The Congar Institute draws upon the vision of the late Cardinal Yves Congar, who devoted his life to retrieving the image of the church as a living sacrament of Christ’s presence in the world and as a priestly people consecrating the world to God. The Second Vatican Council endorsed and developed Congar’s vision of a church where all the baptized are called to be apostles, where the lives of all the faithful bear witness to the kingdom of God, and where, through them, the light of the gospel is meant to illuminate every aspect of social experience. Like Congar himself, we believe that adult faith formation can and must transform each believer into an evangelizer, and that in this age of “new evangelization” the ministry of the church can and must discover how to be appropriately inclusive, empowering, and missionary.

The Congar Institute for Ministry Development is an initiative of the Southern Dominican Province that promotes the excellent formation that lay people called to pastoral leadership seek and deserve. The Institute is rooted in a commitment to pass on the Catholic Tradition to the next generation, especially in dioceses with limited resources. It facilitates collaboration that fosters pastoral formation and an apostolic vision at a time of ministerial transformation. To this end, the Institute and its programs draw upon and harmonize the charisms of religious congregations and other ecclesial institutions in order to confirm, support, and augment existing pastoral programs.