Cardinal Yves Congar; Reformist Theologian

Cardinal Yves Congar, 91, punished by the Vatican in the 1950s for his reformist views but rewarded last year by being named a cardinal. Congar entered the Dominican order in 1925, became a priest in 1930 and developed into one of the pioneering Roman Catholic theologians of the century. As early as 1937, he was espousing ecumenical themes that would not win broad acceptance among the Catholic hierarchy for another 25 years. His writings in the early 1950s--suggesting that other churches also could claim to represent the theological truth--incurred the wrath of some church traditionalists. For about two years he was forbidden to teach, and he was exiled to Jerusalem, and later to Rome. By 1960, under Pope John XXIII, he was back in good graces. He was chosen to help lay the theological groundwork for the Vatican II Council in 1962, considered a turning point in the modernization of the church. In Paris on Thursday.