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Where Is the Church of Christ?: the Developing

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Where Is the Church of Christ?: the Developing Where is the church of Christ? The developing teaching of Vatican II by Nicholas Jesson University of St. Michael’s College January 2000 Table of Contents I. The Roman Catholic Awakening..........................................................................................................1 A. The First Vatican Council................................................................................................................3 B. Mortalium Animos ...........................................................................................................................5 C. Mystici Corporis Christi..................................................................................................................6 D. The Ice Begins to Melt .....................................................................................................................8 II. The Second Vatican Council.............................................................................................................. 10 A. Christian Faith and Witness........................................................................................................... 11 B. The Church of Christ subsists in the Roman Catholic Church .................................................... 13 C. Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae.........................................................................................18 D. “Hierarchy of Truths”.................................................................................................................... 19 E. Assessing the Reform...................................................................................................................... 22 III. Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Ecumenism ...................................................................................22 A. Sacramental Sharing ....................................................................................................................... 24 B. Orientale Lumen & Ut Unum Sint................................................................................................ 28 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 31 Where is the church of Christ? In the 1950s it would have been as difficult for Catholics to imagine the pope launching a broad reform movement within the church as it would be for Americans today to conceive of the Kremlin initiating a far-reaching democratization of the Eastern bloc countries. Yet that is what occurred with the Second Vatican Council.1 The Second Vatican Council was held from 1962 to 1965, and resulted in the reforms that Phillip Berryman alludes to in the above quote. During the course of the council, the church addressed questions that had been addressed at earlier times in the course of church history, but they did so in a new way. Perhaps the most startling aspect of the reforms has been the awakening of the Roman Catholic Church to the ecumenical movement. Some have likened it to the awakening of a sleeping giant, with all the accompanying risks. Central to this awakening is the willingness to recognise ecclesial reality beyond the bounds of the visible Roman Catholic community. It is this conciliar development that I wish to trace in this paper. I. The Roman Catholic Awakening Through two thousand years of church history, there have been numerous instances of division that have split the church apart. Beginning with the early heresies, and the divisions associated with the early councils, the church has usually managed to bring the dissenting parties back to the fold, or to limit the damage where that was not possible. Even the schisms with the Oriental Orthodox following the Council of Chalcedon and with the Eastern Orthodox in 1054 had very little practical impact on the local churches in the West. However, since the Reformation, the unity of the Western church has been rent asunder. In response, at the Council of Trent and by means of the ascendancy of the papacy and religious orders, the Roman Catholic Church consolidated itself and built a uniformity of liturgy, doctrine, and church structure. This has artificially maintained unity within the Roman Catholic Church but has prevented any significant achievement of reunion between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Reformation. It is only in the last thirty-five years that the 1 Phillip Berryman, Liberation theology: The essential facts about the revolutionary movement in Latin America and beyond (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p.15. It is somewhat ironic that only two years after Berryman published these comments, Mikhail Gorbachev did precisely this. Where is the church of Christ?, p. 2 official Roman Catholic Church has taken a firm and active role in the modern ecumenical movement, and has engaged in dialogue with other churches as partners, rather than as adversaries. Prior to the modern era, the Roman Catholic Church explored reunion with other Christian churches on a number of occasions. The councils at Lyons in 1274 and at Ferrara and Florence in 1438-1439 were attempts to resolve the Eastern Schism. Later, with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1595, a majority of the Byzantine hierarchy in the Ukraine resumed relations with Rome, and formed the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Twenty-two similar Eastern Catholic churches were formed at later dates on the same model. This remains a source of harsh feelings in the present day. In June 1993, the Roman Catholic – Orthodox dialogue stated that this means of unity, known as uniatism, is a form of proselytism which “can no longer be accepted either as a method to be followed or as a model of the unity our churches are seeking.”2 A further occasion for an attempted reunion occurred in the 1890’s on the eve of the modern ecumenical movement. Viscount Halifax, a highly respected lay member of the Church of England, and the Abbé Portal, a Roman Catholic priest, met at Malines in Belgium to identify areas of agreement and opportunities for dialogue between the Church of England and Roman Catholics. They decided to seek a formal assessment by the Vatican of the status of Anglican orders. Unfortunately, the judgement, expressed in the papal bull, Apostolicae Curae, was that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void.”3 As a direct result of this judgement, any potential theological discussions were doomed. For a considerable time, the slogan “No more Malines!” was heard in the Church of England as a caution against further attempts at dialogue with Rome. Apostolicae Curae remains an obstacle in the contemporary dialogue between Anglicans and Roman Catholics. 2 Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church (Balamand, Lebanon, 1993), Origins 23 (1993), p. 167. 3 Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, bull on the validity of Anglican orders, 1896. Published in Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed., Karl Rahner, ed., § 1963-1966. English translation in Sources of Catholic dogma, Roy J. Defarrari, trans., (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1957), pp. 496-97. Where is the church of Christ?, p. 3 1. The First Vatican Council The awakening of ecumenical concern and involvement that occurred in the Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council has its roots in the earlier attempts described above, as well as in various pre-conciliar movements of the twentieth century. The context for these attempts was the Counter-Reformation that began at the Council of Trent and continued, in full swing, until the eve of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. The Council of Trent was held from 1545 to 1552 and continued from 1562 to 1563. In a series of twenty-five sessions, it initiated far-reaching reforms related to ecclesiastical offices and benefices, and issued significant decrees on the sacraments, justification, original sin, and purgatory. The conciliar reforms respond to legitimate objections raised by reformers of all persuasions. Nevertheless, Trent did not consider the question of the status of the communities gathered around the various reformers. For the First Vatican Council, the issue of papal primacy and infallibility was of central importance. The council was held in four sessions in 1869 and 1870. The council issued two dogmatic constitutions, one on the church and one on the “Catholic faith.” These two documents are strongly related to each other, and depend upon a theory of apostolic authority that derives from the commission of Peter: “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” (Mt. 16:18) And it was to Peter alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, confided the jurisdiction of supreme pastor and ruler of his whole fold … To this absolutely manifest teaching of the sacred scriptures, as it has always been understood by the catholic church, are clearly opposed the distorted opinions of those who misrepresent the form of government which Christ the lord established in his church, and deny that Peter, in preference to the rest of the apostles … was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.4 Peter, as the apostle to Rome, is understood to be the first bishop of Rome. Thus, the primacy of Peter among the apostles is conferred upon the bishops of Rome who succeed Peter in that post. The council is adamant that the authority that was granted to Peter is a personal apostolic charism, rather than an apostolic charism of the whole community or of the episcopacy.
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