Ut Unum Sint and Catholic Involvement in Ecumenism

William Henn

Pope John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995) is an historic encyclical with important implications for the Catholic Church's involvement in the ecumenical movement.(1) Perhaps its Significance can come more sharply into focus when one compares it with earlier papal letters on Christian unity, such as Satis Cognitum of Leo XIII (1896) and Mortalium Animos of Pius XI (1928).

Leo XIII reflected on church unity in light of the incarnational economy of salvation. As the divine and human natures were united inseparably in the person of Jesus Christ, so the spiritual and institutional aspects of the church cannot be separated. The visible structures of the episcopacy and the primacy are necessary for church unity because Christ himself willed to order the church in this way. Thus the unity of Christians is possible only by means of a return to that community governed by bishops in communion with the successor to Peter.

Unlike his predecessor Leo, Pius XI wrote Mortalium Animos after the modern ecumenical movement had already begun; indeed, its appearance in 1928 shows that it was a response to the founding meeting of the Faith and Order movement (Lausanne 1927). Pius's view of unity was solidly in the line of Satis Cognitum, again seeing the healing of Christian divisions as a project of "return" to the Catholic fold. In addition, because the Faith and Order movement wished to address precisely "doctrinal" issues relative to Christian unity, Pius spoke about the insufficiency of seeking to establish ecclesial unity on the basis of a limited number of teachings which all could accept. He argued that a doctrine can be binding on believers and normative for the church only to the extent that it is rooted in or intimately related to the revealed Word of God. Christian doctrine is ultimately based on God's authority. It is not for believers to choose which are the fundamental or necessary articles of faith, thus, as it were, setting themselves up as judges of God's word.

Ut Unum Sint also takes up the questions of the nature of ecclesial unity and its relation to the full acceptance of revealed truth, but now within the perspectives about the church and about revelation proposed by the Second Vatican Council and explored in subsequent years. In this essay I shall examine in turn each of the three chapters of Ut Unum Sint, then in conclusion return to the issues raised in this introduction.

Chapter I: Harvesting Vatican II

The first chapter of Ut Unum Sint basically reaffirms the principal ecumenical themes of the Second Vatican Council.(2) Two points seems to dominate Pope John Paul's rereading of the Council: that unity is God's will and that unity takes the form of a visible communion of faith, sacraments and communal life under the guidance of ordained ministers.

God's will for church unity

Some of the strongest words of Ut Unum Sint concern unity as God's will, even as the primary motive of the whole Christ-event. Jesus died in order "to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52); through his cross he brought hostility to an end (cf. Eph. 2:14-16). The pope then adds:

   The unity of all divided humanity is the will of God. For this mason he
   sent his Son, so that by dying and rising for us he might bestow on us the
   Spirit of love. On the eve of his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus himself
   prayed to the Father for his disciples and for all those who believe in
   him, that they might be one, a living communion. This is the basis not only
   of the duty, but also of the responsibility before God and his plan, which
   falls to those who through baptism become members of the body of Christ, a
   body in which the fullness of reconciliation and communion must be made
   present. How is it possible to remain divided, if we have been "buried"
   through baptism in the Lord's death, in the very act by which God, through
   the death of his Son, has broken down the walls of division? (para. 6).

If unity is so tied to the central purpose of Christ's salvific mission, then division is a most serious matter -- not a minor flaw that can simply be tolerated. John Paul quotes the assertion in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism that division "openly contradicts the will of Christ, provides a stumbling block to the world and inflicts damage on the most holy cause of proclaiming the good news to every creature" (Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 1).

This explains the depth of the commitment to unity and the passion with which the pope speaks about it. A good example:

   To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire
   the church; to desire the church means to desire the communion of grace
   which corresponds to the Father's plan from all eternity. Such is the
   meaning of Christ's prayer: "Ut unum sint" (para. 9).

Unity as communion

In addition, John Paul devotes eight paragraphs (paras 7-14) to the ecclesiology of communion which was determinative for the Second Vatican Council's II's understanding of ecumenism. The notion of communion is not primarily a model for envisioning ecumenism, but rather corresponds to the nature of the church as such. It expresses that unity of Christians which is rooted in their common sharing of the life of God, of grace, of the divine gifts of faith, hope and charity. In this way, the whole "catholic" church is a communion, as is each local community, all of which are united with one another. The links which maintain communion are many, but they may be summarized under three headings: the profession of a common faith, the celebration of worship and sacraments, the ordered communal witness and service carried out under the guidance of ordained ministers.(3)

These three dimensions of communion are roughly commensurate with the life of the early church as reflected, for example, in Acts 2:42: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." The Catholic International Theological Commission has recently spoken of the mission of the church vis-a-vis world religions, as taking the forms of martyria, leitourgia and diakonia -- witness, worship and service -- which in turn parallel the threefold mission of Jesus as prophet, priest and shepherd-king.(4) The Second Vatican Council mentioned this triad various times: Lumen Gentium speaks of "the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government and communion" (para. 14), while Unitatis Redintegratio notes that Jesus himself, through the ministry of the bishops, perfects the church's "fellowship in unity: in the confession of one faith, in the common celebration of divine worship, and in the fraternal harmony of the family of God" (para. 2). In Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul simply writes: "this unity bestowed by the Holy Spirit ... is a unity constituted by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and hierarchical communion" (para. 9).

The real ecumenical breakthrough at the Council was the effect of this communion ecclesiology on the traditional Catholic understanding of Christian divisions. The church had been understood as the community of those who were baptized, professed the fullness of catholic doctrine and were in communion with the bishop of Rome.(5) While baptism lasted forever, the second and third of these conditions of church unity could be broken, either by an obstinate error of faith (heresy) or a deliberate breach of communion (schism).(6) Such a break was considered very sharp, following the law of disjunction: either one belongs to the church of Christ or one does not. Moreover, the one holy, catholic and apostolic church of the creed was completely and exclusively identified with the Catholic Church.

The bishops at the Second Vatican Council came to see this view as significantly flawed. If the church is a communion of faith, and if it is undeniable that many Christians who are not Catholics believe in the Holy Trinity, the incarnation, redemption in Jesus Christ, the divine inspiration of the scriptures and so many other articles of Christian faith, then it is simply inaccurate to posit a complete separation in faith between Catholics and other Christians. Moreover, faith is not just a matter of doctrines; it is a response to God's grace which engages one's whole existence and in which one commits one's entire self to God in acceptance and trust. Obviously, there have been and are many believers from many different Christian communities who are outstanding examples of faith.

In fact, there are many other elements of ecclesial life in addition to faith which unite Christians from the various Christian communities. These elements include sacraments, as well as the charisms and ministries which structure and serve the mission of the community. One of the more striking traits of Ut Unum Sint is its acknowledgment of the wealth of God's riches present in the various Christian communities: "If Christians, despite their divisions, can grow ever more united in common prayer around Christ, they will grow in the awareness of how little divides them in comparison to what unites them" (para. 22).(7)

Recognition of the authentic discipleship of other Christians and of the ecclesial qualities of their communities led to a famous change in the draft of paragraph 8 of Lumen Gentium.(8) The Council substituted the verb "subsists in" for the verb "is" in the sentence which thus came to read: "This church [the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of the creed], constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." By choosing not to affirm simply that the church of Christ "is" the Catholic Church, the Council refused to identify the two in an exclusive way. This change was made so that what was affirmed about the Catholic Church would not contradict the recognition that "many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines". These elements are "ecclesial", which means that the church of Christ is present and active in a Christian community to the degree that these elements are present. Ut Unum Sint summarizes this in the following way:

   To the extent that these elements are found in other Christian communities,
   the one church of Christ is effectively present in them. For this reason
   the Second Vatican Council speaks of a certain, though imperfect communion.
   The Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium stresses that the Catholic Church
   "recognizes that in many ways she is linked" with these communities by a
   true union in the Holy Spirit (para. 11).

One of the more succinct ways in which the Second Vatican Council described the church is in the opening paragraph of Lumen Gentium, which calls the church a kind of a "sacrament", that is a sign and instrument of union with God and among men and women. The Council applied a similar "sacramental" terminology to other Christian communities in the Decree on Ecumenism, which John Paul quotes:

   It follows that these separated churches and communities, though we believe
   that they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of
   significance and value in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of
   Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive
   their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the
   Catholic Church [Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 3, quoted in Ut Unum Sint,
   para. 10].

Here we encounter a point which may seem offensive, even insulting. By what right can the Vatican speak of the "defects" of other communities? Does not the Catholic Church have its share of "defects"? And whatever "fullness" of grace and truth may be said to have been entrusted to the Catholic Church, is it not true that sinfulness and error not only can be but have been found among the members of that community?(9)

Both the Second Vatican Council and Ut Unum Sint wish to affirm the presence and action of Christ and the Holy Spirit in other Christian communities. At the same time, they wish to say that there are differences between the churches to the extent that each embodies within its faith, sacraments and communal life more or less of the elements with which Christ intended the church to be endowed. Besides recognizing the ecclesial value of other Christian communities, the choice of the verb "subsists in" used in Lumen Gentium was meant to acknowledge frankly what the Catholic Church believes to be its own distinctiveness vis-a-vis these other communities. Pope John Paul takes this up in the third chapter of his letter, just before entering into the discussion of the ministry of the successor to Peter:

   The constitution Lumen Gentium, in a fundamental affirmation echoed by the
   decree Unitatis Redintegratio, states that the one church of Christ
   subsists in the Catholic Church. The Decree on Ecumenism emphasizes the
   presence in her of the fullness (plenitudo) of the means of salvation. Full
   unity will come about when all share in the fullness of the means of
   salvation entrusted by Christ to his church (para 86).

This could be read as the old ecumenism of "return", now softened with a flurry of statements which praise other churches rather than disparaging them. Are the Council and the pope really saying nothing different from what was said by earlier popes, only now with a deceptively honeyed tongue? I think not. For now there is a clear acknowledgment of the active presence of Christ in the other communities and of the reality that the others have sometimes surpassed the Catholic Church in expressing or living important Christian truths and values. The pope addresses this in the context of the birth of the church at Pentecost:

   In accordance with the great Tradition, attested to by the fathers of the
   East and of the West, the Catholic Church believes that in the Pentecost
   event God has already manifested the church in her eschatological reality,
   which he has prepared "from the time of Abel, the just one". This reality
   is something already given. Consequently we are even now in the last times.
   The elements of this already-given church exist, found in their fullness in
   the Catholic Church and, without this fullness, in the other communities,
   where certain features of the Christian mystery have at times been more
   effectively emphasized. Ecumenism is directed precisely to making the
   partial communion existing between Christians grow towards full communion
   in truth and charity (para. 14).

From this point on in chapter I, Ut Unum Sint lays aside ecclesiological principles and takes up the topic of the practice of ecumenism. The main themes are the need for conversion and renewal, the primacy of prayer, ecumenical dialogue and cooperation on pastoral, cultural and social levels as well as in witnessing together to gospel values. The golden thread running through these paragraphs is an emphasis on that humility which acknowledges failure and seeks reform (paras 18-20), which prays that God's grace will overcome what seem insuperable obstacles to unity (paras 21-27) and which will allow dialogue to be genuinely a moment of conversion (paras 28-39,esp. 33-35). The comments about the relative fullness and defects of the various Christian communities need to be understood within these affirmations about the humility needed to change. It is clear in these texts that the Catholic Church also needs to change. Indeed, the most explicit calls for conversion and forgiveness in this encyclical concern the conversion of Peter (paras 4, 91-94) and the request for forgiveness for any painful recollections which may have resulted from the past exercise of papal authority (paras 88).

Chapter II: Diversity and unity in faith

The second chapter of Ut Unum Sint is a collection of memories -- not ancient memories which need to be healed, but recent memories which heal. During the past thirty years,

   there is an increased awareness that we all belong to Christ ...
   Communities which were once rivals are now in many cases helping one
   another: places of worship are sometimes lent out; scholarships are offered
   for the training of ministers in the communities most lacking in resources;
   approaches are made to civil authorities on behalf of other Christians who
   are unjustly persecuted; and the slander to which certain groups are
   subjected is shown to be unfounded. In a word, Christians have been
   converted to a fraternal charity which embraces all Christ's disciples ...
   [This] is not the consequence of a large-hearted philanthropy or a vague
   family spirit. It is rooted in recognition of the oneness of baptism and
   the subsequent duty to glorify God in his work (para. 42).

One glorifies God in a way that is especially fruitful for Christian unity when one begins to see the goodness of others: "It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of blood. For God is always wonderful in his works and worthy of admiration" (para. 47, quoting Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 4; see also Ut Unum Sint, para. 15). Getting to know each other allows Christians "to discover what God is bringing about in the members of other churches and ecclesial communities" and to become "aware of the witness which other Christians bear to God and to Christ" (para. 48).

Within this positive evaluation of the changed climate between Christians, the pope turns respectively to developments in Catholic relations with the communities of the East and of the West. This review of "The Fruits of Dialogue" (the title of chapter I) tends to emphasize two different themes. The discussion of relations with the East focuses on legitimate diversity, that of relations with the West on dialogue as a means of arriving at unity in faith. A word should be said about each of these.

Legitimate diversity

Catholic relations with Eastern churches during the past thirty years began the healing of a division which, in the view of both the Second Vatican Council and of Pope John Paul II, is based less on disagreement about faith than on a failing in charity.(10) It is tree that doctrine entered into the divisions, stemming from the refusal by some Eastern communities to accept the definitions of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon (para. 62). Yet even here, theological investigation and ecumenical dialogue have "made possible essential clarifications with regard to the traditional controversies concerning Christology, so much so that we have been able to profess together the faith which we have in common" (para. 63). With the large majority of Eastern Christians, however, Catholics remained in a full communion, which embraced a considerable degree of diversity, for the greater part of the first millennium. This is a very significant fact, according to Ut Unum Sint, which refers repeatedly to the situation between the East and West prior to the separation of 1054 (paras 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 61). When so united, the church was able to "breathe with her two lungs" (para. 54).

For John Paul, the first millennium may serve "as a kind of model" (para. 55) in which local churches related to one another as sisters. Sister churches enjoy full unity in legitimate diversity (para. 57), a diversity which extends even to a certain variety in doctrinal formulation:

   It is hardly surprising if sometimes one tradition has come nearer than the
   other to an apt appreciation of certain aspects of the revealed mystery or
   has expressed them in a clearer manner. As a result, these various
   theological formulations are often to be considered as complementary rather
   than conflicting [Unitatis Redintegratio 17]. Communion is made fruitful by
   the exchange of gifts between the churches insofar as they complement each
   other (para. 57).

This recourse to the first millennium includes also the ministerial structures which characterized the church during that period.

   The church's journey began in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and its
   original expansion in the oikoumene of that time was centred around Peter
   and the Eleven (cf. Acts 2:14). The structures of the church in the East
   and in the West evolved in reference to that apostolic heritage. Her unity
   during the first millennium was maintained within those same structures
   through bishops, successors of the apostles, in communion with the bishop
   of Rome. If today at the end of the second millennium we are seeking to
   restore full communion, it is to that unity, thus structured, which we must
   look (para. 55).

This statement about the ministerial structures of the first millennium resonates with Leo XIII's earlier insistence on the episcopacy and papacy as elements of the visible unity of the church required by its apostolic origins. Ut Unum Sint, however, does not suppose that ministry in communities without these structures can in no way be said to be apostolic. Its earlier recognition that the Holy Spirit works for the salvation of believers precisely through the ministry of non-Catholic Christian communities, including those without bishops in the Catholic sense, is the primary framework within which the Catholic understanding of ministry in these other churches should be considered. In honesty, however, the pope repeats the statement of the Second Vatican Council that some Christian communities lack what Catholic belief understands as the sacrament of orders and therefore suffer the consequence which such a lack implies concerning what Catholics would understand as the "genuine and total reality of the eucharistic mystery" (para. 67).

This painful question of the apostolicity of ministry and its relation to the ministerial structures of the first millennium is obviously one of the most difficult issues still to be resolved in ecumenical dialogue. Here the pope seems simply to be pointing out that the unity which unites Orthodox and Catholics on the question of the threefold ministry of bishop, presbyter and deacon is based on a consensus in the faith and practice of the church during the first millennium.

"Dialogue of conversion" towards unity in faith

Dom Emmanuel Lanne has pointed out that dialogue is one of the most dominant themes of Ut Unum Sint, prominent in each of its three chapters.(11) It receives special emphasis when the pope reviews Catholic relations with the Reformation churches. Again the particular quality of recent relations between these communities is stamped by their former history. Since Catholics, Protestants and Anglicans share roughly five hundred more years of communion with each other than they do with Christians from the East, they enjoy a closer affinity of theological outlook. On the other hand, the ecumenical task among them appears at times to be more difficult because of "weighty differences ... in the interpretation of revealed truth" (para. 64), especially "with regard to the church, the sacraments and the ordained ministry" (para. 67). John Paul emphasizes that unity in faith is essential to full communion (cf. para. 65) and that only love for the truth can enable Christians to undergo the difficult process leading to such unity (cf. para. 36).

Unity among Christians impels them to seek and to embrace the revealed truth in its entirety, first of all, because this truth comes from God and, second, because the human person by nature is directed towards the fullness of truth.

   The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the
   content of revealed faith in its entirety. In matters of faith, compromise
   is in contradiction with God who is Truth ... A "being together" which
   betrayed the truth would thus be opposed both to the nature of God who
   offers his communion and to the need for truth found in the depths of every
   human heart (para. 18).

These strong affirmations recall the concern of Pius XI in Mortalium Animos. In fact, Ut Unum Sint speaks of "the courageous journey towards unity" (para. 79), which requires all to avoid "false irenicism" -- a phrase also used by Pius XI and even by the Second Vatican Council (Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 11).

And yet this call to the unity in the whole of the faith is nuanced by various other important considerations. First of all, dialogue as such is seen in a personal, existential way. Human beings cannot really come to self-realization except through a sincere gift of their selves. Thus "dialogue is an indispensable step along the path towards human self-realization, the self-realization both of each individual and of every human community ... [It] is not simply an exchange of ideas. In some way it is always an `exchange of gifts' [Lumen Gentium, para. 13]" (para. 28). The paragraph in Lumen Gentium to which the pope refers here is one of the Council's most forceful statements about the catholicity of the church. Thus dialogue is here seen in the context of the "gift-exchange" which is part of the catholicity of the church. We have seen that, when talking about the legitimate diversity of sister churches, the pope mentions theological formulations (para. 57). In the paragraphs relating specifically to dialogue between Catholics and Christians from Reformation communities, he does not) exclude the possibility that some differences are mutually complementary (para. 65), a point made even more strongly earlier in the encyclical:

   Intolerant polemics and controversies have made incompatible assertions out
   of what was really the result of two different ways of looking at the same
   reality. Nowadays we need to find the formula which, by capturing the
   reality in its entirety, will enable us to move beyond partial readings and
   eliminate false interpretations (para. 38).

Other important affirmations which qualify this insistence on unity in the whole truth include the fact that the truth should never be imposed on anyone (para. 3), that there is a "hierarchy of truths" (para. 39, citing Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 11) and that, as Pope John XXIII noted, "the deposit of the faith" may be distinguished from "the formulation in which it is expressed" (para. 81). Finally, in a paragraph devoted precisely to the demanding nature of unity in faith, John Paul points out that ecumenical dialogues have already uncovered "a certain fundamental doctrinal unity" which makes one hopeful about future progress:

   From this basic but partial unity it is now necessary to advance towards
   the visible unity which is required and sufficient and which is manifested
   in a real and concrete way, so that the churches may truly become a sign of
   that full communion in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church which
   will be expressed in the common celebration of the eucharist. The journey
   towards the necessary and sufficient visible unity, in the communion of the
   one church willed by Christ, continues to require patient and courageous
   efforts. In this process, one must not impose any burden beyond that which
   is strictly necessary (cf. Acts 15:28) (para. 78).

The suggestion that it could be possible to "demand too much" as the basis for unity is quite tantalizing. How is one to discern what is "required and sufficient"? The paragraphs devoted to the reception of the results of dialogue (paras 80-81) suggest that this will entail a process involving the whole people of God, with distinctive contributions by theologians and by the ordained ministers who exercise the church's teaching authority. In the end, dialogue is seen as a process of humble search for the truth, open to appreciating the doctrines and formulations presented by one's partners and to scrutinizing critically one's own doctrinal formulations (para. 36).

   Precisely because the search for full unity requires believers to question
   one another in relation to their faith in the one Lord, prayer is the
   source of enlightenment concerning the truth which has to be accepted in
   its entirety (para. 70).

Chapter III: The ministry of the bishop of Rome

The (Latin) title of chapter III takes the form of a question: How great is the path which lies before us? We have already discussed to some degree two of the principal themes of this chapter: ecumenical dialogue and its reception, and the need to reform after the example of the saints and martyrs of our various communities. Here I will concentrate on the third: the proposal that a unique "petrine" ministry in service to universal communion is part of Christ's will for the church.

Pope John Paul II first observes that only the Catholic Church has claimed to have preserved the "ministry of the successor of the apostle Peter, the bishop of Rome", whose purpose, as servus servorum Dei, is to serve unity -- but which, unfortunately, has sometimes been the cause of what now are painful recollections (para. 88). For these he asks forgiveness. As the ecumenical dialogues progress, there are signs of widespread interest in discussing a ministry of primacy (para. 89).

The pope's point of departure in discussing the origins of this ministry is the historical fact of the martyrdoms of both Peter and Paul in Rome. This gave the local church there the reputation of being "the church of Peter and Paul" (para. 90), the church where these two great apostles gave their ultimate witness to Christ.(12) Peter has an eminent place in the New Testament. Here the encyclical recalls the prominent role of Peter in the first half of Acts and how the gospels of Matthew (16:17-19), Luke (22:31-32) and John (21:15-19) all portray Jesus himself as singling out Peter and personally assigning to him a special role in the church.(13) Noting that Jesus' words in Luke -- and especially in John -- are said within the context of Peter's failure to admit that he knew the Lord, the pope suggests that Peter's ministry within the community originates in a powerful experience of the mercy and forgiveness of God, so much so that his subsequent ministry must be understood as a ministry of mercy. Applying this to the role of a "successor" to Peter, the pope writes: "Associating himself with Peter's threefold profession of love, which corresponds to the earlier threefold denial, his successor knows that he must be a sign of mercy. His is a ministry of mercy, born of an act of Christ's own mercy" (para. 93).

The use of scripture by Ut Unum Sint here seems to follow a pattern common to many of John Paul's encyclicals. There is no claim to "prove" a particular doctrine on the basis of selected scriptural passages. Rather, he uses texts which indicate the special attention paid to Peter by Jesus as a point of departure for a rather personal reflection -- in this case on the fact that Peter's ministry would have been stamped by mercy. The church has a special obligation in every age "to manifest to a world ensnared by its sins and evil designs that, despite everything, God in his mercy can convert hearts to unity and enable them to enter into communion with him" (para. 93). 14 Again there is no pretence of proving that there must be a successor to Peter's ministry. John Paul simply affirms as a matter of Catholic belief that "a ministry in which all the bishops recognize that they are united in Christ and all the faithful find confirmation for their faith ... must continue in the church so that under her sole head, who is Jesus Christ, she may be visibly present in the world as the communion of all his disciples" (para. 97).

Paragraph 94 could be read as an attempt to write a job-description for the ministry of primacy. It must be able to "ensure the communion of all the churches," a task carried out by exercising "vigilance over the handing down of the word, the celebration of the liturgy and the sacraments, the church's mission, discipline and the Christian life". The primate will "recall the requirements of the common good of the church, should anyone be tempted to overlook it in the pursuit of personal interests". At times he may have to declare "that this or that opinion being circulated is irreconcilable with the unity of the faith" or even, under carefully specified conditions, to "declare ex cathedra that a certain doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith". But all this "must always be done in communion" (paras 94-95). Finally, he asks:

   Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade
   church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and
   fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless
   controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us
   only the will of Christ for his church and allowing ourselves to be deeply
   moved by his plea "that they may all be one ... so that the world may
   believe that you have  sent me" (John 17:21) (para. 96)?

Such a dialogue would invite other Christians to consider how far they might also be able to agree that Christ's will for the church includes a unique succession to Peter in service to the unity of the whole communion. On the other hand, since it would explore "the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned" (para. 95), this invitation to dialogue presupposes an openness to modify the present forms of the exercise of this ministry.

Concluding thoughts

The foregoing commentary has tended to focus precisely on the re-establishment of unity among Christians. Were this to suggest that Ut Unum Sint -- or the ecumenical movement as such -- is fundamentally self-centred and preoccupied with merely internal Christian problems, it would be unfaithful to both the encyclical and the ecumenical movement. Each chapter of Ut Unum Sint closes by looking beyond the church. Some of the most gratifying ecumenical achievements of the past thirty years are precisely examples of cooperation and common promotion of justice, peace and the integrity of creation which have tried to make more human the conditions in which men and women today live (cf. paras 40, 43, 74-76; para. 76 warmly remembers the days of prayer for peace at Assisi). In addition, Ut Unum Sint recalls once more that a principal purpose of unity is to serve mission. Lack of unity constitutes a "grave obstacle ... for the proclamation of the gospel ... It is a matter of the love which God has in Jesus Christ for all humanity; to stand in the way of this love is an offence against him and against his plan to gather all people in Christ" (para. 99).

By comparison with the earlier Catholic vision of unity summarized in the introduction to this article, John Paul's encyclical suggests two fundamental changes which have occurred under the impact of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent ecumenical experience.

First, neither the Council nor the pope has asked other Christians to "return" to the Catholic Church. The reason for this seems to lie in the realization that it would not be adequate to think of other Christians as having "left the church". Indeed, to identify the church of Christ exclusively with the Roman Catholic Church is the view that has turned out to be inadequate. "The one church of Christ is effectively present" in other Christian communities and the decisive proof of this, if any were needed, are the saints and martyrs who have been formed in these communions and who have given their noble testimony before the whole world.

Second, an integral or full profession of faith in all that God has revealed is a necessary condition for full communion. The faith which justifies and saves is also a confession which assents to doctrines. Moreover these doctrines include not only the articles of faith contained in the creed but also convictions about the sacramental life and the ministerial and charismatic order of the church. The full profession of faith, however, is made by historically conditioned human beings, whose formulas cannot exhaustively express the mystery professed. Doctrines illumine each other because they are organically related (the "hierarchy of truths") and insights from diverse ecclesial traditions, even some which may have appeared to conflict, may upon further investigation turn out to be complementary. Revealed truth in its entirety must be professed by the church in the "obedience of faith" (Rom. 16:26). And yet, as Christians seek to cooperate with God's grace of unity, they must be careful not to impose any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary (cf. Acts 15:28; Ut Unum Sint, para. 78). The whole church -- the people guided by the gift of the sense of the faith (sensus fidei), theologians competent through study and pastors assisted by the grace of ordination -- will be able to discern, under the Holy Spirit, what is "required and sufficient" (paras 78, 80-81).

I believe that these two shifts are intimately related to the two texts of the Second Vatican Council which were called Dogmatic Constitutions: Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum. The former proposes an ecclesiology of communion which makes possible a much more nuanced -- and for that reason more accurate -- understanding of the extent of the presence of the church of Christ. This opens the way for seeing ecumenism as the path which leads from real, yet imperfect communion to full communion. Dei Verbum, on the other hand, teaches that the Word of God was made manifest in history. This makes possible a much more nuanced -- and for that reason more accurate -- understanding of the profession of revealed truth in its entirety. Full acceptance of the word of God entails also the acceptance of the historicity of its being spoken in our human language and communicated from one age and from one culture to another. This opens the way for seeing the acceptance of the fullness of revelation in a way which respects the maturation in coming to "know" it, about which St Paul so eloquently comments when he writes: "speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Eph. 4:15).

In writing Ut Unum Sint, John Paul II was very conscious of being at the beginning of the third millennium since the birth of Jesus (cf. paras 1, 3, 57, 100, 102). It was during the second millennium that most of the divisions which still wound the body of Christ occurred. For these, Christians need to ask pardon from one another, but most of all from God (cf. the jubilee letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, para. 34). Ut Unum Sint was a plea written by an old pastor, an old "apostle", who now, five years later, must realize without illusions that his life is "already being poured out like a libation" and his departure cannot be so far away (cf. 2 Tim. 4:6). His plea is: "Do not lose heart. Do not let impatience derail the path to full communion. With humility and repentance, God's grace can penetrate the fertile soil of our obedience and the unity for which Jesus prayed, the night before his great sacrifice, may yet blossom into unexpected fruition in our time."

NOTES

(1) One indication of its importance is the large number of published reactions it has occasioned. Angel Anton, "El ministerio petrino y/o papado en la `Ut unum sint' y desde la eclesiotogia sistematica", Gregorianum, vol. 79, 1998, pp. 503-505, lists 57 such publications; since then many more have appeared.

(2) Of the 162 footnotes in Ut Unum Sint, 86 refer to texts from Vatican II, almost half in the first chapter. This shows the pope's intention to tie his own ecumenical reflections very closely to earlier conciliar teaching. A novelty of this encyclical is the fact that it quotes documents emerging from ecumenical dialogues 18 times. This represents a unique form of the reception of ecumenical texts: incorporating them into the teaching of a leader from one of the churches.

(3) These three categories were emphasized by Msgr Eleuterio Fortino in presenting Ut Unum Sint to the press; Unitas, vol. 50, 1995, pp. 143-46; cf. W. Henn, OFM Cap., "The Roman Catholic Vision of Unity Which Is Emerging Under the Impact of Ecumenical Dialogue", in Seventh Forum on Bilateral Dialogues, Faith and Order Paper no. 179, Geneva, WCC, 1997, esp. pp. 13-17.

(4) "Christianity and World Religions", Origins, vol. 27, 1997-98, pp. 149, 151-66.

(5) This view of the church is suggested by Robert Bellarmine, De controversiis, 4,32: "[ecclesiam esse] coetum hominum, eiusdem christianae fidei professione et eorumdem sacramentorum communione colligatum, sub regimine legitimorum pastorum ac praecipue unius Christi in terris vicarii Romani pontificis."

(6) Cf. Augustine, Deride et symbolo, 10, 2 (A.D. 393).

(7) Cf. para. 20, which quotes John XXIII: "What unites us is much greater than what divides us." In Tertio Millennio Adveniente, para. 16, John Paul II reiterates this idea in calling for collaboration among Christians on the occasion of the year 2000.

(8) On the textual changes to Lumen Gentium and their significance cf. Francis Sullivan, "The Decree on Ecumenism: Presuppositions and Consequences", One in Christ, vol. 26, 1990, pp.7-19.

(9) The Decree on Ecumenism admits that "although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace, yet its members fail to live by them with all the fervour that they should" (Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 4).

(10) Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement, while quite positive about Ut Unum Sint in general, says it does not treat the doctrinal concerns of the Orthodox seriously enough; "Some Orthodox Reflections on Recent Papal Encyclicals", One in Christ, vol. 31, 1995, pp.278-80.

(11) E. Lanne, "L'Encyclique `Ut unum sint': Une etape en oecumenisme", Irgnikon, vol. 68, 1995, pp.214-29.

(12) Cf. the fascinating study by a Methodist theologian and a Catholic monk, W.R. Farmer and R. Kereszty, O.Cist., Peter and Paul in the Church of Rome: The Ecumenical Potential of a Forgotten Perspective, Mahwah NJ, Paulist, 1990.

(13) It may be appropriate at this point to cite the comments made by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos in Zurich some six months after the publication of Ut Unum Sint, reported in Istina, vol. 41, 1996, pp.185f.: "The idea that the Lord, in choosing the 12 apostles, conferred on one of them the task of governing the others has no basis in holy scripture. The Lord's mandate to Peter to be the shepherd of his sheep was meant to reiterate the mandate which he had given to all the apostles, and which Peter had transgressed by denying him three times and thus breaking his contact with the Lord. It did not mean therefore conferring on Peter a pastoral task superior to that of the other disciples."

(14) See W. Beinert, "Endechrist oder Zeichen der Barmherzigkeit? Die Moglichkeit einer ekklesiologischen Konvergenz zwischen Lutheranern und Katholiken uber das Papsttum", Catholica, vol. 50, 1996, pp. 121-43.

William Henn is a Capuchin-Franciscan friar from the USA who teaches systematic theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. He is a member of the Faith and Order commission and of the Reformed-Roman Catholic and Pentecostal-Roman Catholic bilateral dialogues.

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