externally and internally. There is the risk of limiting the work of the Holy Spirit to the

interiority of the persons receiving the sacraments and to the efficacy of these sacraments.

Famerée asks repeatedly whether the Holy Spirit works only to complete the sacraments or to

constitute them. Besides, the life of the Church is also constitutive for the Church; it should not

be considered as “non-structuring” (“non structurante”). The Spirit structures the entire body of

Christ, in which some members become servants for the people.92

Famerée’s assessment is correct, especially regarding the “incarnational” view of Congar,

who was, indeed, interested to show the historical continuation between the work of Christ and

the work of the apostles. Congar’s intention was to demonstrate that the two agents, the apostles

and the Holy Spirit, “continue the work of Christ.” It is normal, therefore, that his presentation

bears a strong Christological or “incarnational” character. However, Congar emphasized the role

of the Holy Spirit in the constitution of the sacraments more than Famerée tends to acknowledge.

For instance, Congar affirms clearly: “In the first place, the apostles were made such by the Holy

Spirit, they were also made by him men of the Word. They receive him and immediately break


92 Ibid., 153.

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into speech (Acts 2:4; 4: 31, 33). It is by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven that the ministers of

the Gospel proclaim and preach (1 Peter 1:12).”93 Congar makes an even more powerful and

clear statement when he says that baptism, penance, and the Eucharist exist by the intervention

of the Holy Spirit. And then he concludes:

Theologically speaking, we have here one of the foundations of the necessity of an

intervention of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments and, therefore, for an epiclesis. The

question of the epiclesis [...] has been even more fundamentally impaired through being

treated in the theology of the sacraments, whereas it can be properly understood only as

part of the theology of the Holy Spirit. We hope to return to this one day, as we cannot

delay on it here.94

It becomes clear that for Congar the Holy Spirit has a fundamental role in the constitution

of the sacraments and not only in the completion of them or in making them fruitful once they

were instituted by Christ. Perhaps a better way to consider the issue would be to look at the

relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit as described by Congar. First, Congar points out

that the mission and work of the Holy Spirit depend on the mission and work of Christ: “Thus, in

the order of the economy of grace, the procession or mission of the Spirit is dependent on the

Word.”95 In other words, even though these words are not used explicitly by Congar,

pneumatology is Christological. This order in the economy of redemption supposes, in Catholic

theology, a dependence in the eternal relationships between the Word and the Spirit.96 Second


94 Ibid., 125.

95 Ibid., 110.

96 Ibid., 111; also Idem, “The Church and the Pentecost,” in The Mystery of the Church, 156-57.

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and more important for the point of this discussion, Congar shows also that Christology should

be pneumatological. Christ was constituted Son of God at his conception by the Holy Spirit but

he “was proclaimed Son and became such for us at his Baptism.”97 If this anointing of Christ by

the Spirit meant just that Christ and the Spirit act jointly for our salvation, Famerée would be

right to ask if the Spirit has a role in the constitution of the sacraments or only in making them

fruitful. But for Congar, the baptism of Christ by the Spirit means something more:

This was the beginning of the sacramental order, of the order of ministry and of that

association of the Spirit with both. [...] The foundation of the union between the Holy

Spirit and the institutional Church is the union of operation present, from the beginning,

between the Holy Spirit and Christ. This union, deriving from the mystery of divine

being [...], was proclaimed, as regards Christ, at his Baptism and, as regards the Church

and the apostolate, at Pentecost, their Baptism by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5).98

It becomes obvious from this text that for Congar the Spirit has a constitutive role in the

sacramental order, even though he does not state explicitly and does not explain fully how the

Spirit is the “co-instituting” principle of the sacraments, as he does in his later works.99 But

Congar already knew that the key to a correct and full understanding of the role of the Spirit in

the sacraments lay in the trinitarian relationships. “Our own conviction is, though we cannot

argue it here, [...] that indeed the equivalence of action of Christ and the Spirit can only be

explained ultimately by the profound trinitarian concepts of the perfect consubstantiality of the


98 Ibid., 127. See above, Chapter V, p. 228.

99 For example, in I Believe, vol. 2, 7-12: “The Spirit as the Co-instituting Principle of the Church”.

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divine Persons, their circumincession and perichoresis.”100 So, the apostolicity and the ministries

of the Church have an origin both Christological and pneumatological at the same time. There is

no first moment in which Christ alone institutes the apostles and a second time when the Holy

Spirit brings to completion Christ’s work. Even Congar’s words that the Spirit intervenes to

realize interiorly what the apostles, who were already instituted by Christ, work externally are to

be interpreted within this framework of divine relationships. In this case, the work of the Spirit

cannot be reduced to a mere internal or spiritual completion of the external work of the apostles.

As Famerée himself puts it, it is just “an impression” that the Spirit works internally what the

apostles work externally. In other words, the separation between the work of Christ, and that of

the Spirit and of the apostles cannot be pushed too far. Rather, what Congar wants to express is

that the apostles and the Spirit continue the work of Christ. The apostolicity of the Church is the

quality by which the Church continues the work of Christ, and the principle that assures this

continuity is from the beginning a person, namely the Holy Spirit, who comes from Christ and

also anoints Christ as Messiah for us. Congar expressed better the relationship between Christ

and the Spirit with regard to the ecclesial life when he later called the Spirit the co-instituting

principle of the Church. However, the seeds of this thinking were already in Congar’s thought at

this time.

It has also been pointed out101 that during this period of time (until 1956), Congar treats

the same themes in his ecclesiology (basically he tries to describe the nature of the Church) but



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he approaches them from various points of view: Christology and Mariology, apostolicity and

pneumatology in their relation to Christology, theology of the laity, true ecclesial reform.

Although Congar’s ecclesiology is Christological, his pneumatology is also present and

continued to develop. The role of the Holy Spirit is emphasized more and more not only as “the

agent of the work of Christ” but also in his freedom in the life of the Church through the

charisms, and the unpredicted events.

B. From Structure du sacerdoce chrétien to L’Église, une: From Priesthood in

Itself as Instrumental Efficient Cause of Grace to a Theology of Ministries in the

Service of Communion

This section will describe how Congar’s thought regarding the theology of ministries

evolved between 1951 and 1970—the years when he published, respectively, Structure du

sacerdoce chrétien and L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique. There is continuity in

his theological reflection but also progress or change of perspective in his description of the

ministries as component parts of the apostolicity of the Church.

1. Structure du sacerdoce chrétien (The Structure of Christian Priesthood)102

This essay, published in 1951, reflects a theology of the common priesthood of the laity

and of the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood, which was also present in Jalons pour une

102 Yves Congar, “The Structure of Christian Priesthood,” in At the Heart of Christian Worship. Liturgical

Essays of Yves Congar, trans. and ed. Paul Philibert (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), 69-105, originally

published as “Structure du sacerdoce chrétien,” La Maison-Dieu, 27 (1951/4), 51-85 and republished in Sainte

Église: Etudes et approaches ecclésiologiques, Unam Sanctam 41 (Paris: Cerf, 1963), 239-273.

245

théologie du laïcat (Lay People in the Church) (1953).103 For Congar what defines the

priesthood in the Bible is neither mediation nor consecration, but sacrifice, which includes a

spiritual and a material dimension: a complete sacrifice includes the intention to offer oneself to

God and also everything that is suitable to be offered.104 From the Bible, especially from the

Book of Leviticus along with the prophets and psalms of the exile, it can be observed that “there

is a positive divine economy of sacrifice and of priesthood” which reaches its consummation in

Jesus Christ, the unique priest, as attested in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Book of

Revelation.105 Since the sacrifice of Christ is perfect and realizes fully the will of God for true

worship, the sacrifices of the Old Testament are fulfilled by this sacrifice of Christ and all

Christian sacrifices are taken up by it.

Congar describes the priesthood in the time of the Church showing that there is only one

priest, Jesus Christ (hiereus). Secondly, in him, all are priests (hiereus—written in singular) as

attested in the Bible (Ex 19:3-6; Is 61:6; Rom 12:1; Heb 13:15-16; 1 Pt 2:4-5, 9-10; Rev 1:5b-6,

5:9-10, 20:6). The importance of Congar’s affirmation of the priestly character of all Christians

will be explained later.106

103 Paul Philibert considers this essay a possible “by-product of Congar’s work Lay People in the Church

published in French the previous year” (in his translator’s note introducing Congar’s article, in At the Heart of

Christian Worship, 69). Even though Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat was published in 1953, and not in 1950 as

Philibert says, he is right in claiming that both works reflect the same theology of priesthood.

104 Congar, “The Structure of Christian Priesthood,” 70-73.

105 Ibid., 75.

106 For the royal priesthood, see below, Chapter V, pp. 266-67.

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Thirdly, in Christ, some are priests (presbyteroi), as demonstrated in the earliest days of

the Church and by the terminology used starting at the end of second century pointing to a

hierarchical priesthood.107 Interested not in a historical perspective of the priesthood but rather

in a systematic explanation of its meaning, Congar explains the relations between all three

instances of priesthood just mentioned. He shows that the whole economy of grace is permeated

by a rule which he calls pars pro toto: the grace of God comes to people first in one person, in

Christ, and then is extended and appropriated by all. There is, therefore, at the same time a

fundamental identity and also a fundamental difference between the mystery of Christ and the

mystery of Christians. On the one hand, there is the sacrifice of Christ—his return to the Father,

through his passion and resurrection—which is handed over sacramentally to the Church. On the

other hand, the sacrifices of Christians are different from that of Christ because they add to it the

lives of the Christians and also because they bring these sacrifices as free persons. However,

these sacrifices need to be incorporated into that of Christ because there is only one priest and

mediator. Thus, these two sacrifices, of Christ and of his people, are distinct but not separate.

This identity and difference, at the same time, with the mystery and the sacrifice of Christ

are explained further by the use of the image of Christ as the Alpha and the Omega of salvation

history. “Christ is our Alpha all by himself, even though he is such for our sake [...], whereas we

are the Omega with him and he cannot be that without us. The resurrection of Christ and his

entry into his glory are not the total completion of the Christian economy, even if, in one sense,

107 Congar, “The Structure of Christian Priesthood,” 80.

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they achieve everything.”108 Human cooperation and contribution are needed so that the mystery

of Christ will be completed fully through people’s entry into it. In this sense, “even though we

receive everything from God, we nonetheless add something” to the mystery of Christ.109 The

sacrifice and priesthood of Christ containing all the sacrifices and the whole priestly quality of

human beings need to be “enacted and celebrated by human beings.”110 Congar uses here the

dialectic pair “gift” and “task” (donné-agi),111 i.e. gift of God and collaboration of people, to

point toward a rule or a pattern of God’s grace in the economy of salvation: what is given as a

gift to one person, especially in Christ, needs to be received by human collaboration of the many,

yet it is one single mystery which grows in time. The two moments of the economy of salvation,

the beginning and the end, are fundamentally identical; yet the priesthood of people,

incorporated into that of Christ, preserves the mystery of Christ the Alpha who becomes the

Omega with these people. This is how the Church is apostolic: it keeps the mystery of Christ

and hands it down through the centuries by the means of the Christian priesthood.

Secondly, Congar explains the role of Christian priesthood as a means through which the

Alpha becomes the Omega. He uses another dialectic pair, “reality-means” (réalitè-moyen) to

describe the Christian meaning of sacrifice and priesthood.112 Christ is not only the principle and

108 Ibid., 82.


110 Ibid., 83. Emphasis in the English translation: “ils doivent encore être agis ou célèbrés par ceux-ci”

(“Structure du sacerdoce chrétien,” in Sainte Église, 252).

111 See above, Chapter V, pp. 222-23.


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the end, but he is also the means or the way through which the beginning of human salvation

comes to its end. When redemption reaches its final development, or when the Alpha will have

brought about fully the Omega, there will be no need for an order of means of grace or “for

Christ to exist for us as the way.”113 Until then, however, between the resurrection and the

parousia, the Church is life and means of grace at the same time, two aspects that are united yet

distinct. The Church is life in Christ and will be exactly this in eternity. But the Church is also

the means that produce this life; it is structure (“ordre”) for the means of grace until the mystery

of Christ will be fully interiorized in the Church at his final coming.114

According to these two aspects, Christ has a double relation with the Church: he is the

life itself of the Church, but he also has authority over the Church as its head. “The Lord is the

soul and the life of the church, and in this way he is interior to the church by his Holy Spirit. But

the Lord also rules and acts within the church by his power. [...] [H]e is also the Lord, the

authority upon whom the ministries depend (1 Cor 12:5).”115 To describe one Church in which

there are two levels of reality, Congar uses dialectical pairs: interiorized life and exterior

mediation, communion of the redeemed and the means of obtaining this life, the Church is the

body of Christ and he is the head of the Church. “Respecting and harmonizing this twofold

structure is the secret of a Catholic ecclesiology—there is an order of communion and of life, on

113 Ibid., 83. Emphasis in the English translation.

114 Ibid., 84. “Structure du sacerdoce chrétien,” in Sainte Église, 253.

115 Congar, “The Structure of Christian Priesthood”, 84. Paul Philibert does not capitalize the first letter of

the word “church.” The quotes in this dissertation will follow his spelling.

249

the one hand, and an order of means of grace and of sacraments, on the other hand. There are

both res and sacramentum, [...] spiritual reality and holy sign.”116

It is in this order of sacramentality that the sacrifice of Christ and his priesthood, and then

the sacrifice and priesthood of the whole Church, are to be understood. The unique and perfect

sacrifice of Christ included in itself all the sacrifices of Christians. They unite themselves and

their sacrifices with Christ’s sacrifice through the sacraments. The sacraments, and especially

the Eucharist, reproduce in Christians, “in a particular mode of being [as sign] that is precisely

symbolic-real, what Jesus did for us in the days of his flesh. This allows the root to bear fruits—

to make the Christ Alpha produce within us over time the reality of life in such a way as to form

the Christ Omega.”117 This is the meaning of Christian priesthood: to unite the sacrifices of

Christians with the sacrifice of Christ. Furthermore, because there are two sacrifices—that of

Christ and that of Christians, which are distinct but not separate, as explained above— there are

two types of priesthood in the Church corresponding respectively to each type of sacrifice. To

the Christians’ sacrifice of themselves corresponds a priesthood of personal sanctity. The

priesthood of all the baptized or “the royal priesthood” of the faithful is attested in many texts of

the Bible, but never explicitly in the context of “the Eucharist or in the public rites or the liturgy

of the church as such.”118 The royal priesthood is related not so much to the sacraments and the

celebration of the Eucharist, but to an offering of oneself to God in holiness through grace and

116 Ibid., 84. Italics in original.

117 Ibid., 85. Parenthesis belongs to the English translator.

118 Ibid., 87. Emphasis mine. See also n. 33.

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virtue; it is an expression of the incorporation of all the baptized into the Church as an organism

of grace.

Thirdly, to the sacramental celebration of the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist

corresponds an equally sacramental priesthood. Congar points out a distinction that needs to be

made: the Eucharist is not in the first place the sacrifice of the Christians as an offering of their

own lives, but rather the very sacrifice of Christ. The focus is on his sacrifice that incorporates

also the sacrifices of Christians. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is given to the Church to be

celebrated as a memorial, a sign through which the historic reality of the sacrifice is made

present in the space and time of the Church. But this takes place only in a sacramental way; only

through the celebration of the memorial (the Hebrew kzr) can the acta et passa Christi in carne,

what Jesus did and suffered in his human flesh, his Passover to the Father, be brought into the

present of the Church. However, since this is possible only in a sacramental way, “everything

must be sacramental. If the sacrifice is sacramentally that of Christ himself, the priesthood also

must be the same. The celebrant also must be in some way a sacramental reality—an organ or

instrument of Jesus Christ.”119 This hierarchical priesthood is given to certain persons but not to

everyone120 by the laying on of the hands—a tradition that goes back to the apostles

themselves.121 Through the sacrament of “holy orders” some of the faithful are ordained with the

119 Ibid., 89. Paul Philibert translates “tout doit être sacramental” (“Structure du sacerdoce chrétien,” in

Sainte Église, 258) with “everything must be seen as sacramental” while a more accurate translation would be

“everything must be sacramental.” Emphasis mine.

120 Congar, “The Structure of Christian Priesthood,” 89, also n. 37, where Congar lists New Testament texts

that show that some functions were given to the apostles but not to everyone.

121 Ibid., 90, also n. 38.

251

objective of actively accomplishing the Eucharist, even though their ministry is not reduced only

to the liturgical role. In any case, the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood “is certainly destined

to serve the People of God.”122

In synthesis, the structure of Christian priesthood follows the general law of God’s action

for us and of the Church herself: it is at once communal and hierarchical. In the order of the

means of grace, there is a baptismal consecration through which all Christians participate in the

priesthood of Christ and offer their spiritual sacrifices to God in Christ. At the same time, the

people of God is organized hierarchically and its hierarchical priesthood is ordained for the

ministry of sacramental worship and the service of the whole community. Congar insists that

ecclesiology should appreciate both the hierarchy and the laity. At the time he wrote this article

(1951), he observed that ecclesiology was more “a juridical theology of hierarchical power, not a

theology centered on the church.”123 Without denying the importance of the hierarchical powers,

he advocated a restoration of the “traditional perspective on ecclesiology” which would show

how both the hierarchy and the laity participate in the mystery of Christ. Through the exercise of

both these types of priesthood the Church moves from Christ the Alpha to Christ the Omega.

“The Structure of Christian Priesthood” reflects Congar’s ecclesiological thinking

throughout the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. Among the characteristic features of his

ecclesiological works at this time one stands out: the simultaneous use of the category of

122 Ibid., 91; 94.

123 Ibid., 103.

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causality and of Biblical studies. First, he approaches the theology of apostolicity using the

Thomist category of causality. Congar himself explains his thinking in that period:

When I conceived the project of one day writing a treatise on the Church, I adopted the

schema of the four causes, which Cardinal Journet followed. Later on I came across a

course given by Pere Ambroise Gardeil in 1886 where the four properties of the Church

were related to the four causes. This produced an interesting distribution: to hierarchical

ministry as acting instrumental cause corresponded apostolicity; to the material cause,

humanity, catholicity; to the final cause of salvation and the glory of God, sanctity; and to

the formal cause, unity.124

Indeed, in his vision at that time, the apostolicity of the Church was the instrumental

efficient cause of the Church and it was related to another theme, namely of the apostolic powers

received from Christ himself. This use of efficient causality reflects a linear scheme of

ecclesiological thinking: from Christ to the apostles and from them to the faithful. It emphasizes

the Christological aspect of the Church, with both advantages and inconveniences. Among the

advantages, it shows the continuous presence of Christ in the Church from her foundation to the

last moment of the economy of salvation, or from the Alpha to the Omega, and it also shows the

important role that the ordained priesthood plays in maintaining the fullness of Christ in the

Church and during the time of the Church. This could be a reason why, twenty years later,

Congar still considered this scheme valuable, at least partially, even though he does not explicitly

name the reasons: “Such a scheme, even if it contains a part of the truth, presents

124 Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32 (1972):169-88,

at 174-75, originally published as “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des ministères,” in Ministères et

communion ecclésiale (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 9-30. Congar does not indicate how and when he came across that course

given by Gardeil in 1886.

253

inconveniences.”125 It is worth mentioning that Congar republished “The Structure of Christian

Priesthood” in Sainte Église in 1963 without changes. This could prove that, even though his

theology of apostolicity from 1951 “presents inconveniences” and by 1963 had evolved, as will

be shown, it was still valuable at least on some points.126

Second, Congar supplies his systematic approach with a biblical perspective. He points to

the “countless texts” in the Bible that show the existence both of a priesthood of personal

sanctity of all the baptized and of the ministerial priesthood in service of the community. So, as

Famerée indicates, “gradually, Congar tends to leave behind this scholastic and post-tridentine

heritage and expresses himself in a more biblical way, in terms of ‘sacramental signs’ or of ‘real

presence’ on the one hand, and in terms of ‘ministries or services’ on the other hand.”127 An

advantage of the biblical method is that the Church is not understood as merely a society but also

as the body of Christ, which is entirely apostolic, and in such an approach apostolicity is not a

tool of a juridical theology centered on powers of the hierarchy. On the contrary, the entire

People of God participates in the priesthood of Christ. Apostolicity is not restricted to the

hierarchy even though “only some are priests (presbyteroi).” The consecration of lay people

through baptism and the consecration of the ordained ministers are two modes of participation in

the priesthood of Christ, but the ministers are ordained for the service of others. In this way,

Congar tries to keep in balance or rather to emphasize various dialectic aspects of the Church:

125 Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings,” 175.

126 In his introductory bibliographical footnote in Sainte Église (p. 239) Congar says: “Nothing was added

or changed in this text even though our thought has become more precise and enriched since 1951.”


254

the Church is lay people and ordained ministers, communion of life and means of grace, at the

same time.

Congar’s perspective in “The Structure of the Christian Priesthood” is Christological.

This is explained by the use of the category of efficient causality and by the fact that the topic

itself is Christological: how the priesthood of Christ is communicated to the Church. One of the

drawbacks of this approach is precisely its insufficient emphasis on the pneumatological aspect

and on the theology of charisms and ministries. After twenty years (in 1971), he commented on

his works from this period:

If one starts from the concept of "efficient (instrumental) cause" and enters by the door of

hierarchical priesthood, the laity will appear as participating in the hierarchical apostolate

[…] or […] "cooperating" with the priesthood. That is certainly not a passive situation to

be in, but is this conception sufficient? Entry by the door and the concept of community

would be more satisfactory.128

And then he adds “I have gradually corrected my vision which at first was principally and

spontaneously clerical.”129 Despite this “clerical” vision, there are still valuable points in his

early theology of apostolicity. By 1950-1953, Congar succeeded in presenting a theology of

apostolicity understood as given to the whole Church and not only to the hierarchy, in which

both the hierarchical principle and the communal principle were important. The laity was

presented as a priestly people and the hierarchy as a ministry for the service of the whole people.

The Church was described as the body of Christ, in which the role of the Holy Spirit was to

128 Congar, “My Path-Findings,” 177.

129 Ibid., 181.

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communicate the life of Christ.130 It is true that there was still room for the development of

pneumatology and of the theology of ministries, but Congar was on his way to fully developing

what he had already begun.

2. L’Église une, sainte, catholique et apostolique

In this book (1970), Congar presents first the history of the idea of apostolicity,131 and

secondly his understanding of the theology of apostolicity and the role of the Holy Spirit in

making the Church apostolic. His major contribution here is an emphasis on the apostolicity of

doctrine or faith. The Church that he envisions is apostolic not only because the Christian

priesthood (of her ministers and of the laity) participates in the priesthood of Christ in

accordance with the apostolic faith, but also because the Spirit acts continuously in the Church’s

life to keep it alive. In other words, the faith received from the apostles did not fossilize in fixed

forms but continues to grow especially through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The Church

is not only an institution but an event of the Spirit as well. “Apostolicity does not consist in a

mere external structure [the institutionalized priesthood] [...] but it has as an interior principle, in

the unity of the Church, the Holy Spirit.”132 Congar wishes to complete his theology of the

apostolicity of ministry with an account of the apostolicity of doctrine. In fact, for him “[t]he

whole theology of apostolicity is dominated by the relationships that need to be admitted


131 It is worth noting how Congar shows that the adjective “apostolic” as a property of the Church is found

first “in the symbol of faith which the council from Chalcedon (451) attributes to the council of Constantinople

(381)”, Congar, L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique, 190. From now on, L’Église, une.


256

between the pure historical succession and the apostolicity of ministry, on the one hand, and the

fidelity or the apostolicity of doctrine, on the other hand.”133

The Apostolicity of Ministry

Congar explores both of these forms of apostolicity with special care not to

overemphasize one against the other, being aware and sensitive to the position of the Reformers

and also faithful to the Catholic position. To achieve this balance he researches the theology of

apostolicity as presented in the Bible and also in the early Fathers of the Church. Regarding the

Catholic position on the apostolicity of ministry, he presents the core of this teaching as

commonly presented in Catholic doctrine: the apostles received the authority of their ministry

from Christ who received it from the Father (Mt 28: 18-20), they exercised it to found new

communities and to establish the first ministers in charge of these communities.134 However,

their successors do not have the charism of revelation which allowed the apostles to establish a

normative tradition; the bishops are under the authority of the tradition received from the

apostles.

More important, in the relation between the bishops and the apostles, a mere historic

uninterrupted succession is not enough. The continuity between them is given in the context of

the community and by the Holy Spirit. “In a living relation with the apostles, the bishops were

chosen, consecrated, instituted by the apostles—with the cooperation of the community and of

the Holy Spirit in a supreme way—to make the apostle or the apostles present, in their absence,

133 Ibid., 192.

134 Ibid., 194-95.

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as heads of the communities founded by them.”135 The historical succession, therefore, is

required for a continuation of the mission of the apostles in the Church, but the supreme

principle which makes this succession alive is the Holy Spirit. The previous linear

Christological scheme, Christ-apostles-community, is complemented in L’Église, une with a

more pneumatological logic according to which both Christ and the Holy Spirit build the Church

that is both structure and event at the same time.

Congar does not say explicitly that the Church is institution and event, but it is implied in

his description of the way in which God acts to communicate the power and mission of the

apostles to the bishops: God acts directly and immediately through events, and he acts through

the mediation of the institutions. “Clearly, this kind of authority cannot be found in the apostles

and in their successors but only through a communication of God who operates at the same time

vertically or actually (‘événement’) and horizontally (‘institution’) through God’s fidelity to the

structures that he has given to his alliance.”136 Apostolicity corresponds to this law of the way

in which God acts in the economy of salvation: it is both vertical and horizontal. God enters

human history through the incarnation, assuming a human body and soul; then Christ builds an

ecclesial body which is structured and which he formed starting with the apostles and through

their action and the action of the Holy Spirit. It seems that so far Congar holds the same position

as in “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College” (in The Mystery of the Church, 1953) where he

135 Ibid., 198.

136 Ibid., 204.

258

described the apostolic body and the Holy Spirit as the agents of Christ. However, there is an

important advance: an insistence on the vertical intervention or the actuality of the Holy Spirit.

There is no historic continuity, no horizontality, no institution, which is not accompanied

by an actuality, a vertical action, and spiritual “events.” The consecrations according to

succession in the ministry involve an actual intervention of God: this was the case of

elections, the designation of the ministers, and all the sacramental actions, the absolute

decisions in matters of doctrine, worship or morality. For all these, there is the need for

an “epiclesis” and a coming of the Spirit which theology relates to the “divine

missions.”137

This position is in continuity with his earlier position and also an advance beyond it.

First, Congar does not abandon his position from “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,”

where the Spirit was presented as the principle that enables the apostles to preach the word and

to celebrate the sacraments. In L’Église, une Congar states that the same Holy Spirit whom

Christ received is given to both the apostles and their successors to assure the continuity of

ministry and authority between the apostles and the bishops. “For the Fathers of the second and

third centuries, the authority that the bishops exercise in their ministry is the authority that was

given to the apostles, just as the Holy Spirit who was communicated to them in their ordination is

the Spirit with whom Christ was filled and whom he sent at Pentecost.”138 So, Congar does not

abandon his previous position, but to the Christological-institutional aspect of continuity of the

work of Christ Congar adds emphasis on the work of the Spirit. Secondly, there is progress from

his earlier position because the Holy Spirit fills and guides the entire activity of the apostles and

of their successors: not only the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the sacraments

137 Ibid., 218-19.

138 Ibid., 204.

259

(like in “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College”), but also decisions concerning doctrine,

morality, and the entire life of the Church. While in “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College”

Congar described the Holy Spirit as giving life to the Church through charisms and unpredicted

or unexpected events, in L’Église, une he emphasizes the need for an epiclesis for the entire life

of the Church or, better said, that the whole Church is, in fact, an event of the Holy Spirit without

denying its institutional aspect. This change of perspective is closely connected with the fact that

Congar presents the theology of apostolicity in a way that displays the role of the community in

the apostolicity of the Church.

The Role of the Community in the Apostolicity of the Church

Apostolic succession is not only a mere uninterrupted continuance in the occupancy of an

episcopal see; this would be only a material or an historical succession. A local Church can

continue to exist without a bishop for a while, but this would not interrupt the apostolic

succession, which would continue to subsist in the college of bishops until a bishop is

appointed.139 But this is possible precisely because the community remains in communion with

the whole Church which is apostolic. The situation of the episcopi vagantes, where attention

was given only to the validity of ordination but there was no community to which the ordained

bishops should minister, is considered by Congar a mockery of authentic apostolic succession

and Congar’s language is vehement against it.140 Apostolic succession is realized not only

139 Ibid., 205.

140 Ibid., 206. Congar calls this idea of validity through the imposition of the hands without any service to a

community “une misérable caricature, une <<singerie>>”, that is a miserable caricature, an “aping” or mimic of true

apostolic succession.

260

through ordination by the laying of the hands but should always be for the service of a

community and not for personal status. In the early Church ordination was always linked with

the installation or the taking charge of a community to the point that the first act was not

complete without the second. Validity from the point of view of the rite is not enough to ensure

true apostolic succession. The charge of a community supposes an identity in faith and a

communion with the whole Church because each local Church realizes the mystery of the

Church. This communion in faith of the local Church with the whole Church is actually the

guarantee that the bishop is ordained indeed by God, just as each Church is Church only in

communion with the Catholica.141

In “The Christian Structure of Priesthood”, the entire Church, hierarchy and laity, was

presented as participating in the priesthood of Christ. In L’Église, une the whole Church is

apostolic also because it participates in the offices of Christ. The rediscovery of the reality of the

People of God by Vatican II makes it possible to recognize, “better than it has been done during

the last centuries, the incontestable fact that the entire Church is apostolic and even in some way

‘the lay person is like the bishop a successor of the Apostles’.”142 Congar likes to refer to the

ecclesiology of the Council according to which the entire Church participates in the three offices

of Christ (LG 10-12; 33-35) and the Holy Spirit is the principle of the unity of all the faithful in

the doctrine of the apostles, fraternal communion, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers (LG

141 Ibid., 207.

142 Ibid., 212. Congar says that the expression is attributed to Pope Paul VI and quotes Jean Guitton,

Dialogues avec Paul VI (Paris: Fayard, 1967), 301.

261

13); keeping and professing the apostolic deposit of faith is a common effort of the faithful and

the bishops (DV 10). The entire Church structured organically is apostolic and this is the first

principle of identity for the Church; outside of this apostolicity of the Church the succession in

ministry would be void.143

Congar pushes forward the understanding of the relation between apostolic succession

and the community of believers. A significant contribution is that the community not only

safeguards the apostolic faith but also conditions in some way apostolic succession. “Apostolic

succession is inseparable from the apostolicity of the whole Church: they condition and

guarantee each other.”144 The expression could seem daring, but it does not mean that the

community decides over the hierarchy. Rather, Congar points to the ancient custom whereby the

community intervenes in the designation of its ministers. This “consent of the entire Church”

mentioned by Clement of Rome is an assurance that the candidate has the same apostolic faith as

the faith kept by the whole community and that his appointment is willed by God.145 Congar

explains further how this apostolic faith is normative for the apostolicity of ministry.

Apostolicity of Doctrine

Careful to avoid extremes, Congar presents the two constitutive elements of apostolic

succession: succession of ministry and apostolicity of doctrine. Apostolic succession is realized

undoubtedly through ordination and the imposition of hands, as attested by Hippolytus and

143 L’Église, une, 212-13.


145 Ibid., 211. The reference is to Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, but it should be chapter

XLIV, instead of chapter XLV, as written in n. 76.

262

Cornelius.146 To be a member of the episcopal order, an election and an ordination are required,

according to Tertullian,147 and Congar explains that the reason for this ordination is that apostolic

succession assures not only the orthodoxy and identity of doctrine, but also the true sacramental

worship through which the Church is built. But Congar insists more on the apostolicity of

doctrine saying that apostolic succession is constituted by the conservation of the doctrine

transmitted from the apostles. In fact, one year after the publication of L’Église, une he

acknowledged the priority of the apostolicity of doctrine or faith over the apostolicity of order:

“Partly thanks to the ecumenical dialogue, always fertilizing power, and partly owing to

reflection on the experience of the Council, I personally have come to see not merely the place

but the primacy and decisive character of apostolicity of faith.”148 The bishops who are ordained

form a succession in ministry from one bishop to another and this succession in a see (cathedra)

is essential, but their mission is the conformity of their faith and the faith of their communities

with the true faith of the apostles. That is the reason for which a bishop should be ordained by

several bishops of other local Churches: to manifest the communion in faith of the bishop who is

ordained and of his community with the faith of the Catholic Church. In fact, for Congar the

essence of apostolic succession is the unity of mission between the apostles and the bishops, but

the core of this unity of mission is the identity of doctrine, since the Church is a body of

believers and their faith gives them their identity. This is why the Churches that were not

146 Congar, L’Église, une, 208. The references are to Hippolytus, Traditio apostolica, 2, and Cornelius

Letter to Fabius of Antioch quoted by Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, VI, 43, 7-10.

147 Congar, L’Église, une, 208, n. 63. The reference is to Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, 32, 2.


263

founded by an apostle are not less apostolic if there is an identity of faith or a “consanguinity of

doctrine.”149 For the same reason, before the ordination of a bishop a profession of faith is

required of him. Also the letters of communion sent by the pope or other patriarchs have the

same goal, namely to show that the faith of the elected bishop is the same as that of the whole

Church, and therefore the same as the faith received from the apostles. In this sense, for Congar

apostolicity of doctrine is prior to apostolicity of order. “In fact, the teaching of the bishops is a

rule for the faithful, but it is itself ruled: the function brings authority yet it is not in itself its own

criterion; it is conditioned by fidelity to the Tradition of the Apostles, which is alive and

actualized in history by the Holy Spirit.”150

Congar concludes that apostolicity of doctrine and apostolicity of ministry are two joint

aspects in the theology of apostolicity. On the one hand, no one is ordained except in the faith of

the apostles, and for the purpose of continuing their mission and transmitting their faith. On the

other hand, the sacrament of episcopacy is more than just a teaching office. Episcopal ordination

ensures that the bishops are not merely teachers, but the sacrament that they receive is for the

building of the Church; since the Church is a sacrament, the bishops can build this Church only if

they receive a true sacramental reality through their ordination.151

149 Congar, L’Église, une 209, the expression belongs to Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, 32.

150 Ibid., 210.

151 Ibid., 215.

264

3. Ministères et communion ecclésiale152

In the same year in which Congar published L’Église, une (1970), he wrote an article on

the theology of ministry: “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,”153 which

was incorporated in his book Ministères et communion ecclésiale. This article is well known for

the so-called retraction that Congar made regarding his theology of ministries. The word

“retraction” could be misleading. Congar himself made clear that he did not intend to retract in

the sense of withdrawing or entirely changing his previous positions, but rather he wanted to

“revise” his presentation of the theology of ministries and of the laity.154 As a matter of fact,

Congar was never asked to retract any of his theological positions, not even when some of his

books were censored by seven censors.155 Nevertheless, there was an evolution in his

understanding of ministries and of the laity, which he described as a journey (cheminement) or a

“progressive discovery.”156 There are two major areas in which this development took place: the

understanding of ministry within the community of the believers and the understanding of the

Holy Spirit’s role in building up the Church.

152 Yves Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale (Paris: Cerf, 1971).

153 Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32 (1972), 169-

88, 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).


155 Congar, Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar, 109, where Congar talks about his Esquisses du mystère

de l’Église (The Mystery of the Church) (1941). See also 106, where he says that his True and False Reform (1950)

was never put on the Index nor was he condemned.

156 Congar, “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des ministères,” in Ministères et communion

ecclésiale, 7.

265

The Ministries Within the Community

First, to better understand the evolution of his theology of ministries, Congar describes

the ecclesiology that dominated the beginning of the twentieth century. The Church was

presented, more apologetically than theologically, as a hierarchical society in which emphasis

was placed on the juridical powers with which Jesus Christ invested the hierarchy. Congar

acknowledges that he coined the term “hierarchology” for this ecclesiology.157 A good historian,

Congar shows how this change in understanding of the ministries of the Church took place

beginning with the twelfth century. It was at that time that personal ordinations multiplied and

the priesthood was identified by the transmission of an indelible mark that gave priestly power.

Ordination (ordinare) meant reception of a power in a personal, definitive and absolute manner,

instead of the designation of function for the building of the Church given to the ordained

ministers for the service of a community.158 This was a result of a whole vision of the Church as

a “societas inaequalis hierarchica,” which for Congar represents a vulgarization of the true

Church159 in which ministries were conceived as the instrumental cause in the building of the

Church, above and independent of the community of believers.160 To respond to this reductive

ecclesiology, Congar looks at the tradition and recovers the images of the Church as the body of

Christ and as communion. Within this framework, it is possible to construct a sound theology of

ministries that recognizes the role of the community and the charisms of the lay people, which


158 Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale, 35-36.

159 Ibid., 34.

160 Ibid., 35.

266

together build up the Church. Here, Congar uses a famous description, which was cited

before161 but for the sake of clarity and emphasis should be repeated in this context:

If one starts from the concept of "efficient (instrumental) cause" and enters by the door of

hierarchical priesthood, the laity will appear as participating in the hierarchical apostolate

[…] or, according to the broader formula of Pius XII, "cooperating" with the priesthood.

That is certainly not a passive situation to be in, but is this conception sufficient? Entry

by the door and the concept of community would be more satisfactory. […]. There

would be no linear scheme (Christ makes the hierarchy, the hierarchy makes the

community of the faithful) with its danger of making the hierarchical priesthood a

mediating agency which would suppose a people in a state of minority, impotent and

passive.162

So, as in L’Église, une, the role of the community is important and determinative in the

apostolicity of the Church: the whole Church is apostolic.163 But in “My Path-Findings” there is

a significant change regarding the role of the ministries of lay people. Within this community

there are the ministries of ordained priests and also the ministries of lay people, who together

build up the Church. This is the “retraction” of Congar regarding the theology of ministries. It is

not a withdrawal from the previous position in which the apostolic succession of the hierarchy

was viewed as a way of continuing the work of Christ. Renunciation of this position would be

the opposite extreme of the “hierarchology” that Congar criticized in the first place, and it would

161 See above, Chapter V, p. 254.

162 Congar, “My Path-Findings,” 176-77.

163 In L’Église, une, Congar wrote: “The rediscovery […] of the conciliar ecclesiology of the people of God

allows us to acknowledge […] the incontestable fact that the entire Church is apostolic”(212). See also above, p.

260. In “My Path-Findings,” Congar expressed the same idea referring specifically to lay people: “Laymen share in

the priestly, royal, and prophetic dignity and life which come to the Church from Christ. One must add: and in its

apostolic life, too” (173-74). But there is an important shift regarding the apostolicity of lay people, as will be

shown.

267

mean a betrayal of the mystery of the Church in which both the hierarchy and laity build up the

body of Christ. But the retraction consists in the understanding that the hierarchical priesthood

and the other charisms build up the Church (and they come from both Christ and the Holy

Spirit).

The shift of Congar’s theology of the ministries becomes more clear when he points to

the terminology he himself used in time to describe the ministries: “With regard to terminology,

one should notice that the decisive coupling is not so much ‘priesthood-laity,’ as I used it in

Jalons, but rather ‘ministries or services-community’."164 There is a major difference between

these two couples. In the former case, priesthood and laity are distinct categories, whereas in the

latter case the ministries or services exist within the community. The implication of the second

position is that ministries (hierarchical and non-hierarchical) build up the Church of God: “the

Church of God is not built up solely by the actions of the official presbyteral ministry but by a

multitude of diverse modes of service, more or less stable or occasional, more or less

spontaneous or recognised and when the occasion arises consecrated, while falling short of

sacramental ordination.”165 A further implication of the second position regards the relationship

between Christ, the Holy Spirit and the community.

164 Congar, “Mon cheminement dans la théologie du laïcat et des ministères” in Ministères et communion

ecclésiale,17: “Au terme, on apercevra que le couple décisif n’est pas tellement celui de ‘sacerdoce-laïcat’ dont

j’avais usé dans Jalons, mais plûtot celui de ‘ministères ou services-communauté.” The English translation

mistakenly says, for the second couple, "ministries/modes of community service” (“My Path-Findings,” 176).

Therefore, it misses the shift of Congar’s theology of ministries.


268

The Spirit Together with Christ Builds Up the Community

The second major contribution of Ministères et communion ecclésiale is the explicit

claim that the Holy Spirit contributes, together with Christ, to the constitution of ministries.

Congar had already affirmed a year before in L’Église, une that both Christ and the Spirit build

up the Church that is both institution and event at the same time.166 However, here he affirms

clearly his conviction that the retrieval of the theology of charisms constitutes one of the most

notable achievements in the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council.167 What is important is

not the simple mention of charisms by Vatican II but the fact that these charisms have a part to

play in the constitution of the Church: “God gathers his people and builds his Church, not only

through the means of grace somehow institutional and through the corresponding instituted

ministries, but through all kinds of gifts that he makes, of initiatives and services which he brings

forth.”168

This is a description of the mystery of the Church as institution-structure and life.

Congar classified the ministries in three categories: occasional (transitory), for example a mother

catechizing a group of children; habitual (more stable), for instance catechists; and the ordained

ministers: deacons, priests and bishops.169 At the same time he places the instituted ministers in

the structure of the Church and the other services or ministries in the life of the Church. He does

not want to confuse the structure with the life of the Church: the ordained ministers structure the


167 Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale, 42-43.

168 Ibid., 43.

169 Ibid., 43-46.

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Church170 and “the services and the [other] ministries require to be structured,”171 that is to be

subject to the law of unity in the Church. However, it is very important that all these ministries

are placed within the community, as Congar’s coupling shows: “ministries or services-

community.” Congar’s progress from his earlier position is that he affirms without a doubt that

there is no precedence of the structure over the life of the Church (it is not an incarnational

perspective anymore). Congar finally makes it obvious that the second pole of the Church, that

of ecclesial life, is essential for the mystery of the Church. From this perspective, no one from

now on can criticize Congar for saying that hierarchy is the only structuring principle for the

Church. The services do not just build the Church “sideways” as in Jalons, but together with the

ordained ministries they help to structure the Church.

This theology corresponds to a new understanding of the Church, a total ecclesiology in

which the mystery of the Church is perceived as communion with the Trinity, and both the

structure and ministries are essential parts brought about by the work of Christ and the Spirit at

the same time. It replaces the Christological linear scheme Christ-hierachy-community with a

more pneumatological approach, as in the figures below presented by Congar himself.172

170 Ibid. 48.

171 Ibid. 48-49. The addition “other” is mine, because in Congar’s context it refers to the first two

categories of ministries (occasional and habitual).


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(Yves Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist 32, 1972:

178.)

The left-hand diagram was preferred by the World Council of Churches, as Congar

indicates.173 It shows the action of both the glorified Christ and the Spirit upon the people of

God and ministers. It also illustrates the mutual relationship between the people of God and the

ministers, through the two arrows pointing respectively from one term to the other of the

relationship. The right-hand diagram was preferred by Congar and it shows the same thing with

two differences. It has the advantage that places the ministries within the community. Then,

Congar uses the term “ministries” instead of “ministers.” By “ministries,” he means ordained

ministers and other services, as shown above.

This sound balance of the theology of ministries is strictly connected with the role of the

Holy Spirit as constitutive of the Church. In fact, Congar notes that the two aspects are coherent

with each other. Vatican II has done a vertical re-centering on Christ and the Holy Spirit and a

horizontal de-centering of the Church, that is, it moved from a central structure toward structures

173 Ibid., 178. The English translation says: "Ecumenical Council of the churches" where it means “World

Council of Churches.” The French text says “Conseil oecuménique des Eglises” (“Mon cheminement dans la

théologie du laïcat et des ministères,” in Ministères et communion ecclésiale, 19).

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of collegiality.174 But the more one recognizes the role of the Spirit in building up the Church,

the more one understands the Church as a total mystery in which lay people and the hierarchy

form the Church. The role of the Spirit is understood now not only as animating the structure

founded by Christ and giving charisms to the Church, but his role is in founding the Church

together with Christ and in building it up through continuous intervention until the final coming

of Christ. Congar again maintains a sound balance, avoiding two extremes: first, the Church was

founded by Christ who gave the structure or the hierarchy, which is sufficient to provide the

Church all it needs; and second, the Church is solely an event that takes place through the

intervention of the Spirit, and the legitimacy of the ministry is recognized only if it brings forth

spiritual fruits.175 Congar envisages a Church in which both Christological and pneumatological

aspects are held together: it is not possible to separate the hierarchical functions and the

charisms, and this is clear from the New Testament and from the life of the Church in history,

just as Vatican II joins together the institution and the grace of the Holy Spirit.176 It is very

important to mention that Congar does not assign the constitution of the hierarchy to Christ and

the endowing with charisms to the Holy Spirit, but both Christ and the Spirit work together in

constituting and building up the Church through the hierarchy and the charisms.

To summarize, Congar’s theological thinking on the apostolicity of the Church matured

in the 1970s: the Church as a whole is apostolic through the succession of ministry within the

174 Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale, 32.

175 Ibid., 61-62.

176 Ibid., 92.

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community of believers and as a service to the community, through the keeping of apostolic

doctrine by the entire community, and through the charisms or services that also structure the

Church. More importantly for the purpose of this paper: his thinking reflects a point of

equilibrium between Christology and pneumatology, according to which Congar retracts the

linear Christological scheme and replaces it with the trinitarian scheme. The study of

ecclesiology (or, more precisely, of the apostolicity of the Church) and pneumatology are closely

related and influence each other. A few years later, in his I Believe in the Holy Spirit he

developed this thinking and claimed explicitly that the Holy Spirit is the co-instituting principle

of the Church.

C. Ministry in Service of Communion: A Pneumatological and Trinitarian

Approach

Je crois en l’Esprit Saint (I Believe in the Holy Spirit) (1979-80)

A Change in Perspective (Trinitarian, Not Only Christological) and in Methodology: First

Pneumatology and then Ecclesiology

In a 1953 article dedicated to the theme of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the

Church, “The Holy Spirit in the Church”, Congar explained how this topic could be addressed

from two perspectives: first, from an ecclesiological point of view, in which the emphasis would

be on the effects produced by the Spirit in the Church, and second, from a perspective which

would emphasize the proper place of the Spirit in the mystery of the Trinity and the

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consequences of this for the Church.177 Congar expressed his regret that he could not address the

second viewpoint at that time. In 1979-80, he finally wrote extensively on the Holy Spirit, and

this time he completes his view with a trinitarian perspective. I Believe in the Holy Spirit

represents a corollary to and a completion of his previous writings: his long-time search for a

better articulation of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit, and for a better articulation

between the divine processions and their missions in the economy of salvation reaches a

satisfying solution. So it is important that before writing on the role of the Spirit in making the

Church apostolic, he sets forth the trinitarian principles that elucidate the relationship between

Christ and the Spirit.

This trinitarian perspective was presented in the first chapter of this dissertation, but here

a short exposition is needed in order to show the implications for a theology of apostolicity. The

two missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit imply a close connection with the Father who sends

them into the world. In the economy of salvation, every work of God (except the incarnation) is

common to the persons of the Trinity; the incarnation is attributed solely to the Logos assuming

the human nature of Jesus, but the Father and the Spirit are also involved. The missions of the

Son and the Spirit take place in a pattern in which they always act together because those

missions are prolongations into the world of the inner divine processions. According to this

constant pattern, the Church is an organism of love totally dependent on the missions both of the

Son and of the Spirit. The Church is, therefore, a communion because the immanent life of God

177 Congar, “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The Revelation of God, 148. The article was originally

published as “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Lumiere et Vie, June 1953: 51-74.

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which is shared by the divine persons in eternity is communicated to people through the missions

of the Son and the Spirit.178

This trinitarian perspective, developed especially by Irenaeus, leads Congar to affirm that

“the Spirit did not come simply in order to animate an institution that was already fully

determined in all its structures, but that he is really the ‘co-instituting’ principle.”179 This

clarification is extremely important because it shows how Congar does not attribute the structure

of the Church to Christ alone and the animation of this structure to the Spirit alone. This would

still separate the two missions of the Son and the Spirit, by attributing to each of them a specific

work in which the other one is not involved. In his early works Congar tended to do this by

attributing the visibility of the sacramental signs to Christ and the invisible effects of them to the

work of interiorization performed by the Spirit.180 The distinction was needed in order to

differentiate the persons of the Trinity. On the contrary, here Congar makes it clear that in his

later perspective, both Christ and the Spirit work together in the institution of the ministries and

also in the life of the Church. He shows this from the institution of the Twelve who were chosen

by Christ with the co-operation of the Spirit (Acts 1:2). Also the choosing and institution of the

Apostles’ successors is the work of the Spirit according to the New Testament (Acts 13:1-3; 20;

28; 1 Tim 1:18, 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6-7).181 Moreover, the degrees of the sacramental priesthood were


179 Ibid., 9.

180 See for example “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 160. Also

see above, Chapter V, p. 220.


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determined by the Holy Spirit after Pentecost. Congar points out that neither the Council of

Trent nor Vatican II attributed these degrees of the sacramental ministries to Jesus. He thinks

that Christ founded the communication of sacramental grace for the apostles but that the forms of

the ministry coming from the apostles were determined by the Holy Spirit.182 Then, regarding

the charisms, Congar points out that they are gifts that do not oppose the hierarchical ministry; if

any opposition was accepted, the unity of the body of Christ would be destroyed. Rather the

institution and the charisms are two complementary types of activity in the Church that, even

though different in style, are given for the same end, the building up of the Church.183 Therefore,

two extremes should be avoided: to subordinate the charisms to institutional authority, or to

claim that the Church is a charismatic organism, in which the institution would play a secondary

role. The balance which Congar advocates comes from a correct understanding of the relation

between Christ and the Spirit within a trinitarian framework.

Congar holds the same position as in Ministères et communion ecclésiale, claiming that

both the structure and the charisms build the Church, but here the trinitarian perspective is even

clearer precisely because the Spirit is the co-instituting principle of the Church together with

Christ. In his last major book, Parole et le Souffle (The World and the Spirit) (1984), Congar

articulates even better the roles of Christ and the Spirit. The Church is built up “by the incarnate

Word during his presence in flesh” and “by the permanent activity here and now of the glorified

182 Ibid., 9-10.

183 Ibid., 11.

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Lord, who is Spirit.”184 This expression is new in Congar’s writings and represents the most

advanced stage of his thinking.185 It shows the relation between the Christological and

pneumatological principles in ecclesial life: the Spirit co-institutes here and now (actuellement)

the Church that was instituted historically by the incarnate Word. Both Christ and the Spirit

institute the Church and work together in the structure and the life of the Church at the same

time. As Congar himself explains, “[i]t would be an oversimplification to say ‘Word’ and

‘Breath’,” or to attribute the structure of the Church to Christ and the charisms to the Spirit,

“because both are present in each part.”186 Therefore, there is no opposition in the Church

between institution or ordained ministry and charisms. More important, the reason for this

balance consists not only in a common end, that is the building up of the Church, but especially

in the origin of the institution and charisms coming from both Christ and the Spirit. It is worth

mentioning that this sound balance has a trinitarian foundation.

A Change in Methodology

It seems that in the earlier works Congar’s approach was first ecclesiological, and

pneumatology was somehow secondary, offering the support needed for an understanding of the

mystery of the Church, in which institution and life were in balance. Over the course of his

theological career, his approach gradually became more pneumatological and in the end Congar


185 Joseph Famerée, “Christologie, pneumatologie et ecclésiologie trinitaire,” in Joseph Famerée and Gilles

Routhier, Yves Congar (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 149-173, at 167 and 169.


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claims that “[e]cclesiology is a function of pneumatology.”187 Without mentioning any

particular theologian, he observed that in modern theology, there is a tendency to reverse this

order and pneumatology becomes a function of ecclesiology. The effect is that the Spirit is only

a guarantor of the Church as an institution and pneumatology is an ideological superstructure for

ecclesiology. Congar promotes a change in perspective in which a trinitarian view provides a

correct understanding of the mystery of the Church and, implicitly, of its apostolicity. This also

includes a change in his methodology. If in the earlier works, ecclesiology (and implicitly

apostolicity) came first and from there one could infer the role of the Spirit with regard to

apostolicity, in I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Congar started with the trinitarian principles and then

explained the theology of apostolicity. We can now turn our attention to the role of the Spirit in

the apostolicity of the Church.

The Spirit Makes the Church Apostolic

Congar defines apostolicity as the quality of the Church to be “in conformity with the

apostles.”188 Apostolicity is therefore a mark of the Church that is in continuity with its origins.

Congar identifies several means by which the Church remains faithful to everything she received

from the apostles.189


188 Ibid., 39.

189 Congar’s presentation is not systematic. He seems more interested in the depth of his ideas: the

apostolicity of faith and the apostolicity of ministry are complementary, the apostolic succession is to be understood

within the community, the Spirit is the principle of communion not only with the apostles but also with the Father

and the Son, etc. Therefore, the arrangement of material is mine.

278

Congar refers first to “the essential elements of the Church as an institution as given by

Jesus: the Word, the sacraments, [and] the ministry of the Twelve.”190 Those who preached the

kerygma did so ‘through the Holy Spirit” (1 Pt 1:12). “The Church was born and increased

because of preaching and the help given by the Spirit.”191 Having the same faith as the apostles,

the whole Church is apostolic. It is in this sense that Congar acknowledges the apostolicity of

faith as given to the whole Church: “The universal apostolicity is fundamentally an apostolicity

of faith .”192

The bishops have a special function in keeping this apostolic faith. “The

‘tradition/transmission’ of the Spirit which enables the Church to be faithful to and united in its

faith, is tied up with the function of the bishops.”193 The bishops, the apostles’ successors, are

given a “sure charism of truth” through the work of the Spirit, so that the Church “would be

unfailingly faithful to the faith received from the apostles.”194 It is worth noting Congar’s

insistence that the whole Church shares the faith of the apostles, and the authentic teaching of the

bishops is exercised within the apostolic faith of the entire Church.


191 Ibid. 43.

192 Ibid., 45. Remarkably, Congar does not mention here the sensus fidei.

193 Ibid., 44

. 194 Ibid., 44. The reference is to Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, 26, 2. See also above, Chapter III, p.

150, where the text is cited in relation to the unity of the Church.

279

The Church is then apostolic because there is a continuity of mission throughout time

even when generations of Christians die and are replaced by others.195 This is especially true

about the apostolic succession of bishops. The apostolic succession assures the continuity of

bishops with the apostles through the rite of consecration, laying of hands and, very importantly,

the invocation of the Holy Spirit. This epiclesis is needed for the entire life of the Church and

especially for the sacraments. “In concrete, this means that the Spirit also must actively

intervene in the case of any activity that is related to the sacramental of ‘hierarchical’ institution,

whether it is has to do with the Word, the pastoral government of the Church or the sacraments

[…].”196

All these elements of theology of apostolicity are not new in Congar’s thought. In fact,

he cites and reiterates the position he held in L’Église: une,197 and even earlier, in “The Holy

Spirit and the Apostolic College” as will be shown. This demonstrates the continuity of his

thought. There are, however, new elements in his view of apostolicity: communional aspect, the

trinitarian approach (already discussed), and an eschatological dimension of apostolicity.

The Spirit’s conjoint action as the co-instituting principle of the Church does not mean

that his role is identical with that of Christ. A confusion of the roles would point towards a

confusion of the persons. The Spirit brings forth in the Church the newness that orients the

Church toward eschatology. In fact, one of the developments of Congar’s thinking regarding the

195 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 40. Congar refers here to his L’Église, une, 216-222.



280

role of the Spirit in the apostolicity of the Church according to I Believe is represented by an

emphasis on eschatology. Congar again uses the theme of the relationship between the Alpha

and the Omega. It is helpful to trace Congar’s thought in this respect. In the earliest works, for

instance 1953’s “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College” (in The Mystery of the Church),

Congar’s view was rather Christological with a particular attention to the continuity of the work

of Christ in history through the apostolic ministry. Surprisingly, at the same time he emphasized

a certain autonomy of the Spirit with regard to the ministry of the apostles: the Spirit builds up

the Church through charisms and unpredicted events.198 His intention was to avoid a reduction

of the work of the Spirit to a vicarious function of Christ or a simple repetition of his work.

However, in I Believe Congar’s thinking reaches a point of maturation with respect to the

relation between Christ and the Spirit. In I Believe the apostolicity of the Church is presented as

a gift given by grace and also as a task oriented toward the eschatological future. Apostolicity

“can therefore be conceived by reference to the end as well as by reference to the beginning.”199

Congar emphasizes both continuity and newness between the Alpha and the Omega. Continuity

is given by the fact that the Spirit is always the Spirit of Christ. Newness is brought about by

new events in history, which are orientated toward an eschatological fulfillment. “The Word is

the form and the Spirit is breath. Jesus instituted the Eucharist and proclaimed a gospel. The

Spirit makes them present here and now in what is new in the history of the world. He joins the

first Adam who [is] multiplied and invented to the eschatological Adam, the Omega of the world

198 See above, Chapter V, pp. 231 and 244.

199 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 39

.

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[...].”200 The Church is thus apostolic because it preserves what it has received from Jesus

through the apostles and also because the work of Christ needs to be “received and therefore

complemented inwardly in the theological life of the subject at the ‘spiritual’ or ‘prophetic’ level

or ‘pole’ at which the influence of the Holy Spirit who was sent by Christ was felt in the soul.”201

Thus, the balance that Congar reached in the relation between Christ and the Spirit, the

instituting principle and the co-instituting principle of the Church, has implications for the life of

the Church. The Church is apostolic as a whole, in both its structure or hierarchy and in its

community endowed with charisms. As Congar said, the problem of apostolicity does not

consist in adding to the Christological theology of ordained ministries a pneumatological

theology of charisms, but rather only within the frame of a “total ecclesiology” can the

apostolicity of the whole Church be rightly understood.202 In other words, it is not only a

question of adding to the apostolic succession of the ordained ministry a chapter on the

apostolicity of doctrine and on charisms. The more profound need in ecclesiology was to

understand the Church as a whole as apostolic, hierarchy and lay people together, within the

mystery which is brought about by Christ and the Spirit at the same time. Congar succeeded in

his search in I Believe, where he provides a trinitarian perspective in which the Spirit is presented

as co-institutor of the Church.


201 Ibid., 45.


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D. Conclusion

This chapter has presented the evolution of Congar’s thinking regarding the apostolicity

of the Church and the role of the Holy Spirit in making the Church apostolic. In this evolution,

there is both continuity and progress, and close attention should be paid to both aspects. The

elements that show continuity are his understanding of the Church as a total mystery and his

permanent search to articulate the relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit. From the

beginning of his career, Congar advocated against what he called “hierarchology,” a theology

that reduced ecclesiology to an explanation of the communication of priestly powers from Christ

to the apostles and their successors. Without denying what was still valuable in that approach,203

Congar envisioned a Church described as a total mystery, in which hierarchy and lay people

participate in the life of God communicated to the Church by Christ and the Holy Spirit. In this

framework, the apostolicity of the Church is the note that assures the continuity of what was

entrusted to the apostles through the work of Christ and the Spirit.

Congar has presented the apostolicity of the Church within the context of this total

mystery of the Church since his earlier works. The “total” ecclesiology, which he never wrote

but which was always the framework of the ecclesiological issues on which he wrote, is closely

connected with a need for pneumatology. In 1953, he explicitly expressed this necessity for a

trinitarian and pneumatological approach which would show the role of the Spirit in the

203 Congar, Jalons pour une theologie du laïcat, 383: “It is not about denying these achievements but we

cannot accept to lose the old sense of the things and that’s why we think that the ‘classic’ ecclesiology has to be

completed by a theology of communion. It is necessary, it is urgent to reintroduce the doctrinal affirmations of our

classic ‘hierarchology’ in the context of an ‘ecclesiology’ even more classic, of the patristic and medieval tradition.”

The text is omitted from the editions of the English translations, Lay People in the Church.

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apostolicity of the Church.204 Even if at that time he did not write on this issue, he worked over

the years on it until in his last works he finally named the Spirit the co-instituting principle of the

Church. But this chapter attempted to show how his ecclesiology (and implicitly his theology of

apostolicity) has always been connected with pneumatology, and Congar finally wrote explicitly

in I Believe that ecclesiology is a function of pneumatology.205 His earlier method, however,

followed rather an opposite direction: from ecclesiology to pneumatology. Yet, as Gilles

Routhier has observed, “pneumatology was not a late theme in Congar and was never absent

from his ecclesiological horizon—even though in the beginning Christology informed more his

theology of the Church and of ministry—but pneumatology will become more and more

important until it will occupy a capital place.”206

There is also progress in Congar’s thought regarding the apostolicity of the Church. One

of the most noticeable achievements is described by Congar himself: the change in perspective

from a linear Christological viewpoint, in which ministry was conceived as an instrumental or

efficient cause of the apostolicity of the Church, to a pneumatological view. In this

pneumatological view, ministry is placed within the community and at its service, and the

Church is apostolic because the community and the hierarchy share in the faith of the apostles—

this is the apostolicity of faith. Furthermore, and important, the hierarchical ministry still has a

204 Congar, “The Holy Spirit in the Church,” in The Revelation of God, 148. See above, Chapter V, pp.

272-73. IDEM, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College,” in The Mystery of the Church, 110-11. See above,

Chapter V, pp. 258-59.

205 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 46. See above, Chapter V, p. 277.

206 Gilles Routhier, “Un cheminement dans la théologie du ministère,” in Famerée and Routhier, Yves

Congar, 99-116, at 103.

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role of effecting the apostolicity (even though Congar does not use this language and the

perspective is not incarnational—the ministry does not come primarily from Christ but from both

Christ and the Spirit). Congar does not dismiss it, but he presents the apostolic succession of the

bishops within the community—this is the apostolicity of ministry—and points out that the

bishops have the “sure charism of truth.” The Spirit keeps thus the Church apostolic in her faith

and ministries.

The factors that contributed to this change of perspective were: sensitivity to ecumenical

dialogue that emphasized the apostolicity of doctrine and the role of the community in building

up the Church, a rediscovery of the theology of charisms, and sensitivity to the aspirations of the

world, the need for total ecclesiology, and a recuperation of the role of the pneumatology in

ecclesiology.207 Without trying to downplay the importance of all of these factors in the journey

of Congar, the development of pneumatology is without any doubt crucial. It allows him to fully

and rightly acknowledge the role of Christ and the Spirit in making the Church apostolic.

Congar emphasizes both continuity with what was historically instituted by the incarnate Word

and the Spirit, and also the co-instituting role of the Spirit in building up the Church here and

now, or the actuality of his work, while orienting the Church toward the eschatological

fulfillment.

This chapter has attempted to trace the evolution of Congar’s thought regarding

apostolicity. However, his progress was gradual and one should not overlook the unity of his

thought, which is important as well. A careful balance between Christology and pneumatology,

207 Ibid., 112 and 114.

285

hierarchy and community, structure and life, should always be kept. This is, perhaps, the most

important legacy of Congar’s thought regarding the apostolicity of the Church.

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CHAPTER SIX

THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE HOLINESS OF

THE CHURCH

This chapter discusses the development of Congar’s understanding of the role of the Holy

Spirit in making the Church holy; it does not treat the personal holiness of the members of the

Church, but rather the property of holiness of the Church as such and the role of the Spirit in its

realization. In his last major book on the Holy Spirit, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, holiness is the

last note of the Church discussed by Congar. This order is not the order of importance; neither is

it the order of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan formula of faith. The only explanation for this

sequence is that Congar discusses catholicity after unity, for reasons explained at the beginning

of chapter four of this dissertation,1 therefore leaving the note of holiness to the end. In the

history of theology, there have been attempts to establish a logical priority between unity and

holiness, but in Congar’s opinion this cannot be done in an incontestable and satisfactory

manner.2 In fact, for Congar all the notes are inter-related: “In truth, there is a kind of mutual

presence and interiority, of ‘circuminsession’ of the notes with each other: just as the functions

1 See above, Chapter IV, p. 160.


287

of Christ [royal, priestly and prophetic] are only emanations of his anointing by the Holy Spirit

and of his plenitude of grace […].”3

According to some scholars, even though Congar is reluctant to establish a hierarchy of

the notes, at times he considers holiness to be the base for all the other notes.4 Just as some of

the attributes of God—his mercy, justice and power—can be understood as facets of his love, so

too the other three notes of the Church can be viewed as aspects of her holiness.5 In fact,

according to Congar, holiness is the most discernible among all the notes because it shows the

presence of God in the most direct way: “from holiness to the presence of God the inference is

direct and available to everybody.”6 Everything in the Church—her power, organization, laws—

has only one goal: to foster spiritual relationships with God; this is the only demand and program

of the Church.

Definitions of the Church’s Holiness

As shown above, Congar at times understands holiness as the presence of God in the

Church. In L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique, Congar says that to state the holiness

3 Ibid., 261-62: “En vérité, il existe une sorte de présence et d’intériorité mutuelles, de ‘circuminsession’

des notes les unes à l’égard des autres: un peu comme les diverses fonctions du Christ ne sont que les émantions de

son onction par l’Esprit-Saint et de sa plenitude de grace […].”

4 Diane Jagdeo, The Holiness and Reform of the Church in the Writing of Yves Congar, Ph.D. dissertation,

The Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., 1986, 82.

5 Yves Congar, “Une, sainte, catholique et apostolique,” in J. P. Dubois-Dumée et al., Un Concile pour

notre temps, Rencontres 62 (Cerf: Paris, 1961), 225-52, at 250.

6 Yves Congar, “Les leçons de la théologie,” in Le role de la religieuse dans l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1960),

29-57, at 50: “De toutes les notes, celle de sainteté est la plus irrecusable [...]. C’est aussi la note la plus directement

lisible, parce que, d’un fait de la saintetè à la presence de Dieu, l’inference est directe et à la portée de tous.”

288

of the Church is to proclaim the indissolubility of the union of Christ with the Church.7 This

indissoluble union, through which the Church becomes the body of Christ, gives the Church the

assurance of her holiness. The Holy Spirit also is united with the Church through a covenant

bond. There is a difference between the union of Christ with the Church and the Spirit’s

covenant bond with the Church. Through the incarnation the divine nature of the Son was united

hypostatically with his human nature, and Jesus Christ became the head of the Church, his body.

The relation of the Spirit with the Church is a covenant bond. The Spirit is not united

hypostatically with the Church, which means he does not form a single reality with the Church;

he is, however, compared with the soul of the Church because he animates her, by being her

principle of existence and action. Therefore, to believe in the Church as being holy is to believe

in the Holy Spirit who does not cease to sanctify her, because he dwells in the Church as her

soul.8

Another way in which Congar describes the holiness of the Church is by using the pair

“gift” and “task.”9 Holiness is a gift because it is given to the Church by Christ and the Spirit

who act in her formal principles: faith, sacraments, and the hierarchical powers. For this reason

Congar calls this gift objective holiness. At the same time, holiness is a task of the members of

the Church who are holy and strive for holiness. This task or call of Christians which they need

to fulfill in history is named subjective holiness.10 It is a continuous call which places on


8 Ibid., 133-34.



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Christians a great responsibility. One of the best summaries of this dynamic of gift and task is

found in the following words: “Only God is holy, and only he can make us holy, in and through

his incarnate Son and in and through his Spirit. […] Yet our co-operation in this process of

sanctification is required—it is possible for us neglect the gift and make it vain (see 1 Thess 4;3,

7-8; Rom 6:22; Heb 10:29).”11

The dynamic between gift and task is also found in another pair used by Congar, structure

and life. His best-known book on the latter pair is Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église (True

and False Reform in the Church) (1950). Interested in answering the question of what can and

what cannot be reformed in the Church, Congar uses the pair structure and life. The structure of

the Church is composed of elements that are given by God; they are, therefore, immutable and

the Church is holy due to them. These principles are faith, the sacraments, the apostolic powers

derived from Christ, the charisms, the gifts of grace and the plan of God for the salvation of the

world.12 These principles cannot and need not be reformed. The life, of the Church, however, is

in need of reform because it refers to the Church’s human element, which is fallible and subject

to dangers in history (“pharisaism,” which is to consider the means and rules as goals; and

becoming a “synagogue,” which is becoming attached to old forms and failing to hear the call of

the need for new forms).13



13 Ibid., 135-47 and 147-67 respectively.

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In Un people messianique. L’Église, sacrement du salut. Salut et libération14 (1975),

Congar explores the soteriological sacramentality of the Church. Using the theology of symbol,

Congar bases the epiphanic value or the sacramentality of created realities on the divine

existence itself: due to the fact that the Word is eternally the expression or the image or the

symbol of the Father, in his incarnation he can be the reflection and the revelation of the Father.

In a similar way, created realities, in virtue of their creation by the Word, can be an epiphany of

God.15 This epiphany makes the Church holy and takes place thorough means that are public

and have a certain stability and permanence. “God—or Christ—has set certain sensible means,

appropriate to human nature, in his stable and permanent belonging [with us], which means he

had constituted an institution, in the most comprehensive sense of the word, as a large sacrament

of the alliance and salvation. The Church is that [institution].”16

Finally, another way of defining ecclesial holiness is by presenting the Church as the

body of Christ, the bride of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. These themes are present in

Congar’s writings throughout his career: from his first book, Chrétiens désunis (Divided

Christendom) (1937), through Le Mystère du Temple (The Mystery of the Temple) (1958),

L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique (1970), to his last major book, I Believe in the

Holy Spirit (1979-80),17 where the importance of these concepts is significant.

14 Yves Congar, Un people messianique. L’Église, sacrament du salut. Salut et liberation, Cogitatio fidei

85 (Paris: Cerf, 1975).

15 Famerée (L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 445) claims that Congar is inspired by Karl Rahner’s theology

of the symbol.

16 Congar, Un people messianique, 24. Emphasis original.

17 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 53-55, for the Church as the temple; 55-57, for the Church as bride.

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This short presentation of Congar’s view of ecclesial holiness suggests two things. First,

Congar was interested in the topic of the holiness of the Church throughout his theological

career. However, he treated it usually in connection with other topics, for instance reform, the

sacramentality of the Church, salvation, etc. It seems that his writings on holiness are

occasional; indeed, he must have been interested in describing the Church as such, since he

probed the deep and full mystery of the Church, one of whose properties is holiness. Only when

the Church was understood fully and correctly as a mystery of communion between God and his

people, would the note-property of holiness be appreciated as a communication of God’s

holiness to people and not used merely as a topic in apologetics.

Secondly, in his early works Congar describes holiness as a property attributed to the

formal principles of the Church—faith, sacraments and priestly powers. This description

corresponds to a particular model of the Church, which is mainly Christological. However, the

role of the Spirit is united and conjoined to that of Christ. “There is a covenant bond grounded in

the will of God, between the Holy Spirit and the institutional Church, which implies some sort of

infallibility in the acts of the ministry so that the consecration of the sacred species is effected by

the prayer of the Church.”18 In this way the Spirit sanctifies the Church. In his final works,

Congar develops in a clearer manner the relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit, and

therefore holiness is understood in a more balanced way as realized by both Christ and the Holy

Spirit. This chapter will try to show how Congar’s understanding of the holiness of the Church

and his pneumatology developed simultaneously and influenced each other: from emphasizing


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the holiness of the structure of the Church to seeing the Church as the holy Temple in which

dwells the Spirit.

Methodologically, this chapter will present in a chronological manner the evolution of

Congar’s thought on the holiness of the Church and the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing that

holiness about. It will be shown that the evolution of his ecclesiology was bound up with his

developing understanding of pneumatology. There is, in this evolution, a continuity of thought

and also a progression; Congar’s thought develops organically and not in contradiction with his

earlier position.

A. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church Holy in Her Formal Principles: A Mainly

Christological Approach

1. Chrétiens désunis (1937)

In his early works, Chrétiens désunis (1937), and “Je crois en sainte Église” (1938),19

Congar does not write directly on ecclesial holiness. In Chrétiens désunis he dedicates a chapter

to the unity and another to the catholicity of the Church but none to its holiness. However, his

theology of the holiness of the Church can be inferred from the mainly Christological model that

he uses. Various concepts are employed within this model; the Church is: first, a fellowship of

divine life under the appearance of a visible society, and, secondly, the body of Christ—an

organism and an institutional reality at the same time—founded by Christ and animated the Holy

Spirit.

19 Yves Congar, “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” in Sainte Église, 9-17, originally published in Revue des

Jeunes (January 1938): 85-92.

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The Church as a Visible Society

Chrétiens désunis is the result of the conferences Congar gave during the week of prayer

for Christian unity the year before, in 1936; his audience was “very mixed.”20 Congar wanted to

make claims that were clear and safe. He was interested to emphasize the importance of the

visibility of the Church and of the means of grace in communicating salvation; in other words,

the sacramentality of the Church. The language used by Congar emphasizes causality and the

means of grace, being influenced in this approach by his Thomistic formation. The use of

scholastic concepts during this period is preeminent: for instance, in an article written in 1935,

“Aspects of the Communion of Saints,”21 he describes the communion of saints as a union of the

members of the mystical body and a communication of grace within that body. After that, he

explains the concepts of satisfaction and merit (merit itself can be perfect, de condigno, or

imperfect, de convenientia) as the ways in which that communication takes place. Only later,

when he gave conferences as a prisoner of war, did Congar use less scholastic language because

his audience was not familiar with it. As Joseph Famerée justly observes, “Progressively,

Congar tends to give up this scholastic and post-tridentine heritage in order to express himself in

a more biblical manner, in terms of ‘sacramental signs’ or ‘real symbolism’ on the one hand, and

in terms of ‘ministries or services’ on the other hand.”22


21 Yves Congar, “Aspects of the Communion of Faith,” in Faith and Spiritual Life, 122-131, originally

published as “De la communication des biens spirituels,” in Vie Spirituelle 42 (1935), 5-17.


294

The ecclesiological model used in Chrétiens désunis can be summarized as follows: the

Church is a society in which people receive the life of the Trinity through the mediation of Jesus

Christ and the means of salvation instituted by him. Two elements constitute the Church at the

same time: communion with the Trinity (Ecclesia de Trinitate) and the human element (ex

hominibus). Two laws are, therefore, simultaneously and conjointly at work in the Church: the

law of a heavenly reality and the law of an earthly reality.23 The consequence is that people’s

participation in the life of the Trinity is given to them according to

the law of our earthly conditions and of incarnate human beings, destined by nature to

live socially, subject to the laws of human nature […]. Therefore since our heavenly

citizenship is prepared for and begun in humanity under a human mode, and not

according to the mode of its realization in glory, we must expect to find a Church in the

form of a Society, embodied in realities of sense; teaching, ruling, active and militant.24

Writing with the goal of engaging in dialogue with Protestant views of the Church,

Congar wanted to emphasize the visible unity of the Church; for that reason he called attention to

the visibility and efficacy of the means of salvation in the Church (the sacraments for instance,

but also the priestly powers). The necessity for salvation to be visible is inscribed in human

nature, and God’s revelation follows this law. In the present condition of the economy of

salvation, grace is given to people according to the state of pilgrims. “The Word was in truth

made flesh, and though this is a theophany, it is a human theophany, a revelation under the

humble form of a human nature exteriorly like any other. He obeyed the law of the saving action

of God in our regard, the law of incarnation. Because men are composed of flesh and blood He


24 Ibid., 66-67.

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also was partaker of the same.”25 In this particular passage Congar comes close to an explicit

definition of ecclesial holiness: the Church exists because of the theophany that takes place in the

incarnation of Christ. The line of thought is clearly Christocentric, the Church being understood

in relation to the incarnation.

On the other hand, in heaven the life of God will be communicated in a personal and

direct (not mediated) manner. “In its [the Church’s] perfect and glorified state the life of the

Blessed Trinity will be given to us spiritually, and not under a sensible form, and the corporeal

realities concerned will be a consequence of the soul’s transfigured state and not a means to it.”26

But in the present stage of the economy of salvation these sensible forms are needed as visible

means to communicate the divine life to the Church.

In the present stage of the economy, nonetheless, the Church as society follows the rules

of any other society. This led some critics to claim that sociology was the basis for Congar’s

ecclesiology—a point on which more will be said later. Congar in fact is simply stating that

since God’s way of acting and saving humankind follows the law of our human nature and deals

with us in this world as human beings, “the Church on earth assumes the human and social form

of any community of men bound together in pursuit of a common purpose.”27 It is possible to

deny this law and to deny that the Church is an organized society; however, Congar says it is

25 Ibid., 65.

26 Ibid., 66.


296

clear that God deals with us as a race since in Adam all people were implicated in a revolt

against God due to the fact of generation and human solidarity.

But salvation comes to us by a similar law. Revelation is not a divine illumination to

each one of us individually, as the beatific Vision will be; it is addressed to a people

treated as such, by the ministry of men acting in a mediatorial capacity […]. Redemption

operates in an incarnation, where God acts according to human law and not according to

the law of pure spirits. […]. Thenceforward the same law of incarnation governs the

great work of man’s deification, involving precisely this proportion and reciprocity in the

measure to which we are not yet deified.28

This people is the new Israel that fulfils the old covenant. Foretold in images that

describe “a visible reality, a people and a city,” the Church exists in virtue of God’s plan to call

out a new Israel, “which is as holy as He is.”29 According to this plan, the condition for being

holy or saved is no longer belonging only to a chosen people, rather what is necessary is to be in

Christ. Birth into an elect race or membership according to the flesh does not guarantee the

grace, but, for the new Israel according to the Spirit, faith and baptism are the necessary

conditions of incorporation in Christ. This theme of the people of God is mentioned by Congar

almost in passing and it offers him a tool to emphasize once again the visible unity of the

Church.30


29 Ibid., 69.

30 Ibid., 69: “[T]he Church owes her existence to God’s plan to call out a new Israel to fulfil the old.”

297

The Church as the Body of Christ Animated by the Spirit

A second description of the Church used by Congar is the body of Christ. The life of the

Trinity is communicated to the people in Christ: “Ex hominibus and de Trinitate are only linked

in Christo.”31 Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and humankind and this mediation

is enjoyed only by being living members of his body, by incorporation into Christ’s mystical

Body. “We approach God only through Christ, we are sons only in Christ, […] we are members

of Christ, integral parts of the body in which He is the Head.”32 Congar is, obviously, interested

in a visible form of unity, and the doctrine of the mystical Body provides the instruments for his

argumentation. The unity of life coming from the Trinity is given only in an organism which is

called the mystical body of Christ. When Congar uses the term “mystical Body,” he means,

therefore, the supernatural life of the Church given in Christ: the Church is in this case a body or

an organism with its own life animated by an interior principle, which is the grace of Christ and

the Holy Spirit. As he explains, every living being has a soul which is the form or the unifying

principle of that being. Similarly, in the Church there is a unifying principle which is composed

of the created realities of grace (faith, charity and sanctifying grace) and the Church can rightly

be called the Mystical Body.33 The visible or external characteristic of the body is the

institutional aspect or the human form of the Church: “the Church, as an institution, is the human

form of the divine interior unity of the Church as the mystical Body.”34

31 Ibid., 60.

32 Ibid., 61.


34 Ibid., 74.

298

Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is, by appropriation, the uncreated soul of the Church, the

principle of the mystical Body. The relationship between the Spirit and the Church is, thus,

described by Congar in Thomistic (hylomorphic) terms: the Spirit is the uncreated soul or the

transcendent cause of the Church, while the immanent and created soul of the Church is faith

infused by charity.35 The distinction between the created and uncreated soul of the Church might

appear too bookish, but it is taken by Congar mainly from Thomas Aquinas to describe better the

principles of causality in the Church. In an article written in 1939 around the same time as

Chrétiens désunis, “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,”36 Congar presents what he

considers to be the ecclesiology of Thomas as found in the latter’s Expositio in Symbolum.

Congar argues that for Aquinas the Church is a body composed by many members who are “all

quickened and governed by a single living principle. This living principle or the soul is the Holy

Ghost.”37 The Holy Spirit is in this body the uncreated or transcendent soul because it is not

unified in a single substantial reality with the body, yet it “quickens” or animates it, and all the

efficacy in the Church is traced ultimately to the Holy Spirit. The first reason for the holiness of

the Church is this dwelling of the “divine soul” in all the members, as Congar says:

[T]he various members of this living body which is the Church form a unity not only in

virtue of the indwelling of God in them, the indwelling of the Trinity and (by

appropriation) of the Holy Ghost, not only in virtue of the presence of this divine soul

which dwells in them—one justification of the Church’s title: Holy—but also in virtue of

35 Ibid., 52, 56 and 82.

36 Congar, “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 1 (Oct 1939), 331-59,

republished in The Mystery of the Church, 53-74. Published afterwards in French: “Vision de l’Église chez Thomas

d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 29 (1940), 31-58.

37 Congar, “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in The Mystery of the Church, 56.

299

the fact that God—and, by appropriation, the Holy Ghost—places in them certain

tendencies, which flow from him into them as gifts or graces and which in them are the

virtues of faith, hope and love.38

At the same time, there is a created or an immanent soul which is composed of the

theological virtues the virtues of faith, hope, and love, given by the Holy Spirit. They are called

the Church’s created or immanent soul (as opposed to transcendent) because they exist in the

members. This is the second reason for which the Church is holy. In short, the Church is holy

because she is the body of Christ and receives the life of the Trinity in Christ, the head; because

the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church; and also because the Spirit makes the Church holy

through the means of grace: faith, hope, and love.

It is important to note that, even if this is the teaching of St. Thomas, it is appropriated by

Congar. During his Entretiens d’automne, or the discussions he had in the “Fall” (the end) of his

life, Congar confessed that his early theology was very much influenced by Aquinas. “I began

with a proper Thomistic training, which I would not want to be without because it is good

training for the mind; and I began with solid affirmations.”39 Later he departed in certain points

from this position, as will be shown towards the end of this chapter.40 “So that is why, even

now, I am much indebted to St. Thomas. […] However, I have gone somewhat beyond the

Thomism I was taught to begin with.”41 For now it should suffice to note that the first



40 In I Believe, the Holy Spirit is presented not as the soul or the animating principle of the Church, but as

the co-instituting principle.


300

ecclesiological model used by Congar describes the Church as the body of Christ in which the

Holy Spirit is the soul. The holiness of the Church is based on the indwelling of the Spirit, who

is the transcendent source of holiness, and on the theological virtues given to this Body, which

are immanent in the Church.

A final observation regarding the distinction between the created and uncreated souls of

the Church can be made. The distinction was also used by Charles Journet.42 Congar was

favorable to the distinction in 1937, when this formulation was contested by Ernest Mura.43

Mura wanted to call “formal principles of the Church” what Journet called the “created soul” and

to use the word “soul” only for the Holy Spirit, who is the transcendent cause of the life of the

Church. Congar writes: “It can be estimated without doubt that the debate is more linguistic than

real and we [Congar] on our part will use as well one or other terminology, keeping however

certain preference for the one of Father Journet.”44 This preference diminished over the years,

Congar noted in I Believe in the Holy Spirit. “C. Journet and S. Tromp were also right to make a

distinction between the uncreated soul, which is the Holy Spirit, and a created soul, consisting of

the whole complex of gifts of grace. These positions are quite justified, but the most important

42 Congar says that Charles Journet published various articles on this topic in Nova et Vetera and La Vie

Spirituelle but does not name any of them. Journet wrote extensively on this subject later in The Church of the

Word Incarnate¸ 2 vols. (London, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), especially in the second volume.

43 Ernest Mura, Le corps mystique du Christ: sa nature et sa vie divine : synthese de theologie dogmatique,

ascetique et mystique, rev. 2d ed., 2 vols. (Paris: Blot, 1937).

44 Yves Congar, “Chronique de trente ans d’études ecclésiologiques: 1937,” in Sainte Église 499-505, (for

the year 1937), at 504. Originally published in Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques, 26 (1937), 788-

94.

301

affirmation is that which claims that the Holy Spirit himself plays, in the Church, the part played

in the body by the soul.”45

At this point, Congar is no longer interested in distinguishing between the created and

uncreated soul of the Church because he has given up the language and concept of causality and

defined the role of the Holy Spirit as the co-instituting principle of the Church. But even though

he abandoned the distinction between the uncreated and created souls of the Church, he still

maintained the idea of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church by which he described the role of

the Spirit: everything in the Church comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit (the instituting and

co-instituting principles of the Church). Every aspect of the life of the Church comes from them,

including holiness. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the Church because he is the soul of the body of

Christ.46

Discussion of the Holy Spirit and the role that he plays in the Church as its soul is closely

connected with the notion of causality, much used by Congar in his early career. Congar used

this category in order to describe the nature of the Church. Rose Beal, in her dissertation which

explores Congar’s lectures on the Church that were given between 1932 and 1954 but which

were never published, discovers that Congar ascribed the efficient and formal causes of the

Church to both the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy.47 Especially in the course given in 1932-33,

Congar assigns the principal efficient cause to Christ, as the head of the Church, while the Spirit


46 See above, Chapter VI, p. 299.

47 Beal, Mystery of the Church, especially 125-132.

302

and the hierarchy are the instrumental efficient causes. It is important that Congar describes the

Spirit first as the instrumental efficient cause or the “agent” who builds up the supernatural

society, the Church.48 Secondly, the Spirit is the formal cause of the Church, because in

Congar’s words “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.”49 For

this reason the Spirit is the soul of the Church. “Thus, the Holy Spirit is both efficient cause (as

the Spirit of Christ) and the formal cause (as the soul of the Church),” 50 Beal concludes.

A difficulty is raised at this point: to assign efficient causality and formal causality to the

same reality is not possible in scholasticism because one is extrinsic and the other intrinsic. And,

according to Beal, Congar “did not provide any explanation for the double assignment of the

Holy Spirit.”51 However, this metaphysical difficulty diminished in the courses Congar gave in

1934 and 1937 where he used the category of the body of Christ. Christ can act both intrinsically

and extrinsically in the Church at the same time, because he is both of the body and over the

body. 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. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit

can be both the formal and efficient causes of the Church as the soul of the body of Christ. As

Beal noted, this explanation was not offered by Congar in 1932. The lack of this explanation is

48 Ibid., 125. Beal explains that Congar does not use the words “instrumental cause” but his description of

the role of the Spirit fits very well with this concept.

49 Ibid., 129.

50 Ibid., 130.

51 Ibid.

303

due to the fact that Congar used the categories of causality without any connection to the

theology of the body of Christ. But once he made use of the image of the body in 1937 and

described Christ’s double activity from above and from within the Church, it was only logical

that he could describe the role of the Spirit also on a double level: the Holy Spirit is the

uncreated soul who acts through the created realities of grace.

It can be noted how Congar moved away slowly from the use of the categories of

causality. It can be affirmed with certainty, as Beal rightly concludes, that the scholastic

categories of causality were insufficient for Congar to explain the mystery of the Church in all its

dimensions.52 But even more important for the present dissertation is the fact that the categories

of causality are insufficient to explain the relationships between the roles of Christ and of the

Holy Spirit in the Church. It was predictable that Congar did not employ the categories of

causality (formal, efficient, etc.) in his later works to explain the holiness of the Church.

Instead, he began with and used biblical images of the Church.

Critical Evaluation

To summarize the material presented so far, in Chrétiens désunis, Congar did not address

the Church’s holiness as a topic in itself nor the role of the Holy Spirit as the principle of this

holiness. However, this study has shown that, in the ecclesiological model used by Congar, the

Church is presented either as a society or as the body of Christ. According to this model of the

Church—mainly Christological— the life of the Church comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit is

its efficient cause. It can be inferred that the holiness of the Church also is founded in Christ and

52 Ibid., 132.

304

communicated by the Holy Spirit. However, the role of the Holy Spirit seems to be only an

animator of a structure that has already been put into place by the work of Christ.

This vision corresponds to the logic of the incarnation: incorporation in Christ takes place

only through the mediation of sensible means.53 This is a sacramental ecclesiology: the external

form of a visible society constitutes the figure and the instrument of the realization of internal

union with God, which is the essence of the Church. This becomes clearer in the presentation of

the sacraments which are seen, just like the Church herself, as prolongations of the incarnation of

the Word. The approach is, therefore, mainly Christological; the role of the Spirit is to animate

the structure instituted by Christ.

The same sacramental logic is operative when Congar uses the image of the body of

Christ. Just as in the human person, the body is the instrument and the manifestation of the soul,

so in the Church the external and visible form of the body (the Church as “institution”) is the

manifestation and the instrument of the inner nature of the Church or her soul. The two aspects

of the Church form a single reality and they should always be considered together, Congar

stresses. However, in the articulation of the unity and the distinction of the two aspects of the

Church (visible and invisible), Congar places more emphasis on the distinction than on the unity

between them. And he also places more importance on the visible aspect of the Church precisely

because his model of the Church is prominently Christological. “Incorporation in Christ is


305

essentially at the root of all sensible and collective means: it is sacramental and apostolic—in a

word, ecclesiastical.”54

We have reached a critical point of Congar’s thought. The question that arises is whether

Congar attributes the visibility of the Church (the Church as an institution) to the work of Christ

(alone) or to the conjoined work of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Or, more precisely, it is crucial to

know what role Congar attributes to the Spirit or, even more precisely, what kind of causality.

The difficulty in assessing as a whole Congar’s ecclesiological model resides in Congar’s

assignation of different types of causality to the role of the Spirit.

On the one hand, the Spirit is at times only the efficient cause of the Church. Congar

would never say that Christ is the only source of life in the Church. Yet he names Christ the

principal efficient cause of the Church, while the Spirit is the instrumental cause. The Spirit only

animates the structure given by Christ. It is true that he communicates it to the Church in history

from the very moment of the Church’s existence; however, the Spirit is not the principal efficient

cause of the Church, but only an instrumental cause, or an agent, a promoter.

On the other hand, the Spirit is the soul of the Church, the formal principle of her

existence. One would expect this to be a statement through which Congar assigns the Holy

Spirit a role equal and similar to that of Christ. But the Spirit is not united substantially with the

Church. “God, and by appropriation the Holy Ghost, is the First cause and active principle of the

Church and her unity, but the inward or immanent principle of the Church is found in the created

gifts of God, the supernatural gifts and virtues: not God himself, but realities of grace proceeding

54 Ibid., 72.

306

from God and assimilating us to Him.”55 The strength of this pneumatological assertion is

diminished by the fact that Congar does not assign to the Spirit a principal causality, like that of

Christ. The Christological insistence comes from Congar’s desire to accentuate the necessity of

the visible means for salvation and he ends up attributing them to Christ. This is explained

through the fact that his ecclesiological model is mainly Christological or incarnational, one

could say even contrary to the direct intent of Congar to do so.

Later in his career, in “Le Saint-Esprit et le corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l’oeuvre du

Christ” (1953), Congar realized the implications and limitations of this model, and he insisted

that the Spirit is not only the vicar of Christ (he does not only animate the structures founded by

Christ).56 His emphasis was so strong that he ended up in an opposite position by positing—

inadvertently—an autonomy of the Holy Spirit in relation to the institution of the Church: the

Spirit is not bound exclusively to the institution but he works through charisms and

“unpredictable events” in the Church.57 At the end of his career, he reformulated his position

and articulated a balance between the roles of Christ and the Spirit.

55 Ibid., 57.

56 Congar, “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ,” in The Mystery of

the Church, 132 ff., especially 138. Originally published as “Le Saint-Esprit et le corps apostolique, réalisateurs de

l’oeuvre du Christ,” in the second edition of Esquisses du Mystère de l’Église, 2d ed., (Paris: Cerf, 1953). See

above, Chapter V, pp. 216-17, for the Spirit as “vicar of Christ.”

57 See above, Chapter II, pp. 88-89; Chapter IV, pp. 209-10, and especially Chapter V, pp. 229-32. See

also, Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 138.

307

Some Critiques by Scholars

Joseph Famerée criticizes Congar’s early view of the relationship between divine life and

the concrete form of the life of the Church in history. Famerée begins with the following

passage from Congar: “From the beginning to the end the heavenly realities that constitute

fundamentally the Church are, in the earthly Church, incarnate and sacramentalized.”58 In

Famerée’s opinion, this expression suggests (induit) the idea of a descent of the celestial Church

into the earthly form of the Church, whereas it would have been preferable to speak of a single

Church with three dimensions: on earth, in purgatory, and in heaven. In response, it can be

pointed out that Congar states clearly that there is a distinction between the inner nature of the

Church, which will be realized perfectly only in the eschatological fulfilment, and the concrete

historic form in which the Church exists. In discussion with Orthodox ecclesiologists Congar

says:

To say that God calls us, sanctifies us and saves us corporately in the Church, does not

only mean that He unites us mystically in Him by giving the same life to all, but that He

has instituted for us on earth a saving and sanctifying community, analogous—positis

ponendis—to a human society. […] [T]he Church, in becoming the Church Militant,

realizes her inner nature, which is the fellowship of divine life, under the appearance of a

visible society hierarchically constituted.59

In other words, for Congar there is a distinction between the two aspects of the Church:

“One cannot speak of the Church on earth exactly as if it were the Church in its state of

58 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 55. He quotes Chrétiens désunis, 93: “D’un bout a l’autre les

réalitès célestes qui constituent fondamentalement l’Église seront, dans l’Église de la terre, incarnées et

sacramentalisées.” Famerée’s emphasis. For some reason, this particular text is missing in the English translation.

59 Congar, Divided Christendom¸ 213-14.

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consummated perfection in heaven.”60 But there is no “dualism” in the Church, as Famerée

suggests. Congar insists that the Church is both of Christ and the Holy Spirit, organism and

organization, mystical Body and institutional reality at the same time. The two laws are

simultaneously and conjointly at work: heavenly reality and earthly reality.61 Rather, the

difficulty is in Congar’s presentation of the roles of Christ and of the Spirit: “The Spirit is

mentioned but there should be indicated more recognizable signs of his action and discernment

criteria.”62

Congar is aware of the emphasis placed on Christology: “among Catholics there has been

some exaggeration—or rather, since a truth cannot be ‘exaggerated’, a too exclusive emphasis—

on the relation of the Church to Christ as that of a Society to its Founder.”63 However, despite

this awareness and his efforts, his model remains mainly Christological.

Another point of Famerée’s critique regards the relationship between the Church and the

social reality in which it exists. He analyses a short statement of Congar: “The life of the

mystical Body is an organized Church life because the members of the body are human beings.

Hence the Church’s laws.”64 In Famerée’s view, Congar deduces the apostolic constitution of

the Church on the basis of a principle of organized and governed society. And no ecclesiology

60 Ibid., 215.

61 Ibid., 217.



64 Congar, Divided Christendom¸ 73. Famerée’s emphasis (L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 55). Again the

French edition is more helpful to show Famerée’s point. “La vie du Corps mystique, parce que les membres de ce

Corps sont des hommes, est pour autant une vie d’Église; une vie sociétaire, donc organisée. D’où, dans l’Église, des

lois.” (Chrétiens désunis, 91-92)

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should be deduced from sociology because the Church is of a different order than a society. It

should be noted the veracity and importance of the last statement of Famerée. Nevertheless,

Congar states repeatedly and firmly that the Church is built from above and not from below. The

essential structure of the Church (faith, sacraments, hierarchy) comes from above and is not

determined by history. The concrete realization of the Church takes place in history, and history

can influence practices of the Church but they do not define the essence of the Church. Maybe

Congar’s formulation in the short text analyzed by Famerée is not the best, but it does not reflect

the entire ecclesiological thinking of Congar.

The Relation between Holiness and the Roles of Christ and the Spirit

This relation between the Church’s holiness and the roles of Christ and the Spirit can be

synthesized in two points. First, Congar emphasizes the necessity of belonging to the body of

Christ in order to receive the grace of the Spirit. Fr. François-Marie Humann, a Congar scholar,

expresses this idea in a surprising way: for Congar “there is no Spirit without a body which he

vivifies.” 65 The exact formulation of this thesis does not belong to Congar; it belongs to

Humann, but it accurately reflects Congar’s thought.

The spiritual unity of men in Christ had to be sensible, social and visible; the

Church was as it were a theophany or a Christophany in collective form,

continuing the mission of praise and witness of the royal and priestly nation. The

Church is the Body of Christ, His glory, His human and collective visibility: the

Christ, it has been said, needs the Church as pneuma needs a soma.66

65 François-Marie Humann, La relation de l’Esprit-Saint au Christ: Une relecture d’Yves Congar, Cogitatio

Fidei, no. 274 (Paris: Cerf, 2010), 157.

66 Congar, Divided Christendom, 70-71. Emphasis original.

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One issue concerning holiness in the Church is how is it given or mediated to us. Congar

strongly believes that Christ and the Spirit work through the visible reality of the Church, not

only through an invisible grace communicated from heaven by God. According to revelation,

the mediation of Christ through his incarnation, death and resurrection is necessary for salvation.

“That Christ is the principle of our salvation means that all divine power rests in Him, [also] all

the efficacious gifts of God which affect this union with Him and the fulfillment in Him of all

things: Christ is the Source of that saving virtue which comes from God […]. The Christ is

made Mediator and Head […] for the whole world.”67 But for Congar this mediation of Christ

takes place through the visible Church instituted by Christ and through three essential elements

(means of grace) which give structure to the Church, namely, faith, the sacraments, and

ministries or the apostolic powers. The Church is invisible and visible, life and structure (a

visible organism). The Church is one but it has two aspects interconnected. Humann points that

“For Congar and the entire Catholic tradition, the Church is holy not only in Christ and the Holy

Spirit but also in the means of grace which Christ instituted and to which the Spirit of Christ

ensures holiness.”68 In his dialogue with the Protestant Reform, Congar is very much interested

to point to the necessity of the means of grace or the visible mediation of the Church. His

approach is meant to be a response to Protestant views that, in his understanding, “do not believe

67 Ibid., 95-96.

68 Humann, La relation de l’Esprit-Saint au Christ, 159.

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in the real and actual gift of the divine life to human nature: they believe that this life is only

promised, albeit truly promised, and it is regarded as purely eschatological.”69

This leads to the second point developed by Congar in his dialogue with the Reform: the

reality of redemption is already given (not only promised) through a permanent presence of the

Spirit in the Church. According to Congar, salvation is conceived in different ways in Catholic

and Protestant theologies to which correspond respectively an apostolic and a prophetic logic.

The Protestant view holds that Christianity and especially the Church have a prophetic status:

salvation is announced yet not communicated. “In a word that expresses for me at the same time

the grandeur and the error of their position, they stopped short with John the Baptist.”70 But

Catholic theology follows the apostolic logic, by which Congar means that salvation is already

communicated. Through the resurrection of the Lord and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost,

the messianic times have already begun. What is promised for the eschatological times is

already given in the present time of the Church “in the reality of their principle and as a

beginning of their effective substance.”71

This salvation is accessible precisely due to the presence of the Spirit in a manner that is

definitive, stable, and permanent. Although the Spirit was present in the old dispensation in a

transitory and sporadic way, in the new and definitive dispensation the Spirit himself is given

substantially in such a way that he dwells in the Church. This is proper to the messianic times


70 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 469. The English translation True and False Reform does not include

the third part of Vraie et fausse réforme, so the quotation is taken from the French first edition.

71 Ibid. 470.

312

when the Spirit is given.72 This statement is of “major importance,” Humann holds, because it

shows “not only the theological sense of the affirmation of holiness in the Church, but also the

relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.”73 Indeed, first, holiness

is given and assured by the permanent presence of the Spirit in the Church. Second, faith in

Jesus Christ implies the belief that with his coming the messianic times are already fulfilled

because the promised Spirit is given in a definitive, stable and permanent manner. This means

that the work of Christ and of the Spirit coincide in the Church. Therefore, Humann formulates a

second thesis that there is no body without the Spirit who sanctifies it. Or, the existence of a

faith community is not possible without the Spirit who gives life (and holiness) to this

community.

In conclusion, in his dialogue with the Reform, Congar made firm statements: the

necessity of the visible mediation of the Church and the relation between history and

eschatology—the gift of the Spirit is given in history. These statements led him to affirm more

clearly the role of the Spirit in the sanctification of the Church, and also the relation between the

Holy Spirit and Christ. Although this relation is still not fully developed in this period and his

theology has a strong Christological emphasis (with the consequence of a weaker

pneumatological dimension), Congar’s search for a balance between Christology and

pneumatology is noticeable. It is possible to claim that already in this early stage of his theology

Congar became aware of the need to develop a proper and more elaborated pneumatology. He

72 Ibid., 479-80.

73 Humann, La relation de l’Esprit-Saint au Christ, 164.

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continued to clarify and refine his understanding of the relation between Christ and the Holy

Spirit.

2. “Je crois en la Sainte Église” (1938)

This short article was written on the occasion of the centennial of the death of Johan

Adam Möhler (1796-1838). Naturally Congar presents Möhler’s understanding of the Church,

but that ecclesiological model is appropriated by Congar and is the same as the one presented in

Divided Christendom. The following presentation of this model reconfirms Congar’s position at

that period of time. Just as in Chrétiens désunis, so in this article also the Church is built from

above by God. “It is not about making a new Church, nor, speaking properly, about making the

Church, for even though we have to work to build it, we do not make her; she is given and it is

we who are built into her.”74

Congar’s interest is the unity of the Church, as is to be expected, since he wrote this

article as a tribute to Möhler’s contribution in ecclesiology. “This principle [of the unity] is the

Holy Spirit. The Church is a creation of the Holy Spirit, and her life comes from the animation

which she receives from him.”75 But the life received from above is given only in the Church,

Congar emphasizes.

It follows that the essential law of Catholicism is life in the Church, which is a life in the

fraternal communion of love. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of love,

is the same in all the faithful in whom he lives and whom he animates, and he reunites all

in one body of Christ. On the other hand, since we have the life of the Holy Spirit only in

the Church, whose soul is the Holy Spirit [...], the life of fraternal communion is the

74 Congar, “Je crois en la Sainte Église,” in Sainte Église, 10. Emphasis original.

75 Ibid., 12-13.

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condition and the vital context [milieu] of everything that one can be and do as a

Christian.76

Congar’s understanding of the Church, like Möhler’s, is sacramental. The Church’s

worship, dogmas and hierarchy are “like an external expression and [...] a body of the

communion of love inspired and realized in us by the Holy Spirit. For the Church, founded

entirely on the reality and the work of the incarnate Word, is ruled by the law of the

incarnation.”77

Even though the title of this article, “I Believe in the Holy Church”, could lead one to

think that Congar would examine the holiness of the Church, he is in fact presenting a broader

view of the Church. But from this understanding of the Church, one can infer Congar’s concept

of holiness. The Church’s holiness is, like the Church itself, a gift given from above, from Christ

and the Holy Spirit. “The Church is given and it is we who are built in her.”78 Congar later

developed this idea when he elaborated in detail the importance of the gift and the task of the

Church.


77 Ibid., 14.

78 Ibid., 10. Emphasis original. “Elle est donnée, est c’est nous qui nous édifions en elle.”

315

3. “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Verité et limites d’un parallèle” (1950)79

In this article, Congar used recurrent themes but also introduced new topics which he

developed later. Unlike the condition of the prophets in the Old Testament who were

announcing the future salvation, in the New Testament the Church is in an apostolic condition in

which salvation is realized. The Church is an instrument which communicates salvation that has

already arrived in Jesus Christ.80 The conditions of the people of God in the New and Definitive

Dispensation are different from the conditions in the Old Dispensation. In the latter, “the Holy

Spirit intervened according to a logic which we called ‘prophetic’ [...]. Under the New

Dispensation, the covenant includes the gift of the Holy Spirit who rests on Jesus (Mk 1: 10; Lk

3:22) and is given to the Church (Jn 14 and 16). The Spirit dwells in the Church.”81

The relationship between the Spirit and the Church is described as a covenant bond

whose foundation is the fidelity of God. This is very important for the issue of sin and

indefectibility that Congar developed in his later writings. To the fidelity of God, who never

fails, corresponds a fidelity of the Church which is stable in a way that was never encountered by

the people of God before the coming of the Spirit. That fidelity of God is given to the Church

and, therefore, the elements that bring about the covenant are themselves indefectible. They are,

on the one hand, the objective reality of grace and salvation, and, on the other hand, the reality of

79 “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Verité et limites d’un parallèle,” in Saint Église, 69-104. First

published in Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, vol. 3

(Würtzburg: Echter, 1954), 239-268. But the text was written in 1950.

80 Ibid., 85.

81 Ibid., 95.

316

the means of grace constitutive of the institution of the Church: the deposit of faith, the deposit

of sacraments, ministries and apostolic powers.82

This relation between the Spirit and the Church is described also as a spousal

relationship. “If there is a stable bond, it is a covenant bond or a spousal bond; it is not a

substantial union, in the being.”83 This spousal bond explains why it is not possible to have any

infidelity or failure in the substantial content of the bond sealed by the Spirit, though there are

failures in the practice of the members of the Church.84 In short, in the incarnation, the Son of

God assumed the human nature of Jesus in a hypostatic union, whereas the union of the Spirit

with the Church is a covenant or spousal bond; this is one of the limitations of the comparison

between the mystery of Christ and the mystery of the Church—which is the main topic of the

article.

It is worth noticing how Congar in the above description assigns equal and similar roles

to Christ and the Spirit. However, the assertion is not developed. He mentions only in a

footnote that the duality of roles is present in Scripture, the role of the Spirit being described in

the texts referring to sanctification and the temple. The next topic he treats is the Church

understood as a continued incarnation. His approach remains Christological, which is not

surprising given the topic of the article. The novelty of this article is that, in addition to the

82 Ibid., 95.

83 Ibid., 95: “[S]’il y a union stable, c’est une union du type alliance ou épousailles, ce n’est pas une union

substantielle, dans l’être.” Emphasis mine.

84 Ibid., 95-96. See also n. 3.

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normal idea of the spousal relationship between Christ and the Church, it actually suggests that

the covenant relationship between the Spirit and the Church can also be seen as spousal.

4. Vraie et fausse reforme dans l’Église (1950)

In Vraie et fausse réforme Congar explicitly treats the issue of the holiness of the Church.

His main interest, as the title suggests, is the true reform of the Church. To explain what cannot

and should not be reformed and what can and should be reformed, he uses the dialectical pair of

structure and life in the Church. He constructs his theology of reform on the same

ecclesiological model used in Chrétiens désunis with a few notable differences. A short

presentation of his understanding of the Church and of her holiness, and then of their

implications for understanding the role of the Holy Spirit follows.

To explain what can be the object of reform, Congar presents his understanding of the

Church. “[T]he ancient church was aware of itself as an organism of spiritual life communicated

from on high.”85 In continuation with the tradition, for Congar the Church is an organism of

spiritual life which is hierarchically organized. The one Church has, therefore, two aspects:

structure and life; the Church is an institution and a community at the same time. The structure

(or the Church as institution), which comes from God, includes the deposit of faith, the

sacraments which Jesus Christ instituted, and the apostolic ministry. The structure does not need

reform and is not reformable precisely because it comes from God. At the same time, the inner

nature of the Church has a particular concrete form in history, which Congar calls life. Patristic

85 Congar, True and False Reform, 83. In the English translation, “church” is spelled with a lowercase “c”

when translating “Église”, so the citations will respect this spelling.

318

authors and theology designate it as the community of believers (“congregatio fidelium”). This

aspect of the Church is reformable and often needs to be reformed since it is made of people who

are fallible.86 “The church is the result of the synergy of a gratuitous divine gift that is pure in

itself and the human activity that is characterized by human freedom, limitations, and natural

fallibility.”87 In short, the aspect that comes from God is holy and not reformable, while the

human element is reformable.

As said above, this is a similar ecclesiological model to that used in Chrétiens désunis but

presented in such a way as to show what is and what is not reformable in the Church. However,

there are some notable differences. One of them is the fact that Congar includes “charisms” in

the structure of the Church.88 They participate in God’s infallibility because they are given by

God and “the infallibility of God remains in place with respect to his gifts.”89 Another notable

difference from Chrétiens désunis is the fact that Congar does not use the category of causality;

instead, he uses with greater emphasis biblical images of the Church, especially the image of the

spouse of Christ.90

The theology of the Church’s holiness follows, naturally, from his ecclesiological model

of one Church with two aspects at the same time. “This fact determines two types of holiness for

the church, well known to theologians […]. There is the objective sanctity in the church that

86 Ibid., 83-85.

87 Ibid., 90.

88 Congar was criticized for this. See below, pp. 321-22


90 Ibid., 69, 83, 94 are a few places where he uses the image of the bride or spouse of Christ.

319

comes from God’s gifts, and it gives the church its life and its structure. And there is the

holiness of the members, the touching, precarious but magnificent fruit of the cooperation of

human freedom with God’s gifts.”91 Congar is not interested here in the personal holiness of the

members of the Church, in how the work of God and their personal efforts make them holy, but

rather in the issue of the holiness of the entire Church.

Considered in this way according to its constituent principles (not only such as they exist

in God, but as they are given and exist within the church as formal principles), the church

is impeccable, infallible, and virginal, with the impeccability and the virginity of God

himself and of Jesus Christ. The faith of the church cannot deviate, and its sacraments,

insofar as Christ is in them, are saving and effective (the meaning of the expression ex

opere operato). […] I hold, then, that with respect to its essential principles, the church

is incapable of failure and has no need to reform itself.92

The holiness of the Church is founded, thus, in the first place not in the holiness of her

members, but in its formal principles of existence. “As House of God, the church is holy

independently of those who live within it.”93 But this objective holiness is the proper work of the

Holy Spirit. Together with Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, Congar says that the

profession of faith in the holiness of the Church is in fact a profession of faith that the Holy

Spirit makes the Church holy or that “everything spoken of at the end of the Credo ought to be

attributed to the Holy Spirit as his proper effects.”94 For Congar, there is no better way to speak

of the holiness of the Church than to link it to God and to the divine action attributed to the Holy



93 Ibid., 94.

94 Ibid. 91-92. References are St. Thomas In Sent., d. 25, q. 1, art 2 ad 5; S T IIa IIae, q. 1, art 9, ad 5;

Albert the Great, De sacrificio missae, II, ch. 9, art. 9.

320

Spirit. “But the essential holiness of the church, deeper than the works of its members,

characterizes its very existence. That holiness can only be affirmed by faith in the Holy Spirit

whose proper activity this is.”95

Another way to present this theology is the use of the theme of spouse. Only in passing

does Congar note that the Church is united to Christ “even to the point of becoming one flesh

with Jesus Christ.” This union is indissoluble and takes place through a gift of the Spirit. Due to

this union the Church is holy in so far as united with Christ and fallible in so far as her members

are human beings. Thus “the church is founded through a gift of the Holy Spirit. […]. The

church’s quality of holiness follows precisely its quality as spouse, and follows the same

conditions just noted.”96

Finally, connected with the theme of spouse is the issue of the Spirit’s dwelling in the

Church. This presence is not transitory (as it was in the Old Testament) but permanent or, in

Congar’s words, “is no longer prophetic but apostolic.”97 The reality of salvation is already

given, even if only as “first-fruits” and this salvific communication happens because the Spirit

dwells in the Church and he guarantees and gives efficacy to the structures of the Church (faith,

sacraments and apostolic powers). The Holy Spirit is really and in a stable manner united with

these constitutive elements of the ecclesial institution. However, he needs to be given

95 Ibid., 92.

96 Ibid., 94.

97 Ibid., 68.

321

ceaselessly and to intervene actively. Thus, the Church ought to invoke continuously the

Spirit.98

5. Critical Evaluation

Gabriel Flynn and Jean-Pierre Jossua consider Vraie et fausse réforme as Congar’s “most

original book and the most important.”99 Flynn also thinks that Congar’s program for reform “is

consonant with a renewal of the Spirit.”100 However, Flynn and Jossua carefully avoid saying

that the theology of reform is the most important or the all-comprehensive theme in Congar’s

ecclesiology. Their claims are well founded since the theme of reform and the dialectic of

structure-life used by Congar need to be interpreted in a specific context and as a response to

specific issues that Congar had in mind when he wrote the book. He himself said that he used

the dialectic of structure-life only occasionally and “essentially and primarily to respond to the

problem of true and false reform.”101 One should not try, therefore, to present Congar’s

ecclesiology only on the basis of structure and life.

One example will demonstrate better the problem. One among many criticisms of

Congar is that his presentation of structure and life is ambiguous with regard to where the

98 Congar, Vraie et fausse réforme, 480.

99 Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church, 133, n. 113. J.-P. Jossua’s words are quoted

from a personal letter to G. Flynn.

100 Ibid., 101 and 133.

101 Congar, Forward [sic], in Mac Donald, Ecclesiology of Yves Congar,” XXII.

322

charisms belong and if the structures are still filled with grace.102 Congar’s response offers a key

to the interpretation of the entire problem of structure and life in his writings. “In Rome, they

accused me of opposing structure and life as if the structures, hence the hierarchy, were not

living realities. This was a misunderstanding. By structure-life I meant, ultimately, jus

divinum/relative historical forms. But I did not think that I was denying grace and spiritual

animation to what I called ‘structure’.”103 This constitutes the hermeneutical key for a correct

understanding of Congar’s theology of reform. The question, to which the dialectic of structure

and life responds, is not whether the structure includes charisms and other forms of ministry, but

rather what is and what is not reformable in the Church.

With this hermeneutical key in mind, one can assess the dialectic of structure and life

from a pneumatological perspective. In other words, the questions asked are what can and what

cannot be said regarding the role of the Spirit. First, the structure is irreformable precisely

because of the Holy Spirit’s habitual dwelling in the Church. It is the Spirit together with Christ

that guarantees efficacy and holiness to the Church’s structure. Second, what does not belong

strictly to the structure is fallible and reformable, but even in this case an invocation of the Spirit

is needed for a true renewal. Flynn synthesizes this pneumatological dimension of reform saying

that “[b]y making the Holy Spirit the fundamental criterion for reform, Congar gives his most

adequate statement of what is required for a legitimate Church reform.”104

102 For more criticisms see Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief, 181-

84.

103 Congar, Forward [sic], in MacDonald, Ecclesiology of Yves Congar”, XXII.

104 Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church, 172.

323

The role of the Spirit is to make the Church holy with regard to her formal principles but

also through his call for reform in the life of the Church affected by sin and failures. Indeed, the

Holy Spirit is the principle of reform in the Church, meaning that it is the Spirit’s work to keep

the community of believers in communion with the whole Church. “The Spirit’s work is to

enliven and actualize the Body of Christ. Further, the conditions for the Spirit’s gifts (we might

even say for the Spirit’s work) are essentially communal.”105

In conclusion, as a whole, the ecclesiological model operative in Vraie et fausse réforme

is the same as the one used before by Congar. The Church is structure and life, institution and

community, constitutive principles and historic concrete form. But what is new in the theology

of reform is that the role of the Spirit is not limited only to the formal principles of the Church,

but is extended to his continuous call for purification. Also the theme of the spouse is

introduced, even though not elaborated, and is connected with the theme of the Spirit’s dwelling

in the Church. However, the ecclesiological model still remains Christological. “The church is a

body organized and structured apostolically”106 and apostolicity is referred to Christ. Even

holiness has its source mainly in Christ. “So there is in the church an order of holiness and of

worship that flows from the priesthood of Jesus Christ.”107 Yet Congar is aware that the theme

of reform is only an aspect of the whole process of the self-realization and growth of the Church

which “is guided by a transcendent impulse of the Holy Spirit.”108 He was not ready to affirm


106 Ibid., 235.

107 Ibid., 95.

108 Ibid., 134.

324

the role of the Spirit as co-instituting principle of the Church, but he must have realized the need

for a stronger pneumatology.

B. Towards a Turning Point: Le Mystère du Temple (1954/1958)

Given the unsystematic character of Congar’s works and the vast number of his writings,

authors have tried to systematize them and to find either major themes in Congar’s theology or to

present them chronologically, classifying them in various periods.109 From the point of view of

this chapter, which concerns the role of the Spirit in the sanctification of the Church, some

authors have claimed that Le Mystère du Temple constitutes a turning point in Congar’s

theological thought.110 A short presentation of the main themes in the book and an evaluation

follows.

Le Mystère du Temple was written in 1954, while Congar was in exile in Jerusalem, and

was published in 1958.111 The book describes the presence of God in his temple according to the

phases of Scripture and of the economy of salvation. The main ecclesiological themes are the

preparations for the Church made by God in the Old Testament (first part) and the realization of

109 For instance, Joseph Famerée’s study of Congar’s ecclesiology ends in 1959. He also states that until

the convocation of the Council, the Christological and pneumatological discourses go side by side without one

replacing the other (Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar, 410.). Van Vliet finds four periods in Congar’s

writings: 1931-1944, 1944-1959, 1959-1968, 1969-1991, see Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit,

33.

110 James Hanvey, “In the Presence of Love: The Pneumatological Realization of the Economy: Yves

Congar’s Le Mystère du Temple,” International Journal of Systematic Theology, 7 (Oct. 2005), 385-398.

111 Yves Congar, Le Mystère du Temple ou l’Économie de la Presence de Dieu à sa creature de la Genèse

à l’Apocalypse, Lectio Divina, 22, (Paris: Cerf, 1958), translated as The Mystery of the Temple or God’s Presence

to His Creatures from Genesis to Apocalypse, trans. Reginald Travett (London: Burns and Oates, 1962).

325

those promises in the Church in messianic times (second part). In the first part, Congar shows

the presence of God in history beginning with creation and in his elect people Israel. This

presence, active and sovereign, is manifested in worship in the Jerusalem temple and,

significantly, is oriented inwards. In the New Testament, there is a newness of God’s presence

through the incarnation: God dwells in his Son in an absolutely new manner. Worship in the

temple is replaced with the worship of Christ. For Congar it is a constant of revelation that

the Divine Economy impels towards inwardness and, for example, in the matter of

sacrifice, to a state of things where there is no longer any sacrifice other than man

himself. […]. The ‘spiritual’ character of the Christian system of worship […] is derived

from the fact that Christian worship originates in the gift proper to the messianic era,

which is the last epoch of time and will not be followed by anything substantially better

or new. And this gift is the Holy Spirit, the very gift which flowed out from the side of

the new temple, from the side of Jesus.112

The presence of God in the Church is described, in Famerée’s analysis, according to four

ecclesiological models or themes: temple of the Spirit and body of Christ; a radical and

sacramental communion in the Spirit of Christ; the historical and “sacramental” existence of the

Church; the cosmic and eschatological extension of the Church.113 The models of body of Christ

and temple of the Spirit are the most important for this study.

Influenced by Emile Mersch114 and in consonance with the whole patristic tradition,

Congar shows that the relation between Christ and his body is of such a nature that the Church is

unthinkable without Christ and Christ is also unthinkable without the Church. The mystery of

112 Yves Congar, The Mystery of the Temple, 148-49.


114 Emile Mersch, Le Corps mystique du Christ: Études de théologie historique, Museum Lessianum,

Section théologique, no. 28-29, 2 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1951).

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Christ is connected to and completed with the salvation of the world; his salvific work is done on

our behalf.115 Thus, “[i]f […] we cannot have Christ without the body of those who are his, that

is, the Church, we may say that for Paul, the communication to us of the Holy Spirit corresponds

to the effective development of what Christ might be and do in us.”116 For Congar, the work of

the Spirit is to complete in us the saving (“re-creative,” Congar says) work of Christ: “It pertains

to him to abide in us and to make us live according to Christ, so that our life may be ours and yet

also his.”117 In short, the physical body of Christ, his mystical body (the Church), and the Spirit

are all connected.

Drawing on St. Paul’s theology of the temple (2 Cor 5:1 and Rom 8:11), Congar points

out that each Christian and the Church as a whole are temples of the Spirit but the individual and

communal aspects are closely connected: “Each believer and all believers as a body—the two

aspects are closely connected—have become the sanctuary (naos) of which Jesus spoke in

reference to his own immolated and risen body which is the true temple.”118 Furthermore, the

temple, the Church, is pure through a purity of faith and love. But the concrete manifestation of

love is unity among Christians. As a consequence, Congar states: “The law of the era of the

Church is the unity of the Spirit, which is the source of the unity of the body (1 Cor 12:13; Eph

4:3-4).”119 It is the Spirit’s work to communicate this love to the Church. Without his work,

115 Congar, The Mystery of the Temple, 152.

116 Ibid., 154.


118 Ibid., 157

119 Ibid., 169.

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“there can be no building up of the temple of the Church, no Presence therefore of the God of

Jesus Christ, and no meeting with him.”120

Critical Evaluation

James Hanvey considers that Le Mystère du Temple shows the ontology with which

Congar’s pneumatology works. Hanvey is aware that it is difficult to pinpoint a metaphysical

system in Congar’s thought. “Even in his major systematic treatments of central themes,

Congar’s ‘metaphysics’ always seems more implicit, his approach more directly scriptural and

historical, than metaphysical. Yet, I think that there is a unique and creative metaphysics that

does inform his work. I wish to argue that his pneumatology does the work of an ontology.”121

This ontology is grounded in the fact that the entire economy is directed toward the Spirit who

completes God’s revelation in the economy. Hanvey’s thesis is that God’s presence in sacred

history is a communication that is progressively inward and personal. And that communication

belongs to the Spirit who is personal love.

Hanvey articulates his thesis essentially in two points. He argues first that Congar’s

analysis (which does not use the historico-critical method but rather a theological exegesis

governed by revelation) shows that whole economy of God’s presence is moving toward an ever-

greater personalization and inwardness. However, the end point of the economy of the Old

Testament is, for Congar, not Christ; “rather, to be economically complete it must have humanity

120 Ibid., 170

121 Hanvey, “In the Presence of Love,” 387.

328

as its goal, hence, it must be a movement which only reaches its goal in the new community in

which Christ comes to dwell, that is the church. Soteriology and ecclesiology are integral to each

other.”122

The second point of Hanvey’s argumentation shows how for Congar the Spirit’s work is

to communicate the grace of Christ to his Church.

In agreement with Mersch, Congar holds that, ‘For the Fathers, everything depends on

the fact that the Church is unthinkable without Christ and Christ is unthinkable without

the Church.’ The relationship between them is one of the central themes of Paul’s

theology and it is here that Congar comes to develop the economy of the Spirit as the

basis of the transition from Christ to the community and vice versa. It is the Spirit that

continues the personalization of the Presence by coming to dwell in us so that we dwell in

Christ.123

Thus, Hanvey concludes, for Congar the life of the Church has a Christological form and

a pneumatological foundation. But that work of personalization and communication of God’s

life done by the Spirit is understood by Congar in a trinitarian perspective. This interiorization

and communication are the culmination of the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit because

through the grace communicated by the Spirit we receive God himself. As Congar says, in

heaven “God himself is given to us and he is all in his own gifts” or God himself takes the places

of the gifts which he distributed previously to all Christians. But only through the indwelling of

the Spirit this communication of grace is possible and this work is proper to the Holy Spirit.124

122 Ibid., 390.


124 Ibid. 394. The reference to Congar is from The Mystery of the Temple, 234.

329

Hanvey demonstrates, indeed, that the work of the Spirit as an action marked by

“inwardness” and personalization represents the culmination of the economy of salvation. This

work is specific to the Spirit, and it takes place through his indwelling in the Church. Hanvey

also shows that for Congar this work of the Spirit is revealed as a connection between Christ and

the Church, or that “soteriology and ecclesiology are integral to each other” through

pneumatology.125 However, it seems that when he makes the connection between the economy

and the immanent Trinity, he uses as his source Congar’s later work I Believe in the Holy

Spirit.126 Certainly for Congar God’s love in himself and God’s love in the economy cannot be

separated, as Hanvey says. But Congar states this connection explicitly only later.

Nevertheless, Hanvey’s study shows that Congar begins in this stage of his career to

leave behind the Augustinian model of the Spirit as animator of the Church, “in a subordinate

role to the person of Christ […] [and] achieves a much deeper vision of the economy of the

Spirit.”127 One could say that this period represents a turning point toward a more

pneumatological model of the Church: communion and temple of the Holy Spirit.

125 Ibid., 390.

126 Ibid., 395.

127 Ibid., 388.

330

C. The Holy Spirit Makes the Church Holy as the Co-Instituting Principle of the

Church: A Pneumatological Approach

1. L’Église: une, sainte, catholique et apostolique (1970)

It could be said that this book represents Congar’s mature thought on the holiness of the

Church. It also incorporates the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, as Congar himself

attests.128 In addition, the theology of holiness is presented in a systematic manner, and not

merely as a response to particular questions addressed occasionally to him. The presentation

below will follow Congar’s train of thought as presented in the book.

Holiness in Scripture and History

It is worth noticing that holiness was the first attribute given to the Church at the

beginning of the second century.129 It appears in Ignatius, Hermas and in the symbols of faiths

of Hippolytus, Epiphanius, Nicaea, and Constantinople. Yet the concept and the content of

holiness are biblical. Whereas in the Old Testament, holiness meant separation and purity, more

profoundly “holiness is the property of God. God is holy (Is 6:3). […] Holiness is his proper

order of existence, it is his mystery.”130 To say “God” is to say “holy.”131 Conversely, holiness

can be attributed to a reality only in that measure in which it reveals God, comes from God,


129 Ibid., 123.

130 Ibid., 124.

131 Ibid., 124-125. Congar repeatedly emphasizes this thought on God. See for example, Congar,

“Sanctification du Chrétien et service,” Cahiers St. Dominique 29 (1962): 287.

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belongs to him and is totally referred to him. The people are never more “holy” than when they

are convoked and gathered together for the worship of God who is holy, in a “holy congregation”

(Ex 12:16; Lev 23:25).132

Congar then points out that in the New Testament, the new people of God is holy because

Christ and the Holy Spirit communicate this holiness. “Christ, indeed, is holy, having received

his existence from the Holy Spirit and from above (Lk 1:35), then having received his

consecration for the ministry by a new heavenly manifestation and by the Holy Spirit (Lk

3:22)”133 Jesus is the reality of God’s coming among us: the place of God’s descending, his

Word, the temple in which God dwells and where we meet him, the priest, sacrifice and worship

(Heb 7:26; 10: 1-14). That is why Christ is the origin and the center of a new people,

consecrated and holy.

This holiness that was realized for us in Christ is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit

(who is the principle of that communication—2 Cor 13:13, Rom 5:5) beginning with baptism in

the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5; 2:38; 1 Cor 12:13). So, the people of God, formed from the

communities of Judea but also from Gentiles through God’s call, has a heavenly or an

eschatological heritage (Col 1:12). “The holiness of the Church is thus realized between

baptism, which is its origin, and its eschatological fulfilment.”134

132 Ibid., 125.

133 Ibid., 125.

134 Ibid., 126.

332

Congar then calls attention to themes that describe holiness and which he has previously

written about. “The first valuable reality which needs to be emphasized about the holiness of the

Church is that which makes this Church to be of God: election, vocation, covenant, consecration,

indwelling; the Church is the place where people give to God the worship he desires.”135 One

can observe how Congar lays the biblical foundations for a theology of holiness as a gift.

This fundamental holiness which is given by God requires a response from the people in

their ethical practice of a holy life. “Be holy because I am holy" (Lev 19:2). The indicative

which shows the mode of existence of God becomes imperative when it concerns the people.

The entire existence of man becomes a holy sacrifice pleasant to God. The whole Christian life

is seen as an act of worship whose law is purity (Rom 12:1; 15:16). Congar expresses in a

personified way this holiness: the Church is the Church of saints, namely people who strive to

live faithfully and generously their baptismal consecration and their quality of members of the

body of Christ.136

The apostolic time and the early Church held in great esteem the demands of a holy life,

to the point that some sins were penalized with excommunication. Other sins could be forgiven,

although from the beginning there were extremists like Tertullian and the Donatists. In the end

the ecclesiological doctrine of St. Augustine triumphed. “The Church has admitted definitively

to be a Church of sinners called to conversion.”137 This had consequences: it led to the theology

135 Ibid., 127.

136 Ibid.,127.

137 Ibid., 128.

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of conversion and the corresponding institutions, which led further to the theology of priestly

powers.

How is the Church Holy?

In response to this question, Congar shows that there is in the Church a dialectic: call and

response, or gift and reception and realization of that gift by people. There is, regarding

holiness, a tension between already and not yet which is inscribed in the nature of the Church, in

her existence as a pilgrim Church. What is already given is based on the fidelity of God to his

covenant, but not on human activity. “To state the holiness of the Church does not mean to

exclude sin but to proclaim the indissolubility of the union of Christ with the Church.”138

Congar resumes here, but in a different manner, his theology from the second part of

Vraie et fausse réforme, where he showed that the Protestant Reform excluded the concept of

institution from ecclesiology. The Reform and Protestant thought present the Church as a

community called by the word of God, by his grace, from above (excluding the institution), like

in the Old Testament. The Catholic position holds that the mission and the incarnation of the

Son of God and also the mission of the Holy Spirit changed this condition: the people of God

become such only by being the body of Christ.139

The Reform thinkers do not present the Church as a sacramental reality, founded as such

by Jesus Christ the universal Savior, who completes his mission by sending the Holy Spirit and

associating to his work an ecclesial institution. “I believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, in the

138 Ibid., 129.

139 Ibid., 131.

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holy Catholic Church” expresses the Catholic belief that the Church is a sacrament founded by

the missions of Christ and the Spirit. The Church is the sacrament of salvation which is

simultaneously visible and spiritual: faith and the sacraments of faith, together with the promise

that the Holy Spirit will work in these structures of covenant to conserve and vivify them.140

“The Church is holy first of all in its formal principles, namely in what it has received

and receives from God in order to be Church, the universal sacrament of salvation. These formal

principles are the deposit of faith, the sacraments, the corresponding ministries.”141 These

realities are holy in themselves since they come from God and are oriented toward holiness.

The Holy Spirit cannot be regarded among the formal causes or as a formal cause of the

Church: he does not form a single unity with the formal causes of the Church nor with its

members. He is not incarnate. In a rigorous sense, he cannot be called the soul of the Church,

but he only exercises a mission that could be compared with that of the soul in a human body.

The soul is a component part of a human being; the soul and the body form a single being. The

Holy Spirit does not form with the ecclesial institution a single being. He is only united and co-

joined through a covenant bond with the Church.142

In addition, the Church remains subjected to the weakness of the flesh (in infirmitate

carnis, Lumen gentium 9c), which in the Bible means to sin. Therefore, not all the acts of the

140 Ibid., 132.

141 Ibid., 132. This passage is taken from Vraie et fausse réforme, 2d.ed (Paris: Cerf. 1968), 92.

142 Ibid., 132-33. Here Congar draws from his “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic Corps.”

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ecclesial institution are automatically acts of the Holy Spirit. There is a certain tension between

the Church and her transcendent soul.

But even though the Holy Spirit is not a single reality with the Church, and is not united

hypostatically with the Church, he dwells in the Church and vivifies it.143 The Holy Spirit is the

Church’s proper principle of existence and operation. For the realities of this world, he is not

their principle of existence, even if he works in them. In short, the Spirit does not dwell in the

world but in the Church.

The theme of the Spirit dwelling leads to the theme of the temple. Christ and the Holy

Spirit act in the holy and sanctifying operations of the Church. In the decisive acts of the

magisterium and the celebration of the sacraments, where the covenant structures are included

with assurance, the presence of the Holy Spirit is sure. This is what, in Congar’s opinion, the

council of Jerusalem meant by the expression: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

(Acts 15:28).144

Holiness, which is assured to the structures and the decisive acts of the ecclesial

institution and through which the Church using these means does not cease to produce saints and

fruits of holiness, must be referred to the Holy Spirit as its transcendent cause. This is that

Hippolytus meant when he said that the Church was holy.145 This is what Albert the Great says

too: every effect or work in the economy must be referred to a divine and eternal truth.


144 Ibid., 134.

145 Ibid., 134. Here Congar follows P. Nautin’s interpretation of Hippolytus’ The Apostolic Tradition

(XXI,17). See Pierre Nautin, Je crois à l'Esprit Saint dans la Sainte Église pour la Resurrection de la chair: etude

sur l'histoire et la theologie du symbole, Unam Sanctam 17 (Paris: Cerf, 1947), 13-20.

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Therefore to believe in the holiness of the Church is to believe in the Holy Spirit, not only in

himself, but in the Holy Spirit who sanctifies the Church.146

Finally, Congar addresses the theme of the holiness of the people: the Church of saints.

All the aspects presented previously constitute the objective holiness of the Church: Christ and

the Holy Spirit acting in the principles of the Church. But there is also the personal aspect of

holiness. These principles produce holiness and redemption of the people. The Church is the

Church of the saints. The holiness of the saints is one of the most powerful arguments in

apologetics. The faithful exercise in their way a holy maternity: through their charity, their

prayers, their acts of satisfaction and also through the exercise of the spiritual gifts or charisms.

The entire life of the Church is an education in holiness.

Thus the Church is holy not only because she received the means of sanctification—faith

and ministry—(Ecclesia congregans; objective holiness), but also because “she is constituted by

saints or people who do not know sin or they dedicate themselves not to sin anymore (Ecclesia

congregata; subjective holiness). […] The Church is […] a holy Church of sinners.”147

Sin and Misery in the Church

All Christians admit that there is sin but they speak differently about it. Congar likes to

quote Charles Journet, who states: “The Church is not without sinners, but she is without sin.”148

146 Ibid., 134. Here Congar resumes his True and False Reform,91-92 and quotes Albert the Great, De

mysterio missae, II, 9, art.9 (ed. Borgnet, p. 64b).

147 Ibid., 135. The expression “who do not know sin or stop sinning” is taken from Saint Ambrose: “De

duobus constat Ecclesia: ut aut peccare nesciat, aut peccare desinat”: In Lucam, lib. VII, c. 11 (PL 15, 1724).

148 Ibid., 136, the reference is to Ch. Journet, L’Église du Verbe Incarne, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer,

1951), 904.

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For Congar, the Church is without sin because there is no known sin that could be attributed to

the nature itself of the Church. The sins belong to the members. All believers are divided: there

is something in us that belongs to the Church and something that still belongs to the world. Only

the Blessed Mother Mary has realized in her person the holiness of the Church. Therefore Mary

is the “eschatological icon,” the perfect type of the Church.149

No matter what objection one could have regarding how to explain the holiness of the

Church, Congar claims that two statements remain true: first, sin cannot be attributed to the

Church. The subject that commits sin is an individual person. Second, in her constitutive and

formal principles the Church is holy, pure.150

However, in the Church there are sinners. This reality is expressed in various ways.

From a historical and concrete point of view, the Church will be perfectly beautiful and holy

only in the eschaton. Like other qualities of the Church, holiness also is real but will reach its

fullness only in the eschatological fulfilment. This means that the Church is holy and

simultaneously penitent and in need of continuous purification, as the Constitution on the Church

declared: “Ecclesia in proprio sinu peccatores complectens, sancta simul et semper purificanda,

poenitentiam et renovationem continuo prosequitur.” (Lumen Gentium 8 c). The Church is the

forgiven sinner, like Rahab and Tamar.151 “The Church in herself, through her material cause

which is human nature, is sinful.”152 But the Church is purified by her Head, Christ.

149 Ibid., 136. Congar indicates that he took over the expression from Louis Bouyer, Le culte de la Mère de

Dieu dans l'église catholique (Chevetogne, Belgium: Editions de Chevetogne, 1950), 33.

150 Ibid., 136-37.

151 Ibid., 138-39.

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The Fathers see the Church not as an object of speculative thinking but within the history

of salvation. But they also include an eschatological vision and from this perspective, “the

Church will be a perfect spouse, the Church will be perfectly pure.”153 For the Fathers the

sanctity of the Church is closely linked with the quality of the Church as the Bride of Christ, like

in Eph 5, 26-27.154 They identify three moments of this union between Christ and his Bride: the

incarnation—in which the Word of God united himself with our human nature; the cross—when

he united the Church with him through faith and love; the eschatological time—when they will

be united in glory. According to Revelation 21:2, the Bride comes all beautiful from heaven.

The Church will not be totally and perfect holy until it will know perfectly Christ’s Paschal

mystery, his death to the flesh and his resurrection according to the Spirit.155

Defects and Reforms in the Church

Sins and defects, which are not necessarily sins, Congar points out, bring harm to the

holiness of the Church. Sins, even though personal, diminish the concrete and actual realization

of the holiness of the Church. The Fathers invited believers to “renovatio” and “reformation.”156

The Fathers did not ask for reform of the juridical structures, yet they thought that through the



154 Ibid., 139.

155 Ibid., 139-40.

156 Ibid., 140.

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conversion of people ecclesiological renewal would follow. Therefore, the process of the renewal

of persons coincides with the renewal of the Church.

Congar summarizes the reforms that took place in the Church after the patristic period to

illustrate better what they intended to do.157 The Gregorian reform had two merits: first, it was

mystical, namely the idea of God and the demands of his service were presented in a very

elevated form, therefore always calling people to reform. Second, the supporters of renewal

were convinced that a true reform needed a change of the juridical structures. Only by

promulgating clear laws, could simony and other abuses be eradicated. The medieval reforms

were targeting the practice of the Church: the exercise of authority in the Church and the need

for discipline in monastic life.

Luther and the reformers of sixteenth-century placed reform, according to Congar, in a

new realm, that of theological doctrine and preaching. The intention was not any longer to

review ecclesial life, but they put under question the structures of the Church in three domains:

doctrine, sacraments and hierarchical structures. Congar states that this was a pretentious

approach that was contrary to the ecclesial consciousness of all times.158

Among the changes made by the Reformers (e.g. hierarchical structures, the sacraments),

Congar considers fatal the alteration of the rule of faith: the abandonment of the Tradition.159

According to the Reform, the only norm superior and exterior to the Church is the written word

157 Ibid., 141.

158 Ibid., 142.

159 Ibid., 142.

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of God that judges and calls to conversion: “Ecclesia semper reformanda.” The Constitution on

the Church of the Second Vatican Council stated that the Church does not cease to renew herself,

“Ecclesia renovare non desinat” (Lumen Gentium, 9). But the statement does not refer to the

essential structures through which the fidelity of God to his covenant ensures the immunity of

the Church regarding the attacks of Hell. The statement refers to the ethical and disciplinary

malfeasances and to abuses in the daily life of the Church.

In between the structure and the discipline of the Church, there is a status quo (“état des

choses”) that requires revisions in three domains: teaching or preaching; liturgy; and

organizations and laws regarding the life and the actions of the Church. Those revisions or

reforms have two goals: first, a better and more balanced understanding of Revelation, which is

constituted by the Scripture (the memorial of Revelation) and the Tradition (the channel of a

living transmission). The second goal of reform is to meet the requirements of the time. Both

goals were met in the biblical, patristic and liturgical renewal that preceded and followed

immediately the Second Vatican Council, in Congar’s opinion.160

Because both goals specific to any reform were met in the Council, Congar states

something astonishing. In his opinion, “in this time in which the Church is the most pure like it

has never been since the time of the martyrs, the Church has made a great ‘aggiornamento’

whose means was the Second Vatican Council desired by John XXIII.”161 The Council thus

recovered not only the sense of the medieval reforms (which joined reforms with a council, and

160 Ibid., 142-43.

161 Ibid., 143.

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promulgated laws), but also the patristic sense (the inner conversion of believers). Pope John

XXIII often repeated that he wanted profound renovation of the Christian life, which should

include the prayer life (or the liturgy), teaching, family, witnessing, and apostolate. Due to this

reform, ecclesiology has regained its anthropological implications162: it helps Christians to renew

their souls according to the likeness of God that was tainted through sin.

The Use of the Property of Holiness as a Note of the True Church in Apologetics

The note of holiness cannot be applied only to the Catholic Church. The Orthodox

Church is also holy.163 Theology admits, more and more clearly, the existence of truth and grace

outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. Lumen Gentium states without hesitation

that “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.”164

At the same time, the world also is full of the active presence of God, Christ, and his Spirit.

However, Christianity has the fullness of the sanctifying presence of God.

Congar, however, employs the note of holiness not in an apologetical but in a theological

way. The distinction between apologetics and the theology of the Church was never fully

explained by Congar in his published texts, Rose Beal argues.165 Therefore, by studying

Congar’s unpublished ecclesiological works, Beal shows the differences between apologetics

and theology, with quotes from Congar himself. The first difference is in their object of study:

apologetics, after the Reformation, focused on the credibility of the proofs of the claims that the

162 Ibid., 143.

163 Ibid., 145.

164 LG 8.

165 Beal, Mystery of the Church, People of God: Yves Congar's Total Ecclesiology, 172.

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Church makes about itself or on the “extrinsic quality that the object possesses of being

reasonably believable.” Theology studies “the intrinsic truth of the object of faith.”166 The

second difference between apologetics and theology is in method: apologetics argues from

natural reason alone, while theology uses both faith and reason. Thirdly, there is a difference in

the goal of the two disciplines: apologetics wants to lead non-believers to faith; whereas the goal

of a theology of the Church is “a body of demonstrations originating from faith and extending,

by way of logical demonstration, the light of the principles of faith, to more or less detailed

conclusions.”167

Regarding the use of the Church’s notes in apologetics, the intent is to show by natural

reason that the Catholic Church is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ. More specifically

regarding the note of holiness, an argumentation is made to show that the only way to explain the

holiness of the Catholic Church as a moral miracle is by divine intervention. In the past, this

holiness of the Catholic Church was used as a comparison term in a survey of Christian churches

to show that holiness was found only in the Catholic Church—a survey which Congar considers

“relative” (probably meaning non-satisfactory).168

Congar prefers the theological method in which holiness is presented as a manifestation

of the whole mystery of the Church, thus engaging faith and reason, rather than the apologetical

method that presents holiness as credible, or reasonably believable. In this theological

166 Ibid., 75.

167 Ibid., 76.

168 Congar, L’Église une, 146. For examples of this comparative argumentation in the past, see Gustave

Thils, Les notes de l’Église dans l’apologetique catholique depuis la Reforme (Duculot, Gembloux, 1937), 49, 147.

343

approach, the Church is a “hagiophany”; it reveals the existence of another world into which one

enters through a new birth. The holiness of the Church, the saints (sancti et sanctae), and the

holy things (sancta), show us that God reveals himself to us in Christ and through the Church.

Rather than explaining holiness as a proof of the power of God that could explain reasonably and

credibly the moral miracle of holiness, Congar chooses to present holiness as a “hagiophany.”

This way of presenting holiness as a revelation of God’s presence to us has another advantage: it

responds to the desire and profound need of humans to encounter God. For all the reasons

mentioned above, Congar chooses to replace the apologetical use of holiness (as an external sign

of God’s power to keep the Church holy) with a theological method that presents holiness as an

expression of the mystery of the Church. This is what Congar means when he says that post-

Trent “apologetics is more plausible than probative.”169

Critical Evaluation

Congar treated themes connected with the theology of holiness in his previous works.

For instance, the struggle of the Church to live up to its vocation to holiness is described in

various ways in The Mystery of the Church, “Comment l’Église sainte doit se renouveler sans

cesse”, Power and Poverty in the Church, and “My Path Findings.” The relationship between

sacred and profane is described in “Situation du ‘sacré’ en régime chrétien.” Congar wrote in

Les Voies du Dieu Vivant on the Communion of Saints.170 In L’Église une, however, Congar


170 Congar, The Mystery of the Church, 42-43; “Sainteté et péché dans l’Église,” La vie intellectuelle, 15

(1947), 6-40; “Comment l’Église sainte doit se renouveler sans cesse” in Sainte Église, 131-54; Power and Poverty

in the Church (Baltimore: Helicon, 1964); “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” The Jurist

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treated systematically the holiness of the Church and incorporated some adjacent themes into his

presentation (such as the issue of reform, the problem of sinners in the Church). This chapter did

not intend to discuss all the themes connected with the notion of holiness in Congar’s work, but

rather to follow the development of Congar’s own ecclesiological models. For the sake of the

flow of this exposition, there was no discussion of these themes earlier in this chapter (for

instance, the issue of sinners in the Church). However, in the section dedicated to L’Église une,

some of these themes were presented, following faithfully Congar’s presentation. A short

evaluation of these issues follows.

In L’Église: une, there are a few notable differences in Congar’s treatment of ecclesial

holiness compared to his previous writings. First, Congar departs from the linear incarnational

model. In his early writings, holiness, like the Church itself, had its source in the formal

principles instituted by Christ and was communicated by the Spirit. In L’Église une, holiness

depends on the two missions of Christ and the Spirit. The difference is important because in this

way the theology of holiness becomes a function of pneumatology and not the other way around.

Second, holiness is presented both as gift and task, and not as objective and subjective

holiness. While these terms mean the same realities, they belong to two different approaches.

Objective and subjective holiness corresponded to a speculative theology in which Congar

presented the Church as a society. Holiness as a gift and task corresponds to a later approach

which is more Biblical than speculative. There were indications of this approach in his early

writings, but here gift and task becomes explicit and this is the way that holiness is defined.

32 (1972); “Situation du ‘sacré’ en régime chrétien” in Vatican II -La Liturgie après Vatican II, Unam Sanctam 66

(1967), 385-403; Les Voies du Dieu Vivant (Paris: Cerf, 1962).

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There are instances when Congar still speaks of “objective holiness”, but he does so only when

he quotes his own previous works. The use of “objective holiness” points more to the fidelity of

God. But as a whole, Congar’s definition of holiness is in terms of gift and task.

Third, Congar emphasizes more than earlier the theology of promise to explain the

holiness of the Church. At times he still talks about the “infallibility of the formal principles,”

but, again, this is where he uses citations from Vraie et fausse réforme.

Finally and most importantly, the change in the theology of holiness reflects his

presentation of the Church. If previously the Church was described in terms of structure - life,

institution – community, now Congar speaks of the Church having a status of existence as

pilgrim. This is why holiness is not only objective and subjective, but a gift and a mission.

However, in spite of all these differences, one should not regard them as a radical

departure from his earlier position. There is development in Congar’s theological thought, but

this is in continuity with his earlier theological stance.

2. I Believe in the Holy Spirit (1979-80)

In this mature work dedicated explicitly to the Holy Spirit, Congar begins his

presentation of the holiness of the Church with two images, temple and bride, as found in the

Bible and the Fathers of the Church. It is already worth noticing the difference of approach

between the early works, where holiness is described as a quality contained in the formal

principles of the Church, and this work, where right from the beginning biblical images are used.

Even though the New Testament does not say explicitly that the Church is holy, nevertheless it

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calls the members of the Church saints. Later, Hippolytus used the adjective “holy” for the

Church, and among all the notes of the Church, holiness is the first one attributed to the Church.

Even if the concept is missing from the New Testament, the idea that the Church is holy is

present when the Christian communities are described as temple and bride. Congar points out

that even in the New Testament every soul is a bride (2 Cor 11:2) and a temple (1 Cor 3:16)—an

idea which the Fathers incorporated and elaborated in their writings saying that every soul is the

Church.171

The Church as the Temple

Congar’s description of the Church as temple begins with what might seem a dry

presentation of the same idea in Thomas Aquinas in his commentary on the Creed. The Church

is holy because it is washed in Christ’s blood, has the anointing of the Spirit, has the indwelling

of the Trinity, and invokes God.172 But after Congar notices Aquinas’ emphasis on the spiritual

sacrifices that Christians bring to God because they are his temple, he becomes elated describing

this Christian worship brought to God:

It is the act in which the Church is most perfectly itself. The Church is the Holy temple

in which, through the strength of the living water that is the Holy Spirit, faith is

celebrated in baptism, and love or ‘agape’ is celebrated in the Eucharist. How beautiful

the Church’s liturgy is, filling time and space with praise of God the creator and savior—

to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. When our praise ceases here, it begins a

little further to the west, as the sun rises. It goes around the world without interruption,

‘uniting all things in him, the Christ…in whom you […] were sealed with the promised


172 Ibid., 53. The texts cited by Congar are from Thomas Aquinas, Collationes de ‘Credo in Deum’, Lent

1273, art. IX (Opera, Parma ed., XVI, 147-48).

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Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to

the praise of his glory’ (Eph 1:10,13).173

Congar stresses that the Church is holy, or most perfectly herself, in her worship which

proceeds from faith and includes hope and charity. Faith, however, is the work of the Holy Spirit

(Phil 3:3; Jude 20) since only through the Spirit can one profess that Jesus Christ is Lord (1 Cor

12:3). The holiness of the Church is, therefore, the proper work of the Holy Spirit.

The image of the temple implies also the idea of dwelling or habitation. This dwelling is

stated in the New Testament and is attributed not only to God and the Son, but explicitly to the

Spirit (John 14:15-17; 1 Cor 3:16-17). Thomas Aquinas also uses this image. He starts by

explaining God’s indwelling first in individual souls and then he moves to the whole Church.

For Aquinas, God, Father, Son and Spirit, is the term or object of knowledge and love, through

the supernatural faith and love that is given to each believer.174 But the Church is congregatio

fidelium, the assembly of believers. What is true for every believer is also true for the Church.

Even more, if God dwells in individual persons through faith and charity, then the Church can be

sure to always have a faith fashioned by charity, since individuals may fail in their faith but the

Church as a whole cannot lack in faith. For Congar the Church is Ecclesia congregata (the

Church of believers) and Ecclesia congregans (the Church in her essential structures—apostolic

institution, teaching, sacraments) at the same time; but he explains that the Church as an

173 Ibid., 54. One has the impression that Congar cites here the third Eucharist prayer within Mass.

174 Ibid., 54. After long considerations, Congar considers that in Aquinas the theme of the dwelling of the

Holy Spirit in the human soul is more frequent and more emphasized than his dwelling in the Church. See also note

10, on pages 61-62.

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institution is always sure to have the indwelling of the Spirit because God promised to always fill

her with faith and charity. This Church is the sacrament of salvation and a sign of God’s love for

men.175

In short, the Church is holy because she is God’s temple, that is, in her dwells God who

promises and always gives her faith and charity. The communication of faith and charity is a

work proper to the Holy Spirit. A few brief observations can be made at this point. There is a

difference in methodology between his early works, where Congar started with systematic

statements regarding the holiness of the Church (the Church is holy due to her formal principles),

and his approach in I Believe, where he begins directly with the biblical image of the temple.

Certainly even here his approach is sacramental; there is, therefore, a continuity of thought.

Nonetheless, this approach is not mainly Christological. It now has a balanced emphasis of the

roles of Christ and of the Holy Spirit in bringing about the Church’s holiness. But for this

balance to become more evident, there is the need to connect the whole presentation of the

Church as temple with the theme of the Holy Spirit as co-instituting principle of the Church—

and this connection will be presented later in the critical evaluation of I Believe.176

The Church as Bride

As with the temple, Congar begins his presentation of the Church as bride by referring to

the most important texts in the New Testament that speak of the Church as bride: 2 Cor 11:2 (a

pure bride) and Eph 5:25-27, 29-31 (the Church is without a spot or wrinkle- NRSV). The

175 Ibid., 54-55.

176 See below, Chapter VI, pp. 379-81.

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Fathers of the Church see often the relationship between Christ and the Church as a wedding.

They understand this mystery of the wedding as an election of grace by the gratuitous and

anticipatory love of God. This election is always accompanied by a process of purification.

Christ purified the Church through his death on the cross and his baptism, which is the

sacramental basis of our baptism. Both these events communicate the Spirit to the Church, the

new Eve. Through baptism and the gift of the Spirit, and also through the Eucharist, the Church

as bride is built up and becomes the body of Christ, that is, it forms “one flesh” with Jesus

Christ.177

The last act of this union will take place after the second coming of the Bridegroom.

Even though the wedding took place and the union between Christ and his bride is real, the bride

will be perfect only eschatologically. Until then, the Church in her sinful members is tempted to

join other bridegrooms (1 Cor 6:15). The definitive union that will take place at the end of time

is described by the Book of Revelation, where the Church is described as a bride adorned for her

husband (Rev 21:2). But this reality was envisioned from the beginning in Genesis where the

creation and union of man and woman is described.178

The Holy Church of Sinners

Congar had written on this theme in other works: Vraie et fausse réforme (1950), Sainte

Église (1963), Pour une Église servante et pauvre (Power and Poverty in the Church) (1963),

177 Ibid., 56.

178 Ibid., 56.

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Église et pauvreté (1965). So he was always preoccupied by this topic and other topics related to

it (reform, poverty, power and service).

An historian, Congar states that in the Church there have been historical faults,

inadequacies, pride, misinterpretations of times, attachment to formal practices and to fixed

structures of power, even though it is hard to admit publicly such failures.179 However,

throughout history, saints and councils called for purity and full loyalty to the Gospel, which led

to reforms and even new creations that are the work of the Spirit.

The Spirit was given to the Church but only as arrha, earnest-money, or first-fruits; the

Spirit is the “Promised One” (Lk 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:3; Gal 3:14; Eph 1:12) who draws the

Church onwards towards eschatological fulfilment. Since the Church does not live in an

eschatological or perfect state of holiness, she needs constant renewal. That is the work of the

Spirit who “encourages great initiatives to renew the Church, missions, the emergence of new

religious orders, great works of the mind and heart. He inspires necessary reforms and prevents

them from becoming merely external arrangements.”180

In spite of all the historical failures, the Church remains a sign of God’s presence, a

“hagiophany” that reveals the reality of another world. But above all, for Congar the work of the

Spirit is the radiation of holiness in the lives of the saints of the Church. That radiation is

contagious because a holy life can touch people’s lives in a way that no intelligent discourse can.

179 Ibid., 57. Congar would have been delighted with the apologies that Pope John Paul II presented to the

world on occasions like the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in America and the preparation of the Great

Jubilee of the Year 2000.

180 Ibid., 57.

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And “the saints reveal the Holy Spirit.”181 Congar’s expression might be surprising but he uses

an analogy. It is the Church’s belief, professed by many Fathers, that the incarnate Word reveals

the Father and the Spirit reveals Christ. But Congar goes further saying that “the saints reveal

the Spirit, that is to say, they reveal God as gift, love, communication and communion.”182 The

Spirit produces a radiation of holiness in holy men and women.

The Communion of Saints

The formula communio sanctorum present in the Apostles’ Creed is not in apposition to

the formula sanctam Ecclesiam, Congar firmly states, despite any contrary position.

“Communion of saints” does not explain the meaning of the holy Church, but it is another article

in the Apostles’ Creed. The question rises in what do we profess to believe, what is the content

of this formula? The difficulty to pinpoint its meaning comes from the genitive plural form

sanctorum, which could be the plural of sancta–neuter or sancti—masculine. The earliest

interpretation (Niceta of Remesiana) attributes the expression to the community of saints, while

later interpretations, especially in the Middle Ages, favored the communion in holy things, that

is, in the Eucharist and the sacraments, as Congar shows.183 Congar himself prefers the latter

interpretation based on the fact that the biblical word koinonia (translated in Latin with

181 Ibid., 58.

182 Ibid., 58. He explicitly refers with admiration to Teresa of Calcutta whose life was a “revelation of the

power of God in the Spirit.”

183 Ibid., 59. For Aquinas see Collationes de ‘Credo in Deum’, Lent 1273, art. X, (Opera, Parma ed., XVI,

148-49).

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communion) means a participation in the holy things, a participation which includes all the

members of the community.

Congar says that the basic question about the participation in holy things is: what is the

principle of this participation? What precisely brings people together to build up the community?

He points out that there is an absolute agreement among authors who wrote on this topic that the

principle of communion is charity. The love with which God loves himself, which is uncreated

grace, is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5) and produces in us an effect or

a created grace, that is charity. To that charity Thomas attributed, in continuity with a

unanimous tradition, the unity through which the communication in holy things takes place

between Christians.184 The object of this charity includes everyone since charity has a unifying

power. Because the principle of unity is so strong, it goes beyond this world and therefore the

communion includes the blessed in heaven and all the deceased.

The principle that is at the base of this communion is God himself through the work of

the Holy Spirit. “Only God, through the Spirit who is what is grace and gift in him, is able to be,

in us, the radical principle of that eternal life that is the communication of his own life. By

receiving us as his sons, he receives himself, having given himself to us and having dwelt

himself in us.”185 The principle of this communication of life, which allows a communication of

grace among all the members of the community, is the Holy Spirit. According to Aquinas and

Congar, the Holy Spirit communicates to those who live in charity not only the merits of Christ’s

184 Ibid., 59-60. For Aquinas, see In IV Sent., d. 20, a 2, q. 3, ad 1; d. 45, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 1.

185 Ibid., 60.

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life and passion, but also all the good that the saints have done, and also all the good that is done

in the world.186

This unity based on the strength of charity creates a bond between the Church on earth

and the departed because “death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). Liturgy expresses the conviction that the two parts of the people of God

(those on earth and those deceased) are united in prayer. In the Eucharist, especially, Christians

on earth are united with the angels and the saints, while the celebrant is Jesus Christ himself and

we invoke the Spirit to concelebrate with us. The Eucharist is, therefore, the highest fulfilment

on earth of the communion of saints. The holiness of those who live in the Spirit also contributes

to that communion.

Congar concludes his presentation of the communion of saints by stating his firm belief

that the Holy Spirit, personally and identically the same, is present in God, in Christ, in the

Church, and in all the members of the Church, and he brings all spiritual goods to them through

his activity.

Critical Evaluation

Congar’s presentation of ecclesial holiness in I Believe is briefer than the one in L’Église

une. This could be for several reasons. It could be because I Believe was not intended to be an

ecclesiological work like L’Église: une was; therefore his interest in the exposition of ecclesial

holiness in a systematic and comprehensive way was greater in L’Église: une. Another reason

186 Ibid., 60. For Aquinas, see Collationes de ‘Credo in Deum’, Lent 1273, art. X, (Opera, Parma ed.,

XVI,149.

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for the brevity could be that Congar’s theological thought with regard to holiness reached full

maturity in previous works. The essential ecclesiological doctrine was already presented and

now Congar’s interest was rather in a pneumatological and trinitarian perspective.

Congar’s exposition is mainly based on the biblical images of bride and temple. They

offer him a different perspective: the concepts of “objective and subjective holiness” are not

employed at all. It is also remarkable that he does not use the image of the body of Christ,

possibly because that would bring back the incarnational perspective—which is not inherently

defective, but in his own writings lacked a fully developed pneumatological dimension, since the

Spirit was only the animator of the structures. Instead, by using the images of bride and temple,

Congar opts for a vision of the Church that, while not excluding the Christological element,

emphasizes the role of the Spirit. Indeed, the image of bride evokes the idea of election and the

image of temple evokes the theme of dwelling. Both election and dwelling describe the Church

as a spiritual community characterized by inwardness, or, better said, a community build up by

the relationship between Christ, the Spirit, and the faithful.

Finally and most important, this ecclesiological model is more pneumatological and

trinitarian because the Spirit is not the animator of the structure instituted by Christ, but is rather

the co-instituting principle of the Church. “[T]he Spirit did not come simply in order to animate

an institution that was already fully determined in all its structures, but […] he is really the ‘co-

instituting’ principle.”187 At the beginning of the second volume of his trilogy, Congar states:

“The Church as an organism of knowledge and love, is entirely dependent on these missions,” of


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Christ and the Spirit.188 The Spirit does not only communicate to the Church the life of the

Trinity, but he has a role in the formation of the Church, together with Christ, from the beginning

and throughout the Church’s history. Famerée has pointed out the need for “more recognizable

signs of his [Spirit’s] action and discernment criteria” in Congar’s earlier works.189 In I Believe,

Congar mentions some recognizable works of the Spirit: he “encourages great initiatives to

renew the Church, missions, the emergence of new religious orders, great works of the mind and

heart. He inspires necessary reforms and prevents them from becoming merely external

arrangements.”190 These are recognizable signs of his work in the history of the Church, but

from a balanced trinitarian perspective, it is more important to claim that the Spirit has a role in

the foundation of the Church together with Christ. Thus, the Church is holy because she is an

organism brought about by Christ and the Spirit and because she is the pure bride and the holy

temple.

In conclusion, this chapter has shown the evolution of Congar’s thought regarding the

holiness of the Church and the role of the Spirit in bringing it about. At times, the notion of

holiness was influenced by the specific goal of a particular writing (for example, in Vraie et

fausse réforme, holiness is a quality of the ecclesial structure which is irreformable). Despite

those particular influences, the holiness of the Church corresponds basically to two

ecclesiological models (this is important because otherwise one cannot classify the vast writings

188 Ibid., 8.



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of Congar). This chapter has shown the evolution of those models and consequently of the

notions of holiness. So, from a model of the Church as a visible society and the body of Christ

animated by the Spirit, to which corresponded a notion of holiness found in the formal principles

of the Church, Congar’s thought developed to present the Church as bride and temple of the

Spirit, to which corresponds a notion of holiness as election and dwelling of the Spirit.

More important for the purpose of this study, it was shown that to each ecclesiological

model corresponds a different emphasis on the roles of Christ and the Spirit. The first model is

mainly Christological, and the Spirit’s role is described as the soul of the Church, as animator of

the society (institution, structure—depending on which work we are referring to) founded by

Jesus Christ. The second model is more pneumatological, and the Spirit is the co-instituting

principle of the Church. The evolution of Congar’s ecclesiology and pneumatology influenced

each other. The discovery of the need for a more pneumatological approach took place

simultaneously with an evolution of the definition of the nature of the Church and her holiness.

And vice versa: any discovery in ecclesiology brought a need for a more elaborated

pneumatology.

Methodologically, what helped Congar’s development was, beside a natural maturation

of his theological thought, the use of biblical images up to the point of an exclusive employment

of them (in the later works he no longer used the Scholastic categories of causality and formal

principles because they could not convey the full role of the Spirit as he understood it).

Attempts have been made by scholars to determine exact periods of this development,

and it is generally agreed that the time of the announcement of the Second Vatican Council

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(1959) 191 or its beginning in 1962 is the turning point in Congar’s theology.192 Determining

these periods is helpful or even necessary for a more organized study of Congar’s theology.

However, a remark needs to be made in this respect. “Turning point” should not be understood

as a moment of change, or better said, of alteration in Congar’s thought. The second

ecclesiological model does not contradict the first one, and Congar himself freely interchanges

elements of the models (e.g., in L’Église: une—1970 he quotes freely from Vraie et fausse

réforme—1950). This remark is needed in order to avoid contrasting too heavily those two

models in theological studies. In the final analysis, in the development of Congar’s theological

thought there is both unity and progress.

191 Famerée, L’ecclesiologie d’Yves Congar: “The work of Congar until 1959 presents a great homogeneity

of thought” (p.24) and “the intense theological reflection of the Council (with its immediate preparation, whose

beginning is marked symbolically by the year 1959) and also the period after the Council made Congar’s thought to

develop.” (p.25)

192 Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church, 10: “The Second Vatican Council marked the beginning of

a new and critically important phase in Congar’s theological career.”

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CONCLUSION

A. Reviewing the Present Study

This study has traced the development of Congar’s thought on the role of the Holy Spirit

as the principle of the unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness of the Church. In his first

major work on pneumatology, Je crois en l’Esprit Saint (I Believe in the Holy Spirit), (1979-80),

Congar organizes his lengthy material under three major headings: the economy of the Spirit, the

Spirit and the life of the Church, and the theology of the Spirit, dedicating one volume to each

theme. In the second volume, he follows a specific order: the first chapter, “The Church is made

by the Spirit,” describes the Spirit as the co-instituting principle of the life of the Church,

together with Christ. The following chapters on unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness are

theological consequences of the first chapter, showing how the Spirit makes the Church one,

catholic, apostolic and holy. The properties of the Church explain the work of the Spirit.

In doing so, Congar understands ecclesiology as a function of pneumatology. In other

words, through the order of presentation of his ideas, Congar shows that pneumatology should

determine ecclesiology and not the other way around. For this reason, this study has presented in

Chapter I three basic pneumatological principles as identified in his major works in

pneumatology, Je crois en l’Esprit Saint and La Parole et le Souffle (The Word and the Spirit)

(1984): the Spirit reveals himself not directly but through his works in the economy of salvation;

there is no Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology; and

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the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity, in other words the divine missions of Christ and

the Holy Spirit are rooted in the eternal processions of the persons within the Trinity. A more

detailed exposition of these pneumatological principles and an assessment of their consistency

with Congar’s understanding of ecclesial unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness will follow

below after recalling how Congar understands these properties of the Church (as analyzed above

in chapters three through six).

The order of topics in Congar’s approach, from the Spirit as co-instituting principle of the

Church to the Church, one, catholic, apostolic and holy, represents his mature and late thought

on the relationship between ecclesiology and pneumatology. But this was not his method in his

early career. In the beginning, he wrote mainly on ecclesiological topics and defined the Church

as a divine-human society that shares in the life of the Trinity. His order of discovery was

initially from ecclesiology to pneumatology. For this reason, part two of this dissertation

followed Congar’s order of discovery. A question, however, was always present during this

research: when did pneumatology begin to influence Congar’s ecclesiology? As has been

shown, Congar himself stated that he had an interest in pneumatology “for quite a long time.”1

There is a general agreement among Congar scholars that his ecclesiology and pneumatology

developed simultaneously and in a relation of mutual dependence and influence. This becomes

evident in considering some of the main themes in Congar’s ecclesiology (see above, Chapter II)

and even more clear when the development of Congar’s ecclesiology and of the role of the Spirit

1 Yves Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 61. See above, Introduction, pp. 22-23 and Chapter IV,

pp. 207-10.

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in the Church are compared (see Chapters III through IV). A short synthesis of Chapter II will

now be given, followed by a review of the remaining chapters.

It was shown, at the beginning of Chapter II, that Congar’s ecclesiology is so rich in

content and so prolific that scholars need to identify its major themes in order to study and

understand it better. Also, it was stated that regardless of what particular theme a scholar

considers to be the most important or defining for Congar’s ecclesiology, a connection should

always be made with his assertion that ecclesiology must be pneumatological.2 Some of the

central themes that highlight this point are: ecumenism, the historical dimension of the Church,

the structure and life of the Church, and the trinitarian dimension of the Church.

One of Congar’s greatest passions was the unity of the Church—a cause which he felt

was his vocation since 1929 and to which he committed his life.3 His first book Chrétiens

désunis, which was also the first volume of the series Unam Sanctam, was dedicated to this

topic. The underlying ecclesiological principle of Chrétiens désunis was that unity and

catholicity are closely connected. The Church is presented as a divine-human society that shares

in the life of the Trinity itself in Christ. So, Ecclesia de Trinitate finds her source of unity in

God himself. This life is communicated to people through the sacraments and adapts to the

conditions of people in order to assimilate them to Christ. The incarnation is the ground of this

adaptation of the divine life to human conditions and also of their assimilation in Christ.


3 Yves Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 77.

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The Church is Ecclesia de Trinitate, Ecclesia in Christo, and Ecclesia ex hominibus at the

same time. Having said that the Church is divine life communicated to people, the law of unity

follows a twofold plan: the unity of God is interior and essential to the nature of the Church and

simultaneously is found in the external form of the Church as a society. To this twofold unity

corresponds the catholicity which Congar defines as the capacity of the Church to assimilate and

to take up to God all people and every human value. The role of the Spirit in this ecclesiological

model is, through a comparison to that of the soul in human body, to animate the body of Christ.

Later in his career in Diversités et communion (1982), influenced by his method of

ressourcement and his ecumenical encounters, Congar replaced the concept of unity with that of

communion,4 and understood catholicity no longer as the capacity to “assimilate” people and

human “values”, but rather in terms of the diversity and pluralism that are constitutive of the

nature of the Church. The sources of catholicity are the transcendence and richness of God’s

mystery and its reception by a multitude of people influenced by their cultures and traditions.

The ecclesiological model is not incarnational anymore; the role of the Spirit is not to simply

animate but to bring about communion, i.e., co-instituting with Christ the communion of the

Church. Some steps of this development have been skipped here but they are presented in

Chapter II. It is important to keep in mind that Congar’s evolution with regard to ecclesial unity

and catholicity is smoother than it may appear in this short presentation. The continuity of his

thought is seen in his constant insistence that the Church is trinitarian in nature.

4 See above, Chapter II, pp. 78-79, and Chapter IV, p.161.

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In conclusion, Congar’s understanding of ecumenism and Church unity developed in

close relation with his pneumatology. Ecclesiology and pneumatology are not only connected;

they depend on each other. Ecumenism and pneumatology are not appendices of ecclesiology,

but its constitutive parts that describe the essential nature of the Church. Methodologically, on

the one hand, Congar’s quest for a better and fuller understanding of the mystery of the Church

convinced him that he needed to return to the sources (ressourcement) and to study even sources

outside the Catholic tradition. On the other hand, these ecumenical findings offered him a

broader vision of the Church.

The relation between other aspects of Congar’s ecclesiology (historical, structure and life,

and trinitarian) and his pneumatology follows the same course. As a member of Le Saulchoir

school, Congar was a strong promoter of the method that used history as the perspective through

which all dogmas could be understood. God’s own mystery is revealed only in history and

through the incarnation becomes, in a sense, subject to history. Unlike the “baroque” theology

that presented the Church mainly as a hierarchical pyramid, for Congar the Church was the

people of God.5 In Congar’s assessment, as it was shown, the former ecclesiology was static and

juridical, while the latter was dynamic, historical and more open to the pneumatological

dimension.6 The historical dimension of the Church involves continuity and development. Both

of these are attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. He keeps the Church the same by making


6 Yves Congar, Fifty Years of Catholic Theology, 77. One should be careful not to contrast the two

ecclesiologies to the point of rejection of the hierarchical structure of the Church—a dimension that Congar

emphasized through all his career, before and after the Second Vatican Council.

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the work of Christ present to each generation of Christians, and he also opens the Church to new

developments through the charisms with which he endows the Church and through new events in

the history of salvation.7 The Holy Spirit is the principle of both continuity and development in

the life of the Church, which is the people of God inscribed in history.

Another major theological axis of Congar’s pneumatology is the dialectical category of

structure and life. The Church is constituted at the same time of two elements: a structure given

in Christ and a life which is influenced by historical conditions. Congar used this dialectic of

structure and life explicitly for the first time in Vraie et fausse réforme (published in 1950) to

answer the question of what is reformable and unreformable in the Church. As has been shown,

at times Congar gives precedence to one or other term of this pair in his career.8 He was

criticized for this imbalance and he himself admitted later that he made too sharp a distinction

between the structure deriving from Christ and the free interventions of the Spirit.9 More

relevant to the topic of this dissertation is that the correction proposed by Congar was not simply

to keep a balance between structure and life claiming that they are equally important. The

theological reason for the balance is found in the relation between the roles of Christ and the

Spirit in the Church. The correct interpretation of the dialectic of structure and life is found only

in Je crois en l’Esprit Saint where Congar states that both the Word and the Spirit are present in

7 See above, Chapter I, pp. 35-36 and Chapter II, p. 88, for charisms. For new, unpredictable events, see

Chapter II, p. 88, and Chapter V, pp. 231-32.


9 See above, Chapter II, p. 89; also Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 11.

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the structure and the life of the Church.10 Congar’s critics thought that in Vraie et fausse réforme

he was assigning the role of the Spirit only to the life of the Church, and therefore the institution

was devoid of grace. This is a misinterpretation of his position. Even if Congar had not written

Je crois en l’Esprit Saint, any critic should be aware that in Vraie et fausse réforme the question

asked was: what is unreformable and reformable in the Church (and not whether the institution is

devoid of grace or not). For this reason the dialectic of structure and life can be considered

important but not foundational for Congar’s ecclesiology. It represented an instrument for

addressing the issue of reform in the Church but did not define the whole mystery of the Church.

However, the whole discussion is important because it shows the necessity of a more elaborated

relationship between ecclesiology and pneumatology. A sound ecclesiology is possible only if it

is pneumatological and trinitarian. Congar’s affirmation that both Christ and the Spirit work

together in both the structure and the life of the Church is a consequence of his second

pneumatological principle: there is no Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology

without Christology.

Finally, Congar’s ecclesiology is trinitarian. There is continuity in Congar’s

ecclesiological thought: from Chrétiens désunis where he presents the Church as the life of the

Trinity extended in Christ to human beings, to Je crois en l’Esprit Saint where the Church is the

fruit of the two missions of the Son and the Spirit, the reference is always trinitarian. The

development is rather found in the pneumatological dimension of his ecclesiology, basically with

three stages in his understanding of the role of the Spirit: a Spirit that animates the body of Christ

10 See above, Chapter II, p. 92.

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(or the society, or the institution, or the structure), a Spirit that is autonomous in relation to the

institution because he brings about new charisms and events in the life of the Church, and a

Spirit that co-institutes the Church together with Christ. However, from an ecclesiological point

of view, Congar fundamentally presents two models of the Church: the body founded by Christ

and animated by the Spirit, and the communion founded by Christ and the Spirit.

It important to stress that all the aspects of the Church presented above (ecumenical,

historical, structure and life, trinitarian and pneumatological) need to be interpreted in close

connection to each other. In fact, they depend upon and influence each other. For example, the

historicity of the Church is connected with Congar’s choice to describe the Church through the

dialectic of structure and life. This dialectic explains in turn what is divine and what is human in

the Church, and therefore what is immutable and what is changeable in the Church. And that

explains why the Church is at the same time a divine-human society that receives the life of the

Trinity in history. In other words, the Church as a whole (and not only from each individual

point of view) requires pneumatology. It can be claimed that Congar used different theological

categories and models to respond to various theological questions of the time in which he wrote,

therefore he treated them individually, but his vision of the Church was global and included

pneumatology, even if his articulation was not sufficiently explicit in his early works. However,

special attention is required so as not to impose pneumatological elements of Congar’s later and

mature thought on his early writings.

With reference to each of the four marks of the Church, part two of this dissertation

followed Congar’s order of discovery: from ecclesiology to pneumatology. It traced his

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theological journey, looking for continuity and progress in his theological thought. It is known

that from 1928 onwards Congar intended to write a treatise on the Church. In 1970, he said he

renounced that project.11 However he did write two major works on pneumatology. This does

not imply that he discovered the need for pneumatology only after the Council. On the contrary

Congar himself said he had an interest in pneumatology for a long time. There is a general

agreement among scholars that in 1959 his writings become more influenced by pneumatology.

This dissertation traced the mutual influence of his ecclesiology and pneumatology in the

development of his thinking on the four marks of the Church.

The four chapters of the second part of this dissertation follow that development in his

thinking. However, instead of presenting a short summary of each chapter, the following section

will present a synoptic view of all four chapters, trying to find common patterns which point to

the consistency of Congar’s theological thought. Basically the study followed his works in

chronological order and, with reference to each of the notions of unity, catholicity, apostolicity

and holiness, identified two models of the Church with a period of transition between them. The

following section will present those findings, showing similarities and also the progress of how

Congar understood the relation between the Holy Spirit and the Church.

11 See above, Introduction, p. 21; also Congar, “My Path-Findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,”

169-88, at 169 (text dated 1970).

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1. Early Writings. The Church is a Society or the Body of Christ: a Mainly

Christological Model

Each chapter followed approximately the same steps. The first step was to identify

definitions of the properties or the notes of the Church which Congar used in his writings. This

was done using his works in chronological order. In his early works, the unity of the Church is

defined as the oneness of God communicated to his people in Christ. Catholicity is described as

the quality of the Church to assimilate in herself all people and all human values. It is an

extension of unity. Apostolicity is presented as the continuity or identity and growth between the

first coming of Christ, the Alpha moment,12 and his second coming, the Omega of history.

Holiness is the presence of God, thrice holy, in the Church through the indwelling of the Spirit.

In Chrétiens désunis Congar does not treat holiness, but a definition of it was inferred from

Congar’s theology of the other notes and his ecclesiological model: holiness is the participation

of the Church in the life of the Trinity. Holiness is given to the Church in her constitutive formal

principles (faith, sacraments and apostolic ministry) deriving from Christ and communicated by

the Holy Spirit. Holiness is described also through the pair: gift and task. It is a gift given by

Christ and the Spirit (called also objective holiness) and a call to be answered by people (named

also subjective holiness).

12 For Congar, especially in his early writings, the Alpha moment of Christ is the incarnation, and not the

beginning of creation (like in Rev 22:13, for instance). Congar considers the incarnation the moment when Christ

founded the structure of the Church (hence, the beginning or the “Alpha”). In “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic

College,” the Alpha moment is the resurrection, after which the Spirit and the apostles work together. Congar

maintained this terminology throughout his career, referring to the event of Christ’s coming in history.

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The second step of each chapter was to look for the way that Congar described the

Church or the ecclesiological model he employed at the time. Some repetitions between chapters

were unavoidable if the same sources were used (Chrétiens désunis and Vraie et fausse réforme

were heavily used), but they were necessary for the flow of the presentation within each chapter

itself. At times, different sources were used for each chapter depending on the topic of each of

them, for example Esquisses du mystère de l’Église and Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat for

catholicity and apostolicity; “The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,” “Je crois en sainte

Église,” “Dogme christologique et Ecclésiologie. Verité et limites d’un parallèle” for holiness.

All the data from these writings pointed to the same ecclesiological model: the Church is a

divine-human society (institution), or the body of Christ. The life of this Body is given by Christ

and animated by the Holy Spirit. Even in Chapter V on apostolicity where Chrétiens désunis

was not used at all, the ecclesiological model was the same: the body of Christ. It can be noticed

that even if Congar approached the mystery of the Church from different angles, via

consideration of unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness, his vision of the Church was

constant and global. The Church he envisioned was a mystery that surpassed his possibilities to

address from a single angle. Yet regardless of the angle he used to explore and present the

Church, his global vision remained the same at that time. The Church is a society in which the

life of the Trinity is communicated to people, and the body of Christ.

In each chapter, the sources of the respective properties of the Church were identified.

The unity of the Church has its source in the unity of God. However, it is interesting to mention

that Congar emphasized that he did not refer to the unity of God in his one nature, but to the

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unity between the divine persons or the communication of life between them called perichoresis.

In other words, for Congar the Church is not one because God is one but because God is Trinity.

This means that is it a unity not of uniformity but open to diversity. That unity comes from

above since from the people comes division, but it unfolds at the human level because the

Church is an organized society, and the Mystical Body gathers the human material that is

dispersed in order to reassume it into the unity of God.

The sources of catholicity are two, from above and from below. First, catholicity is from

above because the catholicity of the Head is the principal cause of the catholicity of the Church.

Also catholicity is communicated to the formal or constituent principles of the Church—the

deposit of faith, the sacraments and the life of the Church with her institutions; all three

constitutive principles of the Church have a dynamic capacity to bring all people into her unity.

Second, catholicity finds its material source from below, in the diversity of people and all their

values. Apostolicity has its efficient cause in Jesus Christ and is communicated by the Holy

Spirit and the apostolic college as efficient causes (the apostles work in the visible structures,

while the Spirit works communicating invisible grace and animating the structures founded by

Christ). Holiness in the Church comes from above, from Christ and the Holy Spirit as the soul of

the Church and at the same time from the formal principles and the theological virtues given to

the body of Christ.

The next step in this study was to identify even more precisely the roles that Congar

attributed to Christ and the Holy Spirit. Drawing on what was said above, the following account

helps to clarify the relationship, or, more exactly, the difference between the roles of Christ and

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the Spirit according to each property of the Church. From the point of view of unity, the Word

gives unity to the Church through his incarnation, while the Spirit, as the soul of the Church,

animates and gives unity to that body, and at the same time brings about visible unity through the

mediated realities of grace: faith, sacraments, and charity. In short, Christ institutes the Church

and the Spirit animates it. Catholicity as an extension of unity follows the same logic: Christ

through his incarnation united himself with all people and their values, and the Spirit

communicates to the Church that catholicity which is the universal capacity of the truth and the

sacraments to incorporate all people in Christ. Similarly, regarding apostolicity: Christ

represents in his acta et passa in carne the Alpha moment of the Church, the moment when he

founded the institution of the Church. The Holy Spirit’s role is to act in the internal order to

maintain continuity with Christ (the Spirit is the guarantor of that continuity), while the apostolic

college works conjointly in the external order. Also the Spirit promotes development and growth

in history towards the eschatological future by charisms and unforeseeable events. Regarding

holiness, Christ makes the Church holy because he establishes her as his body, while the role of

the Spirit is to make her holy by his dwelling in her, as her soul, and by communicating to her

the formal principles through which she is sanctified.

The conclusions of the presentations in each chapter showed that Congar’s model of the

Church is sacramental: Christ founds the visible society, his Mystical Body, and the Spirit

animates that body interiorly. The Spirit makes the Church one, catholic, apostolic, and holy by

his indwelling in it and by communicating her constitutive principles: the deposit of faith, the

sacraments, and the apostolic ministry. In the beginning, in Chrétiens désunis, Congar uses the

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categories of causality: Christ is the principal efficient cause of the Church while the Spirit is the

instrumental efficient cause of the Church.13 Later, as he introduced more biblical images to

describe the Church, he stopped using these categories of causality. In short, this ecclesiological

model was sacramental and, more relevant for this dissertation, incarnational: it described the

Church as a prolongation of the incarnation in a logic of visibility to show the presence of Christ

in the Church and the necessity of the visible means of grace. The Holy Spirit’s role is to

animate the body (the society, the life) of the Church.

An important observation must be made: it has been shown that some critics pointed to

the contrast of the two terms of this ecclesiological model: structure-life, center-periphery,

visible-invisible, and considered it a weakness of Congar’s model that he assigned the first term

of these pairs to Christ and the second term to the Spirit.14 Congar indeed contrasted them, and

even gave precedence to one term or the other. But it was also shown that Congar attributed a

fundamental role of the Spirit in the constitution of the sacraments, for example, more that these

critiques tended to acknowledge.15 In other words, it would be a misinterpretation of Congar’s

position to assign to the Spirit only the invisible realm of the Church (or the second term of his

dialectic) even in his early writings. Congar wrote his books to address individual topics (the

unity of the Church, reform, the laity), but his vision of the Church was larger than these issues.

It was also pointed out in this dissertation that a more appropriate way to consider the issue is to

13 See above, Chapter VI, pp. 301-2.



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look at the relation between Christ and the Spirit.16 The missions of Christ and of the Holy Spirit

are not as sharply contrasted as the terms of his ecclesiological dialectic. The reason for this is

Congar’s conviction that the roles of Christ and the Spirit can ultimately be explained only by

reference to the relations between the persons of the Trinity. Yet, at that stage he did not explain

this relation between the missions and the divine processions. If he had explored the relation

between the eternal processions and the divine missions, based on the equality of divine

processions he might have emphasized the equality of the roles of Christ and of the Holy Spirit

in the Church. But due to the lack of an investigation of the relation between the divine

processions and the divine missions, Congar’s ecclesiological model at that stage remained

mainly Christological.

2. The Transition Period: Gradual Developments

Congar was progressively moving toward a more pneumatological model of the Church.

Elements that contributed to this change were his ecumenical encounters; the experience of war;

departure from the use of categories of causation, and the introduction of biblical images in his

description of the Church; consideration of the relation between the Church and the world, and

between the Church and the kingdom (the eschatological dimension); development of the

theology of laity; and the need for a more explicit pneumatology. This transition took place

slowly; there were no sudden breakthroughs in his theological thought. In the field of theology,

a book like Vraie et fausse réforme, for example, was a ground-breaking contribution, but in


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Congar’s theological thought represents only a consequence of his Chrétiens désunis since in

both books his vision of the Church is the same, namely sacramental.

Congar’s vision was developing, nonetheless, but the long process can hardly be fully

presented. Instead, one example of this progress will be offered here. In Chrétiens désunis

(1937) catholicity was presented as the capacity of the Church to assimilate human diversity,

while in Vraie et fausse réforme (published in 1950) as a capacity to follow the diversity. In the

former book the Church enriches the world, while in the latter the Church receives from the

world the concrete historical forms in which the people of God live and also “positive values,

more or less pure.” The reforms and also catholicity are driven by a “law of internal maturation

and a transcendent impulse of the Holy Spirit.”17 In L’Église catholique devant la question

raciale (The Catholic Church and the Race Question) (1953), Congar understands diversity not

only as a positive value but as a “providentially intended value.”18 Furthermore, diversity is

constitutive of the Church and has a “sanctified meaning.”19 It has been shown that these

gradual developments in his understanding of catholicity are connected with an increasing

affirmation of the role of the Spirit in bringing about diversity and pluralism between 1952 and

1962.20 Finally, ecclesial diversity is based on trinitarian diversity, not only on Christ and human

diversity. More examples of this transition from the mainly Christological model to the

17 See above, Chapter IV, pp. 169-73, especially pp. 172-73.

18 Congar, The Catholic Church and the Race Question, The Race Question and Modern Thought, (Paris:

UNESCO, 1953), 15. Originally published as L’Église catholique devant la question raciale (Paris: UNESCO,

1953). See above., Chapter IV, p. 174.

19 Congar, The Catholic Church and the Race Question, 58. See above, Chapter IV, p. 176.

20 See above, Chapter IV, pp. 176-78, especially p. 178.

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pneumatological and trinitarian model can be found in the chapters three,21 five22 and six23,

presented from the point of view of apostolicity and holiness, based on works dated from 1951 to

1958.

3. Late Writings. The Church is Communion: a Christological and Pneumatological

Model

A preliminary remark should be made. In his early writings, Congar’s methodology was

to start from the Church and later to describe the role of Christ and the Spirit. Also, in his early

writings there was basically a single model, i.e., the body of Christ, regardless of the angle by

which he described the Church (unity, catholicity, apostolicity, and holiness). That consistency

is understandable since the model was mainly sacramental. In his late writings, especially in Je

crois en L’Esprit Saint ¸ Congar seems to have changed his method. He starts by describing how

Christ and particularly the Spirit work in the Church. Also he uses different descriptions of the

Church, as will be shown below. While he did not abandon the sacramental model, he was not

as interested in showing the visibility of the Church and the necessity of the means of grace as he

had been before.

Methodologically, for the sake of consistency with the method used to present the

previous Christological model of the Church, the following exposition will keep the same

format: definition of each note; the ecclesiological model; and the role of Christ and the Spirit.

21 See above, Chapter III, pp. 113-19, especially pp. 118-19.

22 See above, Chapter V, pp. 244-72, especially pp. 271-72.

23 See above, Chapter VI, pp. 324-29, especially pp. 328-29.

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There is no need to present the sources of each property of the Church (from God – from people)

because Congar used them only to describe the sacramental model (from above – from below),

but not the pneumatological model of the Church. The only difference (between the

Christological and pneumatological model) worth mentioning is the fact that he based the

catholicity of the Church on the plurality of persons in the Trinity—in addition to the catholicity

of Christ and the plurality of the people.24 The new emphases in his later writings will be

described below. Congar’s presentation is more complex than can be synthesized here, but the

following format is helpful in order to summarize his material.

A description of each property of the Church in the new model can be found in each

chapter of this dissertation. Unity was defined as communion with God, Christ, and one another,

brought about by the Holy Spirit.25 Catholicity was presented as a differentiated unity (in human

space and throughout history) animated by the Holy Spirit.26 Apostolicity was described as a

ministry in service of communion between the Alpha and the Omega.27 Holiness was presented

as gift and task and also as the indissolubility of the union between God and his Church.28

Several models or images of the Church were used by Congar, as explained above. From

the point of view of unity, in Je crois en L’Esprit Saint, the Church is described as a communion

of God with his people. From the point of view of catholicity, the Church is a universal

24 See above, Chapter IV, pp. 181-82 and 186 ff.

25 See above., Chapter III, pp. 121-33.

26 See above., Chapter IV, pp. 191-94.


28 See above., Chapter VI, pp. 344-45 and 349-51.

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community that keeps her identity in time (from Christ to the end of time) and worldwide, while

the Spirit stimulates diversity. From the point of view of apostolicity, the Church is a

community of believers and ministers who, together, keep the teaching (the doctrine) of the

apostles. Ministry, which derives from the apostles, finds its theological place within the

community. From the point of view of holiness, the Church is the bride of Christ and the temple

of the Holy Spirit.

Congar gives special attention to the roles of Christ and, at greater length, of the Holy

Spirit. The important advance compared to his earlier position consists in the fact that he assigns

to the Holy Spirit the role of co-instituting principle of the Church, together with Christ. “[T]he

Spirit did not come simply in order to animate an institution that was already fully determined in

all its structures, but […] he is really the ‘co-instituting’ principle.”29 The Church is the result of

the two divine missions; ecclesiology thus reaches a balance between Christology and

pneumatology. As was explained at the beginning of the conclusion, the order of his treatment

on the Spirit in Je crois en L’Esprit Saint shows that the Spirit makes the Church one, catholic,

apostolic, and holy only because he is her co-instituting principle. More specifically, the Spirit

makes the Church one by making her the body of Christ. However, this is not the same

Christological approach as in his early works, since the Spirit’s role is not to animate a structure

instituted already by Christ. The Spirit contributes to the foundation of the Church from the

beginning together with Christ. By saying that the Spirit makes the Church the body of Christ,

Congar affirms that the goal and content of the Spirit’s action is Christological and trinitarian: to


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unite people with Christ and with the Father. But the Spirit is the subject or the principle of that

communion between Trinity, Christ and his Church. Thus, ecclesiology is both Christological

and pneumatological. For the same reason, Congar still uses the comparison between the role of

the Spirit in the Church and the function of the soul in relation to the human body, even if the

Spirit does not form a substantial unity with the Church.

There is, however, a difference in Je crois en L’Esprit Saint from the previous writings.

In his early works, the Spirit’s role was to animate a structure founded by Christ, therefore

somehow subordinated to Christ’s work. In Je crois en L’Esprit Saint Congar’s use of the image

of the soul describes the relation of the Spirit with the Church without subordinating it to Christ’s

work: the Spirit dwells in the Church. By this Congar means that the Spirit is the transcendent

principle of unity and at the same time present in all believers through mediated realities. In this

way, the Spirit brings about the Church’s unity. To summarize Congar’s thought in the later

period, the Church is one because Christ, in his glorified humanity and as the Head of the body,

acts in a manner that is strictly his own and makes the Church his body. At the same time the

Spirit is the soul that brings about unity—a role that Congar assigns to the Spirit by

appropriation.

The Spirit makes the Church catholic basically in two ways. First, he makes her catholic

by keeping her one while she is present in a diversity of places, cultures and languages. The

Spirit’s role is to integrate the personal gifts or charisms (which have a particular character) for

the benefit of the whole community (the universal dimension of the Church). The Spirit also

keeps the local churches in communion with the universal Church. Maintaining unity while

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stimulating diversity is the role of the Spirit. Secondly, the Spirit makes the Church catholic in

time, by assuring identity or continuity with the apostolic faith, by his assistance to the Church to

interpret genuinely the word of God, and also by moving the Church forward through new events

in history (the “signs of the times”) toward eschatological fulfilment. In short, the Spirit’s role is

to make present the mystery of Christ in all times and places. Thus, catholicity is the fruit of

both Christ and the Spirit. Finally, because the Spirit’s hypostatic mark is to express the love of

God outside the relation of the persons of the Trinity, Congar assigns to the Spirit, by

appropriation, the mission to stimulate diversity and pluralism in the Church.

The Spirit makes the Church apostolic by preserving the unity of the faith of the apostles

from the beginning of the Church to the end of time. That unity is also preserved by a

continuation of the ministries of ordained priests and of the lay people, who together, in different

and complementary ways, build the Church. Thus, the whole Church is apostolic, and “apostolic

succession” (the succession of the ordained ministry through imposition of hands) finds its place

only within the community. The newness of this approach consists in the fact that both Christ

and the Spirit institute and work together in the structure (the ordained ministry) and the life of

the Church (the charisms). Congar also acknowledges explicitly that the life of the Church is

structuring (structurante) of the Church together with the hierarchy, even though “they are not

on the same level”30 and that the hierarchy’s proper theological place is within the community

and at its service. In short, the Holy Spirit makes the Church apostolic because he is the

principle of the continuity of the apostolic faith and ministry (the Alpha of Christ) and directs the

30 Congar, True and False Reform, 261. For the life that is structural of the Church, see above, Chapter V,

pp. 230-31 and 237-40.

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Church toward the Omega which is in conformity with the Alpha. Thus, Congar’s ecclesiology

is a function of Christology and also of pneumatology. Finally, Congar states that, in making

the Church apostolic, the Holy Spirit brings communion not only with the apostles but also with

the Son and with the Father. In accomplishing this mission, the Spirit manifests something of his

hypostatic mark, as a gift. Being the eternal love common to the Father and the Son, he

manifests freely in the Church something of that love which is gift. “The Spirit is therefore the

ultimate principle, that is, the supreme and fulfilling principle of the identity of the supernatural

and saving work of God.”31

The Holy Spirit makes the Church holy by making her a holy temple and bride. The

image of the temple is connected with the theme of inhabitation or dwelling. The Spirit, who

does not become one being with the Church, communicates faith and charity to the Church.

Faith and charity become in the Church the principles of her sanctity. Due to his presence and to

his communication of faith, the Church can always be assured of her holiness since God’s

promises made to the whole Church never fail. The image of the bride is connected with the

theme of election and purification. Through the incarnation and the paschal mystery, and

through the gift of the Spirit the Church becomes the bride of Christ, the new Eve. The Spirit

active in the sacraments of the Church and especially in the Eucharist makes the Church the

bride of Christ and sanctifies her, even though the fullness of holiness will only be achieved

eschatologically. The content of the work of the Spirit in sanctifying the Church is

31 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, 41. See above, Chapter III, pp. 153-54.

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Christological, and reflects Congar’s second pneumatological principle that there is no

Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology.

In conclusion, looking at the whole sweep of Congar’s works, the relation between

ecclesiology and pneumatology in them can be described for the sake of synthesis, with all its

limitations, in the following way. From an ecclesiological point of view, Congar used basically

two models of the Church: society-body of Christ (or structure and life) and communion, bride,

temple. The early model was mainly Christological, while the role of the Holy Spirit was to

animate the body of Christ (the institution) founded by Christ. The later model was

pneumatological and trinitarian, the role of the Spirit being described as the co-instituting

principle of the Church while the content of his mission was Christological. The turning point is

generally considered to be the year 1959, when Pope John XXIII announced the convocation of

an ecumenical council. However, the transition was not abrupt and it was marked by factors

previously mentioned. From a pneumatological point of view, that transition coincides with

Congar’s affirmation of the autonomy of the Spirit in regard to the Church in “The Holy Spirit

and the Apostolic College” in 1953.32 The important characteristics of these two models are

showed below in two charts. The charts are helpful in showing the differences between the

models. As explained above, the second chart follows the same format for the sake of

comparison, but in his pneumatological writings Congar usually begins by showing the role of

the Spirit.

32 See above, Introduction, pp. 17-19, Chapter II, pp. 92, and Chapter VI, p. 356.

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Close attention should be given to the continuity of Congar’s theological thought. The

Church he envisioned in 1937 was an extension of the life of the Trinity to people. Besides the

trinitarian content of his ecclesiology, a study of the development of Congar’s thought needs to

take into consideration all the elements of his theology. Otherwise, without context, one risks

interpreting in a limited way the roles of Christ and especially of the Spirit with regard to the

Church’s structure and life, for instance, saying that the Spirit’s mission is reduced to the

animation of the life of the Church. In other words, one could miss the pneumatological

elements already present in the first model. Even his early ecclesiology presupposed

pneumatology, although the references were not fully developed. Richard P. McBrien, former

Professor of Theology at The University of Notre Dame, Indiana, recognizes the importance of

the pneumatological dimension in Congar’s ecclesiology, but he questions the opportuneness of

a separate discipline of pneumatology in theology. “In the end, it is not what Yves Congar wrote

about the Holy Spirit that will endure for decades and even centuries to come, but what he wrote

about the Church. If, indeed, he had wished to do a synthesis of his thought in the twilight of his

long and illustrious ministry and career as a theologian, it would have been far more useful if it

were in the form of a three-volume work entitled, I Believe in the Church.”33 This is McBrien’s

chief criticism of I Believe in the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note that McBrien finds

Congar’s pneumatology “in stark contrast” with Roman Catholic pneumatology prior to Vatican

II, but he considers it “less extraordinary, even conventional” in comparison with the present

33 Richard P. McBrien, “The Role of Pneumatology in Yves Congar’s Theology,” in Gabriel Flynn, Yves

Congar: Theologian of the Church (Louvain: Peeters Press; Dudley, MA, 2005), at 327.

382

state of Catholic pneumatology.34 The implication is that McBrien would like to see a more

“extraordinary” or a less “conventional” pneumatology (whatever that might mean) from

Congar. Yet, at the same time, Mc Brien advocates for a subordination of pneumatology to

ecclesiology.

The present dissertation claims that for Congar ecclesiology is a function of

pneumatology and not vice-versa. This dissertation reaches the conclusion that ecclesiology and

pneumatology influenced each other mutually and cannot be understood separately in Congar’s

theological thought. Pneumatology is an important dimension of Congar’s theology, even

though is not the leading theme that structured his entire thought; and ecclesiology is a function

of pneumatology, not the other way around. (See tables 1 and 2 on following pages.)

34 Ibid., 326. McBrien offers five further critiques of I Believe: 1. A too brief summary of the

pneumatology of Vatican II (Ibid., 308) which could be explained, in McBrien’s view, by the fact that Congar “did

not develop [his] theology as comprehensively or as systematically as he might have done. […] Congar was not a

systematic theologian in the traditional sense of the term, but he was a sourcier, someone who could point others

towards a well of living water.” (Ibid., 301, n.12. Here McBrien refers to Elizabeth Groppe, Yves Congar’s

Theology of the Holy Spirit, 10, who in turn refers to Hérve Legrand, in Étienne Fouilloux, “Frère Yves, Cardinal

Congar, Dominicain: Itinéraire d’un théologien,” Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 79, 1995: 379-

404, at 381); 2. Congar’s failure to make it clear that the Church itself can be called sinful (Ibid., 317); 3. Congar’s

exaggeration of the importance of the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church (Ibid., 318); 4. Congar’s

discussion on the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit “has once again an unfortunately homiletical tone to it,

reinforcing the sense that [I Believe] is, in the final analysis, a highly uneven piece of work” (Ibid., 318); 5. In his

treatment on the femininity of the Holy Spirit, Congar still uses the male pronoun for the Spirit, “he” (Ibid., 319-20).

For a feminist critique of Congar’s view, McBrien refers to Sarah Coakley, “Femininity and the Holy Spirit?,”

Mirror to the Church: Reflections on Sexism, ed. Monica Furlong, London: SPCK, 1988, 124-135).

383

Table 1. Early, mainly Christological model of the Church: The Spirit is the soul of the Church

(animates her)

Unity Catholicity Apostolicity Holiness

Definition Oneness of God

communicated to

people

Qualitative

universality

through which

humanity is

assimilated to God

Continuity and

growth between

the Alpha and the

Omega of Christ

-Property given in

the formal

principles

-Gift and task

Model

of the

Church

- A society in which the life of the Trinity is communicated to people and the body

of Christ;

- The body of Christ

Sources of

each note

from above

from below

-Unity of triune

God (perichoresis)

-Organization of

the society

-Catholicity of the

Head and of the

formal principles

-human diversity

-Jesus Christ =

efficient cause and

Holy

Spirit=efficient

cause

-apostles=efficient

cause

-Christ as the

Head and the

Spirit as the soul

of the Church

-formal principles

and theological

virtues

Christ’s

role

Gives unity

through the

incarnation

(institutes the

structure of the

Church)

Through the

incarnation unites

himself with all

peoples

Founds the Church

as the Alpha

moment

Makes the Church

his body

Holy

Spirit’s role

As soul, animates

the Body internally

and externally

through mediated

grace

Communicates to

the Church the

universal capacity

to assimilate

diversities

Acts internally to

keep the unity of

Alpha and gives

growth toward the

Omega through

charisms and new

events

Dwells in the

Church and

communicates the

formal principles

through which she

is sanctified.

384

Table 2. Later, Christological and pneumatological model of the Church: The Spirit is the Co-

instituting Principle of the Church

Unity Catholicity Apostolicity Holiness

Definition Communion

with God,

Christ and one

another

brought about

by the Holy

Spirit

Differentiated unity

(in human space and

throughout history)

animated by the

Holy Spirit

A ministry (of laity

and ordained

ministers) in service

of communion

between the Alpha

and Omega

-Gift and task

-A property based

on the

indissolubility of

the union

between God and

his Church

Model

of the

Church

Communion of

God with his

people

Universal

community that

keeps its identity in

time (from Christ to

the end of time) and

worldwide while the

Spirit stimulates

diversity

Community of

believers and

ministers who keep

the same doctrine

and ministries of the

apostles

-Temple

-Bride of Christ

Christ’s

role

Gives unity as

the Head of the

Church in his

glorified

humanity

Institutes the Church

as universal through

his word, sacraments

and apostolic

mission

-Institutes the Church

at the Alpha moment

through word,

sacraments and the

Twelve Apostles

-Through the

incarnation and

his paschal

mystery makes

the Church his

bride.

Holy

Spirit’s

role

Contributes to

the foundation

of the Church

and continues

to build her by

making her the

body of Christ

-Keeps communion

with the whole

“catholica”

-Brings about

differences

-Institutes with Christ

the structure

(ordained ministry)

and the life of the

Church (charisms).

-Dwells in the

Church, vivifies

and purifies the

Church;

-Through

sacraments and

charity he makes

the Church the

bride of Christ.

New

Emphases

Unity

perceived as a

unity of many

-Diversity and

pluralism (of persons

and communities)

-New forms in the

life (not structure) of

the Church

Ministries of the lay

people; charisms;

theology of the local

Churches

-Theology of

promise of God;

-Church as a

pilgrim.

385

B. The Consistency of Congar’s Later Ecclesiology with His Pneumatological

Principles as Described in Chapter One

The first volume of Congar’s pneumatological trilogy Je crois en L’Esprit Saint is

dedicated to the examination of the Spirit in the economy of salvation. The first part presents the

economy according to Scripture, while the second part presents a reflection on the Spirit’s

mission and person in the history of the Church. If a single conclusion were to be drawn from

that exposition it could be summarized in what this dissertation called the first pneumatological

principle: the Holy Spirit, according to the Old and New Testament, is not revealed in himself.

His personal mystery, even a clear understanding of his name, escapes definition. Reflection on

the person of the Spirit began only with the early Fathers of the Church. Congar’s presentation

of pneumatology follows this principle: he starts with the economy and presents a theology of

the third person. His ecclesiology in Je crois en L’Esprit Saint is also an application of this first

principle: when Congar describes the Church as a temple and the role of the Spirit as indwelling

that temple, he stresses the fact that the Spirit remains transcendent even though he dwells and

sanctifies the Church through faith fashioned by charity. This is also true with respect to his role

in bringing about unity, catholicity and apostolicity: the Spirit remains transcendent while

building (co-instituting) the Church through created realities.

The second pneumatological principle, “there is no Christology without pneumatology

and no pneumatology without Christology,” was defined by Congar himself, and he considered it

386

to be the fundamental key for understanding his pneumatology.35 The importance of this

principle consists in the fact that Christ and the Spirit not only work together, but their missions

are related to each other. This mutual dependence of the missions can be observed in the life and

mystery of Christ and also in the life and mystery of the Church. On the one hand, the Spirit

anoints Christ as Messiah and glorifies Jesus through his resurrection; on the other hand, Christ

sends the Spirit and the work of the Spirit leads to Christ.36 The mutual relation between Christ

and the Spirit was shown also clearly in the presentation of their roles in making the Church one,

catholic, apostolic, and holy. In short, in Congar’s later writings, Christ in his glorified humanity

is the instituting principle of the Church understood as communion (or differentiated unity, or

bride and temple), while the Spirit is the co-instituting principle of the Church by communicating

to her the mystery of Christ and thus making her one, catholic, apostolic, and holy. Both Christ

and the Spirit act in different ways in the foundation of the Church and also in the time between

Christ’s first and second comings. Both Christ and the Spirit act in the visible and invisible

aspects of the Church, in the structure and life, in clergy and laity. It is important to notice that a

complete vision of the Church is not unilaterally pneumatological, but is Christological and

pneumatological at the same time; it is ultimately trinitarian. This assertion safeguards the

balance of a sound ecclesiology: the Church is not only the Church of Christ described by the

“hierarchology” against which Congar started his ecclesiological project, nor is she a purely

35 See above, Chapter I, p. 39; Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 1.

36 See above, Chapter I, pp. 39-49, for the pneumatological Christology, and pp. 49-55, for the

Christological pneumatology.

387

pneumatic Church, but she is the fruit of the missions of Christ and the Spirit, missions that are

related and dependent on each other.

The third pneumatological principle is relevant for Congar’s trinitarian ecclesiology.

This principle and its application in the life of the Church were presented in chapter one.37 Only

what is strictly necessary will be recapitulated, followed by an assessment of the consistency of

that application. Congar agrees with the fundamental trinitarian axiom “the immanent Trinity is

the economic Trinity.” For him there is a correspondence or an ontological continuity between

the missions of the Word and the Spirit and their immanent processions. Regarding the

reciprocity of the axiom, Congar fundamentally agrees with it but wishes to add two nuances:

first, while the eternal processions belong to the necessary mystery of God, the economic

missions take place according to the free will of God; and, secondly, the communication of God

outside himself takes place in a condition of kenosis, so that the economic relationships reveal

truly but not fully the immanent relationships.

Congar then applies this axiom to the relation between the mission of the Holy Spirit and

his eternal procession. In the first step, he tries to find the hypostatic mark of the Holy Spirit. In

a theological meditation on the third person, he looks in the Scriptures and observes that the

word that describes the Spirit most aptly is Gift (dorea).38 He also notices that, according to

Scripture, God’s revelation to the world is completed in the Spirit. The Church Fathers

interpreted this economic order saying that it reflects the immanent order of the Trinity, therefore

37 See above., Chapter I, pp. 55-68.


388

the Spirit is the completion of the Trinity. The Greek Fathers followed a linear pattern: from the

Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. In the West, starting with Augustine, the completion of the

Trinity in the Spirit is described and developed in the theme of a link or bond of unity: the Spirit

is the one in whom the Father and the Son open to and receive each other. The Spirit is,

therefore, the term of the unity between the Father and the Son and the ecstatic gift of God’s love

(a gift that points to differentiation and openness). It is in this way that Congar describes the

hypostatic mark of the Holy Spirit.39

In the second step, Congar looks at the economy of salvation. Applying the fundamental

axiom, he states that the Son becomes incarnate and the Spirit who is the term or the bond of

unity between the Father and the Son becomes the principle of the unity between God and

creation. He is careful to say that the missions take place according to the free will of God—

“suitable but not necessary” (being thus consistent with the first point of his critique of the

fundamental axiom.)40

Congar then applies this principle to the Church and claims that the Holy Spirit who is

the term of unity between the Father and the Son, the ecstatic gift of God, is, in the Church, by

appropriation, the principle of the Church’s unity, catholicity, apostolicity and holiness. In other

words, the Spirit’s action in the Church carries his hypostatic mark. In this way, there is a

correspondence between the eternal procession of the Spirit and his mission in the Church.

Congar’s ecclesiology is consistent with the first part of the fundamental axiom. Secondly,

39 See above, Chapter I, pp. 66-67.

40 See above, Chapter I, p. 67-68.

389

regarding the reciprocity of the axiom, Congar uses the theological category of appropriation.

Appropriation is a method by which an action performed by God is attributed to a divine person

for the reason of a certain similarity of that action with the hypostatic mark of that person,

without excluding the participation of the other two divine persons in that act. Appropriation

cannot clearly and fully clarify the mystery of the person to which the appropriation is made. By

assigning the role of the Spirit as the principle of the Church’s properties only through

appropriation Congar safeguards the reciprocity of the fundamental axiom as he understands it.

The Spirit makes the Church one, catholic, apostolic, and holy, but that does not reveal the entire

mystery of the Spirit. His mission takes place in a form of kenosis. At the same time, using the

theology of appropriation, Congar does not say that the Spirit has a proper (non-appropriated)

activity—for this reason he says that the Spirit dwells in but is not incarnate in the Church. He

only says that his mission in the Church bears something of his hypostatic mark, which he

describes as ecstatic Gift.

To summarize, Congar’s ecclesiology is consistent with his pneumatological principles.

First, the Holy Spirit is known through his work in the Church; we believe in the Spirit who

makes the Church one, catholic, apostolic, and holy. Second, Christ is the instituting principle

and the Spirit the co-instituting principle of the Church. Christ and the Spirit work together and

in mutual dependency of each other in making the Church one, catholic, apostolic, and holy.

Third, the Church is the fruit of the two divine missions that are extensions of the divine

processions.

390

C. New Paths for the Future

Congar’s comprehension of the Church as the fruit of the divine missions contributes to

an understanding of the Church as an organic communion, in which all the dimensions of the

Church depend on each other. This vision could constitute the basis for further theological

discussion. In 2013, the World Council of Churches published The Church: Towards a Common

Vision, a document written from a perspective of “convergence.”41 Chapter two of this

document is dedicated to “the Church of the triune God” and numbers 22-24 speak of the Church

as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Presently, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian

Unity is preparing a Catholic response to the document. There is a growing understanding

among Christian communities engaged in ecumenical dialogue that the visible unity of the

Church cannot be reached without a common understanding of the mystery of the Church.

Congar’s vision of the Church can contribute to this common understanding of the Church.

Congar’s pneumatology also can be valuable in the ecumenical dialogue between

Catholic and Orthodox. John Zizioulas is known to be sympathetic toward Congar’s concern

regarding the formulation of the reciprocity of the fundamental axiom of trinitarian theology.42

By stating that not all the data of the economy can be transposed back into eternity, Congar

opens a way for dialogue with the Orthodox theologians for whom the mission of the Spirit in

the Church does not say anything about a relation of causality between the eternal begetting of

41 The Word Council of Churches, The Church: Towards a Common Vision. Faith and Order Paper 214,

(Geneva: WCC Publications, 2013).

42 John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, ed. Paul

McPartlan (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 201. See above, Chapter I, pp. 62-63.

391

the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit. The ecumenical dialogue between Orthodox and

Catholics can benefit from a further common study of the relationship between the economic

Trinity and immanent Trinity. The Church’s unity and the search for truth were, after all, two of

the greatest passions of Congar.

Yves Congar is well known for his very significant contributions to ecumenism, to the

renewal and reform of the Church, the theology of lay people, and to other topics. But even if

Congar wrote extensively on each of these major ecclesiological themes, his goal was to present

a vision of the whole mystery of the Church. In other words, for Congar it was more important

to understand what or who the Church is as a whole, rather than any particular aspect of the

Church. To respond to an ecclesiology which he regarded as “hierarchology” (whose limits

consisted in a presentation of an almost external transmission of juridical power and in equating

the whole Church with the hierarchy), Congar understood that it was not sufficient to add new

chapters on laity or communion to those already in existence on hierarchy; a whole new vision of

the Church was needed: the Church is a communion with the Trinity. In pursuing this

ecclesiological project, using the method of ressourcement, Congar realized that pneumatology

was essential.

Thus, for Congar, pneumatology was not simply an added chapter in ecclesiology, but

rather ecclesiology and pneumatology influenced each other. More precisely, to an early

ecclesiological model in which the Church was presented as a divine-human society or the body

of Christ, corresponded a specific role of the Holy Spirit understood as the soul or the animator

of the Church. But, as was shown, there was a turning point in Congar’s theological thinking in

392

which pneumatology became increasingly significant and determined his ecclesiology, beginning

with the 1950s, although the seeds of this development may have been present even earlier in

Congar’s thought. Progressively, the Church was presented as communion and the Holy Spirit

as the co-instituting principle of that communion together with Christ. This study has shown the

unity and the progress of Congar’s thinking regarding the relationship between ecclesiology and

pneumatology: from an early mainly Christological model of the Church to a later

pneumatological and trinitarian vision of the Church. Congar’s late desire to become an Aeolian

harp through which the breath of God may vibrate and sing came true.43

43 Congar, General Introduction to I Believe, x.

393

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