“It is difficult to love God with one’s whole soul, heart, mind, and strength and not do it in the state of life and environment where God has placed us.” ~ Louis J Putz CSC

Putz was famous for saying “You Are Church!” his drive to have all members understand we are equal and we have different roles but all equal.

You can see the influences of his teachers in France during the 1930s, Congar, de Lubac, Danielou, Suhard, and Teilhard.It was during this time in France, at the Catholic Institute of Theology in Paris where the students would gather and meet with Cardinal Shuard and the papal nuncio to France, Angelo Roncalli. they would discuss social justice, the rights of workers, and what it meant to be a church in the modern world.

This was the beginning of two creative movements that started in Europe and eventually spread to the US. It was the beginning of the 20th Century a New Theology of Church and in Europe the Catholic Action Movement.All of us today, enjoy the fruits and labors of organizations such as CAC, Christogenisis, The Rahner Society, Catholic Worker, the Catholic Family Movement, Call to Action, and others, all of which can trace their DNA to the 1930s and the thinking and work that came out of Catholic Institute of Theology in Paris. BTW for those who may not know, Angelo Roncalli became Pope John XXIII.

The people of this time and place truly had no idea that they were the masters of a new theology of the laity for a church longing to be reunited with the people of God. And for us to better understand We Are Church!