IEC2012 Pt. 2: Vatican II and Ecumenism Today

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the Congress theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 2
Vatican II and Ecumenism Today
Bishop Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Unity (Holy See)
and Doctor Richard Clutterbuck, Professor, Edgehill College Belfast
Monday, June 11 - 12pm

Bishop Farrell and Dr. Clutterbuck speaking to a capacity crowd

Reflections on Bishop Farrell's Remarks


Before Vatican II, non-Catholics, even those who were properly disposed toward aspects of the Catholic Church's liturgies and practices, were refused any inclusion in any Church activities and were simply viewed as being "outside the Church." Bishop Farrell, and many people from his generation, bring a wonderful perspective when they speak on ecumenical concerns because they have seen the pre-Vatican II Church, the Church as it went through the reforms, and the Church as it began to figure out how to live its new directives. For someone like me who grew up with ecumenical Taizé Prayer services under the direction of very welcoming brothers and priests, it is staggering but necessary to be reminded where things stood just 50 years ago and even more recently, too. Non-Catholics couldn't even come inside a church, let alone pray with their brother/sister Christians.


Bishop Farrell emphasized two significant points from the Vatican II pronouncements on ecumenism:

1. We have a common baptism in Christ.
2. Non-Catholic Christian Churches are valid churches of Christ, and they are effective means of grace for their members.

I really love these (more on #1 in my next post), especially the word choice for that second point - effective means of grace. We believe as Catholics not-so-much that our Church is 100% perfect and the no-doubt path to eternal life, but we do believe that out of all the options out there that we have figured out the best equation for what Church ought to be. Present in that perspective, but too often left to be implied, is the idea that our sister churches in Christ share, at minimum, our common Baptism in Christ in which we're christened in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - also known as the Holy Trinity that we all believe in. Put simply - there is salvation beyond the Catholic Church; we think we are honing the best path to it, but the grace toward eternal life is present and thriving in other Christian churches, too!

These other Christian churches are still vehicles for grace for their communities and their individual believers. We may have theological and doctrinal differences over sacraments and orders (the nature of ordained ministers) - and I ask people who aren't especially into theology to not belittle those differences as "not a big deal" because things like our contrasting views on what the Eucharist is and what Holy Orders entails are integral - but they are truly valid communities because of their initiation into Christ's death and resurrection and for so many more reasons. There is so much that can be shared, and I thank God I live in an age when we can enthusiastically share in service, prayer, and fellowship.

A few other nuggets from Bishop Farrell:

• The Catholic Church has dialogued out authoritative statements on Christology (the nature of Christ) with several Oriental rites, also known as Eastern Catholics.
• Bishop Farrell's group seeks out dialogue that enables many different Christians to look at how far they've come and discover what they can profess together.
• They are also trying to learn better how ecclesiality worked before 500 AD - how did the people of the West and East fit together with multiple centers of faith and strong patriarchies thriving all across the ancient world?

Dr. Clutterbuck's Remarks

Dr. Clutterbuck is a Methodist minister, and his academic formation focused on ecumenical studies and ecclesiology (the study of the church). He teaches at a college in Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK).

He pointed out to us that Methodism was not associated with the initial Reformation but rather sprung from a dispute within the Anglican Church/Church of England, so the differences between Methodism and Catholicism are distinct. A personal note I would add: during my research into ecumenism well studying abroad in London, the Monsignor in charge of ecumenism for the English/Welsh bishops' conference told me that the Methodists are the most logical group to work with because they have the most unified theology and set of beliefs out of all the Protestant denominations (as contrasted, for example, with the relatively big tent that is Anglicanism/Episcopalianism).

He described Vatican II as "opening the floodgates" for ecumenism and leading many at the time to feel that union between the churches was within grasp. However, it hasn't developed in exactly the way that original hopefuls might have desired. Dr. Clutterbuck highlighted how Vatican II gave previously unknown permission to Catholics to recognize and engage with the non-Catholic denominations. The change in culture helped create "reciprocity," especially in the formal documents, which encouraged the Christians to together recognize their shared central tenets and the place of the Gospel in the Church.

Perhaps the most provocative moment of his lecture - which actually elicited verbal comments of agreement and affirmation from the man sitting next to me - was Dr. Clutterbuck's comments on how the Catholic Church is a "fellow pilgrim on the journey" with the other Christian churches. He quoted Karl Barth, who said, "[Vatican II] makes me wonder if the Reformation was really necessary." Dr. Clutterbuck wondered aloud - what if all the Vatican II pronouncements had been made 500 years earlier?

This is something we can never know for sure, but one has to think that some of the bold progressivism that the Catholic bishops showed in near unanimity would have been hugely helpful to the cracks that grew into schism in the 16th-century Church. The movement toward the vernacular in worship, encouragement of Bible study by lay people, and the famous encouragement for full, active participation by everyone are a few things that I think Protestants would have loved to hear before they broke away. Though such musings make one contemplate doing some time-travel, we returned to the present to tackle ecumenism as we know it today... a few other bits:

• Dr. Clutterbuck has found in his experience that ecumenism is wonderfully logical, natural, and effective when Christians cooperate in mission and in ministry.
• Despite major growth in the common ground on Eucharist, he feels Catholics' practice of not giving Communion to Protestants and the reality of incomplete Communion remains "a sorrow and a scandal." He ensured Catholics in the room that such rupture is felt "acutely" by Protestants. He advocates Eucharistic communion as a means to catalyze fuller union (something I know to be held by many Anglicans, too), whereas the Catholic Church reserves full communion for the day when we are all one. I tend to agree with our practice - you can't get ahead of yourselves and share something in a moment of worship that isn't shared wholly.
• He affirmed the spread of the Revised Common Lectionary as a positive way that Christians can and are increasingly sharing in the Word. I think this is pretty awesome and unfortunately not widely known - it's a beautiful reality of unity that is so subtle yet so profound.

Some Follow-up Discussion

A Nigerian sister asked the panel what can be done when local churches don't accept the consensus documents that the leaders of their denominations have worked out in dialogue with the Catholic Church. She also wondered what can be said about the proliferation of hundreds of different Christian denominations. The panelists admitted the imperfection of the documents being created mostly in Europe and sent to the rest of the world. Bishop Farrell admitted Rome has yet to adapt, failing to include a more universal representation in its dialoguing bodies and also falling short in providing developing areas with usable content. His tone was that of disappointment and hope amid uncertainty as to how to fix it.

A Croatian woman put the panel to the screws, asking if there's reason to hope for Eucharistic communion in the foreseeable future. The panel correctly avoided promising anything, downplaying ideas of timelines as artificial and unhelpful, but Dr. Clutterbeck encourage us by saying that this doesn't mean it won't come before we know it. They encouraged better listening between theologians as well as between local communities.

Next up - Part 3: Br. Alois Löser, Prior of the Taizé Community