Catholic Bishops of France Open the Cause of Jesuit Cardinal Henri de Lubac Placing him on the Road to Sainthood

During the Plenary Assembly of March 2023, the bishops voted in favor of the opening of the cause, with a view to a possible beatification, Cardinal Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), Jesuit theologian, born in Cambrai on 20 February 1896 in Cambrai (Nord) and died in Paris on September 4, 1991. He was one of the great thinkers and theologians of the 20th century.

Son of an executive of the Banque de France, student of the Jesuits at the College of Mongré, near Lyon, after a year of law at the theological faculty of Lyon, he entered the Society of Jesus on October 9, 1913 at Saint Leonards- on-Sea in England (Sussex). Mobilized in April 1915, he was wounded at the front during the First World War, until September 25, 1919. His head injuries caused him permanent pain.

Ordained a priest in 1927, he served God through his teaching of theology in Lyon, through remarkable books and through apostolic commitments. Catholicism, the social aspects of dogma , published in 1938, was the first of thirty works written by Henri de Lubac. This first work immediately had a great impact by helping to renew the perception that the Church had of itself and thereby facilitating interfaith dialogue.

From 1937 to 1944, as a Christian, he resisted Nazism and anti-Semitism. In 1941, he co-founded with Father Danielou the "Christian Sources", a renowned collection of Christian texts which publishes the texts of the Fathers of the Church and the great mystics. Books and articles follow one another but, after 1950, the general of the Jesuits puts their author on “teaching leave”. From 1958, he was a member of the Institut de France.

An expert of the Second Vatican Council (1961-1965), he exerted a spiritual, discreet and profound influence there. His theological work and his participation as an expert in the work of the Council were not without influence on the content of the texts resulting from Vatican II . On February 2, 1983, Pope John Paul II named him Cardinal , thus demonstrating the confidence and esteem he had for him.

A humble scholar, faithful to the Church, he opened Christian thought with insight, enriched by all its doctrinal sources, to the interior knowledge of God and to dialogue with Western and Eastern atheism. Cardinal de Lubac died in 1991.

Biographical Source: Jesuits

Source: https://eglise.catholique.fr/approfondir-sa-foi/temoigner/temoins/539407-cardinal-henri-de-lubac-theologien-jesuite/