Louis Bouyer was a major figure in the Church of the last century. These memoirs, which Bouyer wrote in a humble and humorous vein—though without withholding his notoriously sharp pen when needed—allow the reader to enter with him into the great events that shook the Church and the world during the era of upheavals and transformations through which he lived. They amount to an intelligent, sensitive, and pious man's fascinating chronicle and deep reflection on Christianity's life and travails in a world committed to modernity. Bouyer here tells us the full and varied story of a life devoted to the discovery of the sources and Tradition of the Church in doctrine, spirituality, liturgy, and scripture. We follow Bouyer's journeys from his inherited Protestantism to the fullness of the Catholic Faith, from his position as a Lutheran pastor to the priesthood in the Oratory of France, from humble parish life to the Olympian heights of his official theological and liturgical collaboration (and difficulties) before and after the Council with such influential figures as Congar, Daniélou, de Lubac, Bugnini, and... Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI). Bouyer paints the lush landscape of a century's illusions and disenchantments; his memoirs are essential for understanding the history of the Church during that momentous time.
Author
Rev. Louis Bouyer (1913-2004) was a member of the French Oratory and one of the most respected and versatile Catholic scholars and theologians of the twentieth century. A friend of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, and J.R.R. Tolkien, and a co-founder of the international review Communio, Bouyer was a former Lutheran minister who entered the Catholic Church in 1939. He became a leading figure in the Catholic biblical and liturgical movements of the twentieth century, was an influence on the Second Vatican Council, and became well known for his excellent books on history of Christian spirituality. In addition to his many writings, Bouyer lectured widely across Europe and America. Woman in the Church (with an epilogue by Balthasar and an essay by C.S. Lewis), was one of the first three books published by Ignatius Press, in 1979. Other Ignatius Press books by Bouyer include The Word Church and Sacraments in Protestantism and Catholicism, Women Mystics, and the introduction to John Henry Newman: Prayers Verses Devotions (Bouyer wrote a biography of Newman). He was chosen by the Pope to be part of a team to initiate the International Theological Commission in 1969.
