To those who are unfamiliar with Schillebeeckx, here is an excerpt from the bio cited below. You can click on the link to read the whole article. I underlined some parts that may have contributed to tensions with the Vatican.
Encyclopedia of World Biography on Edward Schillebeeckx
www.bookrags.com/biography/edward-schillebeeckx/
From 1943 Schillebeeckx was teaching theology at the Catholic University of Louvain. He was responsible for the entire curriculum of dogmatic theology (that which exposes the basic tenets of church doctrine), which was spread over a four-year cycle. Thus he was forced to consider the entire corpus of Catholic doctrine and think about the interrelations among the different tracts. His first publications, beginning in the early 1950s, dealt with sacramental theology. Translated into English as Christ, The Sacrament of Encounter with God (1962), his first book received a warm reception. Schillebeeckx was rethinking the sacraments in non-scholastic, personalist categories, searching for the presence of Christ in and through the signs of the sacramental ceremonies. His next book, on Mary, treated her in the context of Christology, rather than in the ecclesiastic context usually employed. The result was to humanize Mary, tying her to the humanity and work of Jesus. This focus, more limited than the previous tendency to associate Mary with the entire sweep of the history of salvation, was more congenial to Protestant theologians, who feared idolatrous overtones in Catholic devotion to Mary.
In addition to teaching dogmatic theology at Louvain, Schillebeeckx also gave spiritual direction to numerous students. His tendency in that work was to relax the previously rigid rules and support a training regime both permissive and progressive. This succeeded in reducing tensions between students and faculty, and it put into practice the positive, hopeful, humanistic theology that he was developing from his studies in the history of theology and the Bible. His goal was to be not so much a superior as a friendly, understanding, kindly older brother.
In 1957 Schillebeeckx was appointed to Nimegen University in Holland, where he wrote his most influential books. At first he was depressed by the conditions at Nimegen, which were considerably more constrictive than those at Louvain. But his work as a peritus (expert) before and during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) put him in contact with the leading bishops and theologians of the world-wide church and caught him up in the euphoria of an unprecedented effort to update the Church by bringing it into dialogue with the modern world. He gave numerous lectures to bishops, explaining recent advances in theology, and he contributed to the chapter on marriage and the family in the key conciliar document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World). Reflecting years later, he found the achievement of the council to be ambiguous, because it brought some progress but by no means the radical reforms for which he had hoped. Popes Paul VI and John Paul II both put brakes on such reforms and clamped down on theologians who stressed freedom of conscience or democratic processes in the Church. Schillebeeckx found himself most sympathetic to the “critical communities” that arose in Europe after the council. These grass-roots churches sought to criticize church practice in view of its social and experiential impact, as well as its fidelity to tradition.
Schillebeeckx’s greatest books, on Christology, appeared in Dutch in 1974 and 1977. Translated as Jesus (1979) and Christ (1980), they have set the standard for contemporary studies of Jesus. With great erudition, Schillebeeckx sought to retrieve the experience of both the man Jesus and the early Christian community that became convinced he was alive in their midst (through the resurrection). Together, these books were a tour de force, joining biblical scholarship with hermeneutical (interpretational) acumen and speculative power in a fresh synthesis. The two books brought Schillebeeckx under a cloud in Rome, because they do not use traditional language and do not make the formulas of the Council of Chalcedon (451), where the divinity and humanity of Jesus were defined classically, the template for all Christological reflection.
Schillebeeckx bore the attacks on his writings patiently, continuing to produce controversial studies in other areas. For example, his book on ministry (1980) argued for the ordination of women and against priestly celibacy. He also continued his leadership in Concilium, an international publishing venture designed to help theologians from all over the globe collaborate on important current issues.
