Schillebeeckx, Edward Cornelius Florentius [key], 1914–2009, Belgian Roman Catholic theologian, b. Antwerp. He entered the Dominican order in 1934 and was ordained in 1941. After studying at the Catholic Univ. of Leuven and the Sorbonne, he joined (1958) the theological faculty of the Catholic Univ. of Nijmegen (now Radboud Univ.) in the Netherlands. He was a leading adviser to Dutch bishops at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which reshaped many practices of the Roman Catholic Church, including the celebration of the mass in modern languages and a broader acceptance of contemporary culture. However, his calls for greater local participation in church governance, the abolition of celebacy for priests, and the ordination of both men and women, did not find favor with the church hierarchy, and his writings were later investigated for heresy but never condemned. His works include Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974, tr. 1979), Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (1977, tr, 1980), God among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed (1982, tr. 1983), The Church with a Human Face: A New and Expanded Theology of Ministry (1985, tr. 1985), On Christian Faith: The Spiritual, Ethical and Political Dimensions (1986, tr. 1987), and Church: The Human Story of God (1989, tr. 1990).
See conversations in I Am a Happy Theologian (tr. 1994).
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