The Congar Institute draws upon the vision of the late Cardinal Yves Congar, who devoted his life to retrieving the image of the church as a living sacrament of Christ’s presence in the world and as a priestly people consecrating the world to God. The Second Vatican Council endorsed and developed Congar’s vision of a church where all the baptized are called to be apostles, where the lives of all the faithful bear witness to the kingdom of God, and where, through them, the light of the gospel is meant to illuminate every aspect of social experience. Like Congar himself, we believe that adult faith formation can and must transform each believer into an evangelizer, and that in this age of “new evangelization” the ministry of the church can and must discover how to be appropriately inclusive, empowering, and missionary.

Yves Congar, O.P.
French Domincan Friar
(April 13, 1904-June 22, 1995)