| The New Ecumenism :
How the Catholic Church after Vatican II Took over the Leadership of the World Ecumenical Movement Author: Kenneth D. Whitehead
|
 |
The last several popes have made the quest for Church unity an item of the highest priority on their agendas. This has been true to perhaps a much greater extent than most Catholics, and indeed most Protestants, have generally noticed or realized. Yet it is hard to imagine on what John Paul II put in more time and effort, personally, than he did on his efforts to seek better relations with our fellow Christians. And from the time of his election to the chair of Peter in 2005 Benedict XVI has followed pretty much the same pattern. These popes were acting in response to a mandate of the Second Vatican Council which inaugurated a whole new era in "ecumenism" for the Catholic Church. The subject of ecumenism -- the Catholic Church's relations with other Christians, and with the search for Christian unity -- is what is being dealt with in this extraordinarily well researched and very readable book. May it foster in all who read it a greater understanding and love of the Church which Jesus Christ founded 2000 years ago |
Kenneth D. Whitehead is a former Assistant Secretary of Education appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Prior to that he was a career Foreign Service Officer for some ten years stationed in American embassies in Rome, the Middle East, and North Africa. For eight years he was Executive Vice President of Catholics United for the Faith. Since retiring, he works as a writer, lecturer, editor and translator in Falls Church, Virginia. He is the author of hundreds of articles, and of some eight books, most recently, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press, 2000). With James Likoudis, he is the co-author of a study of the "changes" in the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council, The Pope, the Council, and the Mass (25th Anniversary Revised Edition: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2006). Mr. Whitehead was educated at the University of Utah and the University of Paris, and he holds an honorary degree as a Doctor of Christian Letters from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Mr. Whitehead is married to the former Margaret O'Donohue, a professional religious educator, and they are the parents of four grown sons.
|
Up until Vatican II in 1965 the Catholic Church was not involved in the world ecumenical movement. At that time it was considered to be an exclusively Protestant project. The Catholic Church was not represented at the various world councils on ecumenism. Vatican II changed all of that with its important document called Unitatis Redintegration (The Restoration of Unity). With that document the Fathers of Varican II committed themselves seriously to strive, along with the Protestants and Orthodox, to work toward the unity that characterized the early Church up until the break with the East in 1054.
The theme of this book by Mr. Whitehead is the Catholic Church's current involvement in ecumenism and the search for Christian unity. The book contains twenty-one short chapters that are easy to read and abound in clarity. The surprising point of the book is that the Catholic Church, slow and late to get involved in ecumenism, since Vatican II has actually taken over the leadership of the world ecumenical movement.
In developing the theme, the author analyzes four important documents: Unitatis Redintegratio, a 1964 decree of the council; Pope Paul VI's letter Ecclesiam Suam on the importance of dialogue to work towards unity; Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ut Unum Sint, on ecumenism and a request for suggestions on how the Petrine primacy of the pope should be exercised in a way that is acceptable both to Catholics and to separated brethren; and the 2000 Vatican document Dominus Iesus, which repeats the Catholic doctrinal position that the Catholic Church is the unique Church of Christ which contains all the means necessary for sanctification and salvation.
Ecumenical dialogues with Protestants and Orthodox theologians have been going on now for over forty years. Many statements have been drafted and approved, warm relations between the groups have been fostered, but so far there has been no reunion. Mr. Whitehead thinks that the effort has been valuable even though, so far, no union has been established.
The popes since Vatican II have been actively involved in the ecumenical movement, especially Pope John Paul II. He had many meetings with Christian leaders from aroud the world -- both at Rome and also in countries like Greece and Turkey. Mr. Whitehead quotes Pope Benedict XVI as saying that he considers promoting Christian unity to be one of the main goals of his papacy. The main problem seems to be the primacy of the pope. The author dedicates many pages to this question. Protestants and Orthodox are willing to grant a primacy of honor to the bishop of Rome, but not a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church. And that is the rub. So the primacy as understood and practiced by Rome for over a thousand years seems to be the main obstacle to reunion, especially with the Orthodox Churches of the East.
Many Catholics wonder why the Church takes ecumenism seriously. Forty years of dialogue have not produced reunion with one separated church or ecclesial community. In spite of that, Mr. Whitehead thinks that much has been accomplished, at least on the level of friendly relations that have replaced mutual vituperation.
The book gives the reader a bird's eye view of the whole ecumenical movement since 1965. Those who are interested in the topic will find the reading of this book most rewarding. --Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. in the February 2010 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review
Before the Second Vatican Council, ecumenism was primarily a Protestant affair. Since Vatican II, Catholics have played a lead role in ecumenical dialogue. How and why that happened, what has been achieved, and where the author thinks ecumenism can (and cannot) go is the subject of The New Ecumenism by Kenneth Whitehead. In 21 chapters, Whitehead leads readers from the Church's 1962 approach to ecumenism (other Christians should simply "return" to Rome) to Pope Benedict XVI's latest ecumenical efforts.
Among the highlights discussed are: why the Church moved from an ecumenism of simple "return" to one of "dialogue"; what Vatican II taught (and did not teach) about ecumenism; the history of key ecumenical developments with the Orthodox, the non-Chalcedonian East (e.g., Syrian Jacobites and Egyptian Copts), and Protestants (with focus on the Anglicans and Lutherans); the significance of Pope John Paul II's invitation, in Ut Unum Sint, for Catholics and other Christians to discuss how the papacy might be exercised to "accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned"; reactions, especially from the Orthodox, about the Roman primacy; recent Vatican documents (e.g.,
In setting out to pursue ecumenical dialogue, Vatican II had to hold two poles together: to preserve continuity with essential Church teaching while moving a stalemated ecumenism along. "What the Second Vatican Council did with regard to ecumenism... was not to change or contradict what... previous popes had decided and taught... but rather to look at the whole question of ecumenism from a different angle, and to approach it in a different way -- to change the terms of the discussion, as it were. "Vatican II's new approach was that, like the Good Shepherd in the parable, the Church herself henceforth had to go out in search of the Lost Sheep" (emphasis original).
Whitehead, former assistant secretary of education in the Reagan administration, makes it clear that ecumenical dialogue cannot be conducted by jettisoning or ignoring settled Catholic teaching. At the same time, he also insists that a new approach was both needed and justified, because Jesus himself prayed for Christian unity at the Last Supper. Indeed, the book sometimes seems skewed in repeatedly justifying the Church's new ecumenical approach: The loudest objections often heard in America and Western Europe are not that ecumenical dialogue is taking place, but that it is taking so long. On the latter, however, Whitehead is clear: Unity will be achieved on God's timetable, by grace and not diplomatic negotiation. He also maintains perspective: Considering where Catholic ecumenical dialogue was in 1962, the Church has traveled light years in the past half century.
This book does a good job of tracing the historical development of Catholic ecumenism, although it might have expanded more on dialogue with other Protestant deneminations. Its theological treatment of the question of the Roman primacy, with an intense focus on Orthodox responses, seems a little drawn out for the needs of this book. Finally, Whitehead, whose other book this year was Mass Misunderstandings: The Mixed Legacy of the Vatican II Liturgical Reforms, broaches a topic in his last chapter that deserves expansion: "the need for an 'ecumenism of the trenches' -- the cooperation between Christians of various confessions in opposing some of the grave evils stemming from the galloping moral degradation [of]... society today." In some ways, the divide is not between religions, but between those who believe versus architects of a godless world.
Readers in search of a quick, up-to-date and easy-to-read synopsis, faithful to essential Catholic perspectives, about where the Church has come in ecumenical dialogue from Vatican II to the present will benefit from this book. --John M. Grondelski writing from Bern Switzerland in The National Catholic Register, December 20, 2009
Two flawed interpretations of the ecumenical enterprise are disturbingly widespread among Catholics today. One is "progressive," the other "traditionalist." Both are wrong.
The progressive version goes like this. Fifty years ago, in the time of Pope John XXIII and Vatican Council II, ecumenism was going great guns. Indeed, the speedy reunion of separated Christians was a real possibility. But soon after the council things stalled, and under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI a reaction set in. Due to foot-dragging by Rome, the ecumenical movement is now at an impasse. The traditionalist story is hugely different. Starting with Vatican II and continuing since then, it holds, Catholic ecumenism has been a mistake. There's been no significant progress, ther's been no reunion, and the practical result of it has been mainly to encourage the relativistic notion that one religion is as good as another. Better we admit our mistakes, cut our losses, and concentrate on encouraging people to convert. Neither in theology nor in matters of fact is either the progressive or the traditionalist account correct. It's the great merit of Kenneth D. Whitehead's helpful new book, The New Ecumenism (Alba House, 2009), to show in concrete detail why that's not so.
Writing from the perspective of an eminently orthodox Catholic, Whitehead argues that the formal commitment of the Catholic Church to the ecumenical movement which began some four decades ago conforms to Christ's will for Christian unity as well as to the Church's own solemn teaching. Individual conversions to Catholicism are much to be desired and should be encouraged. But the "new ecumenism" of ecumenical dialogue in search for common ground isn't merely permissible but necessary. Nor is it reasonable to put the blame for slow progress on the Vatican. Take the Catholic relationship with the Anglican Communion. Generally speaking, the gulf between Rome and Canterbury hasn't been widened by the Vatican's words and deeds but by the Anglicans' well publicized inability to put their house in anything approximating even a semblance of order.
The Orthodox? Recall that Orthodoxy isn't one body but a grouping of autocephalous -- independent -- national churches, each with its own historically-conditioned relationship to the Church of Rome. Among these bodies, the prickly nationalism of the largest, the Russian Orthodox Church, remains an especially serious huge obstacle to entente with Catholics. To be sure, in some cases Rome hypothetically might gain an appearance of unity by abandoning one or another dogma or authoritative teaching. Progressive voices in Catholicism sometimes urge that. But this kind of political compromise would be, Whitehead notes, a dishonest way of handling substantive differences about doctrinal truth. It contains the seeds of its own collapse. As matters stand, Rome has gone pretty far. In 1995 John Paul II reached out to the Orthodox in the encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One), inviting suggestions on how to exercise papal primacy of jurisdiction in a way they would find more congenial. If there have been significant responses to date, it's a well-kept secret.
Yes, half a centruy ago there were expectations that unity would be quick and easy. "We wanted to do ourselves what only God can do," Pope Benedict says. "Now we know beter. When and if unity comes, it will be in God's good time." Meanwhile, the Pope says, "we have to be prepared to keep on seeking, in the knowledge that the seeking itself is one way of finding.... [It is] the only appropriate attitude for the person who is on a pilgrimage toward eternity." --Russel Shaw, posted on July 3, 2009 @ 12:02 am in The Edge
Ecumenism: The last several popes have made the quest for Church unity an item of the highest priority on their agendas. The New Edumenism: How the Catholic Church after Vatican II Took Over the Leadership of the World Ecumenical Movement by Kenneth D. Whitehead reviews the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to go out and find the lost sheep -- even if they didn't know they were lost. The Catholic Church's relations with other Christians, and with the search for Christian unity is what is being dealt with in this extraordinarily well-researched and very readable book. It is hard to imagine on what John Paul II put in more time and effort, personally, than he did on his efforts to seek better relations with our fellow Christians -- probably to a much greater extent than most Catholics, and indeed most Protestants, have generally noticed or realized. The book reviews past efforts and looks to the future for all Christians. --Crux of the News, April 27, 2009
Since the end of the Second Vatican Council more than 40 years ago, the Catholic Church has been engaged in a renewed effort to seek reunion with other Christians. The last several pontiffs have made Christian unity an item of highest priority on their agendas; magisterial documents addressing the subject have been issued; and, at every level, practical steps have been taken to achieve a greater unity. In short, as the subtitle of this book suggests, "The Catholic Church After Vatican II Took Over the Leadership of the World Ecumenical Movement." We have entered a new era in ecumenism -- the fostering of better relationships between the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions, with a corresponding search for unity. The author provides an extended analysis of this ecumenical era, beginning with related debates at Vatican II and tracing developments with regard to Eastern Christians and Protestants. Ecnyclical and other magisterial documents are examined with special attention to the critical issue of papal primacy. The study concludes with a hopful look at "prospects for the future." --The Catholic Answer, Reviews, July/August 2009
|
|