Jag fortsätter att läsa ur Yves Congars dagbok från Andra Vatikankonciliet, datum för datum, händelser och reflektioner från för exakt 50 år sedan.

Congar, en av Katolska kyrkans bästa teologer under 1900-talet

• är en skarp iakttagare och analytiker
• ser bristerna i processen men ställer sig inte vid sidan om utan behåller sitt engagemang

I fokus är den tröstlöst tröga koncilieprocessen där ingen riktigt tycks ha kontroll och veta hur man skall gå vidare för att uppnå resultat. Vi ser också tecken på spänningar och konflikter under ytan…

Lördag 10 november 1962

”Heavy day. Climate to begin with; irritation; painful session: uncertainties and indecision…”

….

…I met my Brazilian friends. They told me that they are having a meeting on Tuseday as a follow-up to one they have already had, and after it they hope to collect the signatures of 1500 bishops requesting the replacement of the first three (or four?) dogmatic schemas by just one. THIS schema would be ready, they told me!… this upset me a bit. These Brazilian bishops seem to know nothing about the work of Rahner and Ratzinger…

I also met a group of French bishops with Mgr Marty and Mgr Pailler. They think that we must get out of this present dream world of lack of organisation and inefficiency. Cardinal Feltin directs nothing: when he attends meetings, he spends all the time looking at his watch. I said that he ought to delegate the organisation to a vicar or to an efficient secretary. Mgr Marty has an idea, which he will put forward this evening, of organising the bishops in comissions, which would be open to all who wish to take part and which would study specific points and prepare the interventions with the experts.

Everywhere, one sees lassitude and boredom because of vaguness, the lack of direction and method. A whole month was needed to reach this point!…

….

”It is clear that the Council has no working method. It would have been necesary for it to be prepared for, not only by the Commissions in Rome, but BY THE BISHOPS meeting in conferences. Without this preparation, we are faced with 2.400 people starting from scratch who have to do their apprenticeships and their trial exercises at the cost of precious weeks.”

Min kommentar: Kanske ändå inte så bortkastad tid. Kanske en sådan lärotid och konsolideringsprocess är nödvändig och i sig medför goda frukter om man förmår fånga upp processen. Kanske en brytningspunkt här. Skall bli spännande att följa utvecklingen…

Congar är engagerad i arbetet att bidra till att schemat om Uppenbarelsen blir så bra som möjligt och beskriver turerna kring det.

”Daniélou thinks, and I agree with him, that one cannot purely and simply discard the schemas because the Council MUST, in order to serve the people of our time according to the truth of God, say something positive, specific and strong about Sacred Scripture, inspiration, the historicity of the New Testament.”

Söndag 11 november 1962

”The Secretariat itself seems to me isolated in itself. It is a bit like hunting preserve. They do their work, they are very proud to do it, and they are not very keen on the idea of opening the closed garden to others.”

…

”The Italians are afraid of Cardinal Siri. They do not speak freely because ot that.”

Måndag 12 november 1962:

”I wonder wether I shall come back for this Second Session. The next few weeks will tell me wether or not I can do any useful work.”

…

”Yesterday´s papers ran the story of the Ottaviani incident. It is some time since he appeared at the Council. He is said to be furious at having been cut off by Cardinal Alfrink, and at the applause that this evoked. A small sign, cleraly, of a fairly deep tension and malaise.”