My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome recently issued a series of questions and answers that addressed aspects of our Catholic understanding of the nature and meaning of the Church. These questions have ecumenical implications and were recently published in The Tablet for your information.
The questions and answers are concise and precisely worded. I wish to take this opportunity to try to explain in more colloquial terms the meaning of the document and the responses that it gave to the questions posed.
In order to better understand the context of this document, we need to refer back to the document Dominus Iesus, issued in the year 2000 under the authority of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who at that time was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is a text that has caused much discussion in the intervening years. News reports, unfortunately, do not give the theological nuances necessary to understand either document. Together, they address the proper understanding of the Catholic Church in relation to other Christian churches and communities. These nuances are not always easy to grasp.
We can frame our discussion by remembering two basic tenets of our Catholic faith. First, we affirm that God has a universal salvific will for all humanity. Our good and loving God desires that no one be lost, no matter what faith they profess, provided that they live their lives in a sincere pursuit of the Truth who is God Himself. Second, we believe that Jesus Christ is the Incarnation of the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, fully God and fully man. He is the one, definitive and irreplaceable Savior of the world who reveals the fullness of the Truth in Himself.
Therefore, every human person who is saved will be saved in and through Jesus Christ. Further, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the establishment of the Church by the Lord as His enduring Mystical Body in the world, the Church is the "universal sacrament of salvation" (Lumen Gentium, #48) for all humanity.
What the recent document from Rome addresses is the more subtle question of the relationship between the Catholic Church and other Christian churches and ecclesial communities. The Church Fathers of the Second Vatican Council taught in Lumen Gentium article # 8 that the Church of Christ "subsists in" the Catholic Church rather than "is" the Catholic Church. This means that the Church of Christ is found in the Catholic Church and is comprised of all those rites that confess the Church to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, as proclaimed in the Creed, and recognize the Pope as the successor of Peter.
This distinction also recognizes that while the Catholic Church possesses all the constitutive elements of the Church founded by Christ, other Christian communities that have broken communion with the Catholic Church retain many of these same elements of sanctification and truth, including baptism and the transforming presence of Christ in Scripture. As such, the means of salvation in the Lord Jesus are available to non-Catholic Christians since they too have been baptized into the Lord's death and resurrection. This distinction also reminds us, as members of the Catholic Church, that while we have maintained unity with the apostolic church established by Jesus Christ, we are always in need of conversion and repentance both as individuals and as a community of faith.
This observation leads to another important distinction that the document tries to clarify. What is the difference in meaning and application between the terms "church" and "ecclesial community"? In order to understand this distinction, we must remember that there are two essential elements that are necessary to constitute the existence of the Church. They are a validly ordained priesthood that is a necessary prerequisite for a valid celebration of the Eucharist. "Validly ordained bishops, i.e., those who are in the line of apostolic succession, validly confer the three degrees of the sacrament of Holy Orders" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1576). If these two essential elements do not exist in any community of Christian believers, they do not form a Church but rather an ecclesial community of Christian faith. Thus, many of our Protestant brothers and sisters, whose communities were formed after the Reformation of the 16th century, are called ecclesial communities because they did not maintain apostolic succession, many do not celebrate all of the seven sacraments or believe all that is maintained in the Creed as handed down to us by the apostles. They remain, however, communities that are vibrant, alive with faith in the Lord Jesus and committed to the Gospel message to evangelize the world.
It is unfortunate that many have understood these recent documents from Rome as representing a retreat in the work of ecumenism. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Pope Benedict XVI, in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, had this to say about ecumenism and the progress needed to be made, "Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom He gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to Him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, His own. Communion draws me out of myself towards Him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians" (article #14).
The clear desire that Jesus had at the Last Supper was that all would be one. Perhaps, the Lord foresaw the divisions that would occur among those who would follow Him. How important it is for us today to work for this unity and understanding among ourselves. Unfortunately, human words and theological concepts seldom bring us together. It is the lived relationships of love and acceptance that make us one in Christ and recognize that our faith in Jesus Christ many times goes beyond our theological understanding.
The work of ecumenism, which seeks unity among Christian churches and ecclesial communities, is something that we cannot shy away from. It is to "put out into the deep" and recognize our isolation and work toward the unity that Christ sincerely desired. Pray with me that the work for ecumenism in our own Diocese here in Brooklyn and Queens will bear fruit as we witness the mutual love, concern and respect for all who bear the name of "Christian."
