From a Suspected Reformer to the Suspicion of the Reform: The Enigmatic Case of Henri de Lubac

This contribution explores Henri de Lubac’s changing relationship with the papacy and its magisterial role. The mutation of his relationship with the different popes with whom he interacted illustrates the tense, problematic, and necessary link between Jesuit theologians and the hierarchy of the Church. Lubac’s contrasting relationship with the papacy can be explained, on the one hand, by his quest, and that of other theologians of his generation, for an aggiornamento of the Church in a context marked by the aftermath of the modernist crisis and, on the other hand, by the theological and ecclesiological debates that arose from the reception of the Second Vatican Council.