Pope Francis met with leaders of the World Methodist Council recently, celebrating fifty years of dialogue between the two Churches.
Noting that in the Old Testament, a golden jubilee was a moment to set slaves free, the pope said “we too have been freed from the slavery of estrangement and mutual suspicion”.
After fifty years of patient dialogue, he said, “we are no longer strangers” but rather, through our shared Baptism, “members of the household of God”.
True dialogue, the pope continued, gives us courage to encounter one another in humility and sincerity” as we seek to learn from each other.
Speaking about the 18th century preacher John Wesley, who, with his brother Charles founded the Methodist movement, Pope Francis said his words and his example of holiness brought many people to Christ. When we recognize the working of the Holy Spirit in other Christian confessions, he said, “we cannot fail to rejoice”, as they can “also help us grow closer to the Lord”.
We cannot grow in holiness without growing in communion, Pope Francis concluded. As you begin a new phase of dialogue devoted to reconciliation, may your discussions be a gift for Christians everywhere to become ministers of reconciliation. Let us prepare ourselves with humble hope and concrete efforts, he said, for that full recognition which will enable us to join one another in the breaking of bread together.
The words of Pope Francis reveal an undeniable and very marked change of direction—indeed, practically a U-turn in the Church’s understanding and advancement of ecumenism.
Pope Pius XI flatly forbade any Catholic participation in interchurch or inter-religious meetings and activities motivated by the desire for restoring Christian unity.
Vatican II, on the other hand, not only authorized but positively encouraged Catholic participation in such activities (within certain limits).
The modern Church has thus made a prudential judgment that the risks and dangers of indifferentism and confusion about the faith occasioned by such activities—perils strongly emphasized by Pius XI—are outweighed by the great good to be hoped for as the long-term result of ecumenism: gradual, better mutual understanding, leading to that unity which Christ willed for all who profess to be his disciples.
At the more fundamental level of doctrine, however, what Pius XI condemned is by no means the same thing that Vatican II affirms.
What, exactly, did Pope Pius condemn as false doctrine? Basically, the liberal Protestant theology that dominated ecumenical initiatives in the early 20th Century and more specifically, the theology embodied—explicitly or at least implicitly— in several specific theses censured by Pius XI.
First among the erroneous so-called ecumenical doctrines condemned by Pius XI is that which envisions a worldwide religious "unity" in which all agree on a few basic beliefs while "agreeing to differ" on others. Pius XI The pope observed that this hypothetical "unity" in one "world religion" would of course include non-Christians of all types.
Second, Pius XI insisted that the above error involves another at a deeper level, that is, a denial of the very principle of Revealed Truth, which requires assent to God’s Word on His own authority. In some contemporary circles, ecumenism today presuppose the erroneous view that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy, inasmuch as all give expression, under various forms, to that innate sense which leads men to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of his rule.
Pius insisted that those who hold such a view are not only in error; they distort the true idea of religion, and thus reject it, falling gradually into naturalism and atheism. To favor this opinion, therefore, and to encourage such undertakings, is tantamount to abandoning the religion revealed by God.
Pius XI condemned a false ecclesiology that is often inherent in ecumenical initiatives, that is, a striving for a visibly united "Christian church" which would be "nothing more than a federation of the various Christian communities, even though these may hold different and mutually exclusive doctrines".
Finally, Pope Pius condemned the idea that the unity which Christ prayed for -- ut unum sint (that they be one) -- must be regarded as a mere ideal".
Vatican Council II defined the kinds of "activities and initiatives" which embody a correct and faithful ecumenical strategy: (a) avoiding all misrepresentations of separated Christians’ beliefs and practices; (b) dialogue between scholars of different denominations for the purpose of better mutual understanding; (c) a more extensive collaboration in carrying out duties toward the common good recognized by "every Christian conscience"; (d) meeting for common prayer, where this is permitted; and (e) renewing and reforming the Church herself in faithfulness to Christ’s will.
It is against this historical backdrop of Church teaching regarding ecumenism that one must consider the recent remarks of Pope Francis to the World Methodist Council. I will leave it to those much more knowledgeable and qualified to study and reflect upon the implications of the Holy Father’s statements.
Still, to the ordinary observer who may think that Pope’s comments appear to have come very close to mirroring the doctrinal aberrations condemned by Pius XI in 1928, I suggest that Francis’ words be heard in the spirit of fraternal charity and benevolence with which they were offered to Christian brothers and sisters who continue to be wounded by the scandal of division and separation.
Let us pray that the day will indeed come when there will be One Shepherd and One Flock!
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