Augustin Bea auf dem Weg zum Ökumeniker 1949-1960

Focusing on the correspondence between Augustin Bea SJ, who was Holy Office’s consultant and Pacelli’s confessor, and Lorenz Jaeger, bishop of Paderborn and referent for the ecumenical questi- ons at the Bishops’ Conference of Fulda, this study provides a reconstruction of the „ecumenical conversion“ which lead the first one to act as a link between Rome and the circles of Catholic ecumenism, above all the German ones, during the pontificate of Pius XII. It was Jaeger, indeed, who chose Bea, among the many consultors of the Holy Office, as a contact men for ecumenical questions to be submitted to the Holy See, putting him at the crossroads of a network of contacts and relationships which involved also the ecumenical circles in Switzerland, Austria and Holland. The correspondence between the two men takes place since 1951 and its reconstruction permits to study the evolution of the ecumenical thought of the Jesuit and his attitude towards the question of individual conversions, the activities of the movement Una Sancta and the evolution of the World Council of Churches.