Yves Congar (1904–1995)
Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat
Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1953
57:5.c.95.2, p.7

Image © Editions du Cerf. Reproduced with permission.

Yves Congar (1904–1995) was arguably the most important Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. He became a Dominican friar at Amiens in 1925, and completed his formal studies six years later with a thesis on Church unity. As early as 1937 Congar attempted to put the Catholic Church’s relations with other Christian denominations on a new footing: his Chrétiens désunis (translated into English two years later as Divided Christendom) established the theological grounds for ecumenism. He visited Germany to make contact with Lutherans, was hosted in England by the later archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, and forged links with the Orthodox Churches.

Two books published in the early 1950s would prove equally influential. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église appeared in 1950, and established the grounds for a renewal of the Church properly rooted in tradition. Three years later Congar published Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat, which was translated into English in 1957 as Lay People in the Church. The book re-asserted the distinctive role of the laity as members of the Church who shared in the priestly, royal, and prophetic office of Christ within the secular world. Though Congar’s views were deeply unpopular among powerful clerics at the time, they would win acceptance at the Second Vatican Council, where he was recognised as an expert theological advisor.