What do you think a reunion will look like? Will you have one group believing in the Immaculate Conception of Mary and another group in the united Church rejecting this? Similarly with Transubstantiation, purgatory indulgences and papal infallibility? Will there be intercommunion between one group believing the Eucharist is symbolic and the other group believing that transubstantiation is to be taken literally?When reunion does eventually happen, it will look very different from what was in the mind of Pope Pius XI
Well…if I could answer that question, I would be quite the prophet wouldn’t I? Seeing 100 years into the future.What do you think a reunion will look like? Will you have one group believing in the Immaculate Conception of Mary and another group in the united Church rejecting this? Similarly with Transubstantiation, purgatory indulgences and papal infallibility? Will there be intercommunion between one group believing the Eucharist is symbolic and the other group believing that transubstantiation is to be taken literally?
I don’t see it. IMHO, there are too many differences and no one is budging. To give an example, CAF moderators have deleted posts where I illustrated some of the points of possible friction between West and East today.I have no doubt that the Lord’s prayer, Ut Unum Sint, will be achieved before He returns.
Yes it does. And thank you also for leading me to read through Unitatis Redintegratio. In it I found a paragraph which also seems relevant to my question, particularly the part that I have highlighted from paragraph n. 6.Pope Saint John Paul II wrote a letter about this tragic event…the motu proprio, Ecclesia Dei .
I think elements of that letter address what you are asking.
Something else I found interesting is that St. John Paul ll in Ut Unum Sint and Ecclesia Dei seemed to allude to the first part of the paragraph n. 6 from Unitatis Redintegratio. He seemed to be emphasizing that a reflection on renewal is also a reflection on fidelity to Christ and His Church.Christ summons the Church to continual reformation as she sojourns here on earth. The Church is always in need of this, in so far as she is an institution of men here on earth. Thus if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in church discipline, or even in the way that church teaching has been formulated - to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself - these can and should be set right at the opportune moment.
- Every renewal of the Church(27) is essentially grounded in an increase of fidelity to her own calling. Undoubtedly this is the basis of the movement toward unity.
Church renewal has therefore notable ecumenical importance. Already in various spheres of the Church’s life, this renewal is taking place. The Biblical and liturgical movements, the preaching of the word of God and catechetics, the apostolate of the laity, new forms of religious life and the spirituality of married life, and the Church’s social teaching and activity - all these should be considered as pledges and signs of the future progress of ecumenism.
Anyway, I noticed something in Ecclesia Dei that I became curious about. It concerns the following:The particular circumstances, both objective and subjective in which Archbishop Lefebvre acted, provide everyone with an occasion for profound reflection and for a renewed pledge of fidelity to Christ and to his Church. (Ecclesia Dei)
I don’t doubt that theologians have written about the Council’s continuity with Tradition, but has a body such as the CDF or the International Theological Commission written anything dedicated to this subject?b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of Church.
Canon 671 - §1. Catholic ministers licitly administer the sacraments only to Catholic Christian faithful, who, likewise, licitly receive the sacraments only from Catholic ministers.
§2. If necessity requires it or genuine spiritual advantage suggests it and provided that the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, it is permitted for Catholic Christian faithful, for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, to receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers, in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
§3. Likewise Catholic ministers licitly administer the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick to Christian faithful of Eastern Churches, who do not have full communion with the Catholic Church, if they ask for them on their own and are properly disposed. This holds also for the Christian faithful of other Churches, who according to the judgment of the Apostolic See, are in the same condition as the Eastern Churches as far as the sacraments are concerned.
§4. If there is a danger of death or another matter of serious necessity in the judgment of the eparchial bishop, the synod of bishops of the patriarchal Church or the council of hierarchs, Catholic ministers licitly administer the same sacraments also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach the ministers of their own ecclesial communities and who request them on their own, provided they manifest a faith consonant with that of the Catholic Church concerning these sacraments and are rightly disposed.
§5. For the cases in §§2, 3 and 4, norms of particular law are to be enacted only after consultation with at least the local competent authority of the non-Catholic Church or ecclesial community concerned.