Newspaper Page Text
Supplement to The Georgia Bulletin, November 21, 1985
□ Faith Toda
A supplement to Catholic newspapers,
published with grant assistance from Cath
olic Church Extension Society, by the Na
tional Catholic News Seivice, 1312 Massa
chusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C.
20005. All contents copyright ® 1985 by
NC News Service.
Ecumenism* What’s It to You?
By Joe Michael Feist
NC News Service
When Tuesday afternoon rolls
around and it’s time for religious
education class, my children head
for the Jewish synagogue. I think
they get a fine grounding in
religion there.
No, it’s not what you think.
We’re not Jewish. It’s just that our
parish facilities don’t yet include
classrooms. Since the synagogue is
next door, pastor and rabbi work
ed out an agreement to use
synagogue rooms for Catholic
religious instruction.
It’s a pragmatic arrangement, of
course. But it is also an outgrowth
of the ecumenical atmosphere
prompted by Vatican II.
Catholic involvement in the
ecumenical movement snowballed
after Vatican II documents refer
red to other Christians as “our
separated brethren” and also said
the church “rejects nothing of
what is true and holy” in other
world religions.
Since the mid-1960s the
Catholic Church has set up an
ever-increasing number of
dialogue commissions with other
churches. In recent months and
years:
•Roman Catholic representatives
have reached substantial
theological agreements with
Anglicans on such issues as the
nature of the eucharist, ministry
and ordination, and salvation.
•Talks between Roman
Catholics and Orthodox churches
have clarified disagreements on
Christ’s human nature.
•Catholic and Lutheran
representatives in the United
States have agreed that'any dif
ferences over how people are sav
ed, differences that contributed to
the Reformation, “need not be
church-dividing. ’ ’
•Dialogue continues between
Catholics and members of Baptist,
Reformed, Methodist and
Pentecostal churches, and various
accords have been reached.
•Pope John Paul II has prayed
with the Anglican archbishop of
Canterbury; praised the
“reverence for life and nature, the
quest for truth and harmony” of
Buddhism and Confucianism; and
told Moslem youth that Moslems
and Christians “have many things
in common as believers and as
human beings.”
•And the pope has met often
with Jewish groups and leaders.
To the Jewish community in
Mainz, West Germany, in 1980,
the pope said that “Jewish-
Christian dialogue can be a sign to
the world of belief in the one in
effable God who calls to us.”
But is ecumenism a subject for
church leaders only? Is it a strictly
theological and intellectual
exercise?
Not at all. Though seemingly
hidden at times, practical effects
and examples of ecumenism at the
grass-roots level abound today.
Most apparent, perhaps, is in
the whole area of “mixed mar
riages,” the numbers of which
continue to rise. About 40 percent
of Catholics who married in the
1970s married non-Catholics. The
younger a couple is, the greater
the chance that their religious af
filiation differs.
Among the several reasons given
by sociologists for this
phenomenon: the post-Vatican II
appreciation for other Christian
bodies and local parish
ecumenism.
While the Catholic Church, in
deed, all churches, still prefers in
trafaith marriages, there is a grow
ing pastoral response to “mixed
marriages.” For example, some
churches are cooperating in in
terdenominational marriage
preparation and in the celebration
of weddings.
Another indication of an active
ecumenism is in joint social action
efforts. Men and women of dif
ferent religious communities are
joining together to operate soup
kitchens, shelters for the homeless
and programs for the elderly.
Interfaith services of one kind
or another, rare before Vatican II,
are common today. Many parishes
celebrate a Passover Seder meal
during Holy Week to remember
the Jewish roots of Christianity.
But perhaps the true impact of
the ecumenical movement can
best be seen in terms of people
who change, allowing respect for
traditions that differ from their
own.
That’s the kind of development
that allows Catholic children from
my parish to attend religious
education classes in the neighbor
ing synagogue.
(Feist is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
An active ecumenical movement is one of the
legacies of Vatican Council II, writes Joe Michael
Feist. And participation in that movement is not
limited to church leaders, he odds. In many or
dinary ways, ecumenism comes to life.
