Tuesday 23 October 1962
This morning I did not go to the General Congregation, in order to work on the proemium which I have to present on Sunday. I was told that the open thesis (use of the vernacular) supported by Maximos IV, Cardinal Feltin, and Cardinal Léger collided with the closed thesis: Cardinal Ruffini, Cardinal McIntyre, (very violent and very rigid), Cardinal Ottaviani, who asked for the schema to be submitted to some REAL theologians.
In the afternoon from 3 pm to 5 pm, Msgr. Elchinger. I asked him to intervene in the schema De Liturgia in order to ask for a better presentation of the fact that the basis of the participation of the laity in the liturgy is their priesthood. We prepared a brief schema along these lines.
I also spoke to Msgr. Elchinger about a project which I would like to see taken up. People are certainly expecting from the Council something about simplification and poverty. I want it too. But it is very difficult to put something reasonable concretely into words. It would be necessary to bring together some bishops and theologians (I suggested a list to Msgr. Elchinger) in order to get something ready. For my part, the important thing seems to me to be, not the details, but the ecclesiological aspect. This covers three points: a) a renunciation, a rejection of the SEIGNEURIAL, the dominium [dominion], all that is related to the temporal, and to the pretension of temporal prestige; b) the creation of possibilities of real contact with people, so that priests and members of the hierarchy are not cut off from them; c) to be and appear to be much more a Church of the poor.
He plans to speak on behalf of the double breviary, a breviary in one’s native language; I asked him to put himself down to speak about communion under both kinds. I am going to see Msgr. Charue to try and persuade him to do it, but if I do not find him, or if he refuses, someone would be down to speak. I had thought of Msgr. Weber, but it seems that he reads a text rather badly. …
I then went to see Msgr. Charue and was lucky to meet him just as he was leaving the Belgian College. I explained to him what I wanted. He will allow me to prepare a text for him, but he is hesitant because the Belgian bishops are not in favor of communion under both kinds.
From there, because of the closeness of one place to the other, I went to see Msgr. Weber. I was joined in his anteroom by Fr. Gy, who had come on behalf of Msgr. Martin [Joseph-M Martin was President of the French Liturgical Commission.] and the liturgists to ask Msgr. Weber to speak on this article of communion under both kinds.
Curious coincidence!
Fr. Gy has been asked by the French members of the Liturgical Commission to sound out and to try to influence the Anglo-Saxon bishops in favor of this. He is more than ever into his role as a negotiator. He told me that the atmosphere of the Council is working: some groups of bishops (the US bishops for example or the South Africans) had already changed considerably in just two weeks.
In fact, I myself realize here the immense influence of the milieu. Human beings are profoundly affected by their milieu. My own reactions, for example, are not, on all points, quite the same today as they were during the work of the Theological Commission. True, they are basically the same, above all as regards their strictly intellectual significance. In speech or in writing, I have uttered (too timidly) most of the comments or criticisms that are being expressed today. But my reactions were to some extent conditioned by the milieu of that time. Today, they are free to develop and be expressed in a totally different milieu. But there is more: they RECEIVE from this milieu and from the free and wide-ranging exchanges for which the normal locus is the Council, not only confirmation, but enriching support. I realize in an almost physical way the contribution being made by the assembly as such. It is yet another argument against the idea of a ‘Council by correspondence’ put forward in connection with the consultations relating to the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. I also realize, once again, how very Macchiavellian and depressing is the discipline of secrecy, obtained and sanctioned by an oath, which Rome imposes on all those who work with her. This prevents each of the participants from resuming contact with his natural milieu.
Not being allowed to speak except to the selected members of the small group, all of whom have been obliged to swear the same oath, each one is cut off from every other milieu, isolated, walled up in his own problem, in contact only, and in a very formalistic way, with those who are bound by the same oath. This works catastrophically by producing groups cut off from real life, partitioned off, jealous, if not actually distrustful. It is contrary to human nature and to the nature of intelligence, which is DIALOGICAL. At the Council, the Church has been placed in a state of dialogue, at least internally. She feels herself alive from the fact of the enriching contact with others and with an environment vowed to free discussion, marked by the seal of questioning and of freedom.
Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, pp. 115-116. The 1100-page book can be purchased from Liturgical Press. Pray Tell ran the previous installment of the journal of Yves Congar last Thursday.
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