Ut Unum Sint and Catholic Involvement in Ecumenism

Pope John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995) is an historic encyclical with important implications for the Catholic Church's involvement in the ecumenical movement.(1) Perhaps its Significance can come more sharply into focus when one compares it with earlier papal letters on Christian unity, such as Satis Cognitum of Leo XIII (1896) and Mortalium Animos of Pius XI (1928).

Leo XIII reflected on church unity in light of the incarnational economy of salvation. As the divine and human natures were united inseparably in the person of Jesus Christ, so the spiritual and institutional aspects of the church cannot be separated. The visible structures of the episcopacy and the primacy are necessary for church unity because Christ himself willed to order the church in this way. Thus the unity of Christians is possible only by means of a return to that community governed by bishops in communion with the successor to Peter.

Unlike his predecessor Leo, Pius XI wrote Mortalium Animos after the modern ecumenical movement had already begun; indeed, its appearance in 1928 shows that it was a response to the founding meeting of the Faith and Order movement (Lausanne 1927). Pius's view of unity was solidly in the line of Satis Cognitum, again seeing the healing of Christian divisions as a project of "return" to the Catholic fold. In addition, because the Faith and Order movement wished to address precisely "doctrinal" issues relative to Christian unity, Pius spoke about the insufficiency of seeking to establish ecclesial unity on the basis of a limited number of teachings which all could accept. He argued that a doctrine can be binding on believers and normative for the church only to the extent that it is rooted in or intimately related to the revealed Word of God. Christian doctrine is ultimately based on God's authority. It is not for believers to choose which are the fundamental or necessary articles of faith, thus, as it were, setting themselves up as judges of God's word.

Ut Unum Sint also takes up the questions of the nature of ecclesial unity and its relation to the full acceptance of revealed truth, but now within the perspectives about the church and about revelation proposed by the Second Vatican Council and explored in subsequent years. In this essay I shall examine in turn each of the three chapters of Ut Unum Sint, then in conclusion return to the issues raised in this introduction.

Chapter I: Harvesting Vatican II

The first chapter of Ut Unum Sint basically reaffirms the principal ecumenical themes of the Second Vatican Council.(2) Two points seems to dominate Pope John Paul's rereading of the Council: that unity is God's will and that unity takes the form of a visible communion of faith, sacraments and communal life under the guidance of ordained ministers.

God's will for church unity

Some of the strongest words of Ut Unum Sint concern unity as God's will, even as the primary motive of the whole Christ-event. Jesus died in order "to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52); through his cross he brought hostility to an end (cf. Eph. 2:14-16). The pope then adds:

   The unity of all divided humanity is the will of God. For this mason he
   sent his Son, so that by dying and rising for us he might bestow on us the
   Spirit of love. On the eve of his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus himself
   prayed to the Father for his disciples and for all those who believe in
   him, that they might be one, a living communion. This is the basis not only
   of the duty, but also of the responsibility before God and his plan, which
   falls to those who through baptism become members of the body of Christ, a
   body in which the fullness of reconciliation and communion must be made
   present. How is it possible to remain divided, if we have been "buried"
   through baptism in the Lord's death, in the very act by which God, through
   the death of his Son, has broken down the walls of division? (para. 6).

If unity is so tied to the central purpose of Christ's salvific mission, then division is a most serious matter -- not a minor flaw that can simply be tolerated. John Paul quotes the assertion in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism that division "openly contradicts the will of Christ, provides a stumbling block to the world and inflicts damage on the most holy cause of proclaiming the good news to every creature" (Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 1).

This explains the depth of the commitment to unity and the passion with which the pope speaks about it. A good example:

   To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire
   the church; to desire the church means to desire the communion of grace
   which corresponds to the Father's plan from all eternity. Such is the
   meaning of Christ's prayer: "Ut unum sint" (para. 9).

Unity as communion

In addition, John Paul devotes eight paragraphs (paras 7-14) to the ecclesiology of communion which was determinative for the Second Vatican Council's II's understanding of ecumenism. The notion of communion is not primarily a model for envisioning ecumenism, but rather corresponds to the nature of the church as such. It expresses that unity of Christians which is rooted in their common sharing of the life of God, of grace, of the divine gifts of faith, hope and charity. In this way, the whole "catholic" church is a communion, as is each local community, all of which are united with one another. The links which maintain communion are many, but they may be summarized under three headings: the profession of a common faith, the celebration of worship and sacraments, the ordered communal witness and service carried out under the guidance of ordained ministers.(3)