The new Catholic Ecumenical Directory: a Protestant reading

Ecclesiological observations

I must confess that on my initial reading of especially the early pages of the Directory, I was sobered by what seemed to my Reformed sensibilities to be a very heavy use of the language of episcopal authority. The phrase "under the direction of their bishops" was repeated so frequently that one could hardly miss the message. This is indeed a reflection of the Roman Catholic understanding of the nature of the church and its ministry of oversight, but Protestants are aware that for all practical purposes a bishop with a pre-Vatican II mindset can create an ecumenical black hole in his diocese.

On my second reading, however, I began to look more deeply at the assumptions about the nature of the church which frame the document. I find six fundamentals - all of which should be very encouraging to ecumenical advocates, because these ecclesiological underpinnings are prior to the understanding of ministerial oversight. Indeed, if this is the Roman Catholic understanding of church, then bishops must be held accountable to it. That offers some interesting and exciting possibilities.

The six fundamentals of the Directory are:

1. "The concern for unity is fundamental to the understanding of the church" (para. 58) - a perspective embodied in the canon law of the Latin church, which says that "the church is bound by the will of Christ to promote" unity among all Christians (canon 755, quoted in para. 39; cf. para. 19).

2. "Ecumenical openness is a constitutive dimension of the formation of future priests and deacons" (para. 76, emphasis added).

3. "Those who are baptized in the name of Christ are, by that very fact, called to commit themselves to the search for unity" (para. 22).

4. "Those who seek holiness [will] be able to recognize its fruits also outside the visible boundaries of their own church" (para. 25).

5. "It is even desirable that Christians should write together the history of their divisions and of their efforts in the search for unity" (para. 57). Presumably, if we do this, it will keep us all honest, and, as the document notes, "the danger of subjective interpretations can be avoided". In addition, it will help put things in a broader perspective, and allow us to foster the healing of memories.

6. "Ecumenical cooperation shows to the world that those who believe in Christ and live by his Spirit, being thus made children of God who is Father of all, can set about overcoming human divisions, even about such sensitive matters as religious faith and practice, with courage and hope... The efforts being made to overcome them [the divisions] do much to offset the scandal and to give credibility to Christians who proclaim that Christ is the one in whom all things and people are gathered together into unity" (para. 205). This echoes a classic assumption in the conciliar ecumenical movement, namely, that the call to unity is for the sake of the world.

Each of these statements has as a backdrop the affirmation of the Second Vatican Council that "full visible communion of all Christians is the ultimate goal of the ecumenical movement" (para. 20, referring to Unitatis Redintegratio, 4, 15-16).

These ecclesiological affirmations about the centrality of Christian unity in the life of the Roman Catholic Church are prior to and, indeed, should inform the language in the preface which puts specific implementation of guidelines in the framework of the authority of the bishops and the holy see. All of us can hold each other accountable by this higher standard of the nature of the church, its ordained ministries and the way in which all our ministries are rooted in our baptism. This is the ecumenical high ground of the Directory, and we should stand on it.

General observations

We can read this Directory in two ways. We can focus on the negatives - on what is not possible, on the prohibitions - and get angry; or we can concentrate on the positives - on what we can do now together, on the encouragements - and get going. I prefer the latter approach. In fact, if every diocese around the world took fully to heart all that is now possible ecumenically, other churches would be scrambling to catch up with the Roman Catholic Church, and we would be ahead of where we are now.

I approach this document with holy envy. Would that many of the Protestant churches took their ecumenical life seriously enough to produce such comprehensive guidelines. One of the values in having Protestants examine this document is that the very idea of looking at the mandate for Christian unity in light of each church's ecclesial self-understanding could produce more positive behaviour for reconciliation.

To the degree that the Directory "strengthens the structures that have been developed for the support and guidance of ecumenical activity..." (para. 13), it will have positive long-term systemic effects, which in turn should evoke similar challenges to other churches.