On July 1, 1942 the Holy Office issued a decree that the Louvain
professor of fundamental theology René Draguet (1896-1980) had to be
deprived of his teaching. The decree did not clarify the reasons for
this sanction. Earlier on in the same year two books were placed on the
Index: M.-D. Chenu’s Une École de théologie: Le Saulchoir
(1937) and L. Charlier’s Essai sur le problème théologique
(1938), while a dissertation of a Louvain doctor in theology and student
of Draguet, V. Buffon, was ‘condemned’ without being put on the Index.
These theologians shared a pursuit of theological renewal, either
directly (e.g. by elaborating a new theory of theology) or indirectly
(e.g. by introducing methodological innovations in the domain of
doctrinal history). As both Charlier and Buffon were to a large extent
dependent on Draguet’s theological theory and method, the Louvain
professor appears as the key figure of a ‘Louvain school’ of theological
renewal that – together with the school of Le Saulchoir – was combated
very harshly by the Holy Office in 1942. The quick succession of
condemnations gave rise to the fear that a revival of ‘integrism’ was
taking place against a kind of neo-modernism, labeled as nouvelle
théologie.




The book consists of two parts. In the first part, the projects of
theological renewal of Draguet, Charlier and Chenu are studied. Most
attention is given to the not well-known theological project of Draguet,
that is discussed in detail on the basis of his teaching and
publications. Next the theological positions of Charlier and Chenu are
analysed from a comparative perspective. In this way it is shown how the
catch word nouvelle théologie made an amalgam of very
divergent projects of theological renewal. The second part is devoted to
the history of the condemnations of 1942. The opening up of the Draguet
archives in 2005 allowed for the historiography of the condemnation and
rehabilitation of Draguet in its relation to the condemnations of Chenu,
Charlier and Buffon.