Finding Illich

Penned in 1959 and published in 1967, “The Vanishing Clergyman” was Ivan Illich’s bravura entry into the contentious world of ecclesiastical polemics and combative theologies following the Second Vatican Council. It is a measure of his prophetic instincts that the essay, although released after the council ended in 1965, was conceived several years before that assembly began in 1962. In it, Illich foresaw “the face-to-face meeting of families around a table, rather than the impersonal attendance of a crowd around an altar. Celebration will sanctify the dining room, rather than connected buildings the ceremony.” It wasn’t exactly orthodox Catholic teaching and practice — but it was vintage Illich.

A priest with the honorary rank of monsignor, a vice-rector of a Catholic university, and a major figure in shaping intercultural thinking, Illich was by the time of the essay’s publication an unwelcome celebrity in official Church circles, even though he had his patrons...