Yves Congar's True and False Reform: Understanding the Need for Authentic Church Reform

Today we will learn and reflect on the first section of Yves Congar’s book,
True and False Reform. When Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future
Pope John XXIII, reflected on this book, he asked, “A reform of the
church? Is such a thing really possible?” Yves Congar reflects, What is the
role of the church? Is the church the hierarchy in the Curia; or is the
church the parishioners in the pews? What are the sacraments? What is
the church’s definition of commonly misunderstood concepts, such as
infallibility?
This book, along with help by the Holy Spirit, encouraged the pope to call
for a church council, and helped set the tone for Vatican II. As Yves
Congar teaches us, spiritual reform cannot be a revolution, false reform
divides rather than unites.

We can use the
guidance in this book
when we seek to
reform our local
church, regardless of
your religious tradition.
Reform must always
begin in our heart, as
Jesus says in Matthew,
“You hypocrite, first
take the log out of your
own eye, and then you
will see clearly to take
the speck out of your
neighbor’s eye.”

Historically, this urge for reform in the Catholic Church
grew out of the experience of believers surviving the
hostile fascist regimes of World War II, so we will begin
with the wartime experiences of Yves Congar and a fellow
French priest also influential in Vatican II, Henri de Lubac.
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for
this video. Feel free to follow along in the PowerPoint
script we uploaded to SlideShare. Please, we welcome
interesting questions in the comments. Let us learn and
reflect together!

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Yves Congar, True and False Reform, & Pope John XXIII

When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, he asked the
Curia to form a Preparatory Commission to draft the initial decrees for
the council. This commission was dominated by conservative cardinals
who oversaw the repression of progressive ideas under Pope Pius XI and
Pope Pius XII, the wartime popes. The pope also selected Yves Congar
and another fellow French theologian, Henri de Lubac, to serve as
consultants to the commission, though they were unaware of this papal
intervention at the time. Their abilities were underutilized by the
Commission, but after the Council was convened, they would both be
influential in amending and rewriting the council decrees.

Council Fathers and secretaries leaving St. Peter's Basilica

Yves Congar was born in France in 1904. During World War I the
Germans occupied his town and deported his father to Lithuania
for the war. After the war, he entered the seminary, joined the
Dominican order and became a professor in ecclesiology, studied
the history of theology, and was active in the ecumenical
movement, all themes addressed in the Vatican II decrees. When
he was drafted in World War II he served briefly in the medical
corps, and like most French soldiers, spent the long war years in a
German POW camp. Other than his attempted escape attempts,
we know little about his wartime experiences, no doubt his
experiences with Protestants in the camp deepened his
ecumenical convictions.

After France was liberated, Congar returned to teaching,
supporting the ecumenical movement, and the worker-priest
movement, where priests were encouraged to share the humble
life of the workers they were ministering. These activities, and
particularly his publication of True and False Reform in 1950,
raised suspicion in the Curia in Rome. Pope Pius XII saw
academics as working for the church, to him professors should
teach and justify the Vatican’s theology, he was uncomfortable
with academic priests who insisted on the academic freedom to
inquire and question.

Aubusson tapestry depicting the liberation of Guéret on June 7, 1944

Yves Congar remembered that
“from the beginning of 1947
until the end of 1956,” there
was “an uninterrupted stream
of denunciations, warnings,
restrictive or discriminatory
measures and distrustful
interventions.” During this
time, he was exiled from
France, was forbidden to teach,
and his publications were
pulled from circulation.

The experience of his fellow Frenchman, Henri de Lubac, was similar. Soon after
joining the Jesuit order, he was drafted into the French Army in World War I, after
the war he became a professor, specializing in the study of the early Church Fathers.
His teaching was interrupted when, after the Nazis invaded France in World War II,
he was forced underground due to his activities with the French Resistance
opposing the occupying Nazi forces. He published an underground journal
demonstrating the incompatibility of Christian belief with the ideology of Nazism.
Like Congar, Lubac was also a prolific writer of progressive theology. Like Congar, he
was also exiled, forbidden to teach, and his publications withdrawn in 1950. Both
Congar and Lubac were rehabilitated shortly before the calling of the Council. They
would both make major contributions to many of the final decrees of the council. As
a final act of rehabilitation, both Congar and Lubac were appointed cardinals by
Pope John Paul II as gratitude for their services during and after Vatican II.

France, Western Front in World War I

Blitzkrieg, Invasion of France

French milice and résistants, July 1944
American officer and French partisan in a street fight

Second Vatican Council, and Pope John XXIII, who called the council.
Nature of Reforms of Vatican II

The reforms of Vatican II were ecclesiological and political, not
theological, in nature. What we mean by political, is these
reforms changed how the Catholic Church engages with the
modern world, a new world where democracy is not the enemy
of the church, where in the long run, democracy is the political
system under which the church can thrive, and the faithful are
encouraged to participate in democracy. The urgency for the
Vatican II reforms was a reaction to the feeling that many in the
church felt that the Catholic Church found itself on the wrong
side of history after the end of World War II.

Our channel prefers to quote extensively from the author
so you can have a better feel for what the original author
taught, as opposed to our opinion. This is especially true
for Yves Congar, he is so precise in his wording, and puts
such great thought into what he writes, that you will be
greatly rewarded if you patiently parse his reflections.
Regarding the question: How Can There Be True Reform?
Before we can answer this question, we must first clarify
what we mean by reform, and what exactly needs to be
reformed.

(REPEAT) Part One. Why and How Does the Church Reform Itself?
• Section 1. The Church’s Holiness and Our Failures: We must first understand the differences
between the ancient church and the modern church, and what the Catholic Church actually
believes then and now, and how we, as individual Christians, must Love God and love our
neighbor.
This section is also about definitions, because unless we agree on the definitions, we cannot
have intelligent discussions about these topics.
• Section 2. Why and In What Way Do the People of God Need To Be Reformed? Reformation
should always begin in our hearts; as faith, hope, and love must begin in our hearts.
• Section 3. Prophets and Reformers. Who are true reformers? Who are false prophets?
Part Two. Conditions for Authentic Reform Without Schism
Part Three: The Reformation and Protestantism: Withdrawn in Final Edition. How can you even
define Protestantism?
Conclusion: Perspectives on the Attitude to Take Toward Concrete Reform Initiatives

Part One. Why and How Does the
Church Reform Itself?
• Section 1. The Church’s Holiness and
Our Failures:
Differences between the ancient
and modern church.
What are the teachings of the
church?
• Section 2. Why and In What Way Do
the People of God Need To Be
Reformed? Reformation should
always begin in our hearts; as faith,
hope, and love must begin in our
hearts.
• Section 3. Prophets and Reformers.
Who are true reformers? Who are
false prophets?
Part Two. Conditions for Authentic
Reform Without Schism

Part 1.1 Church’s Holiness and Our Failures

In this section, Yves Congar is basically building a consensus of
understanding between him and the reader. We always assume that our
understanding of terms is universal, whereas every one of us defines
words describing moral and abstract religious concepts differently based
on our upbringing, our study, and our reflections, filtered through our
own unique personality.
Yves Congar begins with the beginning: how the early church Fathers in
the first few centuries viewed the church, how the ancient perspective
differs from the modern perspective, and how to address the problem
of evil in the church.

Yves Congar teaches us, “The patristic tradition had a very mystical
idea of the church is different from today.” Just as heaven descends
to the church on earth, so we of the church are enabled by Christ to
ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven. The church is a “mystery of
holiness, brought to life by the pneuma or Spirit of God. The
church,” according to ancient tradition, is “a visible body constituted
by sacraments celebrated by the hierarchical priesthood.”

(RPEAT) This means that sin, even personal sin, “separates us from God
and also from the church. Therefore, reconciliation had to be public.” In
the early church, you confessed your sins publicly, but as the church
matured this proved problematic, and private confession to a priest
became the tradition. “The problem of evil in the (early) church was
seen first of all as the problem of sin.”

This means that sin, even personal sin, “separates us from God and also
from the church. Therefore, reconciliation had to be public.” “The problem
of evil in the (early) church was seen first of all as the problem of sin.”

The ancient patristic church favored the objective over the subjective,
truth is absolute; whereas the for the modern secular world, truth is
relative, and it favors the subjective over the objective. Yves Congar
quotes a church Father, “It matters little by whom or how something
has been said; what counts, is to know if it is true or false.”

Yves Congar teaches us, “In ancient times the church impressed the faithful as the
most excellent of realities.” Here Yves Congar is precise, so I cannot simplify this:
“Under the regime of Christendom, which was a symbiosis of faith and the temporal
order under the guidance of the church, all real social good and human progress
harmonized perfectly with the church, existing only in and through the church. For
this reason, the question of evil in the church was seen then only from the viewpoint
and within the context of the church, so seen exclusively in terms of sin.”

Separation between church and state would have been
seen as absurd in the ancient world, it was not even
considered. The secular government either supported the
church, or it was its persecutor, though it could also ignore
the church when it was small.
Also, the Christian community was all-encompassing,
surrounding the believers, you were truly part of a family
of faith. Church was really part of your life; the church was
imperfect only to the degree that sinfulness crept into the
pews.

Yves Congar teaches that this leads to another difference, “in antiquity,
the world was stable, and the ideal was to continue a tradition.” “By
contrast, the modern world is marked by perpetual change, an evolution
of events that the world interprets as progress.”

Congar may not state this explicitly, but we know
that the early Christians had far greater respect for
the church and tradition, and the hierarchy of the
church, which includes, primarily our pastor or
priest. How quick we are to ignore moral advice that
hits to close to home, how quick we are to attack
these holy messengers!

Yves Congar also observes, “our contemporaries are more easily
scandalized by personal failings. A bad priest now discredits the
church much more than in ancient times.”

Today, people often drop out of the church because
of some fault of one priest. This may be due to the
lack of respect we have for the church; we look for
an excuse to leave the church.

St Augustine describes the
church as the Ecclesia mixta,
the church with mixed
element, “the church in its
earthly phase is a community
of sinners and not just of
saints. Sin can indeed
separate a person from
Christ, and also in some way
from the church. But sin does
not take away one’s
membership in the church.”
Four doctors of
the Church
represented
with attributes
of the Four
Evangelists: St.
Augustine with
an eagle, St.
Gregory the
Great with a
bull, St.
Hieronymus
with an angel,
St. Ambrosius
with a winged
lion, by Pier
Francesco
Sacchi, 1516
Exhortations from Holy Scripture

(REPEAT) What do the apostolic letters in the New Testament teach us about sin in
the community of the church?
• Yves Congar teaches us, with biblical references, that there are “numerous
allusions to personal sins along with exhortations to lead a pure life,” sometimes
you must exclude the unrepentant from your community, though IMHO this
practice, known as shunning, has been misused so often that it should be used
with extreme caution, if at all.
• There is a danger that “serious abuses can lead to the formation of cliques,
jealousies, and disputes.”
• “The gravest of sins is false teaching or false practices.” I will add that Vatican II
has added a qualifier to this teaching, that we should respect the religious
traditions of our neighbors, as the modern world has a greater degree of
religious diversity, both within and without the Christian faith community. Many
more of us personally know Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists than was true in prior
centuries.

What do the apostolic letters in the New Testament teach us
about sin in the community of the church?
• Yves Congar teaches us, with biblical references, that there
are “numerous allusions to personal sins along with
exhortations to lead a pure life.”
• There is a danger that “serious abuses can lead to the
formation of cliques, jealousies, and disputes.”
• “The gravest of sins is false teaching or false practices.”

Key Teachings of the Early Church Fathers
Altarpiece of the Church Fathers, St Jerome, St Augustine, St Gregory, St Ambrose, by Michael Pacher, 1400's

Yves Congar teaches us that “St Augustine is
attached to the idea that the church, like the
individual soul, is ugly and sinful in itself. When it
confesses its sins, it begins to become beautiful
through the action of Christ who is himself true
Beauty. The church finds the source of its beauty
in feeling and confessing its need to be purified.”
In other words, the striving for purification is
what truly purifies, motives matter.
St Augustine continues, as quoted by Congar,
“Each of the faithful and the church itself can say,
‘I am holy,’ because they receive their holiness
from their Head, of whose body they are
members. All their beauty and all their holiness
come to them through the grace of this Head.”
St Augustine of Hippo washes the feet of
Christ, Theodoor_Rombouts, painted 1636

https://youtu.be/NFQ3fGocis0
Yves Congar quoting Shepherd of Hermas, “The Spirit who lives within the faithful is
saddened by their sins, sins which can even bring about the losing the Spirit’s presence.
But the Spirit remains forever in the church, which remains forever because of this.”

Yves Congar quoting St Ambrose, Although
the church includes “sinners, it remains itself
holy and immaculate; the sin does not affect
the church in itself, but only in us. However,
because its members are sinners, the church
weeps tears of penitence. The church does
not claim to be without weaknesses, but it
confesses its wounds and desires to be
healed; the church says of itself, as did the
woman of the Gospel, ‘If I can only touch his
garment, I shall be healed.’” And St
Ambrose’s catechumen, St Augustine, echoes
his sentiment that “the church, like Peter, is
both strong and weak, following the Lord
during his passion but then denying him.” St Ambrose barring Theodosius from Milan
Cathedral, by by Anthony van Dyck, 1619

https://youtu.be/Thq1blvzWHs
Teachings of Magisterium and Theologians

Yves Congar teaches us that the Council of Trent was
intended to be a reforming council, but that intent was
muted when the Vatican was forced to close the archives
of the council, forcing theologians to only rely on the
condensed published decrees. Forced is a good word, the
Protestant polemicists would have combed over this
history and would have hammered the Catholic Church
with half-truths and distortions in the heated political
polemic climate of the time.

https://youtu.be/Thq1blvzWHs
We have reflected on the history of the Council of Trent using John O’Malley’s excellent studies as a
primary source, Yves Congar quotes Cardinal Pole addressing the Council of Trent, reminding them
of the verse in the Sermon on the Mount, that when “salt loses its savor, it is good for nothing than
to be trodden underfoot.” Cardinal Pole reminds them that if the church does not realize that if its
message is like this stale salt, “then it is vain for us to go into the Council, and vain to invoke the
Holy Spirit.” “The Holy Spirit will not enter us if we refuse to pay attention to our sins.”

Just as the decrees of Vatican II do not
abrogate the decrees of Trent, Vatican II
also does not seek to abrogate the
teachings of the Pius popes. Yves Congar
quotes Pope Pius XII, the wartime pope,
“We find in the church a need to
denounce human weakness. This comes
from the tendency toward evil from
which each of its members suffers, even
the highest. But the church itself is holy
in its sacraments, in its faith, in its laws,
and in the spiritual gifts by which it
ceaselessly engenders saints.”

We would posit that in a simple sense, we are the
church, so if we wish the church to reform itself, we
first need to reform ourselves, to be sure we truly
Love God and love our neighbor, because we are the
church. Does Yves Congar agree with our simplistic
formulation? We shall see.

Yves Congar teaches us, “The church is made up
of believers,” but also “it is from the church that
we receive our faith,” which means the church
is both here and now, and also preexisting and
eternal. Yves Congar teaches us that “by reason
of the incarnation, the church exists in Christ
before its foundation by Christ.” Before Christ,
the church existed in the community of Israel.
Yves Congar teaches us, “The church anticipates
itself as an institution” which precedes its
members as the bride of Christ.
Pentecost, by El Greco, 1600’s

This permits us to speak of the church in
multiple ways, Yves Congar provides four ways
of describing the church.
• “We can understand the church as the
elements of the institution itself” under
“the new covenant given by Christ to the
people of God,” “the saving grace acquired
in Christ,” “the deposit of faith, the
sacraments, and the apostolic powers of
priesthood, magisterium, and governance
derived from Christ’s own powers.”
• The people of God “adhering to faith to the
salvation flowing from Jesus Christ.”

Continuing, four ways of describing the church.
• “The people who make up the church don’t all
take the same part or play the same role. Yet
they are all the faithful and they have all
received faith, grace, and salvation.” This
definition of the church elevates the role of the
hierarchy of the church, but as Yves Congar
emphasizes, individual priests or bishops
cannot be identified as the church itself.
• The full meaning of the church is the body of
Christ that is both the preexisting institution
and the people of God, “the divine-human
reality born of this union.” This full mean
subsumes the other meanings of the church,
much as Christ is both human and divine.

First Vatican Council, contemporary painting, circa 1870
Infallibility of the Church and the Pope

There is a misconception among some Protestants and
Catholics alike that the Catholic Church has declared that
since the Pope is infallible, he can never commit any
errors. This misconception comes from paring together the
words “pope” and “infallible,” whereas the exact opposite
is true, that nearly everything any Pope in the past has said
or done is indeed fallible, and EVERYTHING the popes
since the Second Vatican Council have said or done is
explicitly fallible.

Yves Congar quotes from
the Vatican I decree that the
“pope, when he speaks ex
cathedra, acting as the
universal pastor and teacher
and drawing upon his
supreme apostolic authority
when he defines what must
be held by the whole Church
as a doctrine concerning
faith or morals.”
Pope Pius IX at the First Vatican Council, circa 1870

This means that the pope must announce publicly that
what he is speaking ex cathedra, and no post-Vatican II
pope has pronounced that any of their decrees or
encyclicals are ex cathedra. Some Catholic scholars claim
that a dozen or so historical pronouncements can be
considered to be ex-cathedra statements. This Vatican I
decree also declares that the church itself, speaking
unanimously, can be infallible in matters of faith and
morals.

The Farewell
of Pope Pius
IX to
Ferdinand II
after the
Neapolitan
Exile, by
Filippo Bigioli,
1848.
Pope Pius IX
had been
forced to flee
when rebels
captured
Rome.

Historically, as Yves Congar teaches, that
“the church is impeccable, infallible, and
virginal, with the impeccability and the
virginity of God himself and of Jesus Christ.”
“The church is united to Christ, and by
reason of this indissoluble union, it is pure.
God alone cannot sin. God alone is infallible
simply in being himself, in needing to follow
no other rule than himself.” But individual
members of the church are not infallible,
and in the “Middle Ages the church
admitted the possibility of a heretical pope
with respect to his private person.”
Pope Pius IX, George Peter Alexander Healy, 1871

Yves Congar quotes St Augustine, “Wherever
in my books I spoke of the church having
neither spot nor wrinkle (Eph 5:27), it is
necessary to understand this not as if the
church were already like this, but in the
sense that she is preparing herself to be, on
the day when she will appear in her glory. At
present, by reason of the ignorance and
infirmity of her members, she has reason to
say every day, ‘Forgive us our debts.’”
Yves Congar quotes St Ephrem, “The whole
church is the church of penitents and the
whole church is the church of those who
are perishing.”
The triumph of Saint Augustine, Claudio
Coello, painted 1664

And Yves Congar has more technical discussion on
infallibility, and instances where she was clearly
fallible.

Yves Congar answers the question, Why and in what way do the People of
God need to be reformed?
(REPEAT) Yves Congar begins this section, “It takes work, but eventually
we can see and be excited to understand that the whole Bible shows us
how all God’s activity is both a history and a development. This holds true
not only for God’s work of creation, but also for the work of grace and
salvation.”
We like this quote because it emphasizes that living a godly life takes
work, not only must we make the effort, but we must also study what it
means to live a godly life, so we can see past the endless complex
justifications for sin that constantly bombard, and to do the work of
examining our conscience.

Yves Congar begins this section, “It takes work,
but eventually we can see and be excited to
understand that the whole Bible shows us how
all God’s activity is both a history and a
development. This holds true not only for God’s
work of creation, but also for the work of grace
and salvation.”
Yves Congar reflects on the teaching from the
City of God: “St Augustine saw the whole
economy of salvation not only in the lives of
individuals, but in the great collective movement
that starts with Abraham, or even Adam, and
moves to the heavenly city, rising by stages to
the point where everything is fulfilled.” Augustine of Hippo, by Sandro Botticelli, 1490
Part 1.2 How To Reform the People of God

In the Old Testament, “God
requires worship and sacrifice,”
but then many prophets tell
those Israelis who abuse widows
and orphans that God does not
need their sacrifice. As sings King
David when he repents of the
sins committed with Bathsheba:
“For you have no delight in
sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering,
you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is
a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O
God, you will not despise.”
David sees BathSheba bathing, peering over his parapet, by James Tissot

Everything that was said about the Jewish sacrifices
apply to the Christian sacraments. The covenant of
marriage is meaningless if we are not faithful to our
spouse, and because of the marriage covenant, we
must respect the dignity and feelings of our spouse.
We should always seek to comfort our spouse.

Frans Francken the Younger, The Wedding at Cana, ca. 1618-20

The same is true of main
sacraments. Yves Congar
teaches us, “God’s goal was
not to produce signs, but
rather to bring about the
interior and spiritual reality
that the signs lead to. The
point is not the water, the oil,
the bread, and the wine, not
the ceremonies of Baptism
and the Eucharist. These are
for the sake of the interior
grace, the awakening of faith
and love.” The Last Supper, by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1750

Yves Congar continues, “Because we have not
yet arrived at the completely spiritual and free
condition of the heavenly Jerusalem, we need
these signs, ceremonies, words, and all the
apparatus of the church, with its sacraments,
dogmas, and government. But these are all
means, what God wants to achieve with them
is that we will become united to God in mind
and heart.”
“When the sacramentality of the church, with
its rites and symbols, become themselves the
content of what is sought and celebrated, then
the church becomes an obstacle instead of a
means to life with God.”
Last Supper, by Carl Bloch, 1800's

When I was composing this, Pope Francis had
revoked for rebellious communities the permission
to celebrate the Latin Mass, because this practice,
which should have brought people closer to God,
was instead causing disunity, separating
parishioners from the Church, teaching that the
regular mass was not valid, and some were
attacking the validity of the Vatican II decrees.

The Foundation
Mass of the Order of
Trinitarians (or Mass
of St John of Matha),
by Juan Carreño de
Miranda, 1666,
Paris, Louvre
Museum.

Yves Congar criticizes how “scholasticism
had gone to seed.” He notes that
“theology should save and transmit the
enduring articulation of sacred truths to
new generations. It has done that, and
my criticism is not about that, but rather
about the excessive and stifling place
given to scholastic formulas, ritualistic
exercises, and defensiveness about
articulated positions.”
Temptations of Pharisaism

The history behind this remark is that the Catholic Church, before
Vatican II, had forbidden Yves Congar and many other future
theologians that helped drafted the Vatican II decrees the
permission to teach, silencing them, and had only permitted the
teaching of the doctrines of St Thomas Aquinas in Catholic
seminaries, under the theory that he was a “safe” theologian. St
Thomas Aquinas remains one of the few dozen teaching doctors
of the church and is well worth studying, and his teaching is
sufficiently rich that sometimes it is not safe and predictable.
Plus, the possibility that professors can be more concerned about
impressing their peers than teaching their students how to live a
godly life will always be a temptation for scholars to avoid.

St Thomas girded
by angels with a
mystical belt of
purity, by Diego
Velázquez, 1632
Triumph of St
Thomas Aquinas,
"Doctor Communis",
between Plato and
Aristotle, Benozzo
Gozzoli, 147, Louvre

(REPEAT) Yves Congar ends this chapter with three
important conclusions:
• “A purely moral reform is insufficient because it does
not affect the structural causes that underlie the
problem and so fails to put into effect dynamic means
that will change history.”
The historical example that Yves Congar mentions is the
Investiture Controversy, where Pope Gregory VII and the
French King Henry IV disagreed whether the pope or
the king could appoint bishops and abbots in France.

Penance of King Henry IV to Pope Gregory VII,
Frescos by Taddeo and Federico Zuccari
Yves Congar ends this chapter with three important
conclusions:
• “A purely moral reform is insufficient because it
does not affect the structural causes that underlie
the problem and so fails to put into effect
dynamic means that will change history.”
• “There can be no realization of an evangelical
spirit in the religious context without an
evangelical spirit that also affects the conditions
of the way people live.”
• “There will be no full adaptation or renewal
unless the church, sustained by the impulse of the
Gospel as its source, generously agrees to attune
itself to the structures of the emerging world and
of a renewed society, which it also needs to
baptize.”

conclusions:
baptize.” Woman giving alms, by Janos Thormas, 1900

As we read in James, “If a
brother or sister is naked
and lacks daily food, and
one of you says to them, ‘Go
in peace; keep warm and
eat your fill,’ and yet you do
not supply their bodily
needs, what is the good of
that? So, faith by itself, if it
has no works, is dead.”
Woman giving alms, by Janos Thormas, around 1900

This is why, in Catholic theology, the social gospel
and the preferential option for the poor is such an
important part of the faith. This sentiment was
accelerated with the issuance of the Papal Encyclical
by Pope Leo XIII in the late nineteenth century,
Rerum Novarum, which may have been an
inspiration for the social programs of FDR’s New
Deal.

conclusions:
baptize.”

This would be the main call to Vatican II, to throw
open the doors of the church to engage with the
secular, modern world, and with separated Christian
brethren, and with Jews and all other faiths. The
church would no longer issue anathemas to those
outside the church, she would instead engage in a
positive, pastoral manner.

Yves Congar teaches us,
“There will be no full
adaptation or renewal
unless the church,
sustained by the impulse
of the Gospel as its
source, generously
agrees to attune itself to
the structures of the
emerging world and of a
renewed society, which it
also needs to baptize.”

Part 1.3 Who Are True Reformers/Prophets?

PART 1. SECTION 3. PROPHETS AND REFORMERS. WHO ARE TRUE REFORMERS?
Looking back in history, many of past Council reforms
were moral and disciplinary reforms: “priests having
concubines or playing cards, cathedral canons not
participating in liturgical offices, failure to pay taxes
to the bishop, etc.”
We might also add that Trent and several other
church councils repeatedly reminded the faithful that
kidnapping was not an acceptable form of courtship.

Yves Congar compares the
need for reform in the
church as a second birth,
the church would need to
be twice born, be reborn
in the spirit, as Jesus
exhorts Nicodemus. Yves
Congar describes those
prophets of the church
who, like Nicodemus, “no
longer live their lives in
conformity to the received
ideas of their social milieu,
but according to their own
personal convictions.”
Burial of Christ, with Joseph, Nicodemus and Virgin Mary, by Titian, 1559

Yves Congar compares them to “those
who simply live according to the
expectations and habits of their social
group.” “Their numbers make up a great
crowd of nice people.”
What is prophecy? In a Judeo-Christian
context, prophecy is not primarily about
predicting the future. Yves Congar
teaches us that “St Anthony of the
Desert said that we should desire not so
much to know the future but rather
seek the inner light that gives insight
and discernment.”
The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Jan Mandijn, 1530

To Yves Conger, “Prophecy is insightful
knowledge about things pertaining to God,
knowledge that is related to the execution of
God’s plan, and lastly, prediction of the future,”
but this is a future that is a warning against
turning away from God. “Prophecy essentially
means knowing the things of God and
understanding God’s will.” “A prophet is
someone seized by God and conquered by One
stronger than oneself, who transmits a message
from beyond, who is captivated by this message
and cannot hold back from speaking.” Isaiah receives his vision of the Lord's
house, St Matthew's German Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Charleston, SC

Yves Congar experienced the loneliness of a
prophet. “None of this prevents prophets from
feeling their weakness painfully. They have a cruel
awareness of their solitude, and sometimes they
are tempted to want to return and mix with
others, because they are neither better nor
stronger than others. Moses was not always the
powerful man sculpted by Michelangelo;
sometimes he was the discouraged man as
described by Vigny. But the prophet is
paradoxical to a certain degree, and every truly
faithful believer has something of this. What is
impossible to humans is possible for God. The
power of God is accomplished in weakness.”
Moses: Victory O Lord! by John Everett Millais, 1871

Yves Congar was acting as a prophet when this book, True
and False Reform, was published in 1950. Reform was not
what the pope and the Catholic Church wanted to hear,
the book was stifled, translation permissions were not
granted, and after 1954 he was forbidden to teach by Pope
Pius XII after he published an article supporting the
worker-priest movement in France. But the future Pope
John XXIII was impressed by this book, it became the
cornerstone of the decrees of the Second Vatican Council.

Our second video of this series reflects on the next section
of Yves Congar’s book discussing what is true and false
reform, and our third video will reflect on his conclusion,
and Pope John XXIII’s opening speech for Vatican II, noting
what it has in common with Yves Congar’s True and False
Reform.

DISCUSSION OF THE SOURCES
We found True and False Reform to be very readable, but you need some
patience and dedication, Yves Congar was not writing for a mass
audience, but was writing for fellow priests and academics. If you were a
scholar wanting to precisely assess how this ground-breaking book
influenced the Second Vatican Council, you would want to examine the
first edition of this book published in 1950, comparing it to the second
edition printed in 1967, which we used for this video.
We also have a book review video on our sources for our videos on the
history and decrees of Vatican II.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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Yves Congar's True and False Reform: Understanding the Need for Authentic Church Reform

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