Yves Congar’s Vision on the Role of the Holy Spirit Regarding the Unity of the Church in his Late Writings.

Abstract

This article is the last of a series of three studies on the role of the Spirit regarding the ecclesial unity in Yves Congar’s theological thought. It presents Congar’s understanding of the Spirit as co-institutor of the Church together with Christ. In his early writings, Congar understood the Spirit as the soul of the Church which animated the structures founded by Christ. In his middle career, Congar developed a more nuanced role of the Spirit. However, throughout this time, the ecclesiological model used by Congar was Christological. In this article, one can see how Congar moved from those models toward a communion model of the Church in which the Spirit brings about and stimulates diversity in the Church. This novelty in Congar’s thought is, however, in continuity with his early thought. More important is the overall conclusion at the end of these three studies that that ecclesiology and pneumatology developed and influenced mutually throughout Congar’s career (beginning in 1937 with his Chrétiens désunis/ Divided Christendom and not only in 1953 when he publishes “The Holy Spirit and the Apostolic College, Promoters of the Work of Christ”).