On December 6, 1944, by the will of Pius XII, Roncalli, who represented the Holy See in Bulgaria (1925), Turkey and Greece (1931), received a telegram appointing him nuncio in Paris. It was not a promotion, but to put out a fire. At the end of the Second World War, the new head of the French Republic, General De Gaulle, a Catholic, asked for a change of Nuncio Valeri, who was too attached to Pétain's regime. And he urged that it be before Christmas, when the diplomatic corps was traditionally received and the nuncio acted as dean. In addition, the French government demanded the renewal of 30 bishops of France for the same reason.
Angelo Roncalli was then 63 years old. He would spend nine years in Paris until he was elected Patriarch of Venice (1953) and then Pope (1958), under the name of John XXIII.
Fruitful and complex years
Those post-war years in France were, from the Christian point of view, extraordinarily rich. A magnificent flowering of Christian intellectuals and theologians emerged, as well as apostolic initiatives, which renewed the panorama of French Catholicism. It had already begun after the First World War.
This, between great cultural and political tensions. On the one hand, the one maintained by the broad sector of traditional Catholics, refractory to the Republic, proud of France's Catholic past and wounded by the secularist republican arbitrariness that had already lasted 150 years. And on the other hand, the temptation that communism posed for Catholicism with social sensitivity and the young clergy, since it sought to incorporate them into its political project.
In this context, everything was easily confused and politicized and unexpected tensions arose. The Holy See - the Holy Office - received hundreds of complaints from France in those years, and a climate of suspicion was created in the face of the so-called "Nouvelle Théologie" which hindered proper discernment and greatly complicated the lives of some great theologians such as De Lubac and Congar. In 1950, De Lubac was separated from Fourvière.
Genesis of True and false Reformation
On August 17, 1950, Father General of the Dominicans, Manuel Suarez, on a visit to Paris, met with Yves Marie Congar (1904-1995) to talk about the reissue of Disunited Christians (1937), the pioneering essay Congar had written on Catholic ecumenism. At that time the subject was in its infancy, and would only mature with the will of the Second Vatican Council, becoming a mission of the Church. But at the time it aroused historical misgivings. Moreover, the Holy See wanted to prevent ecumenical relations from getting out of hand. The Ecumenical Council of Churches had just been created.
Congar carefully recorded the conversation in a memo (published in Diary of a theologian): "I tell him that I am correcting the proofs of a book entitled. True and false Reformation... [Father General's somewhat frightened look]; that this book will undoubtedly bring me difficulties, the weight of which poor Father General will still have to bear. [But what can I do? I cannot help thinking and saying what seems to me to be true. To be prudent? I am doing my best to be prudent..
Reading the book today, after the post-conciliar ups and downs, one has the feeling that it could have served as a guide to the changes. But when it was published, things sounded different. From the outset, the very use of the word "reform," at least in Italy, seemed to give reason to the Protestant schism. Although the book received some laudatory reviews (including in L' Osservatore Romano), suspicions were also raised, which had more to do with the context than with the book itself. Congar tells the anecdote of a lady who went to buy one of his books and the bookseller asked her: "Are you also a communist?
Complications of the moment
Father General of the Dominicans, Manuel Suarez, was a prudent man in a difficult situation. Everything was complicated by the question of worker priests, in which several French Dominicans were involved (but not Congar). It was an audacious and interesting evangelization project and perhaps in another context, with greater pastoral attention from those involved, it could have come to fruition serenely. But with the two tensions mentioned above, it was unfeasible. On the one hand, criticisms and denunciations multiplied; on the other, an opportunity for communist recruitment was seen.
Everything was precipitated by some defections. And this provoked an intervention in the Dominicans in France in 1954, but through Father General himself. Among other things, Congar was asked to stop teaching (but not writing). The second edition of True and false reform and its translations (but the Spanish version came out in 1953). There was no further sanction and nothing was placed on the Index, as had been feared. But for many years he could not return to regular teaching.
And Nuncio Roncalli? He remains to be studied. He was certainly a man faithful to the Holy See, who acted sensibly and with great humanity. He was bypassed both by the denunciations that went directly to Rome (also from the bishops) and by the measures that were taken through the general superiors. However, when, as Pope, he convoked the Council, both De Lubac and Congar were called to the preparatory commission. And they would play a great role: De Lubac, more as inspirer, but Congar also as editor of many texts. Those were his themes! Church, ecumenism...
The intention of the book
The title is already a program True and false Reformation in the Church. It is not about the "Reformation of the Church", but about the "Reformation in the Church". And that is because the Church is not in the hands of men. The Reformation is made from its own nature, more by removing what hinders than by inventing. And it requires work to adapt the life and mission of the Church to the changes of the times. Not for the comfort of accommodation, but for the authenticity of the mission. For this reason, in reality "reforms prove to be both a constant phenomenon in the life of the Church and a critical moment for Catholic communion."notes in the 1950 foreword.
For this reason, in a time of effervescence such as the one we were living through, it seems important to study the phenomenon, in order to reform well, learning from historical experience and avoiding mistakes. He says lucidly in the same place: "The Church is not just a picture, an apparatus, an institution. It is a communion. There exists in it a unity which no secession can destroy, the unity which its constituent elements generate by themselves. But there is also the unity exercised or lived by men. This questions their attitude, is built up or destroyed by that attitude, and constitutes the communion.". In this there is an echo of Johann Adam Möhler, always admired by Congar (and edited).
The Preface of 1967, gives an account of the change of context since he wrote the book. On the one hand, the magnificent Ecclesiology of the Council, but also the relations with a world much more independent of the ecclesial. This is positive in one sense; but, on the other, "that which comes from the world runs the risk of being lived with an intensity, a presence, an evidence that surpasses the affirmations of faith and the commitments of the Church.". It demands a new evangelizing presence.
On the other hand, Congar warns (we are in 1967) that "It happens that some, imprudently, put everything in question without sufficient preparation [...]. In the present situation, we would not subscribe to the optimistic lines we devoted to the reformist thrust of the immediate postwar period. Not because we are pessimists, but because certain orientations, even certain situations, are really worrisome.". All in all, it seems to him that the book retains substantial validity.
The structure
This is how he describes the structure in the 1950 prologue: "Between an introduction which studies the fact of the reforms as they are presented today and a conclusion, two great parts, to which it has seemed advisable to add a third: 1. Why and in what sense is the Church constantly reforming? 2. Under what conditions can a reform be true and be carried out without rupture? Reformation and Protestantism".. He added this third part to better understand the Reformation and the rupture it entailed. It should have been a reform of life, but they wanted to reform the structure and that led to schism.
The introduction states the fact of the reformation in the history of the Church: "The Church has always lived by reforming itself [...] its history has always been marked by movements of reform. [Sometimes it is the religious orders that correct their own laxity [...] with such impetus that the whole of Christendom is moved (St. Benedict of Aniane, Cluny, St. Bernard). Sometimes it was the popes themselves who undertook a general reform of abuses or of a seriously deficient state of affairs (Gregory VII, Innocent III).". He then points out that the time in which the book is written is a time of ferment. And he deals at length with the "situation of criticism in the Catholic Church.". There is, in fact, a self-criticism to which attention must be paid in order to facilitate improvements.
The first part, the most extensive, is titled "Why and in what sense is the Church being reformed?". It is divided into three chapters and studies the combination of God's holiness and our weaknesses, of which the Church is composed. He does so by examining the theme in patristics, in scholasticism, in other theological contributions and in the Magisterium. He underlines the meaning of the mystery of the Church as a thing of God. And it determines what is and what is not fallible in the Church.
Conditions for reform without schism
This is the title of the second part, which contains the most substantial and lucid part of the book. He points out that in every movement there is room for authentic development or deviation, and that often the reaction to a unilateral error also provokes a unilateral accent. Then he studies what are the conditions of a true reform. And he points out four conditions.
The first is "the primacy of charity and pastoral care".. One cannot pretend to reform the Church with ideas or ideals alone, which can remain theoretical statements: one must stick to pastoral practice, which is what guarantees effectiveness. Heresies often treat the Church as an idea and mistreat reality by creating destructive tensions.
The second condition is "to remain in the communion of the whole". It is also the condition of being Catholic, united to the universal in the Church. Often the initiative comes from the periphery, but it must be integrated with the center, which exercises a regulatory role.
The third condition follows the previous one and is "patience, avoid rushing".. Unity and integration have their times, which must be respected, and haste causes ruptures. This patience, sometimes painful, is a test of authenticity and rectitude of intention. Congar experienced this in his own flesh, although he did not always manage to be so patient.
The fourth condition is that true renewal entails a return to principle and tradition, not the introduction of a novelty by virtue of a "mechanical adaptation". Congar distinguishes between what is an adaptation as a legitimate development that has to be done by connecting with the sources of the Church, and what would be an adaptation as the introduction of a novelty that is added as something postitious. This was also inspired by Newman, another of his great references.
Also on the Reform
As if it were an echo, the encyclical Ecclesiam suam (August 6, 1964) of Paul VI, in the context of the Council, still to be completed, speaks of the conditions for a true reform of the Church; and of the method, which must be dialogue. It is a question of "always restore to it its perfect form which, on the one hand, corresponds to the primitive plan and which, on the other hand, is recognized as coherent and approved in that necessary development which, like the tree of the seed, has given the Church, starting from that design, its legitimate historical and concrete form.". Benedict XVI will also refer to the necessary distinction between reform and rupture when interpreting the will of the Second Vatican Council and specifying the hermeneutic with which it should be read.
Bibliographic news
A thick biography of Congar has just been published by Étienne Fouillox, who also edited his Diary of a Theologian (1946-1956)He is a well-known historian of this very interesting period in France. You can also find online several studies by professors Ramiro Pellitero and Santiago Madrigal.
