wfn.org | WCC Reforms Could Boost Partnership With Catholic Church

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

4-November-1997 
97420 
 
    WCC Reforms Could Boost Partnership 
    With Catholic Church 
 
    by Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--A major process of rethinking the vision and organization of the 
World Council of Churches (WCC) could "foster" the involvement of the Roman 
Catholic Church "as a partner along with the WCC in strengthening the one 
ecumenical movement," according to an official Vatican document. 
 
    The WCC has 330 member churches -- mainly Anglican, Protestant and 
Orthodox -- with a total membership of about 400 million Christians. 
However, the world's biggest church, the Roman Catholic Church,  with more 
than 900 million members, is not a member of the WCC. 
 
    The WCC is undergoing a major restructuring for the new millennium 
under the description "common understanding and vision" (CUV). As part of 
the preparations for a policy statement on the CUV process, a draft was 
sent last November to WCC member churches and others -- including the Roman 
Catholic Church -- for comment. 
 
    In its response, the Vatican's section for ecumenical relations -- the 
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity -- suggested that the 
"ecumenical understanding and commitment" of the Roman Catholic Church was 
"in general coherent with the present affirmations of the WCC member 
churches and of the WCC" as outlined in the CUV document. It also said that 
its contribution was made "enthusiastically as a partner of the WCC, with 
which, despite difficulties at times, it has had a deep and rich 
collaboration."  The response was signed by Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the 
Council's president, and Bishop Pierre Duprey, the Council's secretary. 
 
    However, asked whether this meant that the Roman Catholic Church could 
in the future become a WCC member, a senior official of the Pontifical 
Council, Monsignor John Mutiso-Mbinda, told ENI that it was "still very 
difficult for the Roman Catholic Church to consider becoming a member of 
the World Council of Churches" given "the present circumstances, the 
present constitution of the World Council of Churches, and the fact that 
even member churches of the WCC find it difficult to regard the WCC as a 
fellowship of churches." 
 
    Mutiso-Mbinda stressed the role of the WCC as a "fellowship of 
churches" but said that some WCC member churches tended to see the WCC as 
"an agency, a funding agency" and as "a space for power-broking. 
 
    "This is unfortunate if we are really trying to consider the WCC in 
terms of a fellowship of churches," Mutiso-Mbinda said. "Until this 
dimension of a fellowship of churches permeates the member churches, it is 
very difficult for us to think of membership," he said, but added that "the 
question of Roman Catholic membership [of the WCC] as such is not raised by 
the CUV study process." 
 
    Mutiso-Mbinda, who is co-secretary of the Joint Working Group between 
the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, was interviewed in Geneva while 
attending, as an observer, the annual meeting of the WCC's Central 
Committee, which considered the CUV proposals. 
 
    Mutiso-Mbinda warned that there was "good reason to be concerned" that 
proposals to restructure the WCC might mean that two specialized areas of 
the WCC's work -- the Commission on Faith and Order and the Conference on 
World Mission and Evangelism -- where there is close cooperation between 
the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church might be downgraded. 
 
    The Pontifical Council had also suggested that there was a "certain 
lack of sufficient theological basis" for the WCC's diaconal work -- its 
activities to promote the sharing of humanitarian aid and assistance -- 
"because over the years -- certainly not intentionally -- there has been a 
tendency to share services or offer goods without really sitting down and 
reflecting on what is the theological basis for what we do in this area," 
he added. 
 
    Asked about a plan suggested by the WCC's general secretary, Konrad 
Raiser, to create a new "global forum of churches and ecumenical 
organizations" to include churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, 
which are not WCC members, Mutiso-Mbinda said it was a "challenge and an 
opportunity" and "an interesting idea" whose implications should be 
"studied by interested partners." 
 
    The first draft of the CUV proposals picked up Raiser's proposal for 
churches to make a public commitment in the year 2000 to start a "conciliar 
process" to deal with the issues dividing them, leading to "an ecumenical 
council of the entire Church of Jesus Christ in the sense of the ancient 
undivided church." 
 
    "If by `conciliar process' we mean a gathering of representatives of 
the churches, then obviously the Pontifical Council would not see any 
problem why such a gathering could not be useful in trying to assess and 
harvest the fruits of many years of ecumenical dialogue and  relations," 
Mutiso-Mbinda said. It would be "a good idea to look at the possibility of 
such a happening taking place, possibly within the context of the year 
2000," he said, and possibly to link this idea to that of the ecumenical 
forum. 
 
    "But to head towards a council in the traditional sense would create a 
lot of difficulties not just for the Roman Catholic Church, but also for 
Orthodox churches," he added. 
 
    Mutiso-Mbinda also told ENI that the process of drawing up its response 
to the CUV process had given the Pontifical Council an "opportunity to see 
how our own thinking has developed on the nature of ecumenism" and in its 
"understanding of what the WCC is." 
 
    The Roman Catholic Church believes that a "common calling to unity in 
Christ" emerges from the "common baptism" of Christians, he said.  "There 
is one ecumenical movement in which all those who are baptized 
participate." 

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