A Church Fully Engaged: Yves Congar's Vision of Ecclesial Authority

by Anthony Oelrich

Overview

The French Dominican, Fr. Yves Congar, was deeply convinced that in the church's ongoing tension with the secular world "it was led to adopt very much the same attitudes as the temporal power itself, to conceive of itself as a society, as a power, when in reality it was a communion, with ministers and servants." It was Congar's lifelong theological project to help restore to the church a more evangelical, gospel-based understanding of her life. From the vast corpus of this great expert of the Second Vatican Council, this book gathers his efforts as they pertain specifically to the issue of authority in the church. The often hot-button nature of any discussion on how authority is exercised in the church will only benefit from the retrieval of the theological tradition on this issue brought forth by Congar. Congar's vision ultimately demands that our understanding of authority must flow from our understanding of God as a Trinity of Persons and, therefore, be practiced in the mutuality of relationship and always be directed at growth in authentic relationship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814680421
Publisher:	Liturgical Press, The
Publication date:	10/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Fr. Anthony Oelrich is a priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, serving as rector and pastor of three parishes and the diocesan director of continuing education for clergy. He received his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Editorial Reviews

Oelrich’s thorough analysis of Congar’s insightful writings on ecclesial authority is timely indeed.
Michael A. Fahey, SJ, Boston College

Anthony Oelrich’s book is a brilliant, lucid, and eminently comprehensible treatment of manifold notions of ecclesial authority explored by one of the greatest theologians of recent centuries. Oelrich’s analysis will give every reader, whether scholar or student, a rich appreciation of the ways God’s authority is communicated to and by the Church.
Fr. Robert Christian, OP, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (The Angelicum)

Anthony Oelrich patiently and clearly explains Congar’s theology which has inspired theological and pastoral renewal in the contemporary church, not least through its influence on the documents of Vatican II. Both the center and the periphery—the church’s hierarchy and its creative prophets—have much to learn here.
Paul Philibert, OP, Translator of Congar’s True and False Reform in the Church and author of The Priesthood of the Faithful: Key to a Living Church

I am pleased to recommend Anthony Oelrich's study of ecclesial authority in Congar's thought. It is a carefully researched and well-written work that is objective and free of ideological bias in its interpretation of one of the key contributors to the twentieth-century ressourcement in Catholic thought.
Gabriel Flynn, Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, The Thomist

From the Publisher