The Beauty of De Lubac's Ecclesiology

Coming out of the modernist crisis and two world wars, the Catholic Church needed to grapple with its identity and see how it would fit in the modern world. Henri De Lubac is a figure who recognizes the reality that the Church must look inwards and assess itself and takes this historical moment to bring a patristic understanding of the Church into modern-day. Cardinal De Lubac was one of the major pioneers of Ressourcement, which is “a ‘return to the authoritative sources” of Christian faith, for the purpose of rediscovering their truth and meaning in order to meet the critical challenges of our time” (Echeverria 1). This theological tool was massively influential in 20th century Catholic theology and greatly impacted the writings of the Second Vatican Council, where De Lubac played a major role. Moreover, it was through looking into Church history that a modern theology of the Church was developed by De Lubac. This theology was considered new as it was an idea often discussed in the theological journal Nouvelle Theologie, which utilized the method of Ressourcement by returning “to the Sacred Scriptures and the Church Fathers … to get at what the Biblical and Patristic authors were aiming to get at in their own literature” (Ybarra 1). It was through this novel theological method that, which was actually a recovering of patristic truth, that De Lubac formed his ecclesiology, as well as the rest of his theology. It is this ecclesiology borne out of Ressourcement, that this essay will explore. 

Fundamentally, this essay will investigate what De Lubac means when he writes that “the Church which is ‘Jesus Christ spread abroad and communicated’ completes—so far as it can be completed here below—the work of spiritual reunion which was made necessary by sin,” as this statement reveals the essence of De Lubac’s conception of the mission of the Church (De Lubac Catholicism 16). Through exploring what he views as the Church’s mission, how he views the essence of the Church will be made clear. There will be three aspects of De Lubac’s Catholicism examined in order to accomplish this task. Firstly, De Lubac’s chapter on the Church will be explored in order to provide a general illustration of his ecclesiology. Then, his investigation of the Catholicity of the Church will be explicated in order to contextualize how he views the Church’s role in the world. Finally, De Lubac’s chapters on the “present situation” and the “person and society” will be inspected so that a, relatively, comprehensive analysis of his ecclesiology can be made. The central argument of this essay, which will be present in each of these sections, is that De Lubac views the Church’s essence as, in a very real sense, identical with Christ in a way which is fitted for the problems of modern man.

Firstly, De Lubac’s chapter on the Church provides his reader with a basic outline of how he views the mission of the Church and, from this, how he identifies the Church with Christ. De Lubac communicates his very mystical view of the Church in his chapter, outlining its nature and providing a history of Her. To illustrate this mystical vision, he quotes a passage from a story which says that the Church “was created first, before all else … it was for her that the world was made” and so intrinsic to the Church’s nature is a sense of perfection, which leads to things deriving their being from Her, but also finding their end in Her (De Lubac Catholicism 26). This only makes sense as the Church is the “body of Christ” and so possesses Christ’s nature as “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (1 Corinthians 12:27, Revelation 22:13). Furthermore, the mission of the Church flows from its identity with Christ, thus entailing that “the Church's mission to reveal to men that pristine unity that they,” the Church and the world, “have lost … to restore and complete it” (De Lubac Catholicism 18). Such sentiments dovetail back into his ontology of the Church as, in some sense, the Church accomplishes this unity in being the body of Christ:

The Church which is “Jesus Christ spread abroad and communicated” completes—so far as it can be completed here below—the work of spiritual reunion which was made necessary by sin; that work that was begun at the Incarnation and was carried on up to Calvary. In one sense the Church is herself this reunion … . (De Lubac Catholicism 16)

This statement makes clear a key component of his ecclesiology: the Church is the reunion between God and man which was achieved by Jesus Christ. Within this notion is De Lubac’s conception of the Church’s end, which is the reunion between God and man. Moreover, this statement highlights a seeming paradox that arises from his ecclesiology, which is that there is a sense in which the reunion between God and man is already achieved because the Incarnation has already occurred, but there is also a sense in which the Church is still journeying towards this end because the New Creation has not come yet. This paradox, however, correlates, once more, to the reality of Christ Who has both already come and redeemed the world through His life, death, and Resurrection, but also the people of God are awaiting his return in glory. 

Moreover, De Lubac’s thoughts on the nature of Catholicity and how it relates to the Church provides a great background context to understand his ontology of the Church. De Lubac openly states that “​​like sanctity, Catholicity is primarily an intrinsic feature of the Church” (De Lubac Catholicism 16). He states:

She was already Catholic on the morning of Pentecost, when all her members could be contained in a small room, as she was when the Arian waves seemed on the point of swamping her; she would still be Catholic if tomorrow apostasy on a vast scale deprived her of almost all the faithful. For fundamentally Catholicity has nothing to do with geography or statistics. (De Lubac Catholicism 16)

Once more, this Catholicity of the Church derives from its identity with Christ since, in His Divine nature, He is omnipresent and so universal. The universality of the Church further implies that the Church has something to offer to each man, regardless of his ethnic background and regardless of the time and place in which he lives. This is why St. Ambrose “sees her including the whole orbis terrarum because he is aware that all, whatever their origin, race or condition, are called on to become one in Christ, and that thenceforward the Church is fundamentally that unity” (De Lubac Catholicism 17). The mission of the Church, therefore, is to bring the whole world into Herself and transfigure the world through this sacred union. The question then arises: by what means does the Church perform this act of salvation? It is love. The deepest, and most universal desire of man. It is the desire which is at the heart of all other human desires and it is through satisfying this desire that the Church is Catholic in both its nature and mission. It is this desire which necessitates that all men are, in some way, drawn to Christ as it is His “Love” that embraces “all nations” (De Lubac Catholicism 122). 

It is this Love which brings his view of how the Church ought to interact with the modern world, both at the individual and societal level, and reveals how De Lubac thinks the Church is Jesus Christ within an eschatological frame. He begins chapter 11 of Catholicism by providing examples of paradoxes within the Christian faith: 

God creates the world for his own glory, propter se ipsum, and yet out of pure goodness; man is capable of action and free, and yet he can do nothing without grace, and grace works in him "both to will and to perform"; the vision of God is a free gift, and yet the desire of it is at the very root of every soul; the redemption is a work of pure mercy, and yet the rights of justice are no less respected. (De Lubac Catholicism 177)

The reason De Lubac provides these examples is because he aims to highlight a philosophical conflict between modern man and the Church, which is that modern man adheres to a rationalist philosophy which does not allow for paradoxes. Now, these paradoxes that De Lubac enumerates are not unintelligible. They have reasonable philosophical solutions to them, but the seeming irresolvability of them is enough to push modern man away from attempting to resolve them, thus pushing him away from the Church. The paradox he devotes most of his time to how members of the Church can remain individuals, while being wholly engrafted into Christ. He sums the issue, and its solution, in this passage:

​​‘It was realized at every period, in practice,’ he writes, ‘but nowadays it seems on the way to explicit doctrinal formulation.’ ‘We understand better,’ or perhaps we are again beginning to understand better that the Catholic mystic is not merely a separated being in comparison with the rest of the faithful, an escapist in search of some hazy transcendence; that the mystic ascent is made up of ‘integrations’ rather than ‘suppressions;’ that no specific characterization of the common Christian life should be effaced by it; in short, that the perfect mystic would be as such the perfect Christian, and we mean a Christian whom the highest of divine favors does not withdraw from solidarity in the sufferings and the triumphs of the Church militant. (De Lubac Catholicism 190)

There is something inherent to Christianity which requires that it not only be about individual redemption, but that redemption itself is a communal thing. Indeed, “humanity is one, organically one by its divine structure; it is the Church's mission to reveal to men that pristine unity that they have lost, to restore and complete it” (De Lubac Catholicism 18). This reality is a reflection of the Divine Essence which, while being one and undivided, contains within Itself a community of persons. The Church, thus, follows Christ’s mission which is to make man, and all of Creation in some way, be like Him and an essential part of this mission is to form an undividable unity out of a plurality. 

So, in conclusion, when analyzing De Lubac’s theology of the Church, and theology in general, one is simply astounded by his extensive use of the Church Fathers and historical theology. This practice of his bore the fruit of a rich ecclesiology which was patristic and mystical in nature, but also profoundly useful for addressing the issues of modern man and society. De Lubac’s ecclesiology is one in which the Church is identified with Christ. Given this, the Church has the role of gathering the world into Herself, as “the Church is a mother, but quite unlike other mothers she draws to her those who are to be her children and keeps them united together in her womb,” and redeeming and transfiguring the world through its union with the world (De Lubac Catholicism 18). This identity and mission of the Church are found, at least in some way, in De Lubac’s chapters on the Church, Catholicism, and the person and society. These chapters reveal, in different ways, how De Lubac comes to his ontology of the Church and he concludes that the Church can, and ought to, save the modern world by uniting to it. De Lubac’s mystical vision of the Church enveloping the world “in her womb” and maternal love is a beautiful vision and provides a sturdy and Christocentric principle to govern how the Church interacts with the modern world.

Works Cited

Echeverria, Eduardo. “‘Ressourcement,’ ‘Aggiornamento,’ and Vatican II in Ecumenical Perspective.” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 25 Sept. 2014, www.hprweb.com/2014/07/ressourcement-aggiornamento-and-vatican-ii-in-ecumenical-perspective/.

De Lubac, Henri. Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind. Sheed & Ward Inc., 1958.

Suggs, M. Jack, et al. The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Ybarra, Erick T. “Bishop Robert Barron, Nouvelle Théologie, Ressourcement, Communio, and What’s Really Going On.” Erick Ybarra, 21 Oct. 2019, erickybarra.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/bishop-robert-barron-nouvelle-theologie-ressourcement-communio-and-whats-really-going-on/.