February 1942. The world is on fire and bloody. The United States has
just entered the war following the aggressive attack on their air and
naval base at Pearl Harbour at the beginning of December. The German
troops besiege Leningrad and are fighting before Moscow: The Wannsee
Conference of 20 January has just established the logistics of the
"final solution" for Jews under the ascendancy of the Third Reich. The
Japanese seize Singapore on 15 February... No one seems capable of
stopping the destructive march of the totalitarian regimes. At the
Vatican, however, proceedings follow their course as if nothing was any
different: a decree of the Holy Office places on the Index of Prohibited
Books two works concerning the definition of theology, outsiders to the
noise and violence of a war henceforth worldwide: the Essai sur le
probleme theologique (Essay on the theological problem] by the Belgian
Dominican Louis Charlier, published in 1938, and the small booklet
Uneecole de theologie: le Saulchoir [A school of theology: the
Saulchoir], by his French colleague Marie- Dominique Chenu, published
privately at the end of the previous year. This book details a ten year
history. Etienne Fouilloux gives us here the story of a forgotten or
misunderstood episode in the history of the Catholic Church, still
struggling with the ghosts of Modernism. Vatican I is still far away and
yet it is the whole issue of the renewal of theology that this
fascinating book by a great historian highlights.
