RESSOURCEMENT THEOLOGIANS AND RESPONSE CHAPTER 4
âA Very Considerable Place in the Mystery of Christ and the Churchâ?
Yves Congar on Mary
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY
It must be admitted from the outset: Mary plays a marginal role in Yves Congarâs theology, one more corrective than constructive (or, at most, constructive by way of correction). Of his nearly one thousand publications from 1924 to 1967, for instance, Mary figures prominently in fewer than twentyâthe most significant of which were a short book and a handful of articles published largely between 1950 and 1955.1 Such massive, influential works as True and False Reform in the Church or Lay People in the Church make virtually no substantial reference to Mary, to the point that it is nearly impossible to imagine someone writing a book on the âMarian profileâ of Congarâs ecclesiology, as has been done regarding that of Hans Urs von Balthasar.2 And when one considers his sustained, even violent, polemic against the âgalloping Mariologyâ that he held to have afflicted much of the Catholic life and thought of his era,3 one might reasonably wonder what good might come from a closer examination of his thought on Mary. Where does one go after reading passages from his personal journals such as the following, written after a discussion in September 1963 with the Belgian Cardinal Leo Suenens, one of the Second Vatican Councilâs four moderators: âThe mariological zelanti would like âto add new flowersâ to Maryâs crown. This maximizing theology is not healthy. IT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER TO DO NOTHING.â4 Or this comment, in response to a Spanish bishopâs conciliar intervention on Mary: âIDIOCIES: a combination of verbalism, abstract dialectic and sentimentalism.â5
And yet Congarâs writings on Mary, secondary as they may be, merit exploration because they help to shed light on the mystery of Christ and the Church, offer a window into Congarâs own life and thought, and help us understand the historical and theological movements that shaped twentieth-century Catholicism, especially in relation to Vatican II. Congar identified three different Marian âperiodsâ in his life: (1) the period of the âsimpleâ devotion of his youth and early religious life, which saw him writing âAveâ at the top of his papers, as did Aquinas, he notes with perhaps some defensiveness; (2) the period of his struggle against a âgalloping Mariology,â a period that overlapped with Pius XIIâs pontificate; and (3) a âthird stageâ from the 1960s onward, marked by his standing in the âmainstreamâ of Catholic and ecumenical theology.6 This chapter, befitting a book about a conference on Mary on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, focuses on the second of these periods, wherein Congar labored against an untethered Mariology, even a Mariolatry, and for an integrated, ecumenical Mariology situated firmly in the twinned saving mysteries of Christ and his Church. One can only smile, in this context, when one reads the full title of the eighth and concluding chapter of Lumen Gentium: âThe Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church.â
I proceed in three steps. First I look at Congarâs critique of a maximalist Mariology and his counterpointed effort to develop a more balanced, soteriological theology of Mary. Second I examine his correction of the Marian âminimalismâ that he saw as characteristic of Protestantism, particularly in its Barthian, neoorthodox strains. Finally I consider the achievements and legacy of Congarâs Mariology, taking into account our sometimes markedly different contemporary ecclesial and theological context.
CONGARâS CRITIQUE OF A MAXIMALIST MARIOLOGY
Congar wrote: âI saw [during a September 1961 meeting of the Councilâs Preparatory Theological Commission] the drama which I have experienced all my life. The need to fight, in the name of the Gospel and of the apostolic faith, against a development, a Mediterranean and Irish proliferation, of a Mariology which does not come from Revelation, but is backed up by pontifical texts.â7 Congarâs Mariology unfolded largely in the clash between two theological approaches: an isolated maximalism and an economic-soteriological integration. This conflict took place on the level of both method and doctrine. Methodologically, Congarâs thought was marked by a sustained polemic and argument against what he called a âseparated Mariologyâ8 in which theologians considered Mary apart from economic or soteriological concerns and considered Mariology as a separate branch of theology. He held that such separation was inseparable from a broader âmovement which isolated mediations and magnified them to excess.â The pope was isolated from the college of bishops; religious from other believers on account of their purportedly greater call to holiness; and priests from their people, both liturgically and culturally.9
In Congarâs view, this isolation had medieval roots, stretching back to the eighth century. Most broadly, it dovetailed with the rise of Scholasticism and dialectic. Dialectical Scholasticism studied things ânot so much in a total synthesis, according to their meaning and relationships, as in themselves, in their nature and their own contours; then [it sought] to analyze the nature and the properties of each thing thus considered in itself and for itself.â10 Scholasticism, Congar writes, was an intellectual advance, prioritizing âanalytical knowledge, explicit and precise, according to a somewhat Cartesian ideal.â11 But he also notes its flaws. First it gave rise to separated theological treatises on Mary and on the Church especially, which formerly had been integrated, as with Aquinas, into the treatise on Christ.12 Mariologically, Congar locates the source of this shift from an economic, integrated approach to a separated, self-contained one in two monks: the eighth-century Ambrosius Autpertus and the ninth-century Paschasius Radbertus. The former was the first in Latin literature to give sermons whose subject was Mary herself, while the latter placed Mary above the Church and began to apply themes to Mary as an individual that had previously been applied to the Church as a whole.13 Congar sees a similar evolution at work in iconography, whereby in the West, from the twelfth century onward, Mary was increasingly depicted by herself or even as being at the center, crowned by Christ. He notes the then-Protestant Max Thurianâs comment that the Miraculous Medal depicts Mary âwith open arms, without Jesus.â14 In contrast to what was seen in a more patristic mode of theology and iconography, Mary âbegan to be considered in herself and no longer in the economy of salvation. The doctrine of her personal privileges was developed.â15
One consequence of this isolated method was a methodological maximalism in which theologians and church leaders sought to âobtain the maximum âdevelopmentâ of certain mariological theses.â16 Such development was a farce, in his view, given its ahistorical, decontextualized proof texting of Scripture and tradition. This thoroughly ânon-resourcedâ Catholicism stood in contrast to a genuinely âre-sourced Catholicism,â centered in Christ and equally âbiblical, liturgical, paschal, communitarian, ecumenical, and missionary.â17 Writing in his journal a year before the Council began, he noted the parallels between the incremental yet seemingly inexorable growth of papal authority and that of Mariology:
It is the same way of behaving, the same process. In both cases, an enormous outgrowth resting on two or three texts, with no certainty that these texts meant originally what they are now being taken to mean, and in which the ancient tradition had not seen all that is now seen in them, even if, sometimes, it had not understood the opposite. They go on repeating, here âTu es Petrus,â there âgratia plena,â âstabat,â âconteret caput tuum,â etc. In each case, tirelessly, patiently, across the centuries little steps forward are constantly being taken which, at the time, seem of little account. One is not too happy, perhaps, indeed, one does not agree; but one will not create a schism over that, one will not even maintain simple resistance over such a trifle. In each case, there is ONE idea only: to increase, to take as far as possible either a power or a glory. In each case, there is only one aim, and advantage is taken of everything for the sake of that. EVERYTHING IS MADE USE OF. In each case you are told, it is pointed out to you that, having granted such and such, you cannot refuse such other; that having gone as far as three, you cannot not agree to go as far as ten.⊠In each case, a point gained is never let go of, they just go on adding to it.18
The end result was a degeneration into an amateurish âspiritual theologyâ19 originating from a particular spiritual experience or devotion; lacking a perspective on the whole Christian mystery; cut off from the sources of Christian tradition; wanting in scholarly rigor and submission to objective, revealed truth; cheapened by sentimentality; and propounded by âfourth-rate theologiansâ unknown in other fields of theology and not distinguished âby the balance of [their] thought.â20 These are the very âidiociesâ derided by Congar in his conciliar journal.
By contrast, Congar proposes an economic, resourced, and holistic approach to Mariology. He situates Mary in the divine plan of salvation and within the Church as a whole.21 She must always be located within and not above the Church, not even as the âneckâ connecting Christ and the Church, an image of St. Bernard that Congar rejects.22 Second, Congarâs approach undertakes the work of ressourcement. While an isolated maximalism tends to work by deduction from atemporal principles, Congar returns to the sources of Christian tradition, especially scriptural and patristic ones. He is mindful that tradition is not simply a collection of texts but the âliving deposit, the living principles of the economy of salvation.â23 Finally, his method evinces a âhealthy respect for the whole of things.â24 It takes seriously the analogy of faith and sees both Christian life and thought as suffused by mediation in every relationship and activity.25
Alongside these theological grounds, Congarâs rejection of an isolated maximalism likely has a deep personal source: his relationship with Daniel Lallement, the priest and philosopher who helped him as an adolescent to discover his priestly and religious vocation and to develop a scholastic rigor of thought. Congar remained grateful for that formation, but the two men grew apart over time due to intellectual and political differences. Congar saw in Lallementâs âMariolatryâ the âsubstitution for Christianity of a Mariano-Christianityâ26 and recalled him saying, âIt is no longer I who live, but Mary who lives in me,â27 an obvious allusion to Galatians 2:20. Allied to Lallementâs intense Marian devotion was what Congar described as a supernaturalism that rejected the world and the historical dimensions of human existence.28 Given the almost primal desire for contact with the world that is manifested in Congarâs diaries,29 it seems likely that he associated intense Marian devotion with a reactionary, cramped political, spiritual, and ecclesial worldview.
In terms of doctrine, Congarâs constructive Mariology emerges most clearly in his 1954 article âMarie et lâĂglise dans la pensĂ©e patristique,â which offers a careful reading of patristic thought as a corrective to what he regards as the distorted reception of that thought across succeeding centuries, particularly in Matthias Scheeben and his heirs. Congar begins by noting that the first four centuries of the Christian era offered âthree main affirmationsâ concerning Mary: that (1) Mary is the âTypeâ of the Church, precisely in her virginal maternity; (2) Mary is the recapitulation of Eve; and (3) there is a continuity between Mary and the Church that parallels that between Christ and the members of his body.30 I focus on this first affirmation, both because Congar considers it the central patristic insight into Mary and because it exemplifies the heart of his mariological thought.
Congarâs point of departure is that the Church Fathers rarely considered Mary in herself; they considered her only in relation to Christ and the Church. In contrast to some postpatristic theologians, they did not speak of her âprivileges,â her redemptive causality, or her causality or spiritual maternity vis-Ă -vis the Church.31 âThe mystery of Mary,â he writes, must instead be placed âwithin the framework of the mystery of the Church, and this mystery within the framework of the economy [of salvation].â32 This tethering or integration of Mary to ecclesiology and soteriology is the foundation of Congarâs Mariology.
Congar holds that much modern or even âpost-Bedianâ Mariology has gone astray by limiting its analysis to the two terms âMaryâ and the âChurchâ while forgetting the broader, more fundamental third reality of the divine economy.33 The âtwo-termâ approach, which Congar associates with modern-day heirs of Scheebenâs Mariology, results in seeing the Church as dependent on Mary, as a stream depends on a source or spring. Congar admits that some patristic texts, taken in isolation and then used to support Neo-Scholastic âthesesâ as supposedly âprobatur ex traditione,â34 can be interpreted in this manner. This approach, though, reads the Fathers through a lens foreign to them, a lens more Aristotelian than Platonic. According to Congar, where the former approach seeks truth in things themselves or through precise philological and historical studies, the Fathers followed a Platonic approach. They thus âsought truth in an idea above time, of which events were only successive expressions and progressive realizations, and of which texts were but a manifestation or a witness. They contemplated a heaven...