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May They All Be One? But
how?
A Vision of Christian Unity
for the Next Generation
Conference of the
Society for Ecumenical Studies, the St Albans Christian Study Centre and the
Hertfordshire Newman Association at St Alban’s Abbey, Hertfordshire, England on
17th May 2003
Keynote Address by Cardinal
Walter Kasper
Thank you for your warm
invitation, and thank you for the welcome. I am very honoured, although at the
same time I am somewhat perplexed by the issue upon which you have asked me to
speak: “A vision of Christian unity”. I belong to a German tribe called the
Swabians, and we are known to be sober and hard-headed people. Visions are not
so much our affair. Maybe or probably I have my dreams, but when I awake in the
morning, unfortunately I have mostly forgotten them. So for a psychoanalyst I
would be a hopeless case. But even so, standing with both feet on the ground, we
are able to distinguish between authentic Christian hope, which always is hope
under the cross and therefore a crucified hope, and human dreams and utopian
visionary expectations.
I.
When Jesus uttered the words
“may they all be one”, they by no means represented a vision or a dream. Jesus
said these words on the eve of his death. This was not the time for triumphal
utopias. The Galilean spring, when the enthusiastic crowds overwhelmed him, was
over. They no longer cried “Hosanna!” but “ Crucify him!”. Jesus was well aware
of this, and predicted also that his disciples would not be one, and that they
would be dispersed. What else could he do in this situation than to leave the
future of his work in the hands of his Father? Thus, the words “may they all be
one” are a prayer, a prayer in a humanly perceived hopeless situation.
These reflections bring me
to my first point: ecumenical spirituality. The ecumenical enthusiasm of the
decade after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) is over. Much progress was
made. Separated Churches and Christians no longer meet as enemies or
competitors; Christian brotherhood among us was rediscovered. This is an
irreversible process, and in a world that becomes more and more one world there
is no realistic alternative to ecumenism. On the contrary, our shame lies in the
fact that we continue to be disobedient to the will of our Lord “that they all
be one”.
After the first wave of
enthusiasm, there is now much disenchantment at unfulfilled expectations. We
still cannot gather together at the table of the Lord. Ecumenical progress
became slow, with churches often seeming to withdraw into old self-sufficient
confessionalism. There is no longer an eschatological “Naherwartung”. This
development was all the more marked as ecumenism became a reason for internal
conflicts and separations within the churches themselves. The question of their
own identities came to the foreground and lead often to delimitations. Ecumenism
seems to be in crisis.
When we speak of an
ecumenical crisis, the term ‘crisis’ should not be understood one-sidedly, in the negative sense of
a break-down or collapse of what has been built up in the last decades –
although that is certainly not negligible. Here the term ‘crisis’ is meant in
the original sense of the Greek term, meaning a situation where things are
hanging in the balance, where they are on a knife-edge; indeed, this state can
either be positive or negative.
Both are possible. A crisis
situation is a situation in which old ways come to an end but room for new
possibilities open. A crisis situation therefore may also present itself as a
challenge and a time for decision.
There
are two dangers to avoid. Firstly, ecumenical dialogue is at risk of becoming a
mere academic affair. I am the last to deny the importance of theology for the
ecumenical dialogue; for ecumenism can only be ecumenism in truth and not an
ecumenism of mere emotion. So
serious theological work is indispensable for ecumenism. German theologians, in
particular, are defined by the fact that every one of them is more intelligent
than his or her colleague, everyone is so intelligent that he or she will always
have an argument against what the other has said. Such purely academic dialogues
are an eschatological pursuit. “Normal” faithful cannot participate, and they
become alienated and annoyed.
There
is another danger too: to embark upon a mere ecumenical activism involving an
endless series of conferences, symposiums, commissions, meetings, sessions,
projects and spectacular events with the perpetual repetition of the same
arguments, concerns, problems and lamentations. It may be useful to bear in mind
that the ecumenical documents of only the last decades at the international
level, leaving aside the many regional and local documents, now comprise two
thick volumes. Who can read all this stuff, and, indeed, who wants to? Most of
this documentation is not really received in the churches, neither at the
hierarchical nor at the grassroots level. Often it is destined only for the
bookshelves, and I can well understand lay people who disappointedly ask: What
and where are the concrete results, and what is the visible outcome of your
illuminated discussions and documents?
In
such a situation we should look again to Jesus’s prayer “that they all be one”,
which points to the very heart of a healthy ecumenism: spiritual ecumenism and
ecumenical spirituality. This means first of all prayer, for we cannot ‘make’ or
organise Church unity; unity is a gift of God’s Spirit, which alone can open
hearts to conversion and reconciliation. And there is no ecumenism without
conversion and renewal, no ecumenism without the purification of memories and
without forgiveness. Spiritual ecumenism means further common reading of the
Bible, exchange of spiritual experiences, collaboration in serving the poor, the
sick, the outcast, the suffering of all kinds.
The
unity of the Church can be accomplished only by a renewed Pentecost; but just
like the first Pentecost, when Mary and the disciples assembled to pray for the
coming of the Spirit (Acts 1, 12-14),
we too have to come together to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit.
This
kind of ecumenism is not restricted to the realm of selected experts; indeed, it
is accessible and obligatory for all. When it comes to prayer, all are experts,
or, rather, all should be experts. Only by stressing the spiritual dimension
will it be possible to make understandable what we are debating in our
dialogues. For many people no longer understand our scholastic terminology; even
central concepts for them have become meaningless and devoid of sense. It is our
duty to imbue them with experience; this means we must translate them not only
into modern language but also into everyday life and experience.
The
Pontifical Council for Christian
Unity will hold its next Plenary precisely on the topic of spiritual
ecumenism. In preparation we are in the process of collecting a series of
witnesses involving concrete and lived spiritual ecumenism with a view to
providing inspiring models and encouraging examples. We have been overwhelmed at
how many such examples already exist. They represent a widely forgotten and
overlooked aspect of the ecumenical dimension that must be made known and
rendered fruitful. This is all the more urgent because while there is widespread
disaffection with institutions, there is in contrast a new desire and a profound
longing for spirituality, which should inspire and define the next phase of the
ecumenical movement.
II.
But
– and this is my second point – I wonder whether it may be useful at this point
to remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit may not be such a naive being as many
may suppose. The Holy Spirit as pioneer of the ecumenical movement calls us to
reflect upon the nature of our journey, for the Spirit is dynamic, is life, is
freedom. The Holy Spirit is always good for a surprise. In this perspective, it
is not possible to draw a blueprint of the future unity of the Church. The light
the Spirit casts is similar to a lantern that lights our next step and that
shines only as we go ahead.
This
does not mean that the Spirit engages us in a blind adventure. We are not left
without a compass. The Spirit, as Saint Paul tells us, is one of order and not
of confusion (cf. 1 Cor 14, 33).
Theologians of all mainline Church traditions have always been very cautious to
distance themselves from the enthusiasts and their utopian and not seldom
chaotic dreams. For serious theology, in accordance with the Bible, the Spirit
is the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Rom 8, 9;
1 Cor 12, 3) and the Spirit of the Son (Gal 4, 5). In the person and work of
Jesus, the Spirit’s salvific action came to its fullness; so the Spirit’s
mission is to remind, to make present and to make universal what in Jesus Christ
happened once for all (John 14, 26; 16, 13 f). We should not lose sight of this
incarnational dimension of the Spirit’s work.
Therefore,
the Spirit who gives witness to the one God and the one Saviour Jesus Christ
also safeguards the one holy Church we confess together in the Apostles’
Creed. This unity of the Church we
confess and in which we hope is a visible unity and not only a spiritual one,
which is hidden behind the different separated churches. There are visible
criteria for unity: unity in the same faith, unity in the same sacraments and
unity in church ministry, i.e. in episcopal ministry, in apostolic succession.
There cannot be Church unity as long as there remain anathemas of one Church
against another, be it that one church says that the other sins by defectus because she denies articles of
faith founded in Scripture and tradition or that she sins by excessus, because she avows credal
formulas which are additional to the once for all revelation.
Church
unity is impossible with contradictions, and churches cannot or should not enter
into conflicting agreements with different partners. Comprehensiveness is a good
thing, but it should not be exaggerated, and pluralism should not become a new
beatitude added to the Sermon on the Mount. The identity and inner coherence of
the Church must be clear ad intra and
ad extra. “Every kingdom that is
divided against itself will fall apart” and “cannot last” (Mt 12, 25).
Such
unity is needed in the synchronic and in the diachronic dimensions. The Church
is the same in all centuries; today we cannot build a new Church in
contradiction with her own tradition. We cannot be so proud as to believe that
we have more Spirit than our forefathers, than all the Church Fathers and great
theologians in the past. The Holy Spirit who was at work in the past does not
now work in contradiction. The Spirit is faithful, recalling and preserving the
truth.
However,
unity needs also to be distinguished from uniformity. The Spirit dispenses his
gifts in great variety and richness (cf. 1 Cor 12, 4 ff), and human beings, human
cultures are so different that any imposed uniformity will not only not satisfy
human hearts but will diminish the richness and the very catholicity of the
Church. It is only when the Church will have entered in all cultures and when
she will have made her own the richness of all peoples and nations that she will
have reached her full catholicity. The Spirit will guide us in to the whole
truth (John 16, 12) through encounter
with new cultures, new situations, new challenges, new experiences and new
needs, as well as through ecumenical encounter and dialogue. In this way the
Spirit maintains the once and for all tradition perennially young and fresh. It
is the Spirit of permanent renewal of the truth revealed once and for all
time.
III.
This
concept of pluriformity within unity has consequences for our ecumenical vision.
Firstly, it has consequences on our understanding of unity in faith. To confess
the same faith does not necessarily mean to confess the same credal formula. One
of the most significant progresses of the ecumenical dialogue in the last
decades was made with the Old oriental churches, which separated as far back as
the 5th century because they could not accept the dogma of the 4th Ecumenical
Council of Chalcedon (451), namely Jesus Christ, two natures in one person (hypostasis). With Saint Cyrill of
Alexandria they confess the one nature (one physis) of the Logos made flesh. Hence,
through the centuries they were known as monophysists. It has only been in
recent times that we have discovered that the crucial aspect is not a question
of confessing a different faith, but the use of a different philosophical
terminology in order to express the faith which in substance is the same as
ours. They have a different understanding of the terms nature and person (hypostasis). So we did not impose our
formulas on them, and in formal agreements between the Pope and the respective
Patriarchs, we acknowledged our unity in faith, a unity in a pluriformity of
expressions.
A
similar decision was made in the Joint
Declaration on Justification between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, signed
officially in 1999 in Augsburg. Here too only a so-called differentiated
consensus was reached, that is a consensus in fundamental questions. In essence
it was stated that while unresolved problems remain at issue, no Church dividing
difference any longer exists with regard to the question of justification.
Hence, prior existing divisive contradictions were transformed and reconciled in
complementary assertions, expressions, concerns and approaches.
Nor
is uniformity required in the sacramental dimension of the Church either. It is
well known that sacramental life can be expressed through different rites, and
that in East and West these rites are indeed quite different. But the difference
can go even deeper. The Assyrian Church, which separated in the 4th century
after the third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (381) and which for a long time
was accused of being Nestorian, uses as anaphora (eucharistic prayer), the anaphora of Adai and Mari, without the
words of institution in a narrative form. It is probably the oldest anaphora we know, going back to the
second century and composed in the Aramaic language, the language of Jesus
himself. This Church, which possesses an undoubtedly valid episcopate, confesses
the same eucharistic faith we confess. It is unimaginable and unthinkable that
she has celebrated throughout the centuries a Eucharist that is invalid. Thus
two years ago the validity of this anaphora was officially acknowledged by
the Catholic Church.
One
of the most renowned liturgists has expressed the opinion that this decision is
the most important ecumenical decision since the Second Vatican Council, because
it touches the very heart of the Eucharist and is therefore of fundamental
significance for the concept of pluriformity within unity.
The
core challenge for this concept and this vision – and the sticking point in the
question of how far pluriformity is possible – is to be found in the question of
Church ministry. The ecumenical dialogue seems to be blocked on this issue at
present. Hence, here we touch upon one of the most sensitive points of the
current ecumenical debate. This is all the more relevant as mutual recognition
of ministry is fundamental for eucharistic sharing.
There
has been substantial progress between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic
Church. Agreement on priesthood and Eucharist was already achieved in the first
phase of ARCIC. We also agreed upon the episcopal structure of Church ministry.
In the meantime most of the churches have acknowledged that episcope (oversight) is constitutive for
the church, and indeed that some form of episcope can be found in every church.
But Protestants on the one hand, and Catholics and Orthodox together with
Anglicans on the other hand, differ on the question of whether such episcope must be carried out by an episcopos who stands in historic
apostolic succession. Protestants see here space for a variety of forms of episcope which, being equivalent, can be
reciprocally recognised; for them the episcopate in historic apostolic
succession is only one possible form, and is at its best a sign for the bene esse of the Church, but not for her
esse. Some Lutheran churches opened
themselves to the Anglican view in recent years in agreements such as the Porvoo Statement (1992) or Called to Common Mission (2001), but
they did so not without resistance from other Lutherans and especially Reformed
churches.
How
can we overcome this problem? As I see the problem and its possible solution, it
is not a question of apostolic succession in the sense of an historical chain of
laying on of hands running back through the centuries to one of the apostles;
this would be a very mechanical and individualistic vision, which by the way
historically could hardly be proved and ascertained. The Catholic view is
different from such an individualistic and mechanical approach. Its starting
point is the collegium of the
apostles as a whole; together they received the promise that Jesus Christ will
be with them till the end of the world (Matt 28, 20). So after the death of the
historical apostles they had to co–opt others who took over some of their
apostolic functions. In this sense the whole of the episcopate stands in
succession to the whole of the collegium of the apostles.
To
stand in the apostolic succession is not a matter of an individual historical
chain but of collegial membership in a collegium, which as a whole goes back to
the apostles by sharing the same apostolic faith and the same apostolic mission.
The laying on of hands is under this aspect a sign of co-optation in a collegium.
This
has far reaching consequences for the acknowledgement of the validity of the
episcopal ordination of an other Church. Such acknowledgement is not a question
of an uninterrupted chain but of the uninterrupted sharing of faith and mission,
and as such is a question of communion in the same faith and in the same
mission.
It
is beyond the scope of our present context to discuss what this means for a
re–evaluation of Apostolicae curae
(1896) of Pope Leo XIII, who declared Anglican orders null and void, a decision
which still stands between our Churches. Without doubt this decision, as
Cardinal Willebrands had already affirmed, must be understood in our new
ecumenical context in which our communion in faith and mission has considerably
grown. A final solution can only be found in the larger context of full
communion in faith, sacramental life and shared apostolic mission.
Before
venturing further on this decisive point for the ecumenical vision, that is a
renewed communio ecclesiology, I
should speak first on an other stumbling block or, better, the stumbling block of ecumenism: the
primacy of the bishop of Rome, or as we say today, the Petrine ministry. This
question was the sticking point of the separation between Canterbury and Rome in
the 16th century and it is still the object of emotional controversies.
Significant progress has been achieved on this delicate issue in our
Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogues, especially in the last ARCIC document “The Gift of Authority” (1998). The
problem, however, is that what pleased Catholics in this document did not always
please all Anglicans, and points which were important for Anglican
self-understanding were not always repaid by Catholic affection. So we still
have a reception problem and a challenge for further theological work.
It
was Pope John Paul II who opened the door to future discussion on this subject.
In his encyclical “Ut unum sint”
(1995) he extended an invitation to a fraternal dialogue on how to exercise the
Petrine ministry in a way that is more acceptable to non–Catholic Christians. It
was a source of pleasure for us that among others the Anglican community
officially responded to this invitation. The Pontifical Council for Christian Unity gathered the many
responses, analysed the data, and sent its conclusions to the churches that had
responded. We hope in this way to have initiated a second phase of a dialogue
that will be decisive for the future of the ecumenical approach.
Nobody
could reasonably expect that we could from the outset reach a phase of
consensus; but what we have reached is not negligible. It has become evident
that a new atmosphere and a new climate exist. In our globalised world situation
the biblical testimonies on Peter and the Petrine tradition of Rome are read
with new eyes because in this new context the question of a ministry of
universal unity, a common reference point and a common voice of the universal
church, becomes urgent. Old polemical formulas stand at odds with this urgency;
fraternal relations have become the norm. Extensive research has been undertaken
that has highlighted the different traditions between East and West already in
the first Millennium, and has traced the development in understanding and in
practice of the Petrine ministry throughout the centuries. As well, the
historical conditionality of the dogma of the First Vatican Council (1869/70),
which must be distinguished from its remaining obligatory content, has become
clear. This historical development did not come to an end with the two Vatican
Councils, but goes on, and so also in the future the Petrine ministry has to be
exercised in line with the changing needs of the Church.
These
insights have led to a re-interpretation of the dogma of the Roman primacy. This
does not at all mean that there are still not enormous problems in terms of what
such a ministry of unity should look like, how it should be administered,
whether and to what degree it should have jurisdiction and whether under certain
circumstances it could make infallible statements in order to guarantee the
unity of the Church and at the same time the legitimate plurality of local
churches. But there is at least a wide consensus about the common central
problem, which all churches have to solve: how the three dimensions, highlighted
already by the Lima documents on “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” (1982),
namely unity through primacy, collegiality through synodality, and communiality
of all the faithful and their spiritual gifts, can be brought into a convincing
synthesis.
So
we are united at least in a common problem though the answers still differ. To
find a common answer is one of the main problems we are faced with and a
challenge requiring further clarification.
IV.
With
this exposition of the different aspects of pluriformity within unity and unity
within pluriformity we reach the overarching concept of a vision for Christian
unity: the concept of communion.
Even
a cursory glance at the many dialogue documents of the last decades reveals that
in a totally unplanned way communio
emerges as the key term and the common denominator for the different visions of
Christian unity. Communio was already
the central ecclesiological concept of the Second Vatican Council, which for its
part took over a biblical term and the communio-ecclesiology of the Church
Fathers. Thus, communio/koinonia is also central for the
Orthodox Churches. Finally the Anglican/Roman-Catholic dialogue highlighted this
concept in its document “Church as Communion” (1990). In the last
Plenary of our Pontifical Council for Christian Unity we reflected on communio-ecclesiology and oriented our
future work in this direction.
There
is wide consensus that the ecclesial communio is rooted and has its ultimate
model in the Trinitarian communio of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit: one God in three persons, a unity within plurality.
The Church is so to say the icon of the Trinity.
Through
our dialogues we have made significant progress in deepening and in
strengthening that communio, in which we stand through baptism. We have reached
an intermediate situation of a grown yet not full communio and an already shared missio. One of the consequences of this
intermediate phase is that no Church should take any important decision without
taking into account its repercussions in other churches and without contact and
consultation with other churches.
The
experience of this communio and missio was the moving and overwhelming
experience of our Anglican-Roman Catholic meeting in Toronto in 2000, and we
were of the opinion that on the basis of such grown communio we could do much more in
carrying out our common mission. I hope that the IARCCUM Commission which we
initiated in Toronto will be able to formulate the extensive degree of already
achieved communio and missio, and in so doing will in turn
contribute to make this communion a still more received and lived reality in our
churches.
If
the IARCCUM process leads to positive outcomes, it will be the next important
step in our relations. But it will not be the end, and it is not yet my final
vision of the unity of Christians. Built on my preceding remarks, I would
formulate it thus:
Through
and even in different languages, cultural forms, formulations, expressions,
accents, concerns and approaches, I envision communion as participation in the
same faith, and participation in the same sacraments, especially sharing at the
same table of the Lord; and I envision it also through the mutual recognition of
the ministry of episcope in apostolic
succession and in communion with the Petrine ministry, the dogmatic
understanding and practice of which is re-interpreted and re-received in the
light of the whole tradition of the Church and with regard to the current needs
of the Church. In this way the churches remain churches in legitimate diversity
and retain the best of their traditions while yet becoming one Church, which
praises God with one voice and gives unanimous witness to the world for justice,
reconciliation and peace.
How
do we reach this vision? Not by the imposition of one vision on the other, not
by suppression but by the fraternal exchange of gifts. Each church has her
richness, which she does not have only for herself but which she should share
with all others. This does not entail meeting on the lowest common denominator;
ecumenism does not mean relativism and indifferentism with respect to one’s own
tradition. Ecumenism is not countersigned by loss but by mutual enrichment, the
authentic understanding of which is not that we convert to the other Church but
that all convert to Christ; and in him, who is our unity and our peace, we shall
truly be one. Thus we do not advocate an ecumenism of return. Ecumenism is not a
way back; it is a way ahead in the future. Ecumenism is an expression of a
pilgrim Church, of the people of God, which in its journey is guided, inspired
and supported by the Spirit, which guides us in the whole truth (John 16, 13).
Such
an ecumenism and such an ecumenical vision – here I come back to what I said in
the beginning – is not only an institutional task but also a spiritual
endeavour. We need a new spirituality of communion, which Pope Paul John II in
his Apostolic Letter “Tertium millennium
ineunte” (2001) described in the following way:
“A
spirituality of communion means an ability of think of our brothers and sisters
in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as ‘those
who are a part of me’. This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to
sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine
friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also the ability to see what is
positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only a
gift for the brother or sister, who has received it directly, but also as a
‘gift for me’. A spirituality of communion means, finally, to know how to ‘make
room’ for our brothers and sisters, bearing ‘each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2) and resisting the selfish
temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism,
distrust and jealousy.”
The
Pope concludes: “Let us have no illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path,
external structures of communion will serve very little purpose. They would
became mechanism without a soul, ‘masks’ of communion rather than its means of
expression and growth.”
I
can summarise my vision with the words of the famous 19th century
theologian Johann Adam Möhler of the school of Tübingen, from which I come from.
Johann Adam Möhler captured the sense of communio-ecclesiology splendidly in the
following words:
“Two extremes in Church life
are possible, however, and they are both egoism; they are: when each person or one person wants to be everything; in
the latter case, the bond of unity becomes so tight and love so hot that choking
cannot be averted; in the former case, everything falls apart to such an extent
and it becomes so cold that you freeze; the one type of egoism generates the
other; but there is no need for one person or each person to want to be
everything; only everyone together can be everything and the unity of all only a
whole. This is the idea of the Catholic
Church.”