John Carroll University

From the SelectedWorks of Edward P Hahnenberg

2005

The ysm tical and communion ecclesiology: historic parallels Edward P Hahnenberg, John Carroll University

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/edward_hahnenberg/18/ Edward P. Hahnenberg

The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Ecclesiology: Historical Parallels

Recogni

rticles and books treating communion ecclesiology often begin by A recalling the claim made at the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of (and repeated by John Paulll) that the ecclesiology of communion 'is the central and fundamental idea' of the documents of the .' During the 1970s and 1980s, the various i_mages and models of the Church proposed by Vatican II - body of Christ, sacrament, and especially - gradually gave way to increased emphasis on the notion of communion as a comprehensive category. argued around the time of the synod: 'For the Church, there is only one way into the future: the way pointed by the Council, the full implemen- tation of the Council and its communion ecclesiology.'2 While Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, later called communion ecdesiology the 'one basic ecclesiology'. 1 T hese statements recall the enthusiasm generated by another ecclesio- logical model recovered by Catholics decades earlier: the model of the Church as the mystical body of Christ. During the 1920s and 1930s, Paul's organic image for the Christian community burst onto the scene, a theological revival led by figures like , Karl Adam, Erich Przywara, and Emile Mersch and eventually endorsed by Pius XII. The confident claim of the 1985 synod evokes the fina lity with which Pius Xll spoke in 1943:

I. Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, 'The Final Report', Origins 15 (19 December 1985) 444-50. at 448; john Paul II, The Vocation and Mis.

The following essay explores some of the historical parallels between these two twentieth-century models and observes some of their shared problems. I am interested in reflecting on past developments in ecclesiol- ogy and in looking toward future theological reflection on the Church. Over the past three decades, the use of the elastic and encompassing con- cept of communion as a lens for interpreting the Council has generated both significant consensus and some debate. But history suggests that, like the model of mystical body, today's ecclesiology of communion will exert its influence and then give way to new and complementary ways of talk- ing about the Church.

Church models in history and the Church in history

The New Testament offers multiple images of the Christian commu- nity. The Church is a flock, a field, a temple, the bride and body of Christ , a holy priesthood, God's people - one study counts over ninety different designations.' Each image says something about the Church community, none says everything. At different points over the past century, one or another of these images emerged (or an extra-biblical image was adopted) as a kind of key, an attempt to integrate all the various insights offered by this plurality of images and so offer a synthetic vision of Church, an eccle- siology. famously introduced models to ecclesiology, high- lighting this second order attempt at synthesis: 'When an image is employed reflectively and critically to deepen one's theoretical ur\der- standing of a reality it becomes what is today called a "model" .'6 Church models are rarely dreamt up and imposed on the community; instead, most are drawn from scripture or theological reflection or cultural forms as a way of interpreting, explaining, and arranging data already present to

4. Pius XII, 'Mystici CI'Yri>Oris Christi: of Pope Pius XII on the Mystical Body of Christ', no. 13, in The Papal Enc:tdicals: 1939-1958, ed. Claudia Carlen (New York: McGrath, 1981) 37-63, at39-40. 5. See Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 266-69. 6. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden Ciry, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974) 21. Joseph A. Komonchak argues that, while a pluralism of Church images exists at a 'first order' of reflec- tion, it is precisely the msk of the ecdesiologist 'to attempt a critical and sysrematic inte- gration of all the insights generated by the first-order images' ('The Synod of 1985 and the Notion of the Church', Chicago Swdies 26 [1987]330-45, at 343 ). My goal is not to demon- smote this claim, but simply to illustrate how in recent histOry this inregrarion has occurred. the student of theology or the active parishioner. For Dulles, models are not only explanatory, but also exploratory; that is, they both summarize what we know and lead heuristically in new directions.' Ecclesiological models 'catch on' when they account for both doctrinal claims and peo- ple's experience, and when they offer an accessible pattern for addressing important questions. Then, a constellation takes shape that provides a new view, further insight into the reality that is the Church. This essay studies Church models in their historical development. To a certain extent, the five, and later six, models Dulles identified (Church as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant, and com- munity of disciples) function in his comparative approach as a-temporal ideals. But models have a history: they emerge, have an influence, and then fade or are subsumed in to new models or perspectives. Church mod- els, in and of themselves, say very little. But different models privilege dif- ferent sets of questions, and it is largely the questions of an era that determine which models come to the fore.8 Thus, on the one hand, the societas perfecta. model - paradigmatic from 1540 to 1940 - privileged the visible and institutional aspects of the Church and served the Catholic response both to the challenge and to the claims of the emerging nation states of Europe. On the other hand, Vatican ll's lan- guage of 'people of God' privileged the themes of baptismal equality and the Church's eschatological orientation, offering categories for post-con- ciliar questions concerning the role of the laity and Church refonn. The models that emerge are an insight into those questions and issues facing the community; they are the shorthand for the concerns of a time. The following paragraphs explore parallels between two twentieth- century models: the mystical body ecclesiologies of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s and the communion ecclesiologies of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.9 In skeletal form, I chart the recent history of reflection on the Church, ask- ing of each of these two ecclesiological interpretations: Where did it begin? How did it rake shape? What was or might be its subsequent his- tory? These two models share common roots, they have been employed in theological accounts and Church teaching in similar ways, and they are marked by some of the same problems. As earlier exclusive appeals to the C hurch as mystical body were later complemented by the language of people of God, so it seems likely that today's focus on communion will be complemented by other language and new, or newly recovered, models.

7. Dullo!s, Ml>dels of the Churcf•, 22-:2.3. 8. Nicholas M. Healy helpfully points out that it is not the ecclesiological model that is most significant, but rather the various construals that govern the model's use (Church, WOTkl and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 45). This obse.rvation suggests that an historical approach is valu- able in coming w understand more clearly what gu ides the use of a pan:icular model. 9. Alberto Melloni compares the 1992 CDF document on communion ecclesiology to Pius Xll's Mystici Corporis in 'Note sullessico della Communionis notio', Cristianesimo nella scoria 16 (1995) 316- 19. This shifting of models follows the force of time, but it also flows from the models themselves. For both mystical body and communion ecclesi- ologies, as they have been developed by some theologians and appropri- ated by the , have shown a tendency to account inadequately for the character of the C hurch as 'historic subject' .10 The term 'historic subject' is used here in a way roughly equivalent to Nicholas Healy's cat- egory 'concrete Church', a category he warns should not be 'thought of reductively as merely the visible or empirical Church in contradistinction to its more "spiritual'' or "theological" aspects. Rather, the latter "aspects", including most fundamentally the active presence of the Holy Spirit, are constitutive of the concrete religious body.'11 Appeal to the his- toric subject does not dismiss the Church's ultimate source in the triune God; it does not, in a kind of ecclesiological , pit Church as historic subject against Church 'as mystery'. The categories 'historic sub- ject' and 'concrete Church' do, nevertheless, emphasize the reality of the Church's agency in h istory, its human, social, limited existence and activ- ity in time. Insofar as Church models fail to fully attend to the Church as historic subject, they risk an ecclesiological Monophys itism in which the Church's divine source, it's character as mystery, absorbs or ignores the concrete, historical community. This tendency can be seen over the last century in versions of mystical body theology and communion ecclesi- ologies that speak less comfortably about change or reform and that are less able to explain and explore difficult pastoral issues. Somewhat ironi- cally, it is precisely this discomfort with the categories of history evident in these models that gives way to history. Time pushes their claims for eternal and universal significance toward other ways of describing the Church.

Mystical body ecclesiology

The idea that the Church is the 'body of Christ' goes back to the ear- liest reflections on C hristian community, the letters of Paul. 'Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it.'12 Authors throughout the first millennium repeatedly drew on this Pauline metaphor to link the realities

10. The term comes from the International Theological Commission: '"Mystery" here refers to the Church as deriving from the , while "historic subject" has to do with the Church as a historical agent, contributing to history's overall direction.... [T)he peo- ple of God is simultaneously mystery and historic subject, in such a fashion that the mys- tery constilutes the historic subject and the historic subject d iscloses rhe mystery.' ('Sdect Themes of Ecclesiology on rhe Occasion of the Eighth Anniversary of the Closing of the Second Vatican Council', in lnrenuuional Theological Commission: Texc.s and Documenc.s 1969-1985, ed. Michael Sharkey [San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) 267-304, ar 274). 11. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, 4. 12. l Cor 12:27. See also Rom 12:4-8; 1 Cor 10:17; 12:12-31; Eph 1:22-23; 2:16; 4:1-6; Col 1:18; 1 :24; 2: 19; 3:15. In Romans and 1 Corinthians, Christ is equated with the entire body that is the community. In Ephesians and Colossians, Christ is described as head of the body. of Christ, Church, and Eucharist - speaking of Christ's 'mystical body' present in the Eucharist as signifying and realizing the 'true body' (verum corpus) of Christ that is the Church. With the controversies of in the eleventh century and the resultant increased emphasis on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the adjectives were reversed. Subsequent theology so identified Christ's physical body with the Eucharist that the Eucharist became the verum corpus; the Church became the corpus mysticum. 13 Appearing in medieval treatises on Christ's grace of headship and in spiritual manuals of the Tridentine and early modem eras, the theme of the mystical body of Christ became tangential to treatments of the Church preoccupied with the mechanics of ecclesi- astical structures. Responding to the Reformation challenge to papacy and hierarchy, Catholic Counter-Reformation theology asserted just those elements under attack. Over time, treatises on the Church emerged describing it not with Paul's organic image, but defining it in the juridi- cal language of political theory - a 'perfect society' complete in itself and subordinate to no other. 14

The roots of a model Only in the nineteenth century did the theme of the mystical hody emerge as the basis for a systematic account of the Church.11 The ecclesi- ologist of Romantic Idealism, Johann Adam Mohler (1796-1838), drew from Paul and patristic sources a vision of the Church as a living, devel- oping organism. The genius of this Tubingen theologian was tO consider the Church not simply as the bearer of the mystery of faith, but as itself an aspect of this mystery. 16 The Church cannot be reduced to its institu- tional structures, but is in its essence a deeper reality, the mystery of God's presence to human beings. Mohler thus set the stage for modem ecclesi- ology by offering the question: What is the relationship between this deeper dimension, the Church as mystery, and the Church's outward his- torical forms? His early work proposed a creative and dynamic answer to this question, one that stressed the activity of the Spirit in individual and community. As the years passed, Mohler's dialogue with Protestantism

13. , Corpus Mysricum: L.'eucharistie erl'eglise au moyen age, 2nd ed. (Paris: Au bier, 1949; orig. ed. 1944) 23-135. See also , 'The Idea of the Church in St. ', in The Mystery of the Church (Baltimore: Helicon, 1965) 53-74. 14. On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, Joachim Salaverri's influential Sacrae the- ologiae summa stated: 'The Church is a perfect society and absolutely independent with full legislative, judicial, and coercive power.' Cited in Patrick Granfield, 'The Church as Societas Perfecta in the Schemata of Vatican 1', Church HistOry 48 (1979) 431-46, at 441. 15. Emile Mersch's The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Docrrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, trans. John R. Kelly (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1938; orig. ed. 1936) remains a basic resource on the development of this rheme. 16. Michael J. Himes, 'The Development of Ecclesiology: Modemiry to the Twentieth Century', in The Gifc of the Church: A Textbook on Ecclesiology in Honor of Parrick Granfield , O .S B , ed. Peter C. Phan (Collegeville: liturgical Press, 2000) 45-67. at 59. See id., Ongoing Incarnation: Jollllnn Adam M6hJer and the Beginnings of Modem Ecclesiology (New York: Crossroad, 1997). and his attempt to clarify his presentation of the God-world relationship led him from a vision of the Spirit animating community to a christolog- ical, incarnational ecclesiology.17 'Thus, the visible Church, from the point of view here taken, is the Son of God himself, everlastingly mani- festing himself among men in a human form, perpetually renovated, and eternally young - the permanent incarnation of the same, as in Holy Writ, even the faithful are called "the body of Christ".'18 Mohler's view of the Church as the continuation of the Incarnation in space and time influenced the nineteenth-century Roman school of (1794-1876), Carlo Passaglia (1812-87), Klemens Schrader (1820-75), Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816-86), and especially Matthias Joseph Scheeben (1 835-88). These theologians offered neither a narrow neoscholasticism nor creative systems, rather the Roman school represented a conservative attempt to synthesize biblical, patristic, and Scholastic themes - something of an advance on the theology of the day. The later work of Mohler, Symbolik - and the influence of the Tubingen school in general - introduced, in an initial way, history to ecclesiology. More importantly, it offered Christology as a guiding principle. With the help of Schrader, Passaglia published in 1853-54 the two-volume De eccle- sia Christi, organized around the theme of the body of Christ. Scheeben's influential 1865 Die Mysterien des Christentums organized all of around one central idea, that of the incarnation, which is the exterior movement of the Trinity, the base of the Church, the body of Christ, and is continued in faith and in the sacraments. Perrone drew the incarnational theology of the Tubingen school into the orbit of the , while Schrader's lectures at the Collegium Romanum on the mystical body anticipated the first draft of Vatican l's document on the Church.19 On January 21, 1870, the schema on the Church (Supremi pastoris) was presented to the participants at the First Vatican CounciL The first chap- ter of this initial draft was titled 'The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ'. The chapter began:

The only-begotten Son of God ... appeared in the likeness of man, having assumed the form of our body so that earthly corporeal men, putting on the new man which is created in the image of God in

17. Compare M6hler's 1825 Unity in the Church or The Principle of Catholicism Presemed in the Spirit of the Church Fmhers of the First Three Centuries, trans. Peter C. Erb (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University qf America Press, 1996) with his incamational approach of 1832 in Symbolism: Exposirion of clte Doctrinal Diff1!1'ences Between Cacltolics and Protestants as Evidencea lry Their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: Crossroad, 1997). 18. M6hler, Symbolism, 259. 19. See Aug. Kerkvoorde, 'La theologie du "corps mystique" au dix-neuvieme siecle', Nouvelk revue clteowgique 67 (1945) 1026-38; Heriben Schauf, De Corpore Christi Mystico sive de Ecc!esia Chrisri Theses: Die Eklencyclicals of Leo XII and Leo XIII, but it began to appear in Catholic theology with growing frequency during the 1920s and 1930s.21 Surveying periodicals in , French, and English, the }\merican Jesuit Joseph Bluett observed that from 1920-25 the number of articles treating the mystical body equalled that of the previous twenty years. The output dou- bled in the following five years, and continued to grow, reaching a kind of climax (in terms of volume) around 19 J 7. 22 20. The Teac.hing of the as Contained in Her Documents, ed. Josef Neuner, Heinrich Roos, and , trans. Geoffrey Stevens (Staten Island, N .Y.: Alba House, 1967) 212. Official rex t of Suf!remi paswris in Sacrorum conciliornm nova e1 amplissima col- lectio, ed. J. D. Mansi (Paris and Leipzig, 1901-1927) 51: 539-53. Text ofTametsi Deus at Mansi 53: 308-32. See Granfield, 'The Church as Societas Perfecta in the Schemata of Vatican I', 431-46; j. Madoz, 'La Iglesia cuerpo mistico de Crisro segun el primer esquema "De Ecclesia" en el concilio Vaticano', Revisra Expafiola de teolagia 31 (1943) 159-81. 21. The encyclicals of Leo Xlll suggest a growing appreciation of the Church as the mys- tical body of Christ - an image that nevertheless remains alongside the pope's view of the Church as a 'perfect society'. Compare his earlier lmmortale Dei no. 8 with the later Satis Cognitum nos. 3-5. 10 and Oivinum /Uud Munus no. 5. in Claudia Carlen, ed., The Papal Encyclicals: 1878-/903 (New York: McGrath, 1981) 109,389-91,395-96, 412. 22. Joseph). Bluett, 'The Mystical Body of Christ: 1890-1940', Theological Studies 3 (\942) 261-89, at 262. Other helpful bibliographies include Bernard-Dominique Dupuy, 'Le mys- tere de I'Eglise: bibliographie organisee', la Vie spirituelle 104 ( 1961) 70-85; J. Eileen Scully, 'The Theology of the Mystical Body of Christ in French Language Theology 1930-1950', Irish Theological Quarterly 58 (1992) 58-74, at 70-72. On German ecclesiology during the first half of the twentieth cenrury, see Rudolf Michael Schmitz, Aufbruch zum Geheimnis der Kirche )esu Christi: Aspekte der katholischen Ekldesiologie des deu t.schen Sf!rachraumes t'On 1918 bis 1943 (St. Ottilien: EOS, 1991 ). See also P. Stanislas Jaki, Les Tendances nouvelles de l'Ecclesiologie (Rome: Casa Edirrice Herder, 1957). Already in 1922, Romano Guardini had declared that 'the C hurch is awakening in souls'.13 By this phrase, Guardini referred to the growing awareness that the Church is not first an extem al institution, transmit- ting life to its members as a viaduct transfers water. Rather, the Church is life; believers are incorporated into the Church and the Church lives in them. Guardini blamed an institutional view of the Church on the indi- vidualism of the modem world. He offered the image of the mystical body of Christ as a response to the search for commun ity that pervaded Europe 2 - particularly - following the First World War. • Guardini and the Ti.ibingen theologian Karl Adam, whose 1924 Das Wesen des Katholizismus quickly became a best seller, introduced the theme of the mystical body to an intemational audience. Scriptural and patristic stud- ies by scholars such as Gustave Bardy, Louis Bouyer, Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, and others, contributed to a broad recovery of early Christian ecclesiological themes, particularly the theme of the body of Christ. Meanwhile, the theological work of G uardini and Adams, Karl Feckes, Erich Przywara, L. Deimel, and Yves Congar promoted this new approach to ecclesiology between the two world wars.25 Mystical body theology grew up in the twentieth century in contrast to the institutionalism of Counter-Reformation ecclesiology and. the indi- vidualism of Enlightenment philosophy. It took shape as an affirmation of the Church's mystery dimension, its participation in grace and continua- tion of Christ's saving presence. This invisible reality - the mystical body of Christ- was afftrmed, but how it was understood in relationship to the visible Church on earth was variously understood. Three influential interpretations appearing during the 1930s reveal a range of views. Sebastian Tromp's four volume Corpus Christi quod est ecclesia represented a traditional attempt to harmonize the ancient image of the mystical body with the institutional and juridical approach of the nee-Scholastic

23. Romano Guardini, Vom Sinn des Kirches (Mainz: Matthias Grunwald, 1990; orig. ed. 1922) 19 24. 'In 1915 Max Scheler predicted that when the Great War came to an end, Oennans would desire a stronger sense of themselves as a people (Volk) and that they would act on this desire by seeking guidance from Catholicism.' Robert A. Krieg, Romano Guardini: A Precursor of Vatican II (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997) 47. Active in building Church-based social services in Germany betwe.en the two world wars, Constantin Noppel, S.J., drew on the ecclesiological theme of the mystical body to develop a theology of the . See Constantin Noppel, Shepherd of Souls : The Pastoral OffiCe in che Mystical Body of Christ (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1939; orig. ed. 1937); id., Die neue Pfarrei: Eine Grundlegung (Freiburg: Herder, 1939). 25. Note the overview articles by Yves Congar, 'Le Corps mystique du Christ', La Vie spir- itueUe 50 (1937) 113-38; Erich Przywara, 'Corpus Christi Mysticum - Eine Bilanz (1940)', in Katholische Krise, ed. Bernhard Gem (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1967) 123-52; D. C. Lialine, 'Une etape en ecclesiologie. Reflexions sur l'encyclique "Mystici Corporis'", lrenikon 19 (1946) 129-52,283-317 and lninikon 20 (1947) 34-54; Avery Dulles, 'A HalfCenrury of Ecclesiology', Theological Studies 50 (1989) 419-42, at 421-23. The Swiss theologian Charles joumet defies easy categorization, offering before Vatican II an original approach that integrated themes of mystical body theology into an scheme bu ilt around Aristotle's four causes. period.26 Tromp argued that the model of the mys tical body could not be played off against the institutional model, for the early Church did not envision the mystical body as a purely spiritual association, but always insisted on the visible unity of the body which is the Church. At the other end of the spectrum, Karl Pelz's controversial 1939 book, Der Christ als Christus, took to an extreme an emphasis on the body's spiritual dimension. His view of the intimate relationship between Christ and his mystical body led Pelz to compare this unity to the . The lack of attention to the visible and juridical aspects of the Church and his close identification of Christ and the Christian led to fears of a false mys- ticism that would obscure the distinction between C reator and creation. Pelz's book was ul timately placed on the Index.11 Finally, the important contribution of Emile Mersch represented a middle position. In his his- torical studies and constructive theology, Mersch viewed Christ at work in the Church from within rather than as an efficient cause operating from outside, which was the common view among neo-Scholastics. Not denying the visible dimension of the Church, Mersch did distinguish between the visible society of the baptized under the direction of its legit- imate shepherds and the mystical body which is the communion of those who live in the life of Christ.28 In his 194 3 encyclical, Mystici Corporis Christi, Pius XII endorsed this theological theme, claiming that there is no more noble or sublime description of the Church than 'the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ' .29 This encyclical, the most comprehensive papal statement on the Church to Vatican II, was a careful bringing together of previous teaching and new theological directions - a welcome, though modest, contribution. The Pope favoured Tromp's attempt to harmonize the previous societas perfecta paradigm of Church with the recovered theme of the mystical body.10 Thus the encyclical contained a strong reaffirmation of the visible and juridical nature of the Church; and given Pius XU's ecclesiological presuppositions, visible and juridical meant a Church h ierarchically, and even monarchically, constituted. For Pius XII the invisible and the visi- ble dimensions of Church are one and the same; the spiritual community of Christ's body is the institutional, hierarchically-ordered society. The result is that, in Mystici Corporis, the pliable image of the mystical body serves to justify prevailing patterns of authority and power. Recognizing a role for those who enjoy charismatic gifts, the encyclical reminded its readers that 'those who exercise sacred power in this Body are its first and

26. See Sebastian Tromp, Corpus Christi quod est ecclesia, 4 vo1s. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1937; rev. 1946, 1960, 1972}. 27. See Lialine. 'Une etape en ecclesiologie'. /n!nikon 19 ( 1946) 146-50. 28. See Mersch, The Whole Christ; id., The Theology of the Mystical Body, trans. Cyril Yollert (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1951; orig. ed. 1944). 29. Pius XU, Mysrici Carporis Christi, no. 13 30. Tromp is generally recognized as !he primary author of Mystici Corporis. chief members'.;1 The strong association between the Church's invisible head (Christ) and its visible head (the Pope) affirmed papal centraliza- tion. In Mystici Corporis, the prerogatives of the of Rome, Christ's 'Vicar on earth', who 'governs His Mystical Body in a visible and normal way', were asserted in no uncertain terms.12 Thus the model of mystical body itself, while offering a deeper theological ground to ecclesiology, had little influence on the existing understanding of the Church's concrete, historical existence. Meanwhile, the encyclical's identification of the mystical body with the Church left the status of other Christian traditions and the place of non-Catholics baptized in Christ unclear. In the well- known passage, Pius XU stated:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults com- mitted .... lt follows that those who are divided in faith or govern- ment cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine SpiritY

The claim that membership in the mystical body of Christ requ ires membership in the Roman Catholic Church raised objections from many Catholic theologians. Scripture scholars pointed out that for Paul valid incorporates the believer into the body of Christ. Canonists pointed out that the Code of recognizes that baptism makes one a person in the Church, even though heresy or schism may forfeit cer- tain rights of individuals or groups. Ecumenists observed that the encycli- cal did not adequately distinguish non-Catholic Christians from non-Christians.14 Pius Xll's 1947 encyclical on the liturgy, , addressed some of these concerns by teaching that through baptism Christians are made members of Christ's mystical body. But the theme of the mystical body continued to exist in Church teaching somewhat uncomfortably alongside a juridical and institutional approach. The mixed reception of Mysrici Corporis illustrates a growing sense of unease with the mystical body model itself. While conservative com- mentators, appealing to the neo-Scholastic clarity of the societas perfecta model, accused these mystical body theologies of presenting an image of the Church vague, diffuse, and hard to pin down, figures such as Erich Przywara, L. Deimel. and Mannes Dominikus Koster engaged in a more

31. Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, no. 17. 32. Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, no. 40. 33. Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, no. zz. 34. See summary in Dulles, 'A Half Century of Ecclesiology', 423. nuanced critique.35 This model alone seemed unable to clarify the rela- tionship between the visible and the invisible in the Church; its empha- sis on the mystery dimension seemed ill equipped to specify the Church as an historic subject. Mystici Corporis confirmed the suspicion that 'mys- tical body' could be invoked in support of whatever structural reality needed support. While the encyclical gave the juridical concept of the Church a deeper theological base, its emphasis on the papal office exceeded even the language of the First Vatican Council. These limita· tions called for new approaches and new models. The rise of new models and perspectives In the years after Mystici Corporis, enthusiasm for the theology of the mystical body began to fade. The question of membership had thrown doubt on the coherence of the encyclical; meanwhile, disillusionment grew with the model's appeal to an abstract community spirit - following d1e war, Germans were especially conscious of the dangers of an uncritical embrace of Volkgeist. 36 While the post-war period was one of theological vitality, even before Pius Xll's encyclical critical studies had begun to appear that questioned mystical body as the comprehensive model of Church. 'The very return to the sources that brought about the rise of Mystical Body theology contained a dynamism that evoked other images.'37 Mannes Dominikus Koster's Ekklesiologie im Werden was seminal. In this 1940 book, Koster called the idea of the mystical body 'pre-theo- logical', claiming the image was responsible for keeping ecclesiology in a pre-scientific, merely metaphorical stare. He argued that the theology of the mystical body, as filtered through Augustine and present in much of German ecclesiology, tended to reduce the Church to an aggregate of indi- viduals sanctified by grace. That is, in its preference for the mystical, ecde- siology was not attending to its proper subject, the Church as a corporate historical reality. Koster believed that a truly theological definition of the Church must begin with the idea of the people of God - an idea that he believed had a stronger foundation in scripture and liturgy.38 35. Przywara criticized the papal letter of 'a tendency to a certain vague romanticism, a tendency to conceive the Mystical Body simply as the domain of grace, an inclination to see the consequent aberration of imagining a permanent physical presence of Christ in each Christian', while still recognizing that the encyclical avoided the extremes of the Church as a mystical milieu or legal institution. Cited in Thomas F. O'Meara, Erich Przywara,$.). : His Theology and His World Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002) 165. See Mannes Dominikus Koster, Ekklesiologie im Werden (Paderbom: Bonifacius-Dnu:kerei, 1940); L. Dei mel, Leib Christi: Sinn uru! Grenzen einer Deutung des innerkirchlichen Lebens (Freiburg: Herder, 1940). 36. See Kevin McNamara, 'The Ecdesiological Movement in Germany in the Twentieth Century', The Irish Ecclesiastical Record 102 (1964) 345·58, at 352. 37. Dulles, 'A Half Century of Ecclesiology', 423. 38. Koster, EkklesioliJgie im Werden, 22; See id., Volk Gortes im Wachsrrum des Glaubens (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1950). Congar describes the influence of Koster's work on the Second Vatican Council in 'D'une "Ecclesiologie en gestation" a Chap. I et II', in Kirche im Wachscum des Glaubens: Festgabe Mannes Dominikus Koster zum siebzjg- scen Gebrmsu:rg, ed. Otto Hermann Pesch and Hans-Dieter Langer (Freiburg: Paulusverlag, 1971) 366-77. Throughout the later 1940s and the 1950s, the theology of the mysti· cal body was overshadowed by a flood of studies on the Church as the people of God. Yves Congar lists a host of Protestant and Catholic the- ologians- including G. von Rad, Emst Kasemann, Nils A. Dahl, Lucien Cerfaux, A. Oepke, Frank Norris, and others - who explored the scrip- tural foundations of the concept.l9 These studies on the people of God theme had the effect of affirming the continuity between the two Testaments and of placing the Church within the larger story of history. Lucien Cerfaux argued that Paul did not offer a fundamental def- inition of the Church as the body of Christ. Rather, Paul began with the Jewish view of Israel as the people of God and saw Christians as the new people, called the Church of God; body of Christ was used by Paul to stress both the unity in these churches and their mystical union with Christ.40 Eschatology made its way into ecclesiology through the biblical language of a pilgrim people. Already in 1938, Robert Grosche had argued that the image of the Church as the pilgrim people of God gave greater attention to the Church's eschatological orientation.41 Anscar Vanier's The People of God complemented his The Spirit and the Bride by drawing attention to the Church's human and historical - and thus lim- ited - existenceY Following the Second \Vorld \Var, as the themes of sal- vation history, eschatology, and ecumenism received more attention, people of God entered a variety of ecclesiologies; in different ways, the German historian of doctrine Michael Schmaus and the canonist Klaus Morsdorf came to focus their views of the Church on this concept. n Twenty years after Vatican II, Joseph Ratzinger summarized the gains associated with the recovery of 'people of God':

So, therefore, if we wish to sum up, by means of main points, the most prominent elements of the concept of the people of God that were important for the Council, it may be said that it was here that the historical character of the Church became clear, the unity of the history of God with his people, the internal unity of the people of God beyond the boundaries of sacramental states of life, the escha- tological dynamic, that is, the provisional and fragmentary charac- ter of the Church always in need of renewal, and finally the ecumenical dynamic, namely, the various ways of being joined or

39. See Yves Congar, 'The Church: The People of God', in The Church and Mankind, ed. , Concilium 1 (Glen Rock, N.J.: Paulist, 1965) 11-37, at 16 n.6. 40. Lucien Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of St. Paul, trans. Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (New York: Herder and Herder, 1959; orig. ed. 1942) 262-86. 41. &e Robert Grosche, Pilgemde Kirche (Freiburg: Herder, 1938). 42. T he Spirit and the Bride (1935) and The People of God (1937) can be found in The Collecred Works of Abboc Vonier (Westminster, Md .: Newman, 1952) 2:3-22 5. 43. See Michael Schmaus, Die Lehre von der Kirche, vol. 3 of Kacholische Dogmacik (Munich: Max Hueber, 1958) 204-39; Klaus Morsdorf, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, 3 vols. (Munich: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1964). related to the Church which are possible and real, even beyond the confines of the Catholic Church. ....,

Few pre-conciliar accounts denied a place for the former mystical body theme; most Catholic theologians saw body of Christ and people of God as complementary images or models of the Church. While recognizing that 'people of God' emphasizes the Church's continuity with Israel and its historical existence, Congar stressed that 'body of Christ' was neces- sary to bring out what was new in the New Covenant: a share in the life of Christ. 'Under the new Dispensation, that of the promises realized through the incarnation of the Son and the gift of the Spirit (the "Promised One"), the People of God was given a status that can be expressed only in the categories and in the of 4 Christ.' ' Congar goes on to note this complementary approach in the work of R. Schnackenburg, I. Backes, Joseph Ratzinger, C. Algermissen, Louis Bouyer, and Georges Florovsky. The view that body of Christ and people of God are complementary held in balance an earlier emphasis on the mystery and eternal dimension of the Church with the new appreci- ation for the Church as a historic and changing subject. This was the view that guided the discussion at the Second Vatican Council.% The initial draft document on the Church prepared for the Second Vatican Council evoked a method and a paradigm that were fading. Highlighting the image of the Church as the mystical body of Christ, the document proceeded, much like Mystici CorpoTis, by subsuming this image under the juridical categories of the institutional moddY As the Council participants left behind an exclusively nee-Scholastic and deductive approach and favoured language drawn from Scripture and liturgy, a plu- rality of images emerged. On the one hand, the pre-eminent place granted to the language of mystical body was gradually relativized along- side other biblical images - subsequent drafts of what would become Lumen Gentium considered these images together under an initial chap- ter on 'The Church as Mystery'. On the other hand, the language of peo- ple of God rose in prominence to become arguably the most important way of describing the Church present in the document. Richard McBrien

44. Jose.ph Ratzinger, 'The Ecclesiology of Vatican II', Origins 15 ( 14 November 1985) 370-76, at 375. Ratzinger's own early reseMch studied the image of people of God in Augustine and his antecedents (see id., Volk und Haus Gones in Augustins Lehre von deT Kirche [Munich: Zink, 1954]). 45. Congar, 'The Church: The People of God' 35. See id., Le concile de Vatican II. Son Eglise: Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ {Paris: Beauchesne, 1984). 46. For a summary of the way in which this synthesis view entered into the discussions at Vatican 11, see Herwi Rikhof, The Concept of Church: A Methodological Inquiry into !he Use of Metaphors in Ecclesiology (London: Sheed and Ward, 1981) 39-66. 47. For a view of successive drafts of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, arranged in synoptic charts, see Comriturionis Dogmaticae Lumen Gentium: S:;mopsis Hisrorica, ed. Giuseppe AII)Crigo and Franca Magistretti (Bologna: lsciwro per le Scienze Religiose, 1975). observes: 'The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) made the People-of- God image its dominant image of the Church, more prominent even than Body of Christ, meriting an entire chapter in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.'48 T he Council presented not a synthetic, systematic ecde- siology, but adopted a descriptive mode; thus, various images were invoked as required by different themes as they appeared in the documents. As a new model arose attentive to the Church's concrete, historical existence, it served to complement the strengths of the former emphasis on the Church's mystery dimension. People of God complemented mystical body in a vision of a Church responding to the signs of the times. Communion ecclesiology

Like the image of the body of Christ, the language of 'communion' (koin8nia) appears in the New Testament and was developed during the early centuries of the Church. Paul speaks of Christians called in faith to fellowship with God and with one another (Phlm 6). This fellowship includes communion with Christ (1 Cor 1:9), the Spirit (2 Cor 13:13), and the Father (1 Jn 1:3), and there exists communion among Christians in their sharing and service to those in need (Acts 2:42). The Eucharist is described as a communion in the body and blood of Christ ( 1 Cor 10:16-17)!9 After the New Testament, the writings of lrenaeus, , , Basil of Caesara, and others speak of communion in the celebration of the Eucharist, in the ministry of the bishop, and in the mystery of the Trinity. Concrete practices in the early Church - such as the sharing of eucharistic bread among altar communities, the participa- tion of neighbouring bishops at episcopal , regional synods, the circulation of letters, and so on - demonstrate the practice of com- munion among local churches. 50 Gradually, this mutual interchange among local churches gave way to the increased authority of the pre-emi- nent sees, especially Rome; theologies affirming spiritually-rooted Church union were replaced by legislation regulating juridical bonds. Like body of Christ, the themes of communion were replaced by the insti- 1 tutionalism of the Latin West. 5 48. 'People of God', in The Ha-rperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, ed. Richard P. McBrien (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995) 985. In 1974, Avery Dulles stated, 'The principal paradigm of the Church in the documents of Vatican II is that of the People of God.' (Models of the Church, 48). 49. For an exhaustive review of New Testament references to koinllnia, see John Michael McDermott, 'Biblical Doctrine of Koinonia', Biblische Zeitschrift 19 (1975) 64-77, 219-33; John Reumann, 'Koinonia in Scripture: Survey of Biblical Texts', in On the Way co Fuller Koinonia: OffiCial RepOTt of the Fifch World Conference on Faith and Order, ed. Thomas F. Best and Gunther Gassmann, Faith and Order Paper n.l66 (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1994) 37-69. 50. Michael A. Fahey, 'Eccksiae SOTOTes ac Fratres: Sibling Communion in the Pre-Nicene Christian Era', CTSA Proceedings 36 (1981) 15-38. 51. Yyes Congar, 'Pe Ia communion des eglises a une ecclesiologie de l'eglise universelle', in L:Episcopac ec l'Eglise universelle, ed. Yves Congar and B.-D. Dupuy, Unam Sa11Cram 39 (Paris: Cerf, 1962) 227-60. The roots of a model Communion ecclesiology, as a modem phenomenon, implies some configmation of these patristic themes of spiritual fellowship, unity sym- bolized in the eucharistic celebration, and attention to the interplay between the local and the universal in the These themes reap- peared in the nineteenth cenrury, where Johann Adam Mohler again serves as a seminal figure for Roman Catholic theology. The incarna- tional ecclesiology of his Symbolik, the focus of the latter part of his short career, would have immediate influence in Germany and, via the Roman School, an indirect impact on the rise of mystical body theology. But Mohler's early pneumatological ecclesiology, found in Die Einheit, was only rediscovered in the 1930s and 1940s by figures such as Joseph Geiselmann, Heinrich Fries, Pierre Chaillet, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and especially Yves Congar.53 Mohler's early synthesis of German Idealism and patristic sources offered a vision of the Church as an organic, spiri- tual community. His view of the Spirit infusing each believer and perme- ating the community itself, along with his patristic appreciation for episcopacy and , are early anticipations of the themes of twen- tieth-century communion ecclesiology. Parallel to the creative theology of Mohler and the Roman Catholic Ti.ibingen school, a theological revival was gaining momentum in Orthodox thought. The Russian Orthodox theologian Alexei Khomiakov (1804-60) was, like Mohler, shaped by the Idealism of Schelling and the theologies of the early Church. Khomiakov promoted, over-against what he saw as the negative individualism of Western Christianity, a vision of Church as a living communion of mutual love.'' This communitarian ideal of sobomost would inspire the Slavophile movement, promoted in the early twentieth century by Russian Orthodox emigres working at the lnstitut -Serge in Paris.55 The work of George Florovsky (1893-1979), Paul Evdokimov (1901-79), Vladimir Lossky (1903-58), and especially the eucharistic theology of Nicholas Afanasiev (1893-1966) fostered a revital- ization of Orthodox theology that touched Roman ,

52. Doyle, Communion Ecclesiology, 13. 53. See Yves Congar, 'La pensee de Mohler ec l'Ecclesiologie orthodoxe', ln!nikon ll (1935) 321-29; id ., 'Sur ['evolution et !'interpretation de La pensee de Moehler', Revue des sciences philosophiqtles et cheologiques 27 (1938) 205-12; id .. 'L'esprit des Peres d'apres Moehler', La Vie Spiriu.elle 55 (1938) 1-25; id., 'La signification oecumenique de !'oeuvre de Moehler', lrenikon 15 (1938) 113-30; L'Eglise est une: Hommage a Mohler, ed. Pierre Chaillec (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1939). See also Josef Rupert Geiselmann, Die Kacho/ische Tiibinger Schule : lhre cheologische Eigenart (Freiburg: Herder, 1964 ); Thomas F. O'Meara, 'Beyond "Hierarchology": Johann Adam M6hler and Yves Congar', in The Legacy of the Tiibingen School: The Relevance of Ninereenrh-Century Theology for the Twenry-Fim Cemury, ed. Donald J. Dietrich and Michael J. Himes (New York: Crossroad, 1997) 173-91. 54. See Alexei Khomiakov, The Church is One (london: S.P.C.K., 1948; orig. ed. 1863 ); id., L'Eglise Iarine et le Protestanrisme au poinc de vue de l'Eglise d'orienc (Lausanne: Benda, 1969; orig. ecl. 1872). 55. Alexis Kniazeff, L'Insricur Sainr-Serfe: De l'academie d' auiTefois au rayonnemeru d'aujour - d'hui (Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1974 ). drawing attention especially to a theology of the local church and to the centrality of the Eucharist in the community's life and mission.56 The eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev influenced the work of Congar, Henri de Lubac, John Meyendorff, Alexander Schmemann, Jean-Marie Tillard, and John Zizioulas. These two nineteenth-century trajectories - the one German and Catholic, the other French and Orthodox - came together in the nouvelle theologie of the first half of the twentieth century. The Paris-based Unam Sane tam series marks these theological trails. Congar, who founded Unam Sanctam, wanted to launch it with a new French translation of Mohler's Die Einheit. Speaking of his discovery of the Ti.ibingen theologian, Congar later recalled: 'As with other things, Pere Chenu revealed Mohler to me. I found there a source, the source, which I needed.... So what Mohler did in the nineteenth century became for me an ideal which would inspire and lead me to my own theology in the twentieth century.' 57 In his frequent contacts with Saint-Serge, the ecumenically-minded Congar served as a bridge with Orthodox thought as well. Alongside Mohler's early masterpiece, Unam Sanctam published Congar's major works on ecu- men ism, Church reform, and the laity, Albert Gratieux's studies on Khomiakov and the Slavophile movement, a volume on nineteenth-cen- tury ecdesiology, and a of historical Patristic ecdesi- ological models made their way into Roman Catholic theology through the research of Congar, de Lubac, Bernard Botte, Jean Danielou, Joseph Lecuyer, and Cyrille Vogel - models mediated in part by the Ti.ibingen school and Orthodox thought. The twentieth-century recovery of an ecclesiology of communion is often linked to the early ecumenical studies of Hamer, Herding, Congar, Le Guillou, and others.59 But the emergence of the themes today consid-

56. See A lbert Gratieux, A. S. Khomiakov et le mouvement slavophile, Unam Sanctam 5 and 6 (Paris: Cerf, 1939). 57. Jean Puyo, Une vie pour Ia verite: Jean Puyo imerroge le Pere Congar (Paris: Le Centurion, 1975) 48. 58. See Yves Congar, Chreriens Desunis: Principes d'un 'Oecwnenisme' Carholique, Unam Sanctam 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1937); id., Vraie et fcu.sse re{orme dans l'eglise, Unam Sanctam 20 (Paris: Cerf, 1950); id., }alons pour Wle theologie du laicat, Unam Sanctam 23 (Paris: Cerf, 1953 ); id., Chreriens en dialogue: Conrribut:Wns catholiques a l'oecumenisme, Unam Sancram 50 (Paris: Cerf, 1964); Gratieux, A. S. Khomiakovet le mouvement slavophile; id., Le Mouvemem Slaoophile a Ia. wiUe de Ia re41olution: Dmirri A. Komiakov, Unam Sancram 25 (Paris: Cerf, 1953); t.:Ecclesiologie au 'X!Xe Siecle, ed. M. Nedoncelle et al., Unam Sanctam 34 (Paris: Cerf, 1960). Furthermore, some Sancram volumes took up directly the themes of communion, including srud\es on collegiality (t.:Episcopat er I'Eglise universelle, ed. Congar and Dupuy; La CoUegialite Episcopale: Hisroire et theologie, Unam Sanctam 52 [Paris: Cerf, 1965]), Henri de Lubac's Catholicism.e, Unam Sancram 3 (Paris: Cerf, 1938), M.-]. Le Guillou's Mission et Unite: Les exigences de Ia communion, Unam Sanctam 33 (Paris: Cerf, 1960), and Hamer's est une communion, Unam Sanctam 40 (Paris: Cerf, 1962). 59. Jerome Hamer, The Church is a Communion, trans. Ronald Matrhews (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1964; orig. ed. 1962); Ludwig Herding, Communio: Church and Papacy in Early Christianity, trans. Jared Wicks (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1972; orig. ed. ered central to a communion ecclesiology extended beyond these impor- tant studies. In rediscovering fresh views on the Church existing prior to the Middle Ages, pre-conciliar theologians raised questions surrounding specific issues touching on the themes of communion: episcopal colle- giality, th e role of the papacy in relation to the local churches, ecu- menism, liturgical reform, and the role of th e laity. But unlike the images of mystical body, people of God, or sacrament, 'communion' was not widely promoted as a comprehensive and integrative model of the Church prior to the Second Vatican Council. This is true even at the Council itself, even though the term 'communion' itself appears through- out the documents. While the documents of Vatican II speak of the Church as a sacrament of unity, the body of Christ, a bride, flock, temple, and above all, the people of God, nowhere do the texts state that the Church itself is a communion.60 To speak of the 'communion ecclesiology' of the Second Vatican Council cannot be referring to the preponderance of explicit statements concerning commtmion or even to the obvious intentions of the docu- ments' drafters. Instead, the themes of communion can only be recon- structed from various passages in the Council texts that rouch on different dimensions of ecclesiology and Church life. While the first paragraph of Lumen Gencium calls the Church a sign and instrument 'of communion with G od and of the unity of the entire human race', the document as a whole reflects the results of debate, compromise, and consensus on how communion is to take shape in relationships among real people and within Church structures. 61 How is communion recognized among various Catholic rites, among Christians, with other religions, and with the world? How is communion expressed and experienced at the eucharistic celebration or within the local church that is the diocese? How do bish- ops around the world exercise their ministry in communion with each other and with the bishop of Rome? What is the role of the laity within the C hurch communion? In ligh t of recent attempts (sketched below) to

1943); Yves Congar, 'Notes sur les mots "confession", "eglise", et "communion"', lrenikon 23 (1950) 3-36; id., 'De Ia communion des eglises a une ecclesiologie de l'eglise uni· verselle', 227-60; M.·J. Guillou, Mission e1 unit

A model rakes shape 'Communion ecclesiology', as a developed Church model, is a post- Vatican II phenomenon. Most early commentaries on Lumen Gentium considered 'people of God' to be the main idea of the Council's ecclesiol- ogy.61 The themes of communion treated by the Council at first appeared mainly in studies on particular topics (e.g. liturgy, laity, ecumenism, col- legiality) and in concrete developments such as the revitalization of epis- copal conferences and the plans for future synods. But by the early 1970s, 'commun ion' began to emerge as a heuristic tool for reading the Council documents. T he commentary on Lumen Gentium by Gerard Philips, the secretary of the Council's theological commission, drew attention to com- mun ion as an underlying theme, more implicit than explicit, and antici- pated the detailed exegetical studies by Oskar Saier, Antonio Acerbi, Hans Rossi, and Gianfranco Ghirlanda.63 Acerbi's careful historical analy- sis of Lumen Gentium argued that the final text contains two ecclesiolo- gies, juxtaposed but not fully integrated, revealing the shift during the Council debates from a static, juridical ecclesiology to an open and dynamic view of the Church as a communion. Two broad approaches have taken shape since the Council, each sug- gesting itself as the authentic interpretation of Vatican Il's vision of the Church as a communion: ( 1) an Aristotelian approach that begins with the concrete, historical manifestation of the Church at the local level and (2) a Platonic approach that grants primacy to the universal Church as an ideal, spiritual reality.64 The first emphasizes the pastoral/practical

62. See , 'The People of God', in Commentary on the Documents ofVatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967; orig. ed. 1966) 1.: 153-85, at 154; VEglise de Vatican II: Etudes auwur de !a Constitution conciliaire sur l'Eglise, ed. Guilherme Barauna, Unam Sanctam Slb (Paris: Cerf, 1966) 395-698; Bonavemure Kloppenburg, The Ecdesiology of Vatican Il, trans. Matthew J. O'Cotme\1 (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974; orig. ed. 1971) 41-44._ 63. See Gerard Philips, VEglise et son mystere au Ile Concile du Vatican: Histoire , texce et commentaire de !a Constiturion Lumen Gemium (Paris: 1967) l : 7, 59; 2: 24, 54, 159; Antonio Acerbi, Due eccle.gna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 1975); Saier, 'Cornrnunio' in der Lehre des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils; Hans Rossi, Die Kirche als personale Gemeinschaft: Der kom- munitiire Charakter der Ki'Tche nach den Dokumemen und Akten des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils, Grenzfragen zwischen Theologie und Philosophie 25 (: Hanstein, 1976); Gianfranco Ghirlanda, 'Hierarchica communio': Signiflcaco della fomtula nella Lumen gentium, Analecra G'Tegoriana 216 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1980). In 1974, Avery Dulles subsumed the Council's references to mystical body and people of God under his model of 'mystical communion' (Models of the Church, 46-51 ). 64. The distinction is Walter Kasper's: 'The conflict is between theological opinions and underlying philosophical assumptions. One side [Ratzinger) proceeds by Plato's method; its starting point is the primacy of an idea that is a universal concept. The other side [Kasper) follows Aristotle's approach and sees the universal as exist ing in a concrete reality' ('On dimension of local churches existing in communion with one another, while the second highlights the one Church as a mystical communion in grace. We consider each of these tendencies in tum. Kilian McDonald observes the first approach, a communion ecclesiol- ogy 'from below', bursting out in the life of local churches following the 6 close of the Council. ; The rise of communidades eclesiales de base in Brazil and elsewhere led to reflection on the Church as present in the relation- ships within and among small, sub-parish gatherings of Christians. The 1968 meeting of the Latin American bishops' conferences (CELAM) in Medellin spoke of communion within these base communities; while ten years later the bishops gathered in Puebla employed 'communion', along- side 'participation', as a central theme in their document on evangeliza- tion. Here 'communion' involves participation in the life of the Trinity, participation in the Church, and participation in the work of social jus- tice for the poor. The questions emerging from l atin America began by asking how communion is present within and among local communities and local churches, and led to exploring how Church and political struc- tures facilitate or frustrate this communion. Leonardo Boff, in a theology rooted in the experience of base communities, pushes to the limit this communion ecclesiology 'from below'.66 In Europe and North America, the work of Congar in ecclesiology and ecumenism inspired a line of theologians attending to the local church, including Jean-Marie Tillard, Herve-Marie Legrand, and Joseph Komonchak, among others. Tillard's work has been particularly fruitful. He promoted a communion ecclesiology centred in the eucharistic cele- bration of the local church and pursued the implications of such a view for a host of theological issues, such as catholicity and , ecu- menism, , and episcopal collegiality. For Tillard, the Church is a communion of communions, a Church of churches. His view does not give priority to the local churches over the un iversal: rather the local and universal are simultaneous. Following Vatican II, Tillard claimed that each local church exists only in commun ion with the

the Church', America 184 [23-30 April 2001 ] 8·14, at 13. Avery Dulles describes the two approaches as 'universalist' and 'particularist' ('The Church as Communion', 133) while Joseph Komonchak uses the language of ecclesiologies 'from above' and 'from bdow' ('The Church Universal as the Communion of Local Churches', in Where Does the Church Srand?, Concilium 146 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1981) 30·35, at 30·31. 65. See Kilian McDonnell, 'Vatican II ( 1962·1964). Puebla (1979), Synod ( 1985): Koinonia/Communio as an Integral Ecclesiology', Journal of Ecumenical Srudies 25 (1988) 399·427. 66. See Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities rhe Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986; orig. ed. 1977); id., Church: Charism and Power: Liberation Theology and the lnsricutional Church (New York: Crossroad, 1985; orig. ed. 1981 ). On the CDF's criticisim of Boff's work, see 'Doctrinal Congregation Criticizes Brazilian Theologian's &ok', Origins 14 (4 April1985) 683-87. Jamie Phelps argues that black lib- eration theology and communion ecclesiology share the same central themes and goal: the unity of the human community ('Communion Ecclesiology and Black Liberation Theology', Theological Scudies 61 (2000) 672·99). universal Church and that the universal Church exists in and from the local churches. Tillard's theology attends to the historical, social, and cul- tural characteristics marking the local community - keeping his view of the universal Church from becoming an abstract Platonic ideaV7 Attention to the local Church incarnates the notion of communion by tying it to real communities. In the Trinitarian ecclesiologies of Bruno Forte, Medard Kehl, and Hennann Pottmeyer, or in the use of 'commu- nion' within the ecclesiologies of Walter Kasper, Jean Rigal, Miguel Garijo-Guembe, and Ghislain LaFont, we see similar attention to the concrete pastoral situation, to the unfolding reality of the Church as his- toric subject.68 The second broad approach to the Church as communion, the Platonic appeal to the universal and the ideal, began with the rise of the interna- tional Communio movement in the early 1970s. During the first meeting of the International Theological Commission in the fall of 1969, an infor- mal summit occurred among theologians concerned about and generally disillusioned with events in the Church following the close of the Council.69 There a small group of ITC theologians, led by and including Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Louis Bouyer, J. Medina, and Marie-Joseph Le Guillou, discussed ways of addressing what they saw as undesirable developmems following the Council: an overemphasis on structural reform, an excessive modernization and neglect of proper authority and tradition, a functional approach to truth, and a too sociological, democratic view of the Church.70 Here the idea for

67. See especially Je.an-Marie R. Tillard, The Bishop of Rome, trans. John de Sarge (Wilmington, DeL Michael G lazier, 1983; orig. ed. 1982); id., Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion, trans. R. C. De Peaux (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992; orig. ed. 1987); id., Flesh of the Churc/1, Flesh of Christ: Ar the Source of the Ecdesiology of Communio, trans. Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2001; orig. ed. 1992); id., r:J::glise locale: Ecdesiologie de communion et catholicite (Paris: Cerf, 1995). 68. See Bruno Force, The Church: lean of the Trinity, trans. Robert Paolucci (Boston: St. Paul Books. 1991; orig. ed. 1984); id., La Chiesa della Triniw: Saggio sul misr.ero della chiesa communio e missiane (Rome: San Paolo, 1995); Medard Kehl, Die Kirche: Eine katholische Ekklesiologie (WUrzburg: Echter, 1992); Hermann ). Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives From Vatican Councils I arulll, trans. Matthew). O'Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1998); Kasper, Theology and Church, 148-65; Riga!, I.:Ecclesiologie de com- munion; Miguel M. Garijo-Guembe, Communion of the : Foundation, Nature, and Structure of the Church, trans. Patrick Madigan (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1994; orig. ed. 1988); Ghislain Lafont, Imagining the Catholic Church: Structured Communion in the Spirit, trans. John J. Burkhard (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000; orig. ed. 1995). Also in this line of Aristotelean communion ecclesiologies are Ferdinand Klostermann, Gemeinde- Kirche de-r Zukunfc: Tltesen, Diensre, MockUe, 2 vols. (Freiburg: Herder, 1975); Siegfried Wiedenhofer, Das katholische Kirchenverstiilulnis: Ein Lehrbuch der Ekkl.esiologie (Graz: Styria, 1992); Robert Kress, The Church : Communion, Sacrament, Communication (New York: Paulist, 1985); Michael G. Lawler and Thomas j. Shanahan, Church: A Spirited Communion (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1995); The Church as Communion, ed. James H. Provost (Washington, D.C.: CLSA, 1984). 69. Joseph Ratzinger, 'Communio: A Program', Communio 19 (1992) 436-49, at 438-39. 70. See Michael Fahey, 'Joseph Ratzinger as Ecclesiologist and Pastor', in Neo- Consen,arism: Social and Religious Phenomenon, ed. Gregory Baum (New York: Seabury, 1981) 76-83, at 79. a new journal- intended to balance the progressive series Concilium - and a new international movement was born. After contacts with the conser- vative Italian lay movement Communione e Liberazione, \·on Balthasar chose the name 'Communio' for the movement.;' In 1972, the first edi- tion of Imernationale kacholische Zeitschrifc: Communio appeared (in Italian as well as German editions); since then over a dozen editions in different languages have appeared across Europe and the Americas. By adopting the language of 'communio', this movement has linked this patristic category with the ecclesiological and political commitments of its proponents. The ecclesiological writings of von Balthasar, Ratzinger, de Lubac, Jean Danielou, and, more recently, David Schindler strive to recover the mystery dimension of the Church, its divine ground and sacred space, against what they see as an accommodation of the Christian witness to modem secularization.72 Repeated calls for in·;titutional reform, public dissent, the decline in traditional modes of religious life, the growth of liberation and political theologies are all signals that the Church is headed in the wrong direction. Avery Dulles notes the influ- ence on rhis movement of the Platonism of the early C hurch, and sees in these authors a 'kind of neo-Augustin ian ism in ecclesiology'. According to Dulles, proponents of th is view

do not want to see the Church reduced to an instrument for the rebuilding of secular society. T hey see it as a divinely animated organism, the bride of Ch rist, and the virginal mother who begets children for eternal life. . .. While approving of the accomplish - ments of Vatican II, they regard the postconciliar turmoil as the work of an alien spirit. T hey strongly resist all proposals to reform the structures of the Church according to contemporary manage- ment theory. The Church, in their view, is being excessively politi- cized . ... True reform, these theologians maintain, is interior and spiritual. It requires humility and obedience, respect for authority and tradit ion.H

At times, this particular version of communion ecclesiology leads away from the Council in presenting communio-mystery anJ people of God in

71. Rauinger, 'Communio: A Program', 439. See the programmatic essay by Hans Urs von Balthasar, 'Communio - Ein Programm', lnremadonale kacholische Zeirschrifc: Communio I (1972) 4-17. 72. For an imroduction, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Office oi Perer and the Srrncrure of rhe Church, trans. Andree Emery (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986: orig. ed. 1974 ); joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (New York: Crossroad, 1988; orig. ed. 1987); Henri de Lubac, The Motherhood of the Church . trans. Sergia Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982; orig. ed. 1971); jean Danielou, Why rhe Church?, trans. Maurice F. De Lange (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1975; orig. ed. 1972); David L. Schindler, Heart of the World . Cenrer of the Ch11rch: Communio Ecdesiology , Liberalism, and Liberation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). 73. Dulles, 'A Half Cemury of Ecclesiology', 440. competitive terms; it can also neglect the Church's existence as a historic subject.'' Ironically, by rejecting a too horizontal view of the Church and an overemphasis on the historicity of the pilgrim people of God, and by turning instead to the divine source and mystery of the Church, this approach has risked neglecting those aspects that gave communion shape in the Conciliar texts: collegiality, the importance of local churches, the role of the bishop in the eucharistic community, and the active partici- pation of the laity. The growing tension between the models of communion and people of God fostered by the Communio movement emerged forcefully at the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops. This synod, convoked to celebrate and reflect on the achievements of the Second Vatican Council, seems to have made a deliberate effort to downplay the Council's use of the people of God model. While the pre-synodal reports submitted from around the world and several speeches at the synod itself spoke positively about the Council's view of the Church as the people of God, the synod's Final Report contains only passing reference to this image - remarkable for a document that warns against 'a partial and selective reading of the Council'.7; Instead the Final Report favoured the language of Church as mystery and communion; it is markedly suspicious of an approach to the Church too preoccupied with its concrete historical existence and insti- tutional forms. 'We cannot replace a false unilateral vision of the Church as purely hierarchical with a new sociological conception which is also unilatera\.'76 T he Church is a mystery. This emphasis reflected the con- cerns especially of some of the German bishops present, led by Cardinals Hoffner, Meisner, and Ratzinger, who were in part reacting to the per- ceived bureaucratization of the German Church following Vatican Il.77 The initial report presented at the synod by Cardinal Danneels empha- sized the way in which the concept of people of God had been misused ideologically, how it had been isolated from other notions of Church pre- sent at Vatican II, and how it had been used to foster false oppositions within the Ch urch. The result of these emphases is the new claim made in the synod's Final Report, that the 'ecclesiology of communion is the central and fundamental idea of the Council's documents'. 78

74. Ratzinger offers his reservations about the model of people of God in the ftrst Chapter of Church, Ecumenism, and Politics. 75. See Komonchak, 'The Synod of 1985 and the Notion of the Church', 331. For docu- mentation of the synod, see Synode Extraordinaire: Celebration de Vatican II (Paris: Cerf, 1986). The English and U.S. preparatory responses were published at Origins 15 (1985) 177-86, 225-33. See also Peter Hebblethwaite, Synod Extraordinary: The lnside Story of the Rome Synod November-December 1985 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986); id., 'Exit "The People of God"', 240 (8 February 1986) 140-41. 76. Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, 'The Final Report', 446-47. 77. Hennann Pottmeyer, 'The Church as Mysterium and as Institution', in Synod 1985: An Evaluation, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and James Provost (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986) 99-HJ9, at 99. 78. Exrraordinary Synod of Bishops, 'The Final Report', 448. The synod's appeal to the Church as communion can fail to recognize how the language of mystery and the dismissal of questions concerning institution and power work to the advantage of those holding institu- tional power. An ecclesiology of the ideal present in careful phrases about the Church's Trinitarian ground led away from the structural, institu- tional questions raised by many of the bishops before and at the synod - the teaching authority of episcopal conferences, the deliberative role of synods, and curial reform. When the Final Report considers the ways in which 'the ecclesiology of communion is also the foundation for order in the Church', its reflections on unity and pluriformity, Eastern-rite Churches, collegiality, episcopal conferences, participation in the Church, and ecumenism contain few concrete proposals.79 joseph Komonchak concludes of the Final Report: 'invocations of"communion" and "collegial spirit" have triumphed over frank adTTlission of serious prob- lems of structure and relations in the Church wday'.80 These trends continue in the 1992 CDF letter, 'Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion' - a text that confirms the magister- ial drift toward a Platonic, universal and idealized interpretation of com- munion. In an attempt to counter a perceived over-emphasis on the local Church in some versions of communion ecclesiology, the letter argues that the universal Church is 'a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular church' .81 This claim, which received sig- nificant criticism, seemed to imply the existence of an invisible, ideal Church that exists apart from any concrete, historical manifestations. A quasi-official qualification of this claim appeared a year later in l'Osservatore Romano, offering a helpful corrective.81 However, the CDF- following the ecclesiological perspective of its former prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - continues to affirm the priority of the universal Church over the particular; the question becomes how the 'universal

79. Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, 'The Final Report', 448-49. Walter Kasper, who served as synod secretary, was influential in promoting the language of communion as a mediating category. His personal theological view of C hurch as mystery and communion is nuanced and attentive to the concrere implications of communion for the Church's life and mission. 80. Joseph Komonchak, 'The Theological Debate', in Synod 1985: An Evaluation, 53-63, at 59 (emphasis in original}. A more positive assessment of the Final Report's use of com· munion is offered by Jean-Marie Tillard. 'Final Report of the Last Synod', in Synod 1985: An 64 · 77. 81. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 'Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion', Origins 22 (25 June 1992) 108-12, at 109. The congregation's preference for an ecclesio1ogy of communion is evident in the document's opening line: 'The concept of communio (koinonia), which appears with a certain prominence in the texts of the Second Vatican Council, is very suitable for expressing the core of the mystery of the Church and can certainly be a key for the renewal of Catholic ecclesiology' ( 108). 82. The unsigned letter stated: 'Every particular Church is truly Church, although it is not the whole Church; at the same time, the universal Church is not distinct from the com· munion of particular Churches, without, however, being conceived as the sum of them.' 'La Chiesa come Comunione',J.:Osser<.more Romano, 23 June 1993, I, 4; cited in Susan K. Wood. The Church as Communion', in The Gifr of rhe Church, 159· 76. at 174. Church' is understood. Yet throughout the discussion, there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of the CDF (and Ratzinger personally) to admit the concrete implications of a Platonic appeal to the universal. In a recent public debate with Walter Kasper, Ratzinger wondered why the letter's mention of the priority of the universal Church has led people to think immediately of the Pope and the Curia, and of the problems of cen- tralization. Such a link, he claims, 'makes no sense', for the 1992 letter 'never dreamt of identifying the reality of the universal Church with the pope and Curia'.83 The claims, Ratzinger asserts, are purely theological: 'If one strips away all the false associations with Church politics from the concept of the universal Church and grasps it in its true theological (and hence quite concrete) content, then it becomes clear that the argument about Church politics misses the heart of the matter. '84 Kasper's reply sug- gests that the problem lies not in the concepts of communion or univer- sal Church, but in the inability of a Platonic ecdesiological approach to deal with specific issues: The question to Cardinal Ratzinger with which I should like to dose is whether such reflections really have to remain as devoid of con- crete consequences as his article might appear to claim. If one takes seriously the fact that in the Catholic view the Church is not some sort of Platonic republic, but a historically existing divine-human reality, then it cannot be wholly wrongheaded and be chalked off as mere political reductionism to ask about concrete actions, not in political, but in pastorallife.65 Under John Paul II, communion emerged as the favoured paradigm for describing the Church. Following the 1985 synod, the claims that com- munion is the code to Vatican ll and the key to the renewal of ecclesiol- ogy appear again and again: John Paul II confirmed the synod's choice of communion in his apostOlic exhortation on the laity, Christifideles Laici;86 commw1ion shapes his view of the Church in his apostolic exhortations on the formation of priests and on the religious life;81 communion appears as an underlying theme in the Catechism of the Catholic Church;88 John

83. Joseph Ratzinger, 'The Local Church and the Universal Church', America 185 (19 November 2001) 7-1 1, at 10, 8. 84. Ibid. 11. 85. Walter Kasper, 'From the President of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity', America 185 (26 November 2001) 29. See Kilian McDonnell, 'The Ratzinger/Kasper Debate: The Universal Church and Local Churches', Theological Studies 63 (2002) 227-50. 86. John Paul II, The Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful 48. See Avery Dulles, 'The Ecclesiology of John Paul II', in The Gift of the Church, 93-110. 87. See John Paul 11, 1 WliU Give You Shepherds/Pasrores Dabo Vobis (Washington, D.C.: USCC, 1992) no. 12; id., The Consecraced UfeNir.a Consecrara (Washington, D.C.: USCC, 1996) no. 41. 88. John Paulll calls the Catechism 'a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecdesial communion'. John Paul II, 'Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum', in Catechism of the CathoLic Church, 2nd ed. (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000) 5. Paul ll's encyclical letter on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint, is built on an ecclesiology of communion;89 and many of his public addresses invoke the theme.90 These documents, with the notable exception of Ut Unum Sint, have shown a decided preference for a universalizing interpretation of communion; a preference enhanced by the Platonic appeal to the Church as mystery. The shift of attention away from concrete particular churches has meant a shift away from their concrete questions and a certain unwill- ingness to admit the concrete implications of an appeal to communion. Like Pius XII's use of mystical body theology, the language of communion has largely served to confirm the status quo; the appeal to mystery has excused ecclesiology of its responsibility for attending to the Church as 9 historic subject. ' The rise of new models and perspectives Just as the mystical body theology appropriated by Pius XII was com- plemented and thus relativized by the language of people of God and by the plurality of images offered at Vatican II , so the Magisterium's present appeal to an ecdesiology of communion will likely give way to new mod- els, new approaches to and ways of describing the Church. Vatican ll is a moment in history, offering not a single and eternal ecclesiology, but an openness to many ecclesiologies, an openness to development and change in the Church's self-understanding. T he plurality of the Council's vision and the evidence of h istory suggest that communion will unlikely disap- pear, nor should it. But how will an ecclesiology of communion function in the future? Are there further models that might complement it? What, from our limited vantage point, might we anticipate about the next stage in ecclesiological development? 89. john Paul II, Tluu. They May Be One: On Commitment w Ecumenism(Ut Unum Sint (Washington, D.C.: USCC, 1995). Tillard contributed directly to this encyclical. 90. See, for example, the closing address to a Vatican symposium on the Council's imple- mentation: john Paul II, 'Vatican Council II: Prophetic Message for the Church's Life', Origins 29 (4 May 2000) 753-55, at 755. 91. During the 1970s and 1980s, communion emerged as a major category in ecumencial dialogue, reaching a high point in the Fifth World Conference on Faith and O rder, held at Santiago de Composre\a in 1993, which took the theme, 'Toward '(oinonia in Faith, Life and Witness'. Though it extends beyond the scope of this essay, it b important to note that the use of communion language in ecumenical dialogue has largdy followed a Platonic approach, by beginning with the ideal and working- to various deg·ees of success - toward concrete implications. Susan Wood sounds a note of caution regar·ling this methodology: 'Is (the term koinonia) becoming an umbrella term in ecdesio\ogy generally, and in ecu- menical dialogues in particular, with the result that in coming to ret!r to everything, in the end it will refer to nothing?' ('Ecclesial Koinonia in Ecumenical [' alogues', One in Chrisr 30 (1994) I 24-45,

92. Joseph .A... Komonchak, 'Concepts of Communion: Past and Present', Crisrianesimo nella storia 16 (1995) 321-40, at 339. 93. See Giuseppe Colombo, 'II "Popolo di Dio" e il "misterio" della Chiesa nell'ecclsiolo- gia post-conciliarc', Teologia 10 (1985) 97-169. 94. Lafont, Imagining ihe Catholic Church, 94. communion on the Trinitarian communion-in-unity is difficult because the 'divine unity is where God is most different from God's creatures, even the creation that we call Church' .9s Neil Ormerod directs attention away from the immanent Trinity to the economic:

What is first in our knowledge of the triune nature are the divine missions of Word and Spirit, which in tum ground our knowledge of the processions and persons within the Trinity. In this way a missio ecclesiology also makes contact with Trinitarian theology, not in terms of communio and perichoresis, but in terms of missio and proces- sio. Communion may be our eschatological end in the vision of God, but in the here and now of a pilgrim Church mission captures our ongoing historical responsibility.96

A mission ecclesiology may be the future fruit of Lumen Gentium Chapter 1, in which the Church's source and ground in the triune God is described not primarily in terms of inner-Trinitarian relations but in terms of salvation history. These introductory paragraphs challenge the solipsism of some communion ecclesiologies by recalling the Church's end and goal, the kingdom of God, and the Church's historical movement in grace toward that goal.97 Just as the people of God model injected eschatology into a static mystical body theology, so missio could make room for those questions that admit development and change: social and economic disparity, inculturation, the status of local churches, religious pluralism and its relationship to the Church's missionary activity. Second, a baptismal ecclesiology may take shape to complement the themes of communion ecclesiology. Indeed, the links between Eucharist - so central to the development of an ecclesiology of communion - and baptism suggest integrating both into a thoroughly sacramental ecdesiol- ogy. The polyvalence of baptismal imagery, and its theology, evokes death, burial and resurrection, new birth, incorporation and initiation. Reflecting on the ecclesiological implications of baptism offers fresh per- spectives on pressing issues receiving little attention in many treatments of the Church as a communion. Communion ecclesiolvgy rightly empha- sizes the ministry of the bishop and his eucharistic presidency. But what of the many new ministers and forms of ministry reshaping the Church today? The theology of baptism as a call and commissioning to active ser- vice in the community extends through and beyond liturgy to the many ministries in today's par:sh; the diversity of baptismal charisms leaves

95. Neil Ormerod, 'The Structure of a Systematic Ecclesiology', Theological Scudies 63 (2002) 3-30, at l9. 96. Ibid. 97. Lumen Gencium 5. See also Ad Gences 2. In such a missio ecclesiology. it is the final sec- tion of the 1985 synod's Final Report, 'The Church's Mission in the World', that will rise to balance in the Church's self-understanding the report's earlier sections on Church as mystery and communion. behind a myopic focus on one minister (no matter how important that minister is). Like people of God, a baptismal ecclesiology has the advan- tage of clearly affirming the equality of everyone in the Church, for the basis of this equality lies in baptism. Could greater attention to a bap- tismal ecclesiology resist the too-easy appeal to the clergy-laity distinc- tion and instead affirm a diversity within the Church based on real roles and concrete ministries? How would reflection on baptismal death and new birth illuminate discussion of the sinfu lness of the Church and its perpetual need for reform? What if eucharistic fellowship, within the con- text of ecumenical dialogue, took as its primary referent common bap- tism? A baptismal ecclesiology does not solve these difficult questions; instead, these difficult questions suggest a baptismal ecclesiology as a helpful starting point for conversation.98

Conclusion

These pages have given not a history of the Church but a history of recent reflection on the Church. To study the succession of Church mod- els is not to argue for the inherent superiority of one over all others. It is simply the recognition that ideas have a history and the attempt to observe how ideas about the Church change. The parallels between the pre-conciliar mystical body ecclesiology and the post-conciliar ecclesiol- ogy of communion are interesting. They share patristic roots and repre- sent the dual legacy of the nineteenth-century theologian Mohler. In their years of ascendancy, both models enjoyed an internal theological diversity and saw one theological track appropriated and endorsed by the papal magisterium. Both begin to fade in the face of unanswered ques- tions and issues left unaddressed by a static and abstract conception of the Church, an interpretation that fails to account for the Church's existence as historic subject. Insofar as these models privilege mystery to the disre- gard of the community's historical existence, they risk ignoring the very subject matter of ecclesiological inquiry: the concrete Church - under- stood as a divine-human reality, a mystery manifested in history. Speaking of these limitations, G iuseppe Colombo concludes, 'To refer to the notion of "mystery", demanded in any adequate ecclesiology, does not have the purpose of resolving the question of its subject, but precisely that of pos- ing it.'99 As questions are asked and honestly addressed, other models and approaches emerge that affirm the eschatological, the limited, and the local.

98. For initial suggestions toward a baptismal ecclesiology, see Maxwell Johnson, Images of Bapr:ism, Forum Essays 6 (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2001) 105-35; id., 'Romans 6 and rhe Identity of the Church: Toward a Baptismal Ecclesiology', 22 (September 2000) 22-36. 99. Colombo, 'II "Popolo di Dio" e il "misterio" della Chiesa nell'ecclsiologia post-concil- iare', 160-61.