Christian Unity — the Next Step: 'That They May All Be One'

Copyright © 2020 Fr. Kevin E. Mackin, OFM.

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Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8719-1 (sc)

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WestBow Press rev. date: 03/17/2020

CONTENTS

Introduction

Catholic Christianity: A Surprise Entry Into The Ecumenical Movement

A Case Study In Theological Dialogue

The Church Always Reformable

INTRODUCTION

I am a cradle Catholic and have only gratitude about it. In my mid-century Brooklyn neighborhood, Marine Park to be precise, everyone seemed to know everyone else. Church and parochial school were integral to family life, and people generally associated with their community—other Catholics.

Not much changed in things Catholic from high school to college, as I prepared to become a Franciscan friar-priest. I began graduate classes in 1960 in Washington D.C., and four years later received a degree in sacred theology from Catholic University of America.

Little did I realize that the 1960s would be a decade of incredible change.

The October 1958 conclave of cardinals had elected Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, 76, as Pope John XXIII. He was a surprise pontiff, and in 1959, he astonished seventeen cardinals by announcing to them that he would convene an ecumenical council. Reactions varied from proverbial yawns to murmurings about what the curia was up to, and some were horrified, thinking no good would likely come of a council.

John XXIII’s papal ministry was relatively brief, five years. Yet it was one of the most revolutionary times in the history of the Catholic Church. Good Pope John captured many minds and hearts with his affable personality. He desired to renew the life of the Church, to advocate for peace and social justice, and above all to reestablish Christian unity.

To do so, he read the signs of the times with a thesaurus view of Catholic: wide-ranging, extensive, all-embracing. What had been primarily a Protestant unity movement became, with Pope John’s impetus, more globally Christian, at least among theologians. During the many years he had served among Orthodox Christians as an apostolic delegate in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, he realized that before we can discuss what divides us and how we can be united, we first have to get to know each other and treat separated Christians as brothers and sisters in the same spiritual family.

Pope John created a specific Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, directed by Cardinal Augustin Bea.

For nearly four hundred years after the sixteenth century Reformation, the Catholic and Protestant churches drew further and further apart. Diatribe generally described relations between the two.

In the nineteenth century, Protestant churches realized they were exporting to Africa, Asia and South America a divided and divisive Christianity. They were competing, duplicating resources, and often undermining one another. In 1910, many missionary societies came together in Edinburgh, Scotland to work out a common strategy. Thus was born the twentieth century ecumenical movement. Out of this conference came the International Missionary Council in 1921, Life and Work in 1925 (its slogan: Doctrine divides; service unites) and Faith and Order in 1927.

The purpose of Faith and Order was to draw the churches together to explain their convictions to one another. The methodology up to 1952 was to compare ecclesiologies: some churches say this, others say that.

Nathan Soderblom’s vision in Life and Work gave rise to the World Council of Churches, established in 1948, comprising the most significant churches except, notably, Roman Catholics.

The World Council sees itself as a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures, and therefore seeks to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The World Council does not see itself as a super church but as an instrument to serve the various churches. Its great task is to continue the work of Life and Work, Faith and Order, and the World Missionary Council by making cooperation between the churches easier and stimulating and strengthening ecumenical and missionary endeavors.

Although a number of Catholic movements, institutes and associations promoted Christian unity during the first half of the twentieth century, Catholic Christianity had officially entered the modern ecumenical movement very slowly.

Pope John XXIII began the first session of the Council in October 1962 and wrapped it up that December with scores of working documents sans promulgation. The Council was automatically suspended when the pope died on June 3, 1963. He