“You will be called Repairer of the Breach”: The Diary of J. G. M. Willebrands, 1958–1961 (review)

This diary and another volume, Les Agendas Conciliares de Mgr J. Willebrands (annotated French translation by Leo Declerck, Leuven, 2009) that covers 1963–65, were discovered almost by chance in 2005. The diary covers the periods July 1958 to September 1959, May 1960 to August 1960, and September 1960 to March 1961. Starting with Willebrands’s appointment on August 1, 1958, as episcopal delegate for ecumenical affairs for the Dutch Bishops’ Conference (the first to hold that position for a bishops’ conference), it runs, with considerable gaps, through the first months of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SPCU, created by Pope John XXIII on June 5, 1960) when early preparations for the Second Vatican Council were taking place. Salemink’s helpful introduction, “Willebrands the Ecumenist 1958–61,” and critical annotations identifying the many individuals or events mentioned but not identified by Willebrands are indispensable for appreciating the diary.

Since 1952 Willebrands (1909–2006) had promoted the Catholic Conference for Ecumenical Questions (CCEQ), bringing theologians and bishops together for ecumenical study, developing contacts with the World Council of Churches (WCC) on theological matters, and continually reporting developments to well-placed persons in Rome such as Father Augustine Bea and Roman authorities such as Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Eugène Tisserant. He asked permission of Ottaviani before proceeding with certain initiatives. The diary shows levels of trust developing in these relationships. It shows the intensity of Willebrands’s contacts with the WCC, with entries (usually several) about WCC for every month from August 1958 to July 1959, references to meetings with General Secretary Willem Visser’t Hooft in seven of those twelve months, and entries in nine of the twelve months relating to CCEQ’s work supporting the WCC study-project Lordship of Christ. His persistence led to several breakthroughs. In 1958 Willebrands worked to have, for the first time, a joint meeting of CCEQ and the WCC study department on the Lordship of Christ project. Ottaviani approved and suggested Assisi as a possible location. In 1959 two Catholics—Willebrands and Christophe-Jean Dumont, O.P.—were invited for the first time to the WCC Central Committee meeting in Rhodes. Ottaviani confirmed approval of the meeting in Assisi, approved Willebrands and Dumont’s participation at Rhodes (as journalists), and also other ecumenical initiatives. The continuing delicacy of ecumenical relations was shown in a misunderstanding, when Catholics and Orthodox held a joint meeting at Rhodes and WCC officials, who had not been informed in advance, negatively interpreted the intensions behind it. Willebrands’s daily accounts of the Rhodes meeting that run from August 17 to 28, 1959, provide new information about the incident and show the anger of WCC officials, which led to postponement of the Assisi meeting. The matter was eventually resolved.

The diary shows Willebrands’s role as SPCU secretary—his close collaboration with Bea and staff colleagues Thomas F. Stransky and Jean-François Arrighi, preparation of SPCU for its work with the Council, selection of its members and consultants (many of whom had been active in CCEQ), organization of its first meetings, and management of initial ecumenical challenges such as the unprecedented visit of Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher to Rome in December 1960.

Willebrands’s extensive contacts with the WCC, despite the tensions at Rhodes, help explain the relative quickness with which the SPCU began to develop good relations with the WCC even during the Second Vatican Council. Although Catholics had been forbidden to attend the 1948 and 1954 WCC assemblies, designated Catholic observers attended its 1961 New Delhi Assembly after some internal Catholic disagreements about this matter had been resolved.

The diary reminds us of Willebrands’s unique ecumenical contributions even before the Council. It is an important new ecumenical source.