Walking With Others: Science and Ecumenism

By Father John Crossin, OSFS

This past February, I attended a Workshop on Science and Religion at the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS] in downtown Washington. That day we explored the connection of science with Catholicism and ways to communicate knowledge more effectively.

The intersection of science and religion has been of interest to me for well over a decade. I imagine that this interest goes to back to my college days studying for my degree in mathematics.

These days I see a relationship of this workshop to my daily work with others. In our Secretariat we seek ecumenical and interreligious understanding. To use Pope Francis’ image, we walk with our friends in other religious tradition with mutual respect. We seek to understand their points of view and their values more deeply. We also share our thoughts, value and concerns with them.

In our American culture, science is valued and technology influences almost all aspects of life. Science and technology are the basic framework many people have for viewing the world. It can be an alternative faith or philosophy of life. It seems to me that we can adopt the same attitude of mutual respect with the "believers in science" as we do with our religious colleagues. Science can expand our horizons and deepen our understanding.

Whatever the attitudes of some church officials were centuries ago, certainly the Church nowadays has a great respect for the findings of modern science. These findings are taught thoroughly in Catholic schools.

Our attitude, however, is a critical one. We analyze research findings to see if they have been replicated by others. We realize that there are limits to science. Scientific method is a tool that helps us to discover extraordinary things about our world. It enables modern inventions such as the computer used to type this reflection.

We also are critical of efforts to over-extend science.  Some would make genes, for example, the explanation or everything: "My genes made me do it!" We question whether the extension of legitimate science into a total philosophy of life is legitimate.

Such efforts to broaden scientific understanding are fascinating in some ways. They give us things to think about. But they seem to stretch the truth.

We Catholics, as reasonable people, want to know the truth about material things and truths about life. Thus we converse with our scientific colleagues as we walk along.

Father John Crossin is an Oblate of St. Francis De Sales and executive director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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)

Unity Without Conditions: Why Francis' Trip to Turkey Matters

(CNS photo/CNS photo/Grzegorz Galazka, pool)

By Father Ronald Roberson, CSP

November 30 is the feast of Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the highest ranking patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. There is now a longstanding tradition that the Vatican sends a delegation to participate in this celebration each year in Istanbul (the modern Turkish name for ancient Constantinople), just as the Ecumenical Patriarchate sends a delegation to Rome each year for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29.  This reciprocal participation in each other’s celebrations has become a reliable sign of the growing friendship and communion between Rome and Constantinople.

This year Pope Francis himself headed the Vatican delegation.  In itself this was not unusual; Popes have headed the delegation a number of times in the past, including the one in 1979 when Saint John Paul II and Patriarch Dimitrios announced together the establishment of an official international dialogue between the two churches. This year the presence of Pope Francis cemented his clear desire and that of Patriarch Bartholomew to continue down the path of reconciliation, bolstered by their personal friendship that became so apparent when they met in the Holy Land last May.

Pope Francis was present at the Eucharist celebrated by Patriarch Bartholomew on November 30. At the end of the service, Pope Francis spoke movingly about the need for full unity between Catholics and Orthodox. He reaffirmed Vatican II’s statement that Orthodox sacraments are valid, and said that the full communion we seek “does not signify the submission of one to the other, or assimilation.  Rather, it means welcoming all the gifts that God has given to each.” He went on to say that the Catholic Church “does not intend to impose any conditions except that of the shared profession of faith” for the restoration of full communion. 

For his part, Patriarch Bartholomew expressed the hope that “during your tenure the rapprochement of our two great ancient Churches will continue to be established on the solid foundation of our common tradition, which always preserved and acknowledged in the constitution of the Church a primacy of love, honor and service within the framework of collegiality.” Then, in a dramatic gesture, Pope Francis bowed his head before Patriarch Bartholomew and asked for his blessing on himself and the Church of Rome.

CNS photo/Paul Haring

The encounter culminated in the signing of a Common Declaration by the Pope and Patriarch. In it they stress three basic points:  

1. Their “firm resolution” to promote Christian unity, especially between Catholics and Orthodox, and their request that the faithful join them in praying for this goal.  
2. Their concern for the situation in the Middle East and especially the suffering minorities including Christians.  
3. The importance of dialogue with Islam based on mutual respect and friendship in an effort “to build a culture of peace and solidarity” among all peoples, and the need for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. 

This latest encounter between Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has lent strong support for the continuation of the theological dialogue and for greater common witness by Catholics and Orthodox on the pressing issues that humanity faces today.

Father Ronald Roberson, CSP is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is also a consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Oriental Churches. 

The Power of Becoming a Church in Dialogue

By Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski

Our choice of words can make a profound difference.

Our posture can make a profound difference.

We as a Church have learned these lessons as we have engaged in dialogue with our fellow Christians for the past 50 years. When the words we use are harsh and judgmental, people don't stick around to hear what else we might have to say, even if it might be beneficial to them. When we assume a posture that is defensive and closed, people don't bother to approach us in the first place.

With its Decree on Ecumenism, issued 50 years ago this month, the Second Vatican Council transformed the Catholic Church into a Church of dialogue. Our focus shifted from the errors we saw  in other Christian traditions to an acknowledgement that the Holy Spirit is also working in the lives of these communities and that, yes, there are positive elements to them, even things Catholics can learn from them.

And thus it becomes imperative that we dialogue.

In 50 years of dialogue with other Christians, we have seen progress that would have been unimaginable before the Council:

• In 1965, following the historic meeting of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem the year before, Rome and Constantinople lifted the mutual excommunications that had officially divided Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy since the year 1054.
• In 1999, following years of fruitful dialogue, the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This agreement said that the question of how people are saved by God, a flashpoint of the Reformation, was no longer a point of division for Lutheran and Catholics. In 2006, the Methodists also signed onto the statement.
• Most recently, Pope Francis has reached out to Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians in new ways, sparking levels of mutual engagement and openness never seen before.

The world of dialogue has received a real shot of adrenaline with Pope Francis, a man of dialogue to his core. The response to the world's challenges, Pope Francis said in Brazil last year, should be "dialogue, dialogue, dialogue."

"Dialogue between generations, dialogue with the people, because we are all people, the capacity to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth," Pope Francis said.

In this light, we see that dialogue is not merely a tool for different Christians and religions to better understand the truth of one another, but an answer to the call for the Church to go out from itself and bring Christ's mercy to people on the margins.

This is the power of being a Church in dialogue. The world of ecumenical relationships has seen the Holy Spirit at work time and again over the past 50 years. Now it is up to the Church to answer the call of Pope Francis, Blessed Paul VI and the Council, to take this model and truly apply it to a dialogue with the whole world.

Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski is bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts, and the new chairman of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Catholic and Orthodox, Two Traditions Gradually Growing Together

By Father Ronald Roberson, CSP

When the Second Vatican Council was convened, there had been virtually no relationship at all between the leadership of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches of the East for over 500 years. The last time a pope and Patriarch of Constantinople had met was in 1438. But when he convoked the Council, Pope John XXIII made sure that the unity of Christians was high on its agenda. This was due in part to his personal experience during the years he lived in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece as papal representative to those countries, where he gained an appreciation of Eastern Christianity.

In its final form, the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) has a separate section dedicated to relations with the Orthodox entitled, “The Special Position of the Eastern Churches” (paragraphs 14-18).  These churches are special first and foremost because the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Orthodox sacraments. In fact, since we share the same Eucharist and sacrament of Holy Orders, the Orthodox Churches “are linked with us in closest intimacy.” The decree goes on to praise the many spiritual and theological treasures that are found in the Christian East and recognizes that these churches “have the power to govern themselves according to the disciplines proper to them, since these are better suited to the character of their faithful, and more for the good of their souls.”  The decree also calls for a gradual realization of unity between Catholics and Orthodox, “especially by prayer, and by fraternal dialogue on points of doctrine and the more pressing pastoral problems of our time.”

The centuries-long icy silence between Catholics and Orthodox had already been broken in January 1964, when Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras met in the Holy Land. Now the process of reconciliation was quickly moving forward. The excommunications of 1054 were “erased from the memory of the church” in 1965, and Pope Paul and Patriarch Athenagoras exchanged visits in Rome and Istanbul in 1967.

In 1979, an official theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church was established by Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Demetrios of Constantinople. It produced some important agreed statements in its early years, but has run into difficulty following the clashes between Catholics and Orthodox after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It is now looking at the vexed question of primacy in our churches.

The most fruitful Catholic-Orthodox dialogue begun after Vatican II has been the one in North America.  Founded in 1965, it has produced about 30 agreed statements over the years on a wide variety of topics. Its most recent major study was its “Steps Towards a Reunited Church” document that outlines what a reconciled Orthodox and Catholic Church might look like and the role that the pope would play in it. In early June, it issued a brief agreed statement calling for the restoration of the faculty of Eastern Catholic bishops in North America to ordain married men to the priesthood. This would not only recognize an authentic Eastern Christian tradition, but would also serve as an assurance to the Orthodox (most of whose parish clergy are married) that the Catholic Church would respect their longstanding traditions.

Relations between Catholics and Orthodox have improved immeasurably since the Decree on Ecumenism was issued nearly 50 years ago. As Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew put it so well in their Joint Declaration in the Holy Land in May, “While fully aware of not having reached the goal of full communion, today we confirm our commitment to continue walking together towards the unity for which Christ our Lord prayed to the Father so 'that all may be one' (Jn 17:21)."

Father Ronald Roberson, CSP is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is also a consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Oriental Churches. This post is part of a series commemorating the 50th anniversary of Unitatis Redintegratio, the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council.

CNS Photo/Paul Haring

Paul VI and Dialogue -- We Wouldn't Be Here Without Him

By Bishop Denis Madden

When Pope Paul VI, who will be beatified October 19, inherited the Second Vatican Council from John XXIII in 1963, his challenges included fulfilling the late pope’s wishes to “open a window” in the Church and to reach out to “our separated brethren.” Pope Paul’s approach to both of these was to introduce the concept of dialogue.

The Church hasn’t been the same since.

John O’Malley recounts in his book “What Happened at Vatican II” that the Council’s early draft on ecumenism didn’t use the word dialogue once. Then Pope Paul issued his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam (On the Church) on August 6, 1964. In it, he repeatedly stressed the importance of dialogue, stating, “The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make.” The Council championed dialogue from then on.

November 1964 saw the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), which called on “all the Catholic faithful to recognize the signs of the times and to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism,” that is, dialoguing with, praying together and simply building friendships with non-Catholic Christians.

In October 1965, the Council took dialogue beyond other Christians and applied it to the world’s religions with Nostra Aetate, a brief but groundbreaking document that swept away centuries of erroneous negative teaching about the Jewish people and held up examples, essentially starting points for dialogue, where the Catholic Church saw positive elements of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. The document noted that all religions seek answers to the big questions: What is the meaning of life? Why do people suffer? What is the road to true happiness? All of these call for dialogue.

Pope Paul put the call for dialogue with the world into action through his apostolic journeys to places including India, Portugal, the United States, Colombia, Turkey and the Holy Land. His reason for taking the name Paul as pope was to emulate the journey of the missionary disciple. His historic January 1964 meeting with Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem renewed the Catholic dialogue with Orthodox Christians and led the following year to the mutual rescinding of the excommunications of 1054 that had divided the churches.

In October 1965, during his visit to the United States, Pope Paul became the first pope to address the United Nations. His remarks, essentially to the entire world, included the famous call: “No more war, war never again!” The implications are clear. The Catholic Church does not simply engage in dialogue for dialogue’s sake, but because the fruits of dialogue—engagement, friendship, respect, recognizing the human dignity of people different than ourselves—are the seeds of peace and the Kingdom of God.

Through our dialogues with others, the Catholic Church has seen much good fruit over the past 50 years. We owe it to the grace of the Holy Spirit. But in a very practical way, we also owe it to Pope Paul.

Bishop Madden is an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore and chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Listen to the Popes on the Value of Muslim-Catholic Dialogue

(CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)

By Father John Crossin, OSFS


When the pope says an issue is vital to the stability of the human family, that carries a lot of weight. When the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs wrote their recent statement reaffirming the Church’s commitment to dialogue with Muslims, they found that not only one pope had stressed this idea, but three. In fact, there was such an abundance of verbiage affirming Muslim-Catholic dialogue, from the Second Vatican Council down to Pope Francis, that the bishops dedicated an entire section of their statement to Vatican and papal quotes.

These statements have a clarity that demands our attention. At a time when some encourage violence, the popes speak of friendship and peace. In their combined teaching, themes emerge. We can start with the importance of engagement and friendship, build into common concerns like human dignity and peace, and finally cast a hopeful eye to the future.

Let’s listen attentively for just a few moments…

“Christians and Muslims can work together, bearing witness before modern civilization to the divine presence and loving Providence which guide our steps. Together we can proclaim that he who has made us has called us to live in harmony and justice,” said John Paul II to a delegation of Muslims in 1990. In 2006, Benedict XVI expressed his wish “wish to continue establishing bridges of friendship with the adherents of all religions, showing particular appreciation for the growth of dialogue between Muslims and Christians.”

In dialoguing and bearing witness together, we discover what we have in common. “I believe that we, Christians and Muslims, must recognize with joy the religious values that we have in common, and give thanks to God for them,” said John Paul II in 1985. And having this in common, he argued, would contribute to peace.

(CNS photo/Arturo Mari, L'Osservatore Romano)

“No matter how difficult, no matter how long, the process of seeking peace must continue,” John Paul II said on a visit to Jordan in 2000. “Building a future of peace requires an ever more mature understanding and ever more practical cooperation among the peoples who acknowledge the one true, indivisible God, the Creator of all that exists. The three historical monotheistic religions count peace, goodness and respect for the human person among the highest values.”

Pope Francis reaffirmed this a mere nine days after his election in 2013, stating, “It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God. But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions.”

While these papal quotes are scattered across the Church’s recent history, it’s quickly apparent that the real focus is on the future and the people who will inhabit it.

“It is crucial for the young to be taught the ways of respect and understanding, so that they will not be led to misuse religion itself to promote or justify hatred and violence. Violence destroys the image of the Creator in his creatures and should never be considered as the fruit of religious conviction,” John Paul II said, visiting the Umayyad Great Mosque in 2001.“I am convinced that the future of the world depends on the various cultures and on interreligious dialogue,” he said in Cairo the year before.

In 2005, in an address to Muslim communities in Cologne, Benedict XVI put everything in perspective, declaring, “Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue between Christians and Muslims cannot be reduced to an optional extra. It is, in fact, a vital necessity, on which in large measure our future depends.”

Let’s meditate on these most important values — and seek to live them.

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

Prayers for Christian Unity Apply to Catholics Too

By Bishop Denis Madden

As the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity draws to a close, maybe it would be a good idea for Catholics to resolve to spend the other 50 weeks of the year praying for Catholic unity. This is something Catholics already do at every Mass, praying for the Church and for the pope, whose unenviable job it is to hold the entire Church together. The least we can do, with our prayers and our actions, is make that job a little easier for him.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church in the United States suffers from increasing division. Journalist John Allen described this in 2009 as a kind of "tribalism" in which a variety of groups within the Church all "speak their own language, follow their own heroes, and engage members of the other tribes largely as sparring partners in ideological debates."

One could argue that Catholics get along better with members of other faith traditions who happen to share our views on certain hot-button issues than we do with our fellow Catholics whose lived-out faith has a different emphasis than our own. If this is the case, maybe it would help if Catholics involved in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue shared some of the lessons we have learned in promoting harmony between people of faith with divergent views:

1. Pray together. It's simple, but it's an essential part of ecumenical dialogue especially because prayer brings us closer to Christ. The classic image of ecumenism is that of different Christians like spokes on a wheel with Christ at the hub. The spokes are closest to each other when they're closest to the center. Catholics have the added benefit that they not only can pray the Creed and read the Scriptures together, but also share in the sacraments, the signs of God's grace that unite us as a Church.

2. Do good works together. This approach shifts the focus away from divisive issues and allows both parties to witness to their faith through actions. It could be volunteering at a soup kitchen, helping at-risk youth with their homework, visiting the sick and imprisoned or any of a number of ministries. We encounter Christ in the poor and the marginalized, so this work would allow otherwise warring Catholics to encounter him together.

3. Try to understand one another. Our culture often fixates on proving to the other guy how wrong he is. The goal of dialogue is to understand the other. It's easy to assume someone acts a certain way for the wrong reasons. But Catholics should recognize our differences as a vital diversity, part of the richness of the Church, the one body with many parts. As St. Paul says to the Corinthians in this Sunday's readings, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you.'" Whether someone is passionately defending the unborn, the poor, the immigrant, the worker, etc., all of these efforts are part of a consistent bigger picture.

4. Always charity. When all else fails, choose to love. The Church is a family. Family is about not always having things exactly as we want them, about learning patience. It's about loving and supporting one another in spite of our failures and flaws. Pope Benedict recently said that divisions among Christians "disfigure" the Church. We have no option but to put our best face forward.

Bishop Madden is an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore and chairman of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Bridging Unity and Love: the Pope and Other Christians

Easily the most significant issue dividing Catholics from other Christians is the role, and even the mere existence, of the pope. Even popes have weighed in on this. In 1967, Pope Paul VI acknowledged that the papacy was "the gravest obstacle in the path of ecumenism."

The tragedy here is that the papacy is a ministry of unity, not division. While most of the world looks at the pope and sees some kind of "supreme ruler," the actual papal job description, if you will, is more like the hub of a wheel that connects all the spokes, the point that brings everything together. This is why, in Catholicism, local dioceses and their bishops are said to be "in communion" with the bishop of Rome. Even the Latin name for the pope, Pontifex Maximus, means "chief bridge builder."

Which is why Pope John Paul II tackled the thorny question of the papacy and other Christians in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They All May Be One). The challenges of this letter will be one focus of the next round of the Catholic-Reformed dialogue in the United States, beginning January 28.

What John Paul II said

Pope John Paul issued an invitation to other Christians to dialogue with him about the nature of his office. How could he exercise his authority as pope, he wanted to know, in a way that would promote unity among all Christians, not just Catholics?

To illustrate what he meant, the pope described the papacy in biblical and pastoral terms, as a ministry of love that helps the authentic voice of Christ to be heard. He added that the pope must have the authority necessary to carry out this role and ensure unity among Christians.

Other Christians respond

• The Church of England responded in 1997, noting that their dialogue with Catholics had already agreed on the need for a universal primate at the center of the Church. Such a bishop, they said, would work in communion with the rest of the world's bishops and ensure that local or regional churches didn't strike out on their own or take positions abhorrent to the rest of the Church.
• The Lutheran bishops of Sweden noted in their response that, despite the historically negative view of the papacy taken by Lutherans, progress was possible if the pope's ministry were clearly integrated into the college of bishops. Even Martin Luther, they said, wrote that the papacy would be acceptable if it were clearly subordinate to the Word of God and if an agreement could be reached on the question of justification (which happened in 1999).
• The Presbyterian Church-USA welcomed the inviting spirit of John Paul II's encyclical, as well as the new language he used to describe his ministry. They expressed doubt over concepts like infallibility and entrusting a universal ministry to one person, but left room for an essentially spiritual ministry exercised by a person of "extraordinary spiritual insight and incandescent personhood."
• Orthodox Christians have never officially responded to the encyclical, but in 2007, an international dialogue of Catholics and Orthodox approved the Ravenna Statement, which 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. While much more dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox is required, this document is still a breakthrough.

The way forward

As Catholics and Reformed Christians meet this month to discuss this challenge from John Paul II, perhaps the best response from Catholics and other Christians is to take seriously the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25) and ask God to help the leaders and scholars gathered in dialogue to see old questions with new insight and move closer to each other as they move closer to Christ.

This post is adapted from "A Pope for All Christians?" a resource developed by the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is available from USCCB Publishing.

Unprecedented Dialogue Bears Very Specific Fruit

I recently had the unique experience of sitting in on a conference call in person, as the USCCB's Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development facilitated the announcement of some "guidance and options" that emerged as a document, Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions, from the unprecedented dialogue between the U.S. bishops, Catholic health care and labor leaders. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, moderated both the dialogue and the phone conference.

America Magazine has already blogged on the session, capturing quite a bit of its content and flavor.

The aim of the "guidance and options" dialogue and document was to create a fair process for Catholic health care workers to decide whether or not to form a union. This involved a long process of getting Catholic bishops, Catholic health care leaders and labor leaders to find common ground informed by Catholic social teaching.

Ultimately, the document proffers seven key principles of appropriate conduct between employers and union representatives:

-- demonstrate respect for each other’s organization and mission
-- provide workers with equal access to information from both sides
-- adhere to standards for truthfulness and balance in their communications
-- create a pressure-free environment
-- allow workers to vote through a fair and expeditious process
-- honor employees’ decision regardless of the outcome
-- create a system for enforcing these principles during the course of an organizing drive

That last point about enforcement raised a question from a reporter if these measures were going to be enforced by the dialogue panel that produced them. It was quickly noted that the document's "guidance and options" were just that and therefore non-binding. The point of non-binding seemed to elicit a tone of "well then, what's the point?" in the reporter's voice.

The points, it turned out, were several. First, Cardinal McCarrick pointed out, the document wasn't binding because the panel was not in authority to bind (trust a man who's participated in a conclave to know a little something about conferring the power to bind). That is, none of the organizations involved owed any sort of allegiance to the dialogue panel. But, it was then raised, those very organizations and institutions had come forward years ago and asked that a document of this sort be created. So, now that it's been made a reality, why would they not want to adopt its principles?

I believe it was Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Hospital Association who raised the point that these principles, though non-binding, reflect solid Catholic social teaching and would be in the best interest of any organization to implement.

So, while the unionization of Catholic health care workers may be a little on the esoteric side for some of us, this is still a happy instance of dialogue and working toward common ground bearing fruit for the benefit of all involved.