Let’s fast forward to America. in 1904 a Capuchin Franciscan Friar, Fr. Stephen Eckert came to Yonkers, NY. Among his other apostolates, one of them was to visit the Protestants and Jews in the parish. Fr. Stephen prayed with them and offered them whatever form of material assistance they needed and he could find. He also made sure that the relations between the growing Catholic community, the Protestants and Jews was a peaceful one.
Under his tutelege was a younger friar named Solanus Casey, now Ven. Solanus Casey, who life of heroic virtue has been investigated and proven. Fr. Solanus was assigned to serve as porter and spiritual guide to whomever came to the friary. Fr. Solanus was also responsible for visiting the sick and praying with them. He learned from Fr. Stephen the power of prayer and corporal works of mercy. He too extended his ministry to the sick to include Protestants and Jews, whose homes he visited and with whom he prayed at the hour of their need.
During the Great Depresssion, the friars in Detroit would open the biggest soup kitchen in the USA with the help of Protestants and Jews working side by side. In the meantime, the friars in the Holy Land were opening family centers for the education and protection of Palestinians children and victims of conflict of all faiths. At these centers, Muslims prayed with Muslims, Jews prayed with Jews, Orthodox prayed with Orthodox, and Catholics prayed with Catholics. I don’t know exactly when they started to pray together. I believe that came in the latter part of the 20th century, maybe after the 70s. However, the stage had been set by generations of Franciscans.
At the same time, the Polish province of Conventual Franciscans was sending missionaries to Japan and to India. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was sent as the superior, first to the mission in Japan and later to India. In both situations, he wrote back to the friars telling them about the people and their spiritual and material needs. There were two interesting statements that repeated in his letters. He told the friars to lay aside their habits and travel in civilian clothing, because it was less shocking to the local population than to arrive in the Franciscan habit. The habit would be introduced later.
His second comment was actually an idea that he probably read in the letters of St. Francis Xavier, because the words sound very similar. He said that it was not appropriate to bring European Catholicism to the East. It was more appropriate to Christianize that which was Japanese and later that which was Indian. While it was true that St. Maximilian took the Conventual Franciscans there to preach the Gospel, it was also true that he had a great sensitivity to their culture and to their religious practices. Instead of trying to annul them or replace them with European practices, the friars tried to preserve whatever was good in the local culture and spirituality. Friar Maximilian was killed in 1941 Auschwitz to save the life of a Jewish father. He surrendered his life in the place of the young father, because of his strong belief in the sacredness of the family, regardless of the faith they practiced.
A few years later, in 1946, in Calcutta, a young nun asked to be dispensed from the cloister to live in the streets as a sister, instead of nun. She began her service to the poorest of the poor. Over the years, she drew many young Hindu women to her, who later became Catholic Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa, her sisters and religious brothers were working side by side with non Catholics since the 1950s. These included Protestant volunteers for Europe and the Americas as well as Hindus from many parts of India.
Mother never made it a point to hide Jesus from the people for whom she cared. However, she also made is a custom to pray to the Trinity, while alongside her a Hindu or a Muslim said his prayers. By the time she died in 1997, she had brought over 5,000 Hindus into the faith as religious brothers and sisters. We know that many of her Protestant volunteers converted to Catholicism. However, we don’t have a head count on those. The religious are easier to track.
Along with the Missionaries of Charity, the Franciscans are the largest religious order in India with its own Indian provinces of several thousand friars, many former Hindus or children of Hindu converts who had been exposed to the friars for centuries.
The word ecumenism was an unknown word to these folks. But ecumenism was not an unknown to them. As far as they were concerned, they were simply being Christian and their goal was to fulfill Christ’s prayer that all may be one. The work of these men and women is not to be confused with interfaith pluralism, which is different from ecumenism. This is not what they believed or what they practiced. What the contributed to the Church was a model for building unity among Christians, opening the doors to non-Christians, and preaching to all non-Catholics through gentle word (catechesis) and courageous and sacrificial corporal works of mercy.
Vatican II amplified the term ecumenical to include this particular mission of the Church that had been in place since the Middle Ages or maybe before. There are some hints that the Benedictine monks did a lot for the unity between Christians and non-Christians through their rule of hospitality to all people, regardless of their faith or their feelings toward the Church. How much else they Benedictines did with non-Christians, I do not know, because Benedictine history is very complex and I’m not an expert in it.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
