Synod Process Paints Promising Future for Ecumenism

By Father John Crossin, OSFS

The Vatican’s release today of the working document and survey for the 2015 Synod on the Family reminds us that the Synod process begun in 2014 will continue into most of next year. The 2014 Synod on the Family was very encouraging from the point of view of an ecumenist. There are two aspects that I think were particularly significant for Christian unity.

Pope Francis invited all the participants to speak their minds. They were to say what they needed to say. And there were disagreements.

This openness sends a message to our Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican colleagues that, should we come into full communion, their voices would be heard. I believe that they have some fear that in full communion with such a large hierarchical church their voices would be lost or drowned out.

This Synod sent the opposite message. All voices will be heard though of course not all will get their way.

A related experience of the Synod was that there are different schools of thought in the Catholic Church. Adherents do not always agree with one another.

This has been true for centuries but is not always quite so evident. Catholics realize that the various schools of thought have distinguished members. Most members tend to think that they are the best, have the truth, preserve orthodoxy and have the correct pastoral approach. It seemed clear at the Synod and in the immediate preparatory time that the adherents of the schools represented points of view that can be far from definitive.

There are different schools of thought in Anglicanism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. The witness of the Synod is that there is room for multiplicity in unity.  Full Communion with others would bring even more diverse ways of thinking. Pope Francis has noted on more than one occasion that unity is not uniformity. This diversity could be of great benefit to a Synodical process of discernment of God’s will for the Church.

One danger of multiple schools is that they can become isolated from each another.  Living and working in ‘gated communities’ of the like-minded can make it difficult to hear the voices of others outside the group. Pope Francis describes this as the risk of becoming self-referential.

A process that encourages all to listen for the voice of the Spirit while engaging one another‘s best thoughts and practices can contribute to our progress toward Christian unity.

Father John Crossin, OSFS is executive director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He tweets @crossinusccb.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Seven Markers on the Road to Christian Unity

By Father John Crossin

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is January 18-25. With an estimated 41,000 denominations in Christianity today, it's certainly worth praying for. Such prayer goes back to the example of Christ praying "that they all may be one" at the Last Supper (John 17:21). God has answered this prayer, and continues to answer it, if incrementally, with every new development in various ecumenical dialogues around the world. Each is another step on the road to Christian unity. Here are seven significant markers along that road:

1. Vatican II opens the door. With its 1964 decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (Restoration of Unity), the Second Vatican Council launched the Catholic Church on its current trajectory of dialogue and seeking increased understanding with other Christians. While the broader ecumenical movement began earlier in the 20th Century, this was where Catholics officially entered the story. The dialogues kicked off in its wake continue at the global, national and local levels today.

2. East and West begin their thaw. After a fruitful meeting in 1964, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I declared in 1965 that they were lifting the mutual excommunications of 1054 that symbolized the official split between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, one of the oldest rifts in Christianity. Five years later, Pope Paul and Patriarch Athenagoras even considered a proposal to concelebrate the Eucharist. That plan never came to be, but the desire for unity by both parties remains an example.

3. 'Justification' question no longer divides. By the end of the 20th Century, Catholics and Lutherans had almost 500 years of experience in caricaturing what the other believed on the question of how people are justified before God. (Cardinal Francis George of Chicago explains it brilliantly in this video.) While Catholic and Protestant theologians had worked towards a convergence on this issue for decades, and early progress on this point had been made by the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue in the United States, it was the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification that finally took the issue off the table as a point of division. In 2006, the Methodists joined Catholics and Lutherans in signing the agreement.

4. The Ravenna Statement. Meeting in Ravenna, Italy in 2007, international Catholic and Eastern Orthodox delegations explored questions of authority and its exercise in the Church. The dialogue issued a statement that agreed the bishop of Rome held a place of honor among bishops in the ancient Church, and that he should also exercise some sort of primacy in the Church today. Cardinal Walter Kasper, the lead Vatican representative, called this a "breakthrough," but acknowledged that much more dialogue was necessary.

5. A road map emerges. In 2010, the North American Orthodox-Catholic dialogue issued an agreed statement that provided an unprecedented practical picture of what unity between East and West would look like and steps the two churches could take to reach that point. The document recommends collaboration on shared pastoral challenges, joint prayer and social ministry and a mutual recognition at all levels that Catholics and Orthodox belong to "sister churches."

6. Agreement on baptism. Back on the Protestant side of ecumenism, in 2010, the Catholic-Reformed dialogue (which includes the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the Presbyterian Church-USA, the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ) reached a Common Agreement on Baptism, including a common formula of using flowing water and invoking the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Practically speaking, this agreement resolved issues that stood in the way of fully recognizing each other's baptisms.

7. Next steps. On January 28-29, the next round of the Catholic-Reformed dialogue will begin to explore the 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They All May be One). In that encyclical, Pope John Paul II highlighted the papacy as a ministry of unity (for instance, all Catholics are said to be in communion with the bishop of Rome, and even the title Pontifex Maximus means "chief bridge builder"). He called on other Christian denominations to dialogue with him about how he could exercise this ministry in a way that would promote a broader unity among all Christians. A pope for Protestants too? The Holy Spirit has brought greater surprises.

Father John Crossin is executive director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Council At 50: The Search for Christian Unity

Welcome to one of the series of blogs on the Second Vatican Council. Each piece reviews one of the 16 documents produced by the Council Fathers during the extraordinary occasion in Church history. Vatican II, which drew together the world’s bishops, opened fifty years ago in St. Peter’s Basilica, October 11, 1962.

(Photo courtesy Catholic News Service)

When I was a boy, Catholics did not enter Protestant or Orthodox churches. We did not pray together except for an occasional prayer before a public event. Now, 50 years after the Second Vatican Council, we pray together regularly. This type of “spiritual ecumenism” is at the heart of our movement toward Christian unity.

The Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (1964)Unitatis Redintegratio ( Restoration of Unity), opened the doors of the church. The Council exhorted “all the Catholic faithful…to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism.” [Decree, #4]

We began to build relationships of trust and forgiveness with our Protestant and Orthodox neighbors. We became friends. We began to look together more honestly at the issues that divide us. The Council urged us to make “…every effort to avoid expressions, judgments and actions that do not represent the condition of our separated brethren with truth and fairness ….” [#4]

In formal dialogues and informal conversations we moved from mutual suspicion and some exaggerations to an honest search for the facts and the truth of the past. Often our perceived differences came from the preconceptions and emotions of times past and not from deep divisions.

Our renewed relationships led to practical collaborations. Today the local food pantry or soup kitchen is often sponsored by an ecumenical coalition of churches. Frequently we coordinate our international efforts to aid those in need so we might be more effective.

On the local level, we see Catholic parish Bible study groups. These did not exist in my youth. We see many Protestant churches celebrating the Lord’s Supper every Sunday.  Protestants have shared with Catholics their love for the Bible; Catholics have shared with Protestants their love for the sacraments.

Both the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops engage in scholarly dialogues with Protestant and Orthodox friends and colleagues. “Through such dialogue everyone gains a truer knowledge and more just appreciation of the teaching and religious life of both communions.” [#4]

One result of these dialogues was the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, a carefully worded statement on the key theological issue of the Reformation that was agreed to by the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican in 1999. Its central affirmation is: “Together we confess:  By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” [Declaration, #15]  In 2006, the World Methodist Council signed the Declaration.

More recently representatives of many Orthodox churches and of the Holy See endorsed the Ravenna Statement on the church. This little-known statement about the sacramental nature of the church and its implications for church life and authority—local, regional and universal— was a breakthrough with significant implications for the unity of Eastern and Western Christians.

Of course, there’s still a “ways to go” and this challenges all Christians. We are just beginning to address ecumenically some of the “hot” moral issues of our times, such as questions of sexual morality. While we have substantial agreement on many moral issues, we need to dig down deeper into the causes of our divergences.

The work of ecumenism is slow but steady. We are touching the deep foundations of our lives. We all adjust slowly to change – even change for the better.

---

Bishop Denis Madden is chairman of the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.