wfn.org | Roman Catholic commitment to ecumenism is 'irrevocable'

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2000-147

Pope says Roman Catholic commitment to ecumenism is 'irrevocable'

by James Solheim

     (ENS) In the wake of a Vatican document that argued the 
Roman Catholic Church was the only true church, Pope John Paul II 
told participants in a meeting with representatives of the World 
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) that the commitment to 
ecumenical dialogue is "irrevocable."

     It was the first encounter between the Vatican and non-Roman 
Catholics since the publication in early September of a 
controversial document, Dominus Iesus, that seemed to cast doubt 
on the status of Anglican and Protestant churches. The 
declaration brought strong reactions because of its assertion 
that only the Roman Catholic Church fully represents the "one 
holy, Catholic and apostolic church," while recognizing other 
churches as "ecclesial communities."

     WARC representatives were conspicuously absent from an 
ecumenical ceremony in January that marked the Jubilee year for 
Roman Catholics, largely due to Vatican pronouncements on 
indulgences. Protestants, going back to the time of Martin Luther 
in the 16th century, strongly oppose the belief that the church 
can grant indulgences based on good works or special piety, 
allowing remission of the time spent in purgatory.

     In an interview with Ecumenical News International, WARC's 
theology secretary, Odair Mateus, said that "theologically 
speaking, there is nothing new in Dominus Iesus. He said, 
however, that publication of the document had affected "the 
spiritual environment of the dialogue."

     He added, "We had expected that, after almost 40 years of 
dialogue, the Roman Catholic Church would be more sensitive to 
how it refers to other world communions."

Ecumenical spirituality

     In a September 18 address at the meeting, the Pope said that 
"within the ecumenical movement, theological dialogue is the 
proper setting for us to face together the issues over which 
Christians have been divided, and to build together the unity to 
which Christ calls his disciples."

     It is within such dialogue that "we clarify our respective 
positions and explore the reasons for our differences," the Pope 
said. "Our dialogue then becomes an examination of conscience, a 
call to conversion, in which both sides examine before God their 
responsibility to do all they can to put behind them the 
conflicts of the past."

     The "classic dividing issues" won't be solved any time soon, 
Mateus argued. Speaking as a theologian from the developing 
world, the Brazilian said that an experience of "ecumenical 
spirituality," especially in situations where Christians were 
involved in a common witness against injustice, could shed a new 
light on long-standing theological divisions.

     Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Vatican's 
Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said that Dominus Iesus, 
published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "was 
not addressed to the ecumenical world." Rather, the statement was 
"addressed to the academic world, to some Asian Catholic 
theologians, and edited by professors in a scholastic language."

     Cassidy, who was attending an ecumenical conference in 
Portugal, told an Italian daily paper that "those of us whose 
ears are more attuned to the nuances of dialogue" would have 
produced a different sort of document, one that would have drawn 
fewer negative reactions from partners in ecumenical dialogue.

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
News and Information.