Posts tagged PCPCU
The Cardinal’s Swan Song
Feb 9th
CNS reports on Walter Cardinal Kasper’s swan song — an ecumenical extravaganza with Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and members of the Reformed churches participating. The three-day symposium is unusual in a couple of respects. Generally, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU) conducts “dialogue” with a single ecumenical partner at a time and then on a particular subject of controversy (e.g. Justification, the Papacy, the role of Mary in the Church, &c.). This week’s conference is an ecumenical, multilateral free-for-all where anything goes. Cardinal Kasper addressed the assembly on Monday, but the rest of the time will evidently be spent resolving all of the outstanding differences between the various Christian communions thorough roundtable discussions involving all of the participants.
My emphases and comments in blue.
Cardinal asks dialogue partners if an ecumenical catechism might work
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared “ecumenical catechism” as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches.
I wonder what such an “ecumenical catechism” would look like. Would it be a work that pointed out the departures of the Protestant confessions from the Catholic Faith? Or would it be representative of a “lowest common denominator” Christianity?
“We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils,” Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.
And how many are the “first” ecumenical councils exactly?
Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential “to keep alive the memory of our achievements” in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.
Now we come to what Cardinal Kasper is really concerned with — his legacy! But what, precisely, are these achievements and what has been accomplished, Your Eminence? The one great ecumenical achievement during your tenure at PCPCU — Anglicanorum Coetibus — was accomplished only by the exclusion of you and your professional ecumenists from the process entirely!
He said the members of his council “proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners,” but “we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written.”
Nor do I. It is best not to try.
One thing for sure, he said, is that there is a need for “an ecumenism of basics that identifies, reinforces and deepens the common foundation” of faith in Christ and belief in the tenets of the creed. The churches may hold those positions officially, but if their members do not hold firmly to the basics of Christian faith, the dialogue cannot move forward, the cardinal said.
This is an interesting point. What good is it if the PCPCU can get church leaders to sign-on to a joint statement with the Catholic Church if the rank-and-file of the sect in question repudiate the agreement — or are simply ignorant of what their denomination actually teaches? Or are such ecumenical agreements just sleight of hand?
Cardinal Kasper, a theologian who will be 77 in March and has led the council for nine years, also said that ecumenical dialogue “is perhaps in danger of becoming a matter for specialists and thus of moving away from the grassroots.”
That’s just rich! Perhaps Bill Gates could give us some practical tips on managing a household budget?
He called for “a people-centered ecumenism” that would support and give new energy to the theological dialogues.
Well, I call for an ecumenism centered on the Catholic Faith! Such an ecumenism would be energized by the Holy Spirit rather than some bankrupt liberal ideology.
The symposium was a follow-up to the publication in October of “Harvesting the Fruits,” a book complied by Cardinal Kasper and his staff summarizing the results of 40 years of official Catholic dialogue with the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
As for questions that still must be tackled in order for Christians to reach full unity and be able to share the Eucharist, the cardinal identified two basic areas: a common understanding of the church and its structure; and a common approach to applying the Gospel to modern social and moral concerns without falling into relativism.
Ethical issues, such as homosexuality and women’s equality, not only divide churches, he said, they raise more fundamental questions for modern and post-modern society, such as, “What is man, and what does it mean to be a man or woman in God’s plan?”
In the area of church structure and ministry, he said, the dialogues have seen progress toward a common agreement on the sacramental nature of ordination and on apostolic succession in the ministry of bishops, and have taken initial steps toward discussing the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope.
But on a more basic level, the dialogues must get into “not only what is the church, but where is the church? Has God given his church a specific structure or has he left the church to find its own structure, in such a way that a pluralism of structures is possible?” Cardinal Kasper asked.
Sometimes I wonder whether or not dear Cardinal Kasper himself knows the answer to these questions.
The cardinal said the Vatican needs to better explain to its dialogue partners the Catholic conviction that “the Catholic Church is the church of Christ and that the Catholic Church is the true church,” even while “there exist many and important elements of the church of Christ outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church.”
The Catholic Church does believe “there are deficits in the other churches,” he said. “Yet on another level there are deficits, or rather wounds stemming from division and wounds deriving from sin, also in the Catholic Church.”
Ecumenical dialogue is the place where all Christians “learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ,” he said, and as each moves closer to Christ, they naturally will move closer to each other.
Well there’s your problem, Your Eminence. That place where all Christians “learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ” is known as the Catholic Church.
END
A Daring Decision Fulfils a Newman Prayer
Feb 8th
The article below appears in the current edition of Faith Magazine. In 1997, Dr. William Oddie, a biographer of G. K. Chesterton and former editor of The Catholic Herald, wrote the then controversial book, The Roman Option: The Realignment of English Christianity, in which he described a possible future development whereby Anglicans abandoned by the Established Church might enter the Catholic Church en masse. Here is an extract from the back cover of the book:
The Church of England’s historic decision to ordain women to the priesthood has forced a dramatic realignment of Christianity in the English speaking world. In the space of five years, it has brough irreversible change into the heart of Anglicanism, and transformed its relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.
In this radical book, William Oddie gives an insider’s account of the origins and possible future development of the ‘Roman Option’, in which disaffected Anglicans seek to move en masse to the Catholic Church, and argues that the Catholic bishops must be ready to respond boldly to the real crisis for Anglicanism which lies ahead…
Of course the Catholic bishops were not ready (and many are still not ready) to respond boldly to this crisis in Anglicanism, and it ultimately took the revolutionary thinking of Pope Benedict XVI to see such a “Roman Option” realized.
In this current article, Dr. Oddie reflects on how the Holy Father and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith boldly sidestepped the “unapostolic” English bishops to finally guarantee to Anglo-Catholics a place of refuge in an often unwelcoming Catholic Church.
My emphases and comments in blue.
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William Oddie FAITH Magazine January-February 2010
A Daring Decision Fulfils a Newman Prayer
I very much hope that Catholics in this country and elsewhere will warmly welcome into our communion the members of the new ordinariates. Nevertheless, in terms of the relations between Rome and the bishops’ conferences affected, the way in which these ordinariates have been invented is disgraceful.
The present Apostolic Constitution is indeed a godsend, but had the Catholic bishops been more receptive of dispossessed Anglo-Catholics, corporate reunion could have been achieved years ago — and reconciled far more Anglicans to the Church than may now be immediately possible. Instead, ideology was allowed to triumph over apostolic mission and the Lord’s prayer for the unity of His Church was ignored. This is a disgrace!
Thus, Nicholas Lash – in, of course, The Tablet - on the Apostolic constitution which has authorised and enabled the setting up of jurisdictions under which Anglicans may become Roman Catholics not individually but collectively. The Tabletatura, of course, hate the whole thing; and they object particularly to the reception of communities rather than individuals, quite simply because far more will come, numerically, under this dispensation than under what previously obtained: i.e., special fast-track arrangements for clergy wanting reordination (this has helped substantially with the shortage of priests) but the old business of “individual submission” for the laity, and off with them to some denatured liturgy at the ghastly concrete Catholic barracks down the road. Quite simply, the Spirit-of-Vatican-ll boys don’t want the converts at all, because they know that they are coming not for the English bishops, and certainly not for The Tablet, which they loathe and despise, but for the Pope. [Precisely.]The Tablet would like smaller numbers to come, one by one, in a way which provides the opportunity to acclimatise them into the kind of reductionist belief-system they favour. Thus The Tablet’s weaselly suggestion that
They do have an alternative …. they could, as countless converts to Roman Catholicism have done before them including many former Anglo-Catholics, apply to enter into full communion through the normal processes. Nowadays that usually means enrolling in the parish-based scheme called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA, which includes a rite for baptised Christians who want to become Catholic.
After a journey of faith involving instruction from a parish catechist, candidates follow a series of public steps leading to a ceremony of admission, with others who have made the same journey. … A simple formula of doctrinal assent is required … far less elaborate than adherence to every one of the Catholic catechism’s 2,865 paragraphs which the apostolic constitution envisages.
Why implicitly accept the entirety of Catholic teaching by joining a personal ordinariate (which defines the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a doctrinal standard) when you can recite a simple formula with mental reservations like the rest of your RCIA class?
Well, there you have it: what The Tablet wants for any convert is the half-cock reprocessed seventies Catholicism you get in RCIA (I speak from personal experience) rather than the full-blooded total Catholicism of The Catechism of the Catholic Church (which many of them already know far better than most cradle Catholics).
We’ve recently had a bit of controversy about the appropriateness of RCIA for the reception of Anglicans — indeed any Christians — into full communion. Even when applied appropriately, RCIA is very often deficient — and there appears to be a good deal of defensiveness of the part of some commenters when this fact is observed. Are there good RCIA programs out there? Of course there are. Have Anglicans (or others) being received into the full communion of the Catholic Church had positive experiences in RCIA? No doubt they have. But I would caution our Roman Catholic readers not to form their impression of the state of Church from web sites like the New Liturgical Movement or What Does the Prayer Really Say? These sites often focus on a few — and there still only a few — “showcase” churches. Most parish churches in North America and the UK are a liturgical and catechetical wasteland. If you are in a conservative parish with an orthodox priest where the Faith is taught in its integrity and experienced “in the beauty of holiness,” then you are most assuredly in the minority. Of course the times are changing, and there is a reform of the Reform afoot, but as Fr. Z says, “brick by brick.” There is a very long way to go. There is a reason that The Tablet is keen on subjecting Anglo-Catholics to RCIA: they are fairly certain that it will destroy their faith.
But you can understand The Tablet’s hostility and confusion. The fact is that the whole thing has been an enormous shock: not only to those who hate it all but to those who are still glowing with delight, for whom the words “personal ordinariate” induce not the slightest irritation at the usual graceless Vaticanese but on the contrary, sheer joy at the generous fulfilment the Pope has granted of their deepest hopes : these include many former Anglicans like myself and many more now preparing for the journey they have always longed to make, together with their whole ecclesial community. Of that, more in a while: but first, we need to get back to that extraordinary announcement: extraordinary both in its content and in its timing, as well as in its modus operandi. Why so very unexpected?
The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium
Jan 26th
The status of the following document is unclear, as the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity has issued a statement that its release was premature and that it is only a working document with no official authority.
Il Pontificio Consiglio per la Promozione dell’Unità dei Cristiani ha constatato “con rammarico” che è stato pubblicato, da un mezzo di comunicazione, un testo che è all’esame della “Commissione Mista Internazionale per il Dialogo Teologico tra la Chiesa cattolica e la Chiesa ortodossa nel suo insieme”. Il documento pubblicato, si legge in una nota del dicastero, “è un testo previo, che consiste in un elenco di temi da studiare e da approfondire, finora discusso solo in minima parte dalla suddetta Commissione”. Nell’ultima riunione della Commissione Mista Internazionale per il Dialogo Teologico tra la Chiesa cattolica e la Chiesa ortodossa – tenutasi a Paphos nell’ottobre scorso, rammenta il comunicato – “si era stabilito esplicitamente che il testo non sarebbe stato pubblicato finché non fosse stato esaminato nella sua totalità dalla Commissione”. Ad oggi, conclude la nota, “non esiste nessun documento concordato e pertanto il testo pubblicato non ha nessuna autorità, né ufficialità”.
While the text may not yet be “official,” it certainly provides interesting insights into the work of the Joint Coordinating Committee for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church and the developing mutual understanding of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome in the Universal Church.
As Anglicans entering into the full communion of the Catholic Church must also come to terms with the role of the Bishop of Rome in the Church, these current perspectives ought to be very helpful.
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The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium
Joint Coordinating Committee for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
Aghios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece, September 27 – October 4, 2008
Introduction
1. In the Ravenna document, “The Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church – Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority”, Catholics and Orthodox acknowledge the inseparable link between conciliarity and primacy at all levels of the life of the Church: “Primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent. That is why primacy at the different levels of the life of the Church, local, regional and universal, must always be considered in the context of conciliarity, and conciliarity likewise in the context of primacy” (Ravenna document, n. 43). They also agree that “in the canonical order (taxis) witnessed by the ancient Church”, which was “recognised by all in the era of the undivided Church”, “Rome, as the Church that “presides in love” according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs’ (nn. 40, 41). The document refers to the active role and prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as “protos among the patriarchs’, “protos of the bishops of the major Sees’ (nn. 41, 42, 44), and it concludes that “the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches’ must be ’studied in greater depth”. “What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia?” (n. 45)
2. The topic for the next stage of the theological dialogue is therefore: “The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium”. The aim is to understand more deeply the role of the bishop of Rome during the period when the Churches of East and West were in communion, notwithstanding certain divergences between them, and so to respond to the above question.
3. The present text will treat the topic by considering the following four points:
– The Church of Rome, prima sedes;
– The bishop of Rome as successor of Peter;
– The role of the bishop of Rome at times of crisis in the ecclesial communion;
– The influence of non-theological factors.
