ABSTRACT
Congar’s life’s work concerned the articulation of a complete theology, through the study of the totality of Catholic doctrine, for the benefit of the Church and the advancement of its mission in the world. A clear idea of his rich hopes for the Church may be found in a short essay written in 1937, entitled ‘Pour une théologie de l’Église’:
Everywhere we get a sense that it would be of great profit in our pastoral ministry and would allow Christianity to spread to a far greater extent throughout the world, if the concept of the Church were to recover the broad, rich, vital meaning it once had, a meaning deriving wholly from the Bible and Tradition.1
