Cardinal Yves Congar is universally known and respected as the great ecclesiologist of Vatican II whose seminal ideas helped to reconfigure the landscape of Catholic theology following the council. Less well known is his role in contributing far-reaching insights to the emerging liturgical movement in the church. This collection represents several of Congar's decisive contributions. Reading them makes possible a deeper and more cogent reception of the key ideas of the council documents. These texts are at once both erudite and exciting, both essential and pastorally incisive. There has...

Archbishop Angelo Roncali (later Pope John XXIII) read True and False Reform during his years as papal nuncio in France and asked, A reform of the church 'is such a thing really possible?- A decade later as pope, he opened the Second Vatican Council by describing its goals in terms that reflected Congar's description of authentic reform: reform that penetrates to the heart of doctrine as a message of salvation for the whole of humanity, that retrieves the meaning of prophecy in a living church, and that is deeply rooted in history rather than superficially related to the apostolic...