Marie-Dominique Chenu

Marie-Dominique Chenu (OP) (7 January 1895, Soisy-sur-Seine, Essonne – 11 February 1990, Paris) was a progressive Roman Catholic theologian and a founder of the reformist journal Concilium. He entered the French Province of the Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) in 1913. His earlier theological work was on St. Thomas Aquinas, employing an historical method. He was invited to be a peritus, or expert, at the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council (1962–65) where he was influential in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes). (see Walter Principe, "Chenu, M.D" in Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Edited by Richard McBrien, 1995.)

Although his book Le Saulchoir: Une école de la théologie was put on the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1942 by Pope Pius XII and the Holy Office, because of its then progressive ideas about the role of historical studies in theology, he was later exonerated and his theology embraced by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council.

Bibliography

• Chenu, Marie-Dominique, O.P. "A conversation with Père Chenu." Dominicana 50 (1965): 141ff.
• Chenu, Marie-Dominique, O.P. Jacques Duquesne interroge le P. Chenu. "Un théologien en liberté." Paris: Centurion, 1975.
• Chenu, Marie-Dominique, O.P. Le Saulchoir: Une école de la théologie. Paris: Étiolles, 1937. Reprinted in Une école de la théologie: Le Saulchoir, ed. G. Alberigo. Paris: Cerf, 1985.
• Chenu, Marie-Dominique, O.P. "Position de la théologie," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24 (1935): 252. Reprinted in Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., La parole de Dieu. Vol. 1, La foi dans l'intelligence, 115-138. Paris: Cerf, 1964.
• Chenu, Marie-Dominique, O.P. Aquinas and His Role in Theology. Translated by Paul Philibert. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002.