True or false unity?
The Week for Christian Unity

1-23-2013

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began last Friday and will end this Friday, on January 25th, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Every year on this occasion, Pope Benedict XVI presides over a liturgical celebration in St. Peter's Basilica, with the leaders of the most important Christian Churches and communities. Their common objective is clear: to advance in unity.

After 50 years, that is, after the opening, we have been able to gather much fruit. Now we have 16 dialogues with 16 other Churches and ecclesial communities in the world. We have been able to create a network of friendship with the different Churches and ecclesial communities, which are no longer enemies but acknowledge themselves as brothers and sisters… The mutual acceptance of baptism is the bridge of the whole ecumenical movement. Clearly after 50 years it's not been possible to attain the objective of ecumenism, which is the visible unity of all the Christians of all the Churches.[2]

The cardinal interestingly mentions the fact that, “of the believers in the world who are being persecuted for reasons of faith, 80% are Christians” and quoting John Paul II, who spoke of an "ecumenism of martyrs", he added:

For me this is a very profound idea, because all the ecclesial communities have their own martyrs. Martyrdom is already living a "full communion", and we on earth not yet... So the prayer of the martyrs in Heaven can help to deepen unity and ecumenism on earth.[3]

This gathering embraced representatives, not only of the Christian and the Jewish creeds, but also of the Mohammedan, Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto and Theosophist religions. The general sessions lasted from 11 September to 27 September. Besides these general meetings, there were 48 particular denominational congresses held in connexion with the Parliament. One of these was a Catholic congress, which lasted a week and was attended by thousands of Catholics, both clerical and lay.

 

Prominent among those who attended the general Parliament were Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Feehan of Chicago and Bishop Keane, then Rector of the Catholic University. The first session was opened with the recitation of the Our Father by Cardinal Gibbons. In the biography of the Cardinal it is stated that when participation in the Parliament of Religions was considered at a meeting of the Archbishops in New York in the autumn of 1892, some objections were made, but the Cardinal took a pronounced stand in favor of participation, and in the end the prelates decided to accept the invitation. Bishop Keane was appointed to arrange for the proper and adequate presentation of Catholic doctrine. As was to be expected, latitudinarianism - the idea that all forms of religion are good - was expressed frequently in the course of the Parliament.

 

With characteristic prudence and moderation the Holy See waited two years before passing judgment on the participation by Catholics in the Parliament of Religions… The ruling of Pope Leo XIII was substantially identical with the prescription of the Code:

Let Catholics take care not to have debates or conferences, particularly of a public nature, with non-Catholics, without the permission of the Holy See or, if the case is urgent, of the local Ordinary.

Catholics of present-day America can profitably find in the apostolic letter of Leo XIII a reminder of the care they must exercise lest their faith suffer from the spirit of religious indifferentism that is so prevalent in our land today.

 

Two sources of danger should be particularly noted. The first is the attitude toward diversity of religious beliefs engendered by conditions existing in our armed forces. The intimate association of our Catholic soldiers and sailors with those of other denominations, the common use of the same chapels, the identity of insignia for all Christian chaplains, the "general services" which army regulations prescribe under certain circumstances; above all, the governmental attitude, so consistently practiced in all matters pertaining to religion, that all forms of religious belief are equally good - all these circumstances unquestionably tend to foster the idea that religious differences are of little or no importance.

 

“The second source of danger is the emphasis that is nowadays laid on one of the "four freedoms" - freedom of religious worship. Indeed, this is commonly proposed as one of the objectives for which America is fighting. Beyond doubt, the expression "freedom of religious worship" is ordinarily understood by our non-Catholic fellow-citizens, when they advocate the "four freedoms", in the sense that everyone has a natural, God-given right to accept and to practice whatever form of religion appeals to him individually. No Catholic can in conscience defend such an idea of freedom of religious worship. For, according to Catholic principles, the only religion that has a genuine right to exist is the religion that God revealed and made obligatory on all men; hence, man has a natural and God-given freedom to embrace only the one true religion. One who sincerely believes himself bound to practice some form of non-Catholic religion is in conscience obliged to do so; but this subjective obligation, based on an erroneous conscience, does not give him a genuine right. A real right is something objective, based on truth. Accordingly, a Catholic may not defend freedom of religious worship to the extent of denying that a Catholic government has the right, absolutely speaking, to restrict the activities of non-Catholic denominations, in order to protect the Catholic citizens from spiritual harm.

We shall conclude this with another view, rather negative, of the fruits of ecumenism expressed by no less than Paul VI.

The difficulties to re-establishing a real unitarian fusion of the various Christian denominations are such as to paralyze all human hope that it can be realized historically. The ruptures that have taken place have ossified, solidified and organized themselves in such a way as to characterize as Utopian all attempts to reconstruct in dependency on the head, which is Christ, “a body”, as St. Paul writes, “joined and knit together…”[5]

This text reveals more than the pope’s dream of combining all the Christian Churches; it reveals that he had not yet understood that such an enterprise to unite contraries is quite simply absurd. Only a mind tainted by the modern evil could desire at all costs the squaring of the circle.

Footnotes

1 Quoted from Zenit article of January 6, 2013, "Ecumenism: A Network of Friendship (Part 1)".

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

5 L'Osservatore Romano, English language edition, January 26, 1978, p.1.