You are here
DURHAM, UK: Unity is symphonic, says Cardinal
By Pat Ashworth
THE CHURCH TIMES
2/17/2006
CHRISTIAN UNITY should not be thought of as the fusion of worldwide mega corporations, but as shared participation in the holy and in the one baptism, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told a colloquium of 140 senior church leaders and theologians from the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, and Orthodox Churches at Ushaw College, Durham, last week.
Forty years of dialogue had produced many fine ecumenical texts, and efforts on many ecclesial levels had been made to bridge the differences, but new obstacles had emerged, and a clear path to full communion was not visible, said the Cardinal, who received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Durham University at the start of the international colloquium, "Catholic Learning: Explorations in Receptive Ecumenism", organised by Dr Paul Murray.
"At the beginning of the 21st century, we are confronted once more by the problematic constellation of the 19th and 20th centuries: Catholicism versus Protestantism. We have been thrown back to the beginning of the ecumenical movement," he said in a keynote address. "It is understandable that the Anglican Communion, which hopes somehow to hold the two together, suffers particularly under this polarisation. To me the only possible solution seems to be to turn back to the fundamentals of ecumenical theology."
Unity in the New Testament was "unity in the diversity of charisms, offices, local churches, and cultures; unity is symphonic," he said. "Unity is communio sanctorum, that is, shared participation in the holy, in the life of God, in the Holy Spirit, in the Gospel, in the one baptism, and in the one eucharistic body of the Lord."
The Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, described the six-day colloquium as "jaw-dropping" for Anglicans. "We are all seasoned enough theologians to know that there are real issues, and we're not playing fast and loose and being silly, but there was a real sense that we celebrate the baptism which is common among all of us," he said on Tuesday.
"There are very serious voices within the Roman Catholic Church saying we are not three or four different Churches; we are all part of the one single Church which has some serious internal problems to be addressed. That's a very different way of stating the ecumenical jigsaw than we have been used to," he said. "The notion of Rome asking itself, 'What can we as Rome receive as gifts from other Churches in order that we can be more complete?' is so different from the impression that has sometimes been given of Churches' thinking they basically have everything and it's other Churches who need to learn from them."
In an interview with Christopher Landau on the BBC Sunday programme, Cardinal Kasper admitted that there was no solution at present to the obstacle of the ordination of women. Homosexuality was "not the most important in the hierarchy of truth", but it was still "a very emotional problem: it has a divisive power," he said. "As much as we can, we want to help the Anglican Communion to find a solution." He defended the new pope as "not an enemy of ecumenism".
Dr Wright presided and Cardinal Kasper preached at a eucharist on the first full day of the colloquium, and Dr Wright preached at a Roman Catholic eucharist the following day. "We observed the discipline of the Roman Church about Romans' not receiving at a Anglican eucharist and vice versa, but all the Roman theologians came up for a blessing - including Cardinal Kasper, who just joined the queue," he said.
Cardinal Kasper acknowledged in his interview with Mr Landau the problem of sharing in the eucharist as "very acute" in his home country of Germany, where there were equal numbers of Roman Catholics and Protestants.
"The Catholic Church is of the opinion that every Church has elements of the gospel, elements of ecclesiality, and often they have developed these elements profounder and deeper and larger than we have done . . .
. . . think what we have learnt from the Protestants about the importance of the Bible, of the Word of God, of the preaching - and they are learning now about our liturgical symbols. There's a process of learning going on.
We have a new pope. . . He is not an enemy of ecumenism. He has written, as a theologian, many good articles on the ecumenical movement, and on the first day of his pontificate he declared clearly that the unity of the Church is his priority. But the battle against secularism is linked with the unity of the Church, because in this new situation the Church has to speak with one voice." -Cardinal Kasper, interviewed by Christopher Landau on Sunday, BBC Radio 4.
