The Decree on Ecumenism – 40 Years On
[For Archdiocese of Melbourne Ecumenical & Interfaith Commission Commemoration
of 40th Anniversary of Decree on Ecumenism – 28 November, 2004]
It is a great pleasure for me to be here today with several old friends. My own entry into
local ecumenism began shortly after I was ordained and sent to the parish of South Yarra.
In my first year there an ecumenical conference had been organised by the late Kevin
Pethebridge and others. The parish priest would not allow it to be held within the parish
boundaries, so we moved the venue to Wesley College, Prahran, just over our parish
boundary!
The two speakers were “the two Youngs”, Archbishop Guilford Young of Hobart and
Professor Norman Young, then of Queens College. Later that year I celebrated my first
ecumenical wedding, with the Rev’d Philip Newman as principal celebrant (with
permission to officiate in a Catholic Church – this rule was later changed) and myself
assisting at St Thomas Aquinas Church, South Yarra. That first year of ministry saw me
being led into the ecumenical movement by others. Later on I was chair of the
Melbourne Ecumenical Affairs Commission when the Catholic Archdiocese, led by
Archbishop Little, joined the Victorian Council of Churches. Subsequently I served two
terms as that Council’s President. The friendships formed then have endured all these
years and are marked here today for me.
I am quite sure that most of the Catholic bishops who attended the Second Vatican
Council had little understanding of what was happening on the ecumenical front. The
bishops from Australia, for instance, had come out of a century of strong religious
polemic, stemming from the education debates of the 19th Century. There were still in
place many rules prohibiting Catholics from attending the services of other churches,
even weddings and funerals. Mixed marriages were frowned upon and, if permitted, the
non-Catholic spouse had to endure many hours of religious instruction and pressure to
convert. Memories of those sectarian times have not entirely gone, of course. I still am
asked regularly if there is any problem that a Catholic wants to marry a non-Catholic.
Grandparents have long memories, I say to myself. Such memories are probably still
lurking among us here today! And much hurt has been caused.
I.
Ecumenical Background to Vatican II
The decision to call the Council was made by one who had had considerable personal
experience of divided Christianity during his time in the Balkans as an Apostolic
Delegate. His repeated invitation to unity was generally accepted as well meant and
given a surprisingly friendly reception, given the recent history of the Catholic Church
vis-à-vis other Christians. It was quickly noted that he had avoided any trace of the
desire on the part of the Catholic Church to “absorb” the others. But it also became clear
that this was not to be a Council of Union, as earlier Councils like Lyons II (1274) and
Ferrara-Florence (1438-45) had been. John XXIII’s chief concern seems to have been
the missionary impact of the Gospel on the world – certainly a desire shared by many
other Christians. Pope Paul VI, in opening the second session of the Council reiterated
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that the Council was called to adopt a new attitude towards “the vast number of brethren
separated from us…”
It is important for Catholics to accept that the ecumenical movement had had a long
history outside Catholic circles. This fact took time to impact on many of the Council
Fathers, some of whom betrayed the view that the Catholic Church was beginning an
ecumenical movement. Not true. Since 1910 Anglicans and Protestants had cooperated
formally in a variety of ways: the World Missionary Council, the Life and Work (social
justice) and Faith and Order Movements and more recently (1948) the formation of the
World Council of Churches. Pope Pius XI had firmly declined an invitation for Catholic
participation in the Lausanne meeting of Faith and Order in 1928, issuing his encyclical
Mortalium Animos which embodied to “return to Mother” view of Church Unity.
Prohibitions agains Catholic theologians taking part in ecumenical meetings continued
for several decades.
However, we should remember, too, that not all Catholics accepted the “party line” of the
time. The great Yves Congar, one of the leading theologians of the Council, wrote,
“Work for unity has always gone beyond the official limits of the ecumenical
movement.” From the beginning of the 20th century in Europe there were Catholics
concerned for the cause of unity and working to foster it. The experience of the Second
World War brought priests and pastors into contact in the concentration camps. We
should acknowledge, too, the significant ecumenical connections in several other great
movements that impacted on the work of the Council:
 The biblical movement
 The liturgical movement
 Renewal of the study of the Fathers of the Church (Patristics)
 Renewal of Luther studies.
These were largely the work of scholars, whose research, following historical principles,
cut across denominational boundaries. The result today, of course, is that in these
movements, and in others, there is hardly a distinctive church-position on many matters.
There were many other Catholics, too, whose experience told them that things had to
change. I have anecdotal evidence from my own family in country Victoria of far better
relations between Christians than were encouraged by Church authorities. Even the rules
prohibiting attendance of Catholics at weddings and funerals in other churches were
occasionally flouted and far more often considered offensive.
For the Catholic Church officially, though, things had begun to change in 1949. In that
year the Holy Office issued an Instruction which recognised the working of the Holy
Spirit, no less, in the non-Catholic ecumenical movement and allowed Catholic
theologians to meet with their opposite number, like with like (par cum pari), even if this
was still under strict supervision of the bishops.
The other step which had great influence on the Council and right up to the present was
the setting up of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity in 1960 (now called the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity), with Cardinal Bea as its President and
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Bishop (later Card.) Willebrands as its Secretary. Bea, like Pope John XXIII, was
disarmingly friendly, a fine biblical scholar in his own right, a spiritual guide to the two
previous Popes, in his late 70’s, and totally and tenaciously committed to the new work
entrusted to him. This secretariat was to become one of the eleven preparatory
commissions for the Council, but it had specific tasks:
 it was to be a point of contact for other Christians with regard to the Council,
 to provide information to them about the Council,
 to receive their wishes and suggestions.
It was also to carry out an independent theological review of all the themes being
considered by the Council, from the ecumenical point of view, in a constant awareness,
as Cardinal Bea noted, that “the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of unity, is capable of far
more than man.” From 1961, when it had been decided to invite non-catholic observers
to the Council, this was also one of the Secretariat’s functions, to welcome and liaise
with them.
Through a series of sub-committees, many of the issues being taken up by the
Theological Commission of the Council were considered by the Secretariat. These were
not strictly ecumenical issues, but ones upon which the observers had views and wished
to comment:
 the hierarchical nature of the Church,
 the universal priesthood and the mission of the laity,
 the significance and the pre-eminence of the Word of God,
 the sources of revelation…
II. History of the Decree on Ecumenism
I will not delay on the development of the Decree, only to say that it involved intense
debate over several drafts. This text was being studied in parallel with the constitution on
the Church, Lumen Gentium. They impacted on each other, but because of the way in
which texts were debated, the decree on ecumenism did not manage to integrate all of the
insights of the latter. Still today, the Decree on Ecumenism needs to be read in the
light of the Constitution on the Church, particularly its understanding of the Church as
mystery, as a communion of life and love with the Holy Trinity rather than as a juridical
institution.
In the debate on the text two different mentalities quickly emerged. They should not
surprise us, even today. On the one side was the view of the Counter-Reformation period
that regarded Christian unity as nothing more than the return of “the others” to the
Catholic Church. The other was perhaps tentative at first, emphasising the gospel and the
need to present to the modern world a common witness to the Christian faith. Charles
Moeller, a Belgian expert, noted, “Two worlds: one prudential, abstract, juridical, moved
by fear of relativism; the other evangelical, concrete, open. The first will turn to dust.”
Few Australian interventions are recorded, but two are interesting, by an Auxiliary
Bishop of Sydney, Thomas Muldoon. Firsly he said that “a great deal has been said in
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the hall by people who do not know much about the subject.” Secondly when discussion
turned to the idea of the Church seeking forgiveness of the separated brethren, he
opposed this, saying, “If someone is guilty, let him go find a good confesssor!”
There was debate at this time, too, on two other important texts: on the Jews and on
religious freedom. It was proposed that these become part of the decree on ecumenism,
but by the end of this session of the Council it became clear that they would be handled
separately.
We should note, too, the role the observers from other Churches and ecclesial
communities played in the formulation of the decree. By the second session of the
Council there were 66 of them, representing 22 communities. There was one Australian
observer, at the fourth session, Canon Frank Cutriss (Anglican). As well as attending the
daily sessions of the Council, they met regularly with the members of the Secretariat and
personally with many bishops and theologians. It was clear in the general debates, that
while the observers did not speak, the Fathers were well aware of them. As one
theologian noted, “Each Father who speaks is conscious of speaking in their presence,
and many speak for them.” (B. Olivier) The delegates of the World Council of Churches
made some strong and frank suggestions at times. There was specific criticism of the
Catholic Church’s notion of its unity; of its belief that all others had fallen away or
become separated from this Catholic unity. There was criticism also of the attempt to
judge other Christian groups almost quantitatively, according to their more or less full (or
deficient) possession of the ecclesial elements and means of salvation to be found in the
Catholic Church. This view remains in the final version of the decree and still causes
some irritation to our partners in dialogue. Yet each Church does have the right to state
its own view of the matter. Others (e.g the Orthodox) hold similar, but more extreme,
views to that of the Catholic Church.
I do not intend to analyse the whole of the Decree, only to note several important matters:
1. Right at the beginning it is stated that the ecumenical movement is “fostered by the
grace of the Holy Spirit” and that the Decree wishes “to set before all Catholics the
ways and means by which they too can respond to this grace and to this divine call.”
(UR 1) This is a powerful claim. In these harder times for the ecumenical movement
we should remind ourselves of it. Recently Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the
PCPCU spoke of the difficult path that still lies ahead in the search for unity:
ecumenical exhaustion, attempts to mine the path to unity. “After having filled in the
trenches that at one time divided us, we find them opening up anew in the field of
ethics.” From a human point of view there are reasons for concern and for losing
hope. But, he stated, Christians are always people of hope. “When the Spirit of God
starts something, he always see it through to completion”. (Homily at the Close of the
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, January
2004) Kasper has often said that we should hold ourselves ready for the future
surprises the Spirit has in store for the Churches.
2. At the very start of the Decree we read that the disunity of Christians “openly
contradicts the will of Christ, provides a stumbling block for the world and inflicts
damage on the most holy cause of proclaiming the good news (gospel) to every
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creature”. These are the three urgent reasons that urge Churches to participate in the
ecumenical movement.
3. the notion of the Church as a communion, already treated in the Constitution on the
Church, is central, because it enables the decree to say that there already exists a
certain, though imperfect, communion between other Christians and the Catholic
Church as a result of their belief in Christ and the sacrament of baptism. The Decree
speaks of other Christians as “brothers” (UR 3). Pope John Paul II has more recently
written of “brotherhood rediscovered” – “the universal brotherhood of Christians”
has become a firm ecumenical conviction. (UUS 42) While differences certainly
remain, what we share in common is very significant:
 invocation of the Holy Trinity
 faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour
 the written Word of God
 the sacrament of baptism
 the life in fellowship with Christ and for Christ’s sake
 the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
and that the Holy Spirit has used other Churches and ecclesial communities as
means of salvation. This real communion, I would argue, is far greater than it is
incomplete.
4.Perhaps the strongest affirmation made in the Decree is that in any ecumenical activity
in any Church there is need for a change of heart: striving to live according to the
Gospel which deepens our communion with the Father, the Word and the Spirit;
constantly working for this renewal is a demand on the whole Church of God. In this
process all Churches can learn from each other in what John Paul II has called “an
exchange of gifts” (UUS 49). I know many Roman Catholics, particularly some younger
ones I encounter studying theology, who can point out the defects in other Churches. But
do we hear their criticism of us. That is much harder. Are we willing to learn anything
from them? That is much harder for a Church which claims to hold the fullness of means
of salvation (UR 3), but which nevertheless confesses that it has not made full use of each
of those means! Along with this change of heart and holiness of life comes prayer for
the unity of Christians. The Decree calls this “spiritual ecumenism”. It is “the soul of
the whole ecumenical movement”(8). We need to note this call, especially in the harder
times in our relationships: prayer to the Holy Spirit must inform all our other activities
together; waiting on the Holy Spirit is an ever-present necessity. Upon this foundation we
are called to construct what Cardinal Cassidy recently called the “three pillars” of
ecumenical activity: common prayer for unity, ecumenical dialogue to try to overcome
the differences between us and common witness and cooperation in social matters. These
are the ways in which the ecumenical movement is carried on. I will comment on
ecumenical dialogue and cooperation and common witness in what follows.
There is much more in the Decree and in the subsequent Directory on Ecumenism (issued
in 1967 and 1970 and revised in 1993) which was designed to guide bishops, theologians
and all the People of God of the Catholic Church. These texts are still worth reading and
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pondering. Another more recent RC text is the encyclical letter of Pope John Paul II Ut
Unum Sint (1995). This is one of his very best letters, easy to read and very challenging.
He has repeatedly said that ecumenism is an organic part of the life and work of the
Catholic Church and that it must pervade all she is and does (cf. UUS 20). That is a
call especially, I believe, to our bishops and priests, -easier said than done.
III. The Modern Ecumenical Movement
I would like to turn now to look at three phases which the ecumenical movement has
gone through in the last 90 years. The RCC has come late to each and is rather edgy
about the most recent phase.
1. Getting to know you:
Much of what has happened ecumenically in the course of the last century has happened
not between churches as such, but between individual Christians. I once heard Cardinal
Daneels of Brussels say, “Institutions do not make good lovers” and I believe that to be
true. The early leaders of the EM had come to know one another through students groups,
like the SCM, through missionary cooperation, in the prison camps during WWII, and on
local level between pastors all across Europe. The early RC pioneers, like Congar and
Coutourier had also worked this way. This was the period of missionary collaboration
and of the founding of the World Council of Churches, which in its many (too many?)
meetings has created a great fellowship among Christians from all parts of the world.
Quite a few Australians experienced this back in 1991 at the Assembly of the WCC in
Canberra, with 4,000 people from all parts of the world and from over 150 churches. The
daily worship in a huge tent gave us just a taste of what might be to come for Christians.
This process of getting to know you has gone on at local level in many parts of our own
country. Life-long friendships and consequent collaboration have been forged, that have
bridged the church-divide. The EM is deeply interpersonal. This is the starting point in
local ecumenism. One of the most important tasks of an ecumenical commission, I
believe, is to keep encouraging people at the parish level. In spite of frustration by some
that we have not moved far enough, there is no doubt that relations between the various
Christian groups in a country like Australia are immensely better than they were 50 years
ago.
I believe that this phase is absolutely essential and may never be short-circuited by
institutions or committees. But is that all there is – cordial relationships between groups
of Christians who remain where they have always been? I would have to say that the
RCC and the Anglican Communion, and several others, including the Orthodox, are
pledged to work towards “full visible unity.” I was at a meeting two years ago at both
Lambeth Palace and the Vatican with a group of Anglican and Catholic bishops from all
around the world. Both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope re-affirmed this as
the goal. What that might mean becomes clearer in the next phase…
2. Let’s talk together:
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This has been the most successful phase, one in which I have been very much involved
over the past 30 years. It is the period of theological dialogue. (In Australia, I have
been involved in L-RC, UCA–RC, A–RC and NCCA dialogues) This is based on the
view that the chief church-dividing issues are theological, stemming from the period of
division in 16th or 11th centuries. If we can find a way of solving these, then the path to
unity will be smooth.
Dialogue is one of the key insights of the Second Vatican Council. It called the Church
to be a place of dialogue for its own members. It called the Catholic Church to be in
dialogue with other Christians and with all people of good will, even those who do not
believe in God. It called for dialogue with “the world.” Listen to this beautiful
description of dialogue from the Ecumenical Directory (172):
Dialogue involves both listening and replying, seeking both to understand and to
be understood. It is a readiness to put questions and to be questioned. It is to be
forthcoming about oneself and trustful of what others say about themselves. The
parties in dialogue must be ready to clarify their ideas further, and modify their
person views and ways of living and acting, allowing themselves to be guided by
authentic love and truth.
That understanding would apply to friendship and even marriage, as much as to
ecumenism!
In ecumenical dialogue we get to know each other accurately, discover the matters of
faith and practice on which we really agree. On this firm basis we then seek to understand
the roots of our differences and to what extent they are a barrier to a common faith.
When we discover real differences we do not pretend that they are not there, but try to
find ways of overcoming them in the light of what we already hold in common.
The RCC alone is currently in international dialogue with the Orthodox Churches, four
ancient Oriental Churches, 9 western churches (e.g. Lutheran or Anglican) or groups of
churches (e.g. WARC) and with the World Council of Churches (The Joint Working
Group). Everybody is talking to each other! That’s a good thing.
There has been great success in this phase of dialogue e.g. L-RC on Justification (we
have just celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification); Anglican-RC on Eucharist, Ordained Ministry and most recently on
Authority; Faith and Order Commission of WCC on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry and
currently its work on the Nature and Purpose of the Church.
But there are two difficulties. Firstly this phase of dialogue has gone on for over 40 years
now and people get frustrated with that. They want quick results
Secondly, this work lies in the province of experts and it has not been easy either to
translate what have been rather technical agreements into simple language, or to get
people to read and talk about many of the agreements. Many people are suspicious of
theologians and think that theology will only further befuddle us and slow down our
progress towards unity by continually finding new obstacles!
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One of the chief theological insights that has been recovered in dialogue is that the
Church of God is a communion and that all Christian bodies are at some level of real
communion with each other, even if it is not yet complete. I noted this emerging in the
Decree on Ecumenism. Communion ecclesiology is helping us to envision a shape for the
Church to come, which will be somewhat looser, allowing for much greater diversity
(akin to religious orders in RCC??) but with a focal point, Catholics would argue, around
the Bishop of Rome (a “Pope for All Christians”??). Many don’t want a monolithic
Church and want to keep the various hard-won emphases of the past. Yet, I continue to
wonder whether increasing globalization will allow this to happen or even work against it
(cf EU).
3. Are we engaged?
A bit like a modern “relationship”, it is not easy to discern just what the latest phase of
the EM really is. Is it an engagement with a definite promise to marry; is it a de facto
union, a modern marriage or what?
What has been happening, in various parts of the world, is that churches have begun to
form covenants or agreements between each. These do not signify full union of the
churches, but the participating churches are brought into a much deeper relationship, with
interchange of ministers, joint ordinations and much greater collaboration etc. This
approach allows for distinctive features and diversity to be preserved. Various Churches
of the Anglican Communion have covenanted with Lutheran Churches and there are
similar discussions going on in Australia, between Anglicans, the Uniting Church and the
Lutheran Church; and multi-laterally through the NCCA. The hope is to move from this
stage to full unity, but not by a merger of corporate structures, but rather in stages, with
phases of shared life over a reasonable space of time.
This approach allows for better progress at the local level, with change coming where it is
possible. It is also supported by a widespread movement at local level, for groups of
churches to covenant together for local cooperation. Such cooperation is also, of
course, a powerful form of common witness. I believe that there is much strength in the
covenanting approach which is now widespread around Australia. (see NCCA Video
Portraits of Unity ). Here in Melbourne there are covenants in Kensington, Toorak,
Brighton and Frankston. The latter has forged strong relationships through the service of
those in need. An ecumenical commission could undertake a review of such covenants
with a view to encouraging them in other areas.
Conclusion:
The modern ecumenical movement has been one of the great Christian success stories,
that is gradually reversing the break-up of the Christian Church that stemmed from the
16th century Reformation. To many it now seems perfectly natural that we should all be
together. But there are still large barriers, doctrinal and psychological, to that.
More and more, fundamental and critical questions emerge (and they are not much
different from those posed at the beginning of the Decree on Ecumenism back in 1964):
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can we continue to give credible witness to Jesus Christ, with all that entails, in our
separation? And are we being true to God who seems to want the disciples of Jesus to be
one, but who won’t deliver unity by magic…? Mission and ecumenism are like two
twins, born of the constant renewal of the Church which Vatican Council II demanded of
the Church.
Let me leave you with an image. At the beginning of the Year of Jubilee 2000 the Pope
invited two ecumenical leaders to open one of the Holy Doors, at St Paul’s Basilica, with
him. St Paul’s has been the scene of many important ecumenical encounters between
Popes and other Church leaders. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and an
Archbishop representing the Patriarch of Constantinople stood with the Pope to open the
great doors. But they did not roll back as expected. The Holy Father whispered to them
“Push harder!” The three of them had to give them a hard push to get them moving.
George Carey found this very symbolic of where we are together. Our leaders, and all of
us, need to stand together and give the movement towards visible unity a big push.
Peter R. Cross