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Jesus and the CDF

  What are the qualifications of a good teacher? To know the answer, just look at someone who certainly had them: Jesus of Nazareth. When the law-specialist poses the anxious question, ‘What must I do to have eternal life?,’ Jesus does not simply dump an authoritative answer on him. Instead he takes into account the context, and the situation of the questioner. He prompts the questioner to produce his own answer, out of his own store of wisdom. And the man’s answer turns out to be the core of the New Testament, discerned in the heart of the Old: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… and thy neighbor as thyself.’ (To be sure, in Mark and Matthew, Jesus does give this answer himself, rather bluntly, but Luke’s portrait of Jesus brings out gracious aspects missed by them. See http://www.2preslex.org/S030316.HTM.)

  A bad teacher says to himself or herself: "I have the expertise and I have the objective truth. All I need do is state it unambiguously, and then it is up to my students to subscribe to it, to digest it, and to repeat it." Such a teacher takes the Latin word doctrina to mean ‘doctrine’ rather than ‘teaching.’ His or her idea of intensive teaching would be to clear up students’ confusion by insistent repetition, by indoctrination. Such a teacher does not allow himself to be involved in a relationship of dialogue with his students, whom he in any case despises. But often, such a bad teacher is also one who has not really mastered the subject in depth, and whose show of authority and objectivity is a defense against exposure to dreaded criticism.

  The legal specialist is not satisfied with the answer of Jesus. He is perhaps an anxious, scrupulous man. He wants clear guidelines as to how to practice the law. ‘Who is my neighbor?’ Jesus chooses a form of discourse designed to allay his anxiety: he tells a story. A good teacher explains things in the simplest way and in a tone appropriate to the subject. A bad teacher will kill even the most beautiful subject by treating it coldly, bureaucratically, as if the objectivity of knowledge were best served by presenting it in a manner devoid of reference to its human context.

  In the story Jesus tells, the two religious experts are so wrapped up in their holy thoughts, their scriptural studies, their clerical egos, that they cannot open their hearts in love to anybody, least of all the sufferers who litter the road to Jericho and many other places in the world today. What has that to do with them? They are employed for purposes of doctrine, not of pious works. The Samaritan chooses to respond to the suffering man, lavishing on him human care. The religious experts may commend him as a do-gooder, but their chief task is to critique his heretical views, which are objectively wrong. In doing so, they may feel that they, too, are being good Samaritans in their own way, saving souls from the pernicious influence of unsound doctrine.’

  Jesus does not answer the question, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ but asks another, ‘Which of these three was a neighbor?’ The answer is easy: not the two clerics, with their hang-ups, but the one who showed compassion. And so the questioning law-specialist has his answer: there is no difficulty finding your neighbor, rather you must find your way to your neighbor, using your creative freedom and your imagination and opening your heart.

  Creative freedom? Imagination? Heart? Are these the qualities expected of the forty priests who comprise the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in their rather grim palace in Vatican City? (I once peeped in the gate there and was chased away by a lady with a sweeping brush.) Most certainly not. Their trade is in objective truth, and these other factors can only detract from that.

  That the current CDF is a bad teacher as regards both teaching skills and mastery of its subject, theology, has long been apparent. A group of leading European theologians led by the eminent Peter Hünermann, has issued a timely call for its reform (as another group, including Joseph Ratzinger, did back in the 1960s). The reform concerns not only its procedures, which have sometimes amounted to pure skullduggery, but its theological basis. Theological maturity, and participation in the processes of theological thinking, dialogue and research, is what is demanded of the CDF. They are asked to choose to be neighbors to theologians, not hostile invigilators. But such a reform would no doubt entail cashiering the entire present staff of the corrupt and incompetent Congregation, so it will be hotly resisted. Paul VI's charter for a reformed CDF, issued on the last day of the Council, has been ignored.

  These forty priests have to earn their living. They diligently trawl through theological publications in search of dangerous errors. The publications are read diagonally, not in depth, since the readers are not out to learn theology or acquire new ideas, but rather to diagnose diseases, for the treatment of which they themselves are the accredited specialists. If they allowed themselves to enjoy the publications they plow through they would not be doing their job.

  But vigilant reading is not enough. They must also produce a quota of reports and documents to show that their office is not an idle one, but a precious organ of the Church. So before they set off on their expensive summer vacations, they issue an important-looking statement on a topic alleged to have caused confusion and to be in need of clarification. Now since they have done no real theological study recently, and since they have no particular gift for theology anyway, they have no new or fresh teaching to offer. In such cases, the best thing is to recycle some tried and trusted number. They reach back to 2000, when they issued statements on the status of the Protestant churches. What better idea than to repeat those statements? And they suppose that this will go down well with their former Prefect, still their boss.   

  And so the ‘objective truth’ is trotted out, in the glorious old dubia et responsa format beloved of the old Holy Office. Unfortunately, the resulting document is not long enough, so to avoid the impression of skimpiness they produce as well a longer note commenting on it. The note adds nothing, except to swipe at theologians guilty of sustaining the alleged confusions. The only one named is Leonardo Boff, condemned by them about twenty years ago. Strange that in all their trawling through theological literature they have come up with no new names. They seem to be stuck in the rut of a few obsessive ideas and references, unable to relate to a wider field of interlocutors. In any case, the supplementary note is published on the Vatican website in Italian – no need to translate it – and now the CDF team can happily set off on their well-deserved holidays. It does not worry them that they have dumped an ecumenical stink-bomb that will nauseate the nostrils of Christians everywhere. (Outrage was expressed on their behalf by Cardinals Kasper and Lehmann, the latter accusing  the CDF of trying to start a religious war.)

  “What stink? Why, we receive letters from all over the world, congratulating us on the job we are doing, as we preserve the faith pure of contaminations and distortions of every kind! You say that Paul VI wanted us to be evangelizers, not inquisitors, to promote theological research, not to stifle it? But, you know, Paul VI wasn’t the full shilling. We see him as dabbling in Marxism, entertaining dangerous and counter-productive ideas of freedom of conscience in the application of moral norms, flabby in his ecumenical overtures to what he falsely called ‘sister churches,’ and naïve in his eagerness to implement Vatican II.”

  The teaching role of Jesus brought serenity and confidence to those who were anxiety-ridden and guilt-ridden. The CDF, on the other hand, thrives on anxiety and guilt. Its effect on Catholic theology has been inhibitive and intimidatory. “Ah, but Jesus was not popular, and neither are we, for we teach the truth boldly, even when it goes against all the fads of the age! It’s only the muddle-headed tea-party ecumenists who find us uncouth. People who stand for objective truth agree with our stance, even if their objective truth differs from ours. Yet, the outcry against us only confirms that we are doing a very good job, and well deserve our summer break.”

  Is it any wonder that bishops dread the Roman Curia like the plague, and refer to is as ‘the bureaucracy of nothing’?

  Supposing that, before composing their most recent pensum, the CDF had really thought about the people their objective truths refer to. Supposing – God bless the mark! – that they had dialogued with them. Or supposing they had consulted with the people in another palace who are devoted to ecumenical affairs. Might they not then have come out with some creative and enlightening teaching, rather than a dead piece of doctrine? Instead of saying, ‘You are not churches in the proper sense,’ might they not have allowed the Protestant churches to utter their own truth, drawing on their own store of wisdom? And might that truth not be that since the Church of Christ is ‘present and operative’ in all Christian bodies (as John Paul II taught in Ut Unum Sint and as the CDF grudgingly admit though it goes against their Scroogian instincts), so Christ can amply supply whatever is missing in the allegedly ‘defective’ churches. Ecclesia supplet. Christus supplet.

  “But that is not the CDF’s job. The people responsible for ecumenism can look after that. It’ll give them some extra work and help them justify their existence. To be sure they’re miffed that we made work for them just as they were packing their bags for the summer. And the man on the side of the road? Oh, toss him a coin. The doctrine of the faith, as is well known, has nothing to do with justice and peace issues. Those are for that other department (or has it been abolished?). People who drag justice and peace issues into the realm of dogmatic theology are among our most fruitful targets, you know, ‘political theologians’ like Johannes Baptist Metz and ‘liberation theologians’ like Jon Sobrino. That Notification on poor Sobrino was a cinch – we just recycled the old liberation theology dossier, spiced up with a bit of pseudo-exegesis and charming retro touches like that bit  from Pius XII's time about Jesus enjoying the beatific vision immediately after his conception.”

  After the summer, what projects have the CDF in mind? “Well, relativism is a bit ambitious – it might involve thinking about obscure philosophical issues. The ordination of women? No, let sleeping dogs lie. What about that old sizzler, sexual ethics? We haven’t said anything about that for quite a while, and it always gets media attention. And it’s so easy as well. Anyway, there’s plenty of work for us to do, and we need never worry about being thrown out on the side of the road.”

Vatican Document Corrects Neocath Excesses

On July 10, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered “responses to questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine on the Church.” The document affirms with Vatican II and with John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, that “the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them.” The document has stirred up a vast and fruitless debate, and, as in the case of the Motu Proprio on the Tridentine Rite, one wonders why it was issued at all. It looks as if Rome has succeeded in shooting itself in the foot twice in four days.

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To the question, Why was the expression “subsists in” adopted instead of the simple word “is”? the answer is given that this “indicates the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church” but also indicates that there are many “numerous elements of sanctification and of truth” found outside her structure, which “as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.” Thus the other Christian bodies have a significant and important place in the mystery of salvation and are used by the Spirit as instruments of salvation, whose value comes from the fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.

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The Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century “do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church” and cannot be called churches in the proper sense. This has occasioned the same sort of comment as Dominus Iesus did a few years ago, and I personally think that the vision of the Council permits a far warmer account of these communities, which would accept their own self-understanding as churches in the proper sense, and as churches in the biblical sense. In the case of the Anglican Communion, the closeness to Roman Catholicism, in view of the shared sacraments, apostolic succession, and creedal theology, is particularly overwhelming, as in the case of the Orthodox.

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There is nothing at all new in this document. Perhaps one reason it is issued now is to correct the excesses of Neocath theology? Many Catholics have been indoctrinated in -- or have refused to unlearn -- the thesis of a massive and exclusive identity of the Church of Christ with the Roman Catholic Church. The idea that the Church of Christ is present and operative outside the bounds of the Roman Church has never got through to them.  They are a target audience of this document, but unfortunately the media’s interpretation will once again prevent the message from reaching the audience.

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The neocath excesses are well illustrated by "Janice", at Pertinacious Papist, who has been celebrating the new document in advance in the following terms (she makes some debatable points, but the overall tenor of her remarks is at odds with the Vatican insistence that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the other Christian bodies):

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We’re getting rid of subsistit and going back to esse. It also gets rid of Walter Kasper’s dumbass notions of ecclesiology and ecumenism. [NOTE: Janice here attacks not just the spirit but the letter of Vatican II.] Perhaps I am a bit uncharitable toward His Eminence Cardinal Kasper. Still, I like the word “dumbass,” and I use it sparingly. I could have called him... So I guess I was using restraint. Cardinal Kasper is tendentious and abuses the historical critical method. His view of ecumenism is to sell out Church teaching for something called “world Christianity.”
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One thing the Motu proprio and the newest document from the CDF are going to do is to drive a stake through the heart of fuzzy ecumenism, where evangelical/pentecostal converts to Catholicism can tell me to “check my copy of Dominus Iesus” to see that in their former confessions they also have the truth. What I hope will be the outcome is a retraction of the arrogance of evangelical and pentecostal converts to Catholicism, who assume that they are bringing something into Catholicism, rather than receiving the fullness of the mystery of Christ. They usually assume that evangelicalism or pentecostalism is a valid fragment (“a partial truth”) of Christianity that should be subsumed into Catholicism. The CDF document should spell out to these converts once and for all that they are bringing nothing but themselves into the Church.
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Louis Bouyer wrote: “It is fidelity to our Protestant principles, properly understood, that has led me into the Catholic Church.” Protestants cite this sentiment many times. And yet, Protestant theology in the main is a “pro me” theology, focusing on individual salvation, whereas Catholic theology is always theology in communion with others. That is its essence. This is a rejection of Catholic soteriology (and hence Catholic Christology) that has its roots in the NT (and the OT). And the notion that non-Catholic Christians hold in their organization some of the “treasures” that we Catholics overlook is absurd on its face. The Catholic Church is complete in itself. Not all of its treasures are at the fore at all times, but they are always there. The protestants do not offer anything to the Church that we do not already have.

With the new CDF document, we might finally get rid of the fatuous notions of “ecumenical evangelization” or “world Christianity” and begin to reclaim the uniqueness of Christ, i.e., the uniqueness of Catholicism. Dominus Iesus was a good start, but given the numerous misuses of it by evangelical converts, I can see where another effort was necessary. And this nonsense about “fidelity to Protestant principles” bringing people back to Catholicism is disingenuous at best, and at worst, it’s dishonest. The very portrait of Jesus that emerges out of Protestant Christianity is quite at variance with that held by Catholicism [Is Christ divided? This is an outrageous denial of the unity of Christ’s Church, present and active in the Protestant bodies as well], in which one comes to know Jesus within the Church itself. It is in the Church and through the Church that we learn about Jesus and how to pray to Him. Protestant Christianity has nothing similar to that. The Jesus they know is akin to the Jesus of the “historical Jesus” school of theology. There is no eternally present Jesus in the Eucharist for them, nor a tradition that speaks to this eternal presence. It is all based on individual readings of Scripture and idiosyncratic interpretations of what it means. There is no understanding of “Church.” Protestants are adrift, each to himself. [Here Janice either shows utter ignorance of ninety years of ecumenism or pits herself in revolt against it, as if Vatican II had never happened.]

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“Anyone entering the Church has to be aware that he is entering a separate, active cultural entity with her own many-layered intercultural character that has grown up in the course of history. Without a certain exodus, a breaking off with one’s life in all its aspects, one cannot become a Christian. Faith is no private path to God; it leads into the people of God and into its history. God has linked himself to a history, which is now also his history and which we cannot simply erase” (Truth and Tolerance). This is Joseph Ratzinger’s view of conversion to Catholicism. Protestants should understand that the Catholic Church is an active entity all by Herself; thus when they enter the Church, they need to make as clear a break as they are able from their past. Louis Bouyer is wrong, despite the reverence many give him. [All by herself? Does this not imply sectarian isolationism, the very opposite of the growing together into unity of all Christ’s communities as envisaged by John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint?]

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Increasingly, I am coming to doubt the wisdom of including everyone who calls themselves “Christian” under that rubric. Recently, I’ve been re-reading Michael Williams book, Rethinking Gnosticism, and it’s pretty clear that there is a continuum to documents that were at first all termed “gnostic.” Some are pretty obviously syncretistic, with the name of Jesus or Christ inserted at the head and foot of the document. Others incorporate bits of the Scriptures, with no evidence that they have been integrated. Still others appear to have some knowledge of Christian theology, although the document is still a tertium quid. My point is: these documents have been conspicuously labelled “Christian” by the so-called scholars in the field, who claim that they represented an alternative to the historical victors after the Constantinian revolution. I should also say that there are baptismal documents that formed part of the Nag Hammadi corpus so many of these so-called Christians may have been baptized (there are fragments of baptismal texts).

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Everyone now routinely considers anyone who uses the name of Jesus Christ a fellow Christian. It’s one thing to consider the Orthodox as sister Churches, since they have apostolic foundations, a real episcopate, baptism and eucharist. However, when we get to the Reformation bodies, where the Eucharist is reinterpreted as a symbol, so no Real Presence of Christ, they cannot trace their episcopal lineage back to the apostles, they have no conception of “Church” that conforms to the Church of Christ, etc. [This sentence remains unfinished, but it is clear that the logical conclusion would be that Protestants are not Christians. Such is the appalling sectarianism to which neocaths want to see the Vatican commit itself. What they forget is that the Vatican is bound by the vision of Vatican II. The Vatican is not to be confused with the Lefebvrite movement which rejects Vatican II. But Janice becomes quite explicit in what follows:]

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I am not saying that members of these ecclesial bodies are not very good, devout people. I am not saying that God does not love them. I believe that He does, very much. But I do question whether or not they fully possess the categories required to be called “Christian” (cf. Acts 11.25-26). These categories are completely lacking when one considers evangelical, Pentecostal, or independent Christians, who lack any of the requisite criteria (Church, Eucharist, hierarchy, etc.), but only retain the “pro me” Lutheran-derived soteriology.

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They’re always waving Dominus Iesus in my face [correctly!], telling me that they possess “truth.” Well, so did many in pagan Rome and so did the Visigoths and they did not have the benefit of the Scriptures or of the Tradition (which these groups vociferously reject). So, by what reason do they claim the name “Christian”? They self-select passages to prove points they themselves choose. Catholics learn Scripture from within the Church, as they learn to know and to pray to Jesus Christ. [If they follow the Tridentine Rite they will reduce their access to Scripture to 1% of the Old Testament and 17% of the New; as opposed to 14% and 71% respectively in the current liturgy.] Scripture is integrated into the Liturgy because in this way the Church teaches us not only how Scripture is to be read (i.e., the OT in terms of Christ, Christ’s own self-revelation in the NT and his quotations of OT passages), but in what manner it makes sense in a way that respects the unity of Scripture (OT + NT), the canon, the concept of the Church as the entity that created the canon, and the theological and liturgical tradition. When Scripture is received in a Catholic Mass, it is part of a received tradition that the priest is obliged to preach, that is part of centuries of preaching and teaching, that has its origins in Jesus Himself. And it is in the context of the worship of God and the focus is on God, not on some kind of self-help program or some other kind of “pro me” oriented preaching. [Needless to say, this polemic against pro me is based on total ignorance of Luther’s theology and of the massive Catholic scholarship devoted to it over the last seventy years. Her only cited source is the highly tendentious work of Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glaube bei Martin Luther, a caricature of Lutheranism as subjectivism, which despite a preface by Joseph Ratzinger enjoys no respectability whatever in the world of Luther scholarship. Paul Hacker went on to become a distinguished Indologist.]

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Update: Janice attacks Cardinal Kasper’s comment on the document: Cardinal Walter Kasper again redefined the meaning of church. Cardinal Kasper said a careful reading would show that the Vatican does not deny that Protestant churches are churches, but only stated that the Vatican definition of what constitutes a church is one that is traceable through its bishops to Christ's original apostles. ‘Without doubt at the basis of dialogue is not what divides us but what unites us, and that is larger than what divides us,’ Kasper said.

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Reading this, I was delighted that my view above, that Vatican II and Ut Unum Sint are compatible with recognition that the Protestant communities are churches in the proper sense and in the biblical sense, was shared by the eminent cardinal, and might even be entailed by the recent document, despite its negative-sounding utterances. Could the Cardinal be exercising a certain amount of hermeneutical violence on the document, just as the French bishops famously did with the Syllabus of Errors, for which service they were thanked by Pius IX? Catholic hermeneutics, after all, is far richer, subtler and more pluralistic than neocaths can imagine. But on consulting Kasper's actual words, I found that Janice has misrepresented them:

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A thorough reading of the text makes clear that the document does not say that the Protestant churches are not churches, but that they are not churches in the proper sense, i.e. they are not churches in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands itself as church. For anyone even partly informed, this is purely self-evident. The Protestant churches do not want to be a church at all in the sense of the Catholic Church; they speak strongly of having another understanding of church and ministry in the church which, on the other hand, Catholics frankly do not consider to be the original one. Has not the recent Protestant document in Germany about ministry and ordination, done something similar, claiming that the Catholic understandings of the Church and the ministry of the Church are not the original one?
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When, following the declaration “Dominus Iesus”, I said that the Protestant churches are churches of another type, this was not – as some reactions on the Protestant side seemed to assume – in contrast to the formulation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but it was the attempt to interpret it objectively. And I want to do exactly the same thing now, since Catholics speak, now as always, of Protestant regional Churches (Landeskirchen), of the Protestant Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, EKD), of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (Vereinigte Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD), of the Church of England etc. The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does nothing else than to show that we do not use the one and same word Church completely in the same sense. Such a statement helps to clarify and to promote the dialogue.
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The foundation of the dialogue is that there is more that unites us than divides us. Therefore we should not miss reading the positive statements of the declaration about the Protestant churches, namely, that Jesus Christ is effectively present within them for the salvation of their members. In the past this would by no means be an obvious statement; but now it includes – even though significant differences remain – the recognition of baptism, following Vatican II, and a series of positive statements about the Protestant eucharist (Decree on Ecumenism 22). Therefore, the declaration is not taking back anything of the ecumenical progress already reached, but drawing attention to the ecumenical task that still lies ahead. We should be offended by these differences, and not by those who point them out. The declaration is rather an urgent invitation to an objective dialogue that will help us move ahead.
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Kasper here is the voice of Catholic orthodoxy and of Vatican II. This voice is displeasing to the neocath ear. The late Giuseppe Alberigo, the major historian so far of Vatican II, is also treated with contempt by Janice:

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I think this era will be notable for continuing clarification about Catholic identity... The post-Vatican II era, where "anything goes" was subject to many Protestantizing theologies and practices. With the recent death of Giuseppe Alberigo of the Bologna School (History of Vatican II), who insisted that Vatican II was the beginning of everything, not the continuation of things, it seems like a good time to take stock of where the Church is and re-evaluate. And retrieval and strengthening of the Church's legitimate tradition is one of the things that is certainly under discussion in many places.
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Paul Borealis, another voluminous contributor to the Pertinacious Papist site, writes:

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The so-called 'Ecumenical Movement since Vatican II' has done damage to the Catholic Church and the Holy Mass - obscured the Eucharistic Sacrifice - confused Catholic liturgical worship of God. If the 'Ecumenical Movement' being promoted in the Church in theory, practice and implementation is not an outright heresy (or a 'semi' heresy), it is still rather hard for some Catholics to stomach the real negative influences it has had on the so-called Vatican II Reform, and on our spiritual identity and lives... The so-called 'modern Ecumenical movement' was probably one of those 'Protestant' things brought into the Church that are not working out that well.
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Obsessing about Catholic identity is a common neocath trait, and it is profoundly uncatholic.

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Neocath bloggers have unanimously greeted the document as a blow at fuzzy ecumenism and ecclesiological relativism. All of them refuse to quote the important statement in the document, from John Paul II’s well-received Encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, according to which the Church of Christ is present and operative in the other Christian churches and ecclesial communities. Here for instance is an extract from Philip Blosser’s summary:

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2. What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?

Response: “Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one Church and instituted it as a ‘visible and spiritual community’ that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted. ... ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church. ... the word ‘subsists’ can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone ...”

3. Why was the expression “subsists in” adopted instead of the simple word “is”?

Response: This “does not change the doctrine on the Church,” but only elucidates “the fact that there are ‘numerous elements of sanctification and of truth.’”

All reference to the elements of ecclesiality in the other churchs is systematically elided. Then Blosser goes on to celebrate the document in these terms:

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Benedict is on a roll! Anyone with any discernment must have known this was coming. Benedict is the consummate gentleman. He doesn’t show up at a party, take over, and dominate, like a boor. Instead, he spends a long time just listening. In the meantime, he begins meeting with key individuals behind the scenes, out of the limelight. He knows his own mind, just as he knows the mind of the Church. He’s not owned by any interest group. In due time, the course charted by the Pontiff emerges with unmistakable clarity. Thank you, Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, for your servant, Benedict!

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Moreover, the positive emphases of the document have not been picked up by the media either, nor in the offended Protestant responses. Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, said that while the Vatican’s statement doesn’t change any existing statement “it does, however, restate known positions in provocative ways.” Hanson wrote. “However troubling such exclusive claims may be, we recall the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Decree on Ecumenism’ which affirmed that the separated churches and ecclesial communities are used by the Spirit of Christ ‘as means of salvation.’” But the Vatican document itself stresses this! Hanson adds that the “anguished response of Christians” throughout the world to the Vatican’s statement shows that what may have been meant to clarify has caused pain. “Now is the time for our thoughtful and measured response. The question all Christian people should reflect on today is how best to exercise forbearance and love for one another.” “The ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’ in 1999 ... resolved a bitter 500-year dispute.  We will continue to celebrate and build upon the deepening relationships fostered by that Joint Declaration even as we long for greater visible unity itself.” Hanson agrees with Cardinal Walter Kasper that “for the ecumenical movement to bear the weight of change for the future, it must be rooted in ecumenism of life.”
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The media, the neocaths, and the offended fellow-Christians have all focused only on the negative emphases of the document, ignoring its restatement of the positive views of Vatican II and John Paul II. Some blame for this reception, which is a public relations disaster and an ecumenical setback, must lie at the feet of the framers of the document. Adopting the old dubia et responsa format of the Holy Office, the document subscribes to a false theory of communication, the idea that it suffices to enunciate objective truths in a totally decontextualized manner. A lack of ecumenical courtesy, sensitivity and professionalism has been shown here.

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While the Vatican has once again managed to get the whole world involved in an asinine debate, the man who is laughing all the way to the bank is Bishop Bernard Fellay, current leader of the Lefebvrite schism. Emboldened by the appeasement offered by Benedict in the Motu Proprio, he stresses anew his doctrinal difference with Vatican II, stating that the new document only proves the necessity of the doctrinal discussions between the SSPX and the Holy See prior to a final practical canonical agreement: “this document… is telling us that a circle is a quadrangle.”

Transdenominational Theology and the Interreligious Paradigm Shift

I hope that the new Pope's first encyclical will be on interreligious dialogue, nuancing the stark teaching of Dominus Iesus (2000) in a more encouraging direction. The interreligious response to the London bombing sets a headline for the new kind of practice and thinking that our globalized world makes necessary.

The statement issued from Lambeth Palace by Archbishop Rowan Williams, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Free Churches Moderator Revd David Coffey, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, and the Chair of the Council of Mosques & Imams, Sheikh Dr Zaki Badawi said: "We want to signal the common ground on which we stand as faith leaders, and to reaffirm the values we uphold at this time of sorrow and pain... Central to what we share as people of faith is a belief in God's compassionate love for us. It is a love that compels us to cherish not to disfigure our common humanity...We draw hope and comfort from the certainty that in seeking to overcome our own brokenness we will be working with the pattern of God's design for all his children and for the whole human family."

Jonathan Sacks has written a much-praised book, "The Dignity of Difference" in which he calls for a paradigm shift and urges that "the best antidote to violence is conversation". Sheikh Zaki Badawi was refused entry into the US at JFK Airport last week -- no welcome for this man of conversation...

Transdenominational theology identifies the beliefs that all Christians share and that can be put forward as the chief offering of Christianity in the interreligious conversation. It will be objected that such a theology much fall victim to the lowest common denominator, to Unitarianism or the dilutions of Liberal Protestant theology from Schleiermacher to Tillich. But just as Hans Kung's Global Ethic is a minimal, lowest common denominator ethic, that does not at all exclude more refined and exigent moral reflection, so a lowest common denominator presentation of doctrine need not exclude the further refinements that the individual churches propose. Such a theology much include respect for these denominational claims. Even a Unitarian can acknowledge the confessional dignity of the early Councils.

In transdenominational theology, Christians who have presented a very low theology need no longer be excoriated as heretics. Harnack's reductive version of the essence of Christianity -- the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God -- or Bultmann's or Tillich's as the case may be, will have merit as a contribution to the clarification of the shared essentials. Full-blown, robust, dogmatic Christianity, as in Barthianism or Roman Catholicism, will be honoured, but the wider consensus will also signal a potential weakness of such dogmatic Christianity, the danger that it becomes a mere restorationist programme, unadapted to the contemporary framework of thought.

All theology has to be open to the mighty movement of the Spirit of God. A liberal like Tillich may be more open to it than a heavily armoured conservative like Barth, for the Spirit blows where it wills.

In his July 8 'Thought for the Day' on Radio 4, Rowan Williams evokes the Spirit to good effect: "We must take courage. We may not feel we have much strength, we may still feel partly paralysed. There’s a passage in the New Testament where Paul says something like this: ‘we don't know how to pray or what to hope for sometimes. But the spirit of God is working with us, and even our wordless cries and groans become part of the Spirit's action’". The groaning of the Spirit is not the constant nagging about terrorism that we hear from the White House or the constant nagging about dilution of faith and morals that we hear from guardians of orthodoxy. It is the groaning of the whole creation in travail, giving birth to the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Interreligious dialogue is the current imperative of those who want to open the doors wide to the Christ that is to be. A focus on what unites Christians, not on what separates them, on what unites religious people, not on what separates them, and on what unites globalized humanity, not on what separates them, is what can best give direction and perspective to the theological enterprise today.