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What 50 Years of Talks Between Catholics and Lutherans Looks Like
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
I consider the ecumenical movement’s advances over the decades of my life and of my priesthood to have been one of the most special things that the Lord blessed me to see and to be part of.
Everyone should read Saint John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint in order to understand where we have come from, what we are living in this moment, and the hope that tomorrow holds in the area of unity among Christians. It is a beautiful document, written in a profoundly personal voice.
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint.html
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commenter
Guest
There are strong possibilities for ecumenism between Catholics and LCMS Lutherans, but not ELCA, which is the group involved here. For 50 years ELCA (and its prececessor denominations) have been moving far away from traditional Lutheranism, and farther away from Catholicism. ELCA increasingly opposes the Catholic Church on moral issues, such as Prolife, Sanctity of Marriage, and Religious Liberty. Theologically it has also been moving farther apart. The Ordination of Women issue is more like the tip of the iceberg.
All this is minimized, or glossed over, in the glowing report - in fact, many years of glowing reports, which ignore the fact that the Churches are much farther apart now than before.
ELCA promotes this process - that is, not unity itself, but talks about unity - because it gives them “cover” and credibility. They don’t want any real union with the Catholic Church. But maintaining, and publicizing, these talks with the bastion of tradition - RCC - makes it look like they are not so radical after all.
No one really believes that:
It is very difficult and unpopular to terminate an unproductive program. So the talks will continue, with another 50 years of glowing progress reports.
All this is minimized, or glossed over, in the glowing report - in fact, many years of glowing reports, which ignore the fact that the Churches are much farther apart now than before.
ELCA promotes this process - that is, not unity itself, but talks about unity - because it gives them “cover” and credibility. They don’t want any real union with the Catholic Church. But maintaining, and publicizing, these talks with the bastion of tradition - RCC - makes it look like they are not so radical after all.
No one really believes that:
- progress in discussion about refining the language of justification, as it was understood, or misunderstood, in the 1500s…
- ELCA’s position of advocacy for the “right” of abortion, the “right” to gay marriage, and opposition to the Catholic Church, and many Lutherans, on Religious Liberty, Holy Orders, and a host of other issues.
It is very difficult and unpopular to terminate an unproductive program. So the talks will continue, with another 50 years of glowing progress reports.
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rciadan
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ProVobis
Guest
You make excellent points. But how is this different from the Anglican community, where in the end some individual parishes were able to fit themselves into Church doctrines?
C
commenter
Guest
Similar situation. But Lutherans, at least in the US, have a strong, well established alternative, the LCMS, and WELS. The Anglicans have some interesting new alternatives, such as ACNA, and the Continuum, but they are not well established. Lutherans are not internationally as connected as Anglicans.
There has been a little discussion of a “Lutheran Ordinariate”. This might be considered especially in places where there are not nearby orthodox Lutheran alternatives.
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Jon_Mallory
Guest
This aspect of the ecumenist movement has always bothered me. The Church should never take a soft stance on relations to other Christian communities but should be willing to say the hard things that need to be said, no matter how unpleasant they seem. I would be more happy to see unity (what ever that means) with the Orthodox Churches leading up to full eucharistic communion. The Catholic Church and the EOC are the two oldest Churches with continuous apostolic succession (though the great schism makes it rather confusing for the CC). I fear that warmer relations with more liberal faith communities will lead those within the Church to be more susceptible to adopting contemporary attitudes to homosexuality, abortion, etc. This is why the EOC has cut off ecumenical relation with the more liberal faith communities. These attitudes have a way of spreading.
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exnihilo
Guest
I agree with your entire comment. I agree that the churches are now further apart than ever before. The agreements come at a time when the ELCA is less concerned about the theological issues in the past which divided and more concerned with promoting or protecting gross immorality.
But there may be some good. The ecumenical talks probably helped me when I was a Protestant to be more considerate of Catholicism. I can’t say how much of a difference it made but it did make some. But I’m not sure whether on the whole this is worth the cost it may have of leading some Catholics to think there aren’t real, substantial differences between Catholicism and the ELCA. The talks seem kinda silly to me at this point.
C
commenter
Guest
When I worked for the government, it was extremely hard to terminate a committee that was no longer productive, relevant to the current need. The people who are emotionally vested in the committee spend enormous energy eliciting letters of recommendation, nurturing very close relationships with the media, lobbying bureaucrats and legislators who find it easier to allow contining the committee or program, rather than go through a painful fight, getting flooded with countless emails, phone calls, and visits triggered by, for instance in this case, “the Ecumenism constituency”.
The US Catholic bishops have much bigger battles going on, they may not have the energy for another battle now. If a bishop does start asking, “why do we continue to give credibility to ELCA, rather than our allies in Lutheranism or ACNA, for instance?” you can be sure he will get ripped by the media as a vicious reactionary opponent of Vatican II and Pope Francis.
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Don_Ruggero
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I think it does a great disservice to those of us who have worked for Church unity – be it at the international, national or local level – to compare such to a governmental committee or to make us analogues to politicians who are about currying favour with constituencies. The concept you advance is quite at variance to what has been my lived experience. I dare add that my partners in dialogue would respond with equal disdain.
The ease and comfort with which we, the clergy of the various confessions that come together in dialogue, pray together (whether privately or publicly) and work together on practical projects at the various levels speaks of the incredible advances I’ve seen in my lifetime. We see this most clearly when it involves the pope and meetings such as the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Archbishop of the Swedish Lutheran Church. It is occurring not just at the highest levels but also at national and diocesan levels.
The staff of bishops’ conferences in the industrialized world working on ecumenism are staff exclusively hired for that office and not shared with other departments. Indeed, since the higher staff are experts in their field, they would be made redundant before they would be reassigned.
I also think that more than being “ripped by the media as a violent reactionary opponent to Vatican II,” Pope Francis would see disengaging as a personal failure to carry forward a council he profoundly embraces, as is most evident with virtually his every word and gesture.
Happily those responsible at the Holy See for evaluating the worth of talks on Christian unity, and their counterparts in the various confessions with which we are in dialogue, see, understand and appreciate the value.
I think there are profound areas where one reaches an insurmountable obstacle on both side of the dialogue. But I also know, because of having lived it, that we are actually closer than we have been since the moments communion was ruptured within the Church. It was in 1964 that Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople lifted the mutual excommunications pronounced more than nine hundred years before and set their respective Churches on the path of healing the centuries old wounds. We find ourselves a mere 51 years after their historic encounter in Jerusalem.
We have moved from using the most unfortunate of terms about each other to the more measured term of “separated brethren” to even that term being set aside. As Saint John Paul II said in Ut Unum Sint “We all belong to Christ”. That document is a milestone in the pilgrimage that we are on.
But I think more than any document, there are the incredible wordless gestures that speak in a language that transcends words…gestures as when Pope Paul VI gave his own ring, from when Archbishop of Milan, to Dr. Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was left speechless in the moment it happened, so deeply and profoundly significant was the gift from one who was Successor of St. Peter to one who was Successor of St. Augustine of Canterbury. Or of that incredible moment when Pope Francis was standing beside Patriarch Bartholomew “as Peter visiting his brother Andrew” and, inclining, Francis asked Bartholomew to bless him and to bless his Church. It was a fraternal gesture that those who saw it will never forget – and it spoke profoundly to theologians as well as to non-theologians.
Speaking merely as a Catholic party to the dialogues and to use but one example, without the lines of communication that had been established and were being used, I really can’t imagine how otherwise there could have occurred the pastoral provision that was made by Rome (thanks I wish to say in no small part to the largely unsung and unknown work of Cardinal Seper of blessed memory) to priests of the Episcopal Church in the United States which allowed them to be received into full communion with the Roman Church. It was a moment of genuine joy.
These men were received into the Roman Church, dispensed from the obligation of clerical celibacy if married, and ordained as Catholic priests in view of their years of ministry.
The same provision allowed congregations to be received corporately into full communion with Rome and celebrate the liturgy using a special book created for them by the Holy See, the Book of Divine Worship, which preserved for them their legitimate liturgical patrimony by incorporating elements from the Book of Common Prayer into how they would worship as Roman Catholics of Anglican Use.
It was a joy some 25 years later to see this provision expanded and extended by Anglicanorum coetibus with the establishment of Ordinariates for the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia…headed by prelates who were formerly bishops in the Anglican Communion.
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