Marie-Dominique Chenu

Marie-Dominique Chenu demonstrates how this once condemned theologian influenced the major shifts of twentieth-century Catholicism and reveals the relevance of his thought for contemporary theology.

In 1942, historian Marie-Dominique Chenu was removed from his teaching position at Le Saulchoir, the French Dominican school of theology, and his groundbreaking new publication was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. Yet only two decades later, the Catholic hierarchy embraced many of his ideas at the Second Vatican Council. Although Chenu’s pioneering work helped to usher in a new era, his influence on the Catholic Church remains overlooked and underexplored.

Drawing upon extensive new archival research, Mary Kate Holman provides a captivating account of Chenu’s life and how his theology contributed to the church’s opening to the modern world and shaped the next generation of theologians. Holman presents the distinctive elements of Chenu’s theology, identifies his major contributions to contemporary Catholic theology, and proposes a constructive retrieval of his thought for a renewed ecclesiology in the twenty-first century.