FROM
ECUMENISM
TO
SILENT
APOSTASY
25
years of Pontificate
Menzingen
2004
INTRODUCTION
1.
The 25th anniversary of the election of John-Paul
II is an occasion to reflect upon the fundamental orientation
that the Pope has given to his pontificate. In the aftermath
of the Second Vatican Council, he has wished to place his
pontificate under the sign of unity: “The restoration of
unity of all Christians was one of the principal purposes
of the Second Vatican Council (cf. UR nº 1) and since
my election I have formally committed myself to promote
and execute its norms and its orientations, considering
as my primordial duty”.1
For the Pope, this “restoration of the unity of Christians”
is but one step towards a greater unity, that of the whole
human family: “the unity of Christians is open to a unity
ever more vast, that of all humanity”.2
2.
As a result of this fundamental choice:
John Paul II has esteemed it a duty to “take into hand this
conciliar magna charta, the Dogmatic Constitution
Lumen Gentium”.3
which defines the Church as “a sacrament, that is to say,
at the same time a sign and means of intimate union
with God as well as of the unity of the entire human
race”.4
This “taking into hand” had been done in order to “better
realize this vital communion in the Christ of all those
who believe and hope in him, but also in order to contribute
to a greater and stronger unity of the whole human family”;5
John Paul II has consecrated the essence of his pontificate
to the fulfilment of this unity, by repeated interreligious
meetings, acts of repentance and ecumenical gestures. This
has also been the principal reason for his voyages: “they
have allowed me to reach the particular Churches in every
continent, prompting a sustained attention to the developing
of ecumenical relations with the Christians of different
confessions”;6
John Paul II has distinguished the Jubilee year 2000 by
an ecumenical gesture.7
In
all truthfulness, “one can say that all the activities of
the local Churches and of the Apostolic See have had these
last years an ecumenical inspiration”.8
Twenty-five years have passed, the Jubilee has past, it
is now the time of judgment.
3.
For a long time, John Paul II has believed that his pontificate
would be a new Advent,9
permitting “the dawn of this new millennium to shine upon
a Church that has found again her full unity”. 10Thus
the “dream” of the Pope will be realized: “that all the
peoples of the world from different parts of the globe,
coming together to unite themselves to the unique God as
one whole family”.11
But the reality is completely different: “The time in which
we live seems to be an aberrant epoch where many men and
women seem disoriented”.12
There reigns over Europe a “sort of practical agnosticism
and religious indifferentism” to such a degree that “European
culture gives the impression of a ‘silent apostasy’”.13
The ecumenism is not a stranger to this situation. This
analysis of the thought of John Paul II (First Part) will
show us that, not without a profound sadness, the ecumenical
practices come from a no-catholic thought (Second Part)
and lead to a “silent apostasy” (Third Part).
Chapter
I
ANALYSIS
OF THE ECUMENICAL THOUGHT
The Unity of the Human Race and Inter-religious dialogue
Christ,
united to every man
4.
The foundation of the thought of the Pope is found in the
affirmation that states that “the Christ ‘has united himself
in a certain way to all men of’ (Gaudium et Spes
nº 22), even if these men are not aware of it”.14
John Paul II explains, actually, that the Redemption wrought
by Christ is universal not only in the sense that it is
superabundant for the entire human race, and that it is
proposed to each of its members in particular, but especially
that it is de facto applied to all men: if then,
from one point of view, “in the Christ, religion is no longer
a ‘search for God by trial and error’ (Acts 17, 27), but
a response of the faith in God who reveals Himself […],
a response made possible by this unique Man […] in whom
every man is made capable to respond to God”. From another
viewpoint, the Pope adds “that in this Man, whole creation
responds to God”.15
In actuality, “each man is included in the mystery of the
Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for
ever through this mystery. […] That is, man in all the fullness
of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus
Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand
million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer
from the moment he is conceived”.16
In such a way that “in the Holy Spirit, each person and
all peoples have become, by the Cross and resurrection of
Christ, the children of God, participators in the divine
nature and the heirs of eternal life”.17
The
Meeting at Assisi
5.
An immediate application of universality of the Redemption
is the manner in which John Paul II treats the relations
between the Church and other religions. If the commandment
of unity previously described “is that which come from the
creation and the redemption, and is thus, in this sense
“divine”, these differences and these divergences, even
religious, come rather from a ‘human con-sequence’”18
which ought to be “left behind by the progress towards the
realization of the grandiose design of unity which precedes
the creation”.19
From this follows the inter-faith meetings such as at Assisi,
27 October 1986, during which the Pope wanted to detect
“in a visible way the fundamental but ridden unity which
the divine Word […] has established amongst all men and
all women of this world”.20
By these acts, the Pope wishes to proclaim to the Church
that “Christ is the fulfilment of the yearning of all the
world’s religions and, as such, he is their sole and definitive
completion”.21
The Church of Christ and Ecumenism
The
Unique Church of Christ
6.
The divine unity resting intact, the historical divisions
come from that which is human; this double scheme is applied
to the Church, considered as a communion. John Paul II distinguishes,
in fact, the Church of Christ, the divine reality, and the
different churches, fruits of “human divisions”.22
The contours of the Church of Christ are fairly ill defined
as they overflow the visible limits of the Catholic Church.23
The Church of Christ is an interior reality.24
The Church gathers together at least the entirety of Christians,25
no matter what church they belong to: all are “disciples
of Christ”,26
“in a common membership to Christ”;27
they “are one, because, in the Spirit, they are in the communion
with the Son, and in Him, in communion with the Father”.28
The Church of Christ is thus the Communion of Saints, above
all divisions: “The Church is the Communion of Saints”.29
In reality, “the communion in which Christians believe and
hope in is a profound reality, their union with the Father
by the Christ and in the Holy Ghost. Since the day of Pentecost,
this union is given and received in the Church, the Communion
of Saints”. 30
The
divisions in the Church
7.
According to John Paul II, divisions in the Church which
have happened during the course of history never affected
the Church of Christ, that is to say that the fundamental
unity of Christians amongst themselves has been left inviolate:
“By the grace of God, that which belongs to the structure
of the Church of Christ has not yet been destroyed, nor
the communion which endures with the other churches and
ecclesial communities.”31
These divisions are in reality of another order, they only
concern the manifestation of the communion of saints, that
which makes it visible: the traditional bonds of the profession
of faith, the sacraments and the hierarchical communion.
In refusing one or other of these bonds, the separated Churches
interfere only with the interests of the visible
communion with the Catholic Church, and this only partially:
this said communion is lesser or greater according to the
number of ties that have been safeguarded. One thus speaks
of the imperfect communion between the separated churches
and the Catholic Church, the communion of all in the unique
Church of Christ remaining intact.32
The term “sister-churches” is often used.33
8.
According to this conception, that which unites the
different Christian Churches is greater than that which
separates them:34
“The
common spiritual dimension surpasses all the confessional
barriers which separates us from each other”.35
This spiritual dimension, such is the Church of Christ.
If this Church only “subsists”36
“in an unique subject”37
in the Catholic Church, she keeps at the least an “active
presence” in the separated communities in reason of the
“elements of sanctification and truth”38
which are present in them. This alleged common spiritual
dimension John Paul II wished to ratify by the publication
of a martyrology common to the churches: “The ecumenism
of the saints, of the martyrs, is perhaps that which is
the most convincing. The voice of the communion of saints
is stronger than that of the troublemakers of division.”39
Neither
absorption nor fusion, but reciprocal giving
9.
From this, “the ultimate end of the ecumenical movement”
is only “the reestablishment of the full visible unity of
all the baptized.”40
A unity so conceived will no longer be realized by the “ecumenism
of return”:41
“We reject this method of searching for unity. […] The pastoral
action of the Catholic Church, both Latin and Eastern, no
longer tries to make the faithful pass from one Church to
another.”42
In fact this would forget two things:
-These divisions, which Vatican II analyzes as a breach
of charity,43
are attributable to both parties: “Evoking the division
of Christians, the Decree on Ecumenism does not ignore ‘the
fault of men of either parties’, recognizing that the responsibility
cannot be attributed ‘only to the other party (Unitatis
Redintegratio, n° 3)’.” 44
-Ecumenism is also a “exchange of gifts”45
between the churches: “The exchange of complementary gifts
between the churches makes the communion fruitful.”46
This is the reason why the unity desired by John Paul II
“is neither absorption nor fusion.”47
Applying this principle to the relations between the Catholic
Church and the Orthodox, the Pope develops this idea: “Today,
the two sister-churches of the East and West understand
that without a mutual understanding of the profound underlying
reasons which characterize the understanding of each of
them, without a reciprocal giving of the treasures of the
genius they carry, the Church of Christ cannot manifest
the full maturity which she had received from the beginning,
in the cenacle.” 48
The Recomposition of the Visible Unity
10.
“Just as in a family the eventual discords
ought to leave their place to the recomposition of unity,
so also one should do the same for the vast family of the
whole Christian community.”49
This exceeding of human dissensions by the recomposition
of the visible unity is the methodology of the Pope. One
must apply this methodology to the traditional three bonds
of the profession of faith, the sacraments and the hierarchical
communion, seeing that these are what constitute the visibility
of this unity.
Unity
of the Sacraments
11.
One knows how Paul VI has applied this method in the sacraments:
in the successive liturgical reforms which applied the conciliar
decrees, “the Church has been guided […] by the desire to
do everything to help our separated brethren on the way
to union, taking away the stones that could be even the
shadow of a risk of stumbling or displeasure.”50
12.
The obstacle of a Catholic liturgy expressing too much dogma
being thus put aside, there remains the problems posed by
the liturgies of the separated communities to be overcome.
The reform thus gives place to recognition: the Assyrian
anaphora (Nestorian) of Addaï and Mari was declared valid
by a document clearly approved by John Paul II, in spite
of the fact hat it does not contain the words of consecration.51
Unity
in the Profession of Faith
13.
In what concerns matters of faith, John Paul II considers
that “the polemics and the intolerant controversies have
often transformed into incompatible affirmations of what
was in fact the result of two researches investigating the
same reality, two different points of view. Today we must
find the formula that, taking hold of this reality in its
integrity, permits us to overcome the half-reading and to
eliminate erroneous interpretations.”52
This demands a certain latitude in respect to the dogmatic
formulas used by the Church up until now. One must resort
to historical relativism, in order to make the dogmatic
formulas depend on their epoch: “The truths which the Church
really understands to teach by her dogmatic formulas are
without a doubt distinct from the changing concepts proper
to a determined epoch; but it is not excluded that they
might possibly be formulated, even by the Magisterium, in
terms which carry some traces of such concepts.”53
14.
Two applications of these principles are often pointed
out as examples. In the case of the Nestorian heresy, John
Paul II judges that “the divisions which came about were
in large measure due to misunderstandings.”54
In effect, if the principle which states that “In the first
place, with regard to doctrinal formulations which differ
from those normally in use in the community to which one
be-longs, it is certainly right to determine whether the
words involved say the same thing”55
is clear, the practical application is embezzled. From this
follows the recognition of the Christological faith of the
Eastern Assyrian Church without any demand that they adhere
to the formula of the Council of Ephesus, that Mary is the
Mother of God.56
Even more characteristic is the common declaration with
the World Lutheran Federation. Its solicitude was not to
state the faith and to stay clear of error, but only to
find a formulation suitable to escape the anathemas of the
Council of Trent: “This common declaration carries the conviction
that the surpassing of condemnations and questions
of momentary controversy does not signify that the
separations and condemnations be treated lightly or that
the past of each our ecclesial traditions be disavowed.
Nonetheless, this declaration carries the conviction that
a new discernment of the history of our Churches
has occurred.”57
Cardinal Kasper summarized it simply with the commentary:
“Where we had at first sight a contradiction, we can now
see a complementary position.”58
The
hierarchical communion
15.
As far as the Petrine ministry is concerned, the desires
of the pontiff are known: to find, in harmony with the pastors
and theologians of different Churches, “the forms in which
this ministry could realize a service of love recognized
by each.”59
Thus is introduced the standard of the necessitas Ecclesiae,60
understood today as the realization of the unity of Christians,
to palliate that which in the exercise of the petrinian
ministry could become an obstacle to ecumenism.
16.
According to Cardinal Kasper, this proceeding does not
suffice. One must overcome the obstacles present in the
separated communities, for example the decreed invalidity
of Anglican orders.61
The course that he proposes for this is a redefining of
the concept of Apostolic succession, no longer “in the sense
of a historical chain of the imposition of hands going back
centuries to the Apostles – this vision would be a very
individualistic and mechanical” but rather as “a collegial
participation in a college which, as a whole, goes back
to the Apostles by a sharing in the same apostolic faith
and the same apostolic mission.”62
