wfn.org | Visitors from the Vatican bring message of hope

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Note #6296 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

6-December-2000
00439

Visitors from the Vatican bring message of hope for greater unity between
Catholics, Presbyterians

Presbyterian delegation will make reciprocal visit to Rome in March

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Despite a host of sticking points, representatives of the
Roman Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) agreed during an
historic two-day conference here that Jesus Christ commands them to continue
striving for greater Christian unity.

	The group agreed to meet again next March at the Vatican, where they will
discuss such topics as the nature of the church, the relationship between
scripture and tradition, and how the guidance of the Holy Spirit is
discerned.

	The three-day visit to Louisville by His Eminence Edward Cardinal Cassidy,
president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity,
opened the highest-level formal conversation ever between Presbyterians and
the Vatican. Cassidy was accompanied by Monsignor John Radano, a staff
member of the Pontifical Council who has made a number of visits to
Louisville.

	Cassidy's Dec. 6 arrival in Louisville was noteworthy because the Roman
Catholic Church generally conducts its ecumenical affairs in the context of
larger gatherings, and seldom meets bilaterally with one denomination.
Cassidy and Radano met with a delegation of Presbyterians appointed by the
PC(USA)'s Committee on Ecumenical Relations.

	The Catholics and Presbyterians were joined by observers from the "Formula
of Agreement" churches -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the
United Church of Christ and the Reformed Church in America.

	The seeds of the meeting were sown several years ago when Radano visited
Louisville at the invitation of the Rev. Eugene Turner, associate stated
clerk for ecumenical relations in the Office of the General Assembly. The
idea of bilateral talks between Catholics and Presbyterians was further
advanced during a visit to Rome by the Rev. John Buchanan when he was the
General Assembly moderator.

	In 1995, Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical on ecumenical relations, Ut
Unum Sint, in which he declared his intention "to find a new way of
exercising the primacy (papacy) which, while in no way renouncing what is
essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation," and
invited other churches to contribute to the effort.

	The Vatican visitors and the Presbyterian delegation spent most of their
two days together discussing a 19-page paper, The Successor to Peter,
prepared as a response to the pope's invitation.

	The paper's primary authors -- the Rev. Lew Mudge of San Francisco
Theological Seminary and the Rev. Anna Case-Winters of McCormick Theological
Seminary -- outlined the thrust of the paper's central premise: "exploring
what, in the mind of the Holy Father, this 'new situation' is, and whether
indeed we may be able to join with him and his successors in search of ‘a
new way of exercising the primacy' that could enhance his ministry of
universal Christian unity."

	Cassidy acknowledged that "the concept of the papacy is a difficulty -- to
some, insurmountable -- for Protestants." He praised The Successor to Peter,
saying, "Your reflections have been very encouraging to us."

	Coming on the heels of Dominus Iesus, a papal encyclical issued this fall
that declared non-Roman Catholic churches "defective," Cassidy's visit was
particularly important. He assured his Presbyterian hosts that the
encyclical had been "misunderstood." Noting that the document came out of
the doctrinal office of the Vatican, he said it addressed Jesus as savior of
all mankind "in terms we can all agree with," and had just one section on
the church "which does not represent the ecumenical strides we have made."

	He answered "a very large ‘yes'" to a question posed in The Successor to
Peter about whether "our present conversation is one among brothers and
sisters within the Body of Christ."

	Cassidy said conversation participants "are carrying on two dialogues at
once: one about the love of others and the other about the love of truth."
He said Christians "have no option but to work together" to fulfill Jesus'
prayer in John's Gospel "that all may be one," adding, "That is the goal of
our quest."

	The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the General Assembly stated clerk, said trust
and cooperation between Catholics and Presbyterians has "experienced a
remarkable growth at the local level," and observed that "this local energy
is giving a sense of urgency to these talks.

	"The world is calling us to greater unity," Kirkpatrick said.

	Cassidy, saying that he "looks forward to everything that helps us
understand each other better," insisted that the Roman Catholic Church is
"looking for unity, not uniformity."

	"There is so much unity already in the essentials," he said. "No one has a
plan all worked out for this -- it is the work of the Holy Spirit, to guide
us."

	The conferees found that baptism is the most visible sign of agreement.
Cassidy called baptism "a sacramental bond of unity, the ontological reality
that bonds us together in Jesus Christ." Wesley Granberg-Michaelson of the
RCA said he was "greatly encouraged by this, because we have tended to
overlook our common understanding of baptism because of our differences over
the eucharist."

	Participants agreed to explore the development of a common baptismal
certificate that could be used interchangeably by both churches, as is done
in Australia (Cassidy's country of origin).

	Presbyterian delegates also praised the Vatican's recent agreement with the
Lutherans on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, a key issue that
fomented the Reformation. "We should find some way of adding our voice to
the findings of the new ... document on justification," said the authors of
The Successor to Peter.

	Conferees also found considerable agreement on the authority of scripture
and the need for the church to exercise doctrinal and ecclesiastical
authority over its members.

	But ecclesiology -- the nature of the church itself -- continues to be the
point of sharpest divergence.

	In contradistinction to the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, The
Successor to Peter noted, "Presbyterians developed a republican model for
leadership in the church, above all to guard against the consequences of
human and conciliar fallibility."

	Nevertheless, the document acknowledged, "there are churches within the
wider Reformed family who have lived a different history ... and have a role
for bishops in their form of government." Moreover, the document said, "John
Calvin himself recognized the legitimacy of episcopacy in the church, even
if his teaching and practice in the 16th-century church of Geneva did not
favor this form of governance."

	Noting that Catholic polity derives from a focus on the apostle Peter,
while Protestant polity flows from a focus on the Council of Jerusalem, the
director of the PC(USA)'s Worldwide Ministries Division, the Rev. Marian
McClure asked whether theological conversations about ecclesiology might be
more fruitful if they addressed "the successor to the Council of Jerusalem
rather than the successor to Peter."

	Cassidy, calling McClure's question "a profound point," said that
"fundamental to our understanding of the church -- where the spirit blows
where it will -- is being sure we know when the Holy Spirit is speaking to
the church, how to be sure the Holy Spirit is speaking to the church at any
given moment, and what the Holy Spirit is saying."

	As participants discussed the Protestant theology of wisdom vested in
councils rather than individuals and the Catholic theology of wisdom vested
in the College of Bishops, Kirkpatrick noted, "Our understandings of wisdom
and discernment are far closer than we have thought so far."

	Cassidy agreed, adding: "We are careful not to see bishops individually.
When we see a bishop, we see a diocese there. Our bishops -- including the
pope, the Bishop of Rome -- consult and represent their local
congregations."

	McClure agreed "that all voices can be heard in an episcopal system," but
admonished, "Not all women's voices can be adequately heard in an all-male
episcopal system."

	"We must distinguish between the historical evolution of the papacy and
what is its essence," Cassidy said. "These conversations give evidence to a
new process."

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