Ecumenical Trends, July/August 2015, Volume 44 (7)

Methodist Catholic Dialogue

Ut unum sint and Geoffrey Wainwrights’ Response

Edward C. Andercheck

1. John Paul II’s Call for Christian Unity - Ut Unum Sint

The year 2015 marks the twentieth anniversary of John Paul II’s call for Christian unity in his encyclical Ut unum sint1. His call that they might be one was in fact an echo; an echo of the central theme of the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio2, which in 1964 cited unity among all Christians as one of the principal concerns of the Second

Vatican Council. In selecting November 13, 2004 to deliver a homily on ecumenism John

Paul II chose the ecumenical conference organized for the fortieth anniversary of the conciliar decree to state, “There is no true ecumenism without interior conversion and purification of memory, without holiness of life in conformity with the Gospel, and especially without intense and assiduous prayer that echoes the prayer of Jesus.”3

Returning to the themes of the Second Vatican Council, John Paul II’s homily reminded all that Jesus wanted only one church and that ecumenical unity is not a secondary or tangential undertaking, but rather a pastoral priority for the church.

John Paul II took this occasion to not only refocus the church on ecumenical unity but also to share his pleasure that these works had already yielded progress. “In this

1 regard, I note with joy the development of initiatives of common prayer and also the emergence of groups of study and sharing of each other's traditions of spirituality”.4

Indeed, within a decade of Ut unum sint’s publication, John Paul II’s homily portrayed his positive sense that ecumenical dialogue was gaining traction; that Pope

John XXIII’s aggiornamento was being realized in new fruit in the ecumenical garden.

“We are grateful to God to see that in recent years many of the faithful across the world have been moved by an ardent desire for the unity of all Christians.”5 in this John Paul II praised the participants in this ecumenical progress, many of whom were in attendance at this Vespers Liturgy in Saint Paul’s Basilica. He continued asserting the nature of the effort he lauded, “ I warmly thank those who have made themselves instruments of the

Spirit and have worked and prayed for this process of rapprochement and reconciliation.”6

The call of Ut unum sint was broadly heard; John Paul II’s voice carried his message with a special gravitas to the North American Methodist community. This essay attempts to examine the ensuing Methodist-Catholic dialogue, and in specific, the key role played by Sacred scripture and Sacred tradition in that dialogue, by considering

Geoffrey Wainwright’s response to Ut unum sint at the thirty-first annual Pere Marquette

Lecture in Theology.7 In Ut unum sint John Paul II provided five primary areas that present opportunities and challenges for fuller study; he chose to begin this list with the interplay of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Wainwright said, “I have already revealed my hand in declaring as the most promising opening towards a settlement of principle John Paul’s formulation of the issue as that of the relationship between sacred

2 scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred tradition as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God.”8

In Ut unum sint John Paul II referred to this journey toward unity as a process, comprised initially of five primary areas for fuller study:

It is already possible to identify the areas in need of fuller study before a true consensus of faith can be achieved: 1) the relationship between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred Tradition, as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God; 2) the Eucharist, as the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, an offering of praise to the Father, the sacrificial memorial and Real Presence of Christ and the sanctifying outpouring of the Holy Spirit; 3) Ordination, as a Sacrament, to the threefold ministry of the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate; 4) the Magisterium of the Church, entrusted to the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him, understood as a responsibility and an authority exercised in the name of Christ for teaching and safeguarding the faith; 5) the Virgin Mary, as Mother of God and Icon of the Church, the spiritual Mother who intercedes for Christ's disciples and for all humanity.9

We must consider how Methodist and Catholic common views provide promise for a dialogue toward resolving John Paul II’s first issue for further study, “the relationship between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred

Tradition, as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God”.10 John Paul II provides a clear map for the post conciliar Roman Catholic Church approach to ecumenism in Ut unum sint and his homily on the 40th anniversary of Unitatis redintegratio.

At this point, it is apparent that some common ground has been identified, but this particular ground contains a fissure, a chasm created by five centuries of opposing movement by the tectonic like plates of Protestant sola sciptura and Catholic iuris canonici. This chasm, born of the reformation, invites a bridge. Christians if they might be one must look for the ubiquitous divine nature in the interplay of scripture and tradition. Is the Reformation Over?, is the title of Wainwright’s published response to the

3 ecumenical possibilities presented in Ut unum sint. Wainwright’s title, presents the defining question, are these century old forces that separated Christians still in opposing motion or are they now reconcilable? The search for common intentions might discover that answer. Bridging doctrinal differences might be best approached from the perspective of shared intentions and their underlying theologies. Methodist and Catholic ecumenical histories provide a potential illumination of the their flexibility and institutional intentions.

2. Historical Ecumenical Emphasis

The 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland formalized early cooperation among Protestants in the mission field introducing a dialogue around sharing approaches to evangelization. Wainwright notes, “The “dialogues” encouraged by Vatican II have characteristically taken a bilateral form, and the Protestant partners in international conversation with the Roman Catholic Church . . . have been the Anglican

Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council, the World

Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Disciples of Christ, and the difficult-to-define

“Evangelicals”.”11 The World Council of Churches continues this global ecumenical movement. Although not a formal Council member, The Roman Catholic Church participates by sending observers to meetings of the WCC Commission on Faith and

Order.

The notion of ecumenism within the Methodist Church began to develop early in the twentieth century out of their strongly rooted call to mission; however they began their ecumenical involvement by sharing the mission field with fellow members of other

Protestant churches. Geoffrey Wainwright crisply addresses the lack of a meaningful

4 early twentieth century Methodist Catholic dialogue, “The ecumenical century did not begin that way, at least as far as relations between Catholics and Protestants were concerned.”12 He summarized the early Methodist Catholic dialogue; “The ecumenical engagements of Catholics remained for a long time tentative and unofficial, often courageous though always ambiguous because of the flavor of Romanocentrism that ecclesiologically attached to them.”13 The tone of Pope Pius XI’s 1928 encyclical

Mortalium animos, pleading for the return of separated brethren to the one true Church of

Christ limited the Methodist Catholic dialogue to individual’s localized efforts outside of official hierarchical channels.

We desire that Our children should also know, not only those who belong to the Catholic community, but also those who are separated from Us: if these latter humbly beg light from heaven, there is no doubt but that they will recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and will, at last, enter it, being united with us in perfect charity.14

That they may be one is not only the mandate of the Catholic encyclical Ut unum sint; it is a simple conception of God’s intent for unity amongst all of His people. It is a message that all Christians share in their receiving the divine word through scripture.

Jesus said, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” (John 17:

20–21).

It is in the next step, as churchmen take the journey from scripture to building unique traditions and continue evolving their praxis that we observe the challenges that ecumenism faces. Does resolving these doctrinal challenges necessitate a specific approach to the seeking of common ground? What is the foundation essential for the

5 bridging of differences? Exploring the nature of doctrine might assist. In his regulative theory of church doctrine George Lindbeck suggests that opposing positions might be resolved, “by specifying when or where they apply, or by stipulating which of the competing directives take precedence.”15 Seeking the underpinnings, Wainwright notes,

“Whereas Lindbeck was chiefly concerned with the diachronic changeability of doctrines, it was the question of their synchronic variability that came to the fore in the scheme proposed by Karl Rahner and Heinrich Fries for making the reunion of the churches “A real possibility”.16 The hope for doctrinal flexibility is once again being measured against the promise of potential common intentions and theologies overcoming the doctrinal chasm, not the debate of the doctrinal language itself.

3. The Methodist Response to Ut unum sint and Ecumenical Common Ground

The encyclical’s masthead carries the subtitle “On commitment to Ecumenism”, which defines a notion that is developed in its very first chapter “The Catholic Church’s

Commitment to Ecumenism” consuming approximately one quarter of the document’s word count. It is clear that John Paul II felt there was a real need to articulate the need for the Church to take up the ecumenical task, and to find vigor and conviction for this work.

The first chapter is framed around God’s plan for the uniting of all His divided people and begins, “Together with all Christ’s disciples, the Catholic Church bases upon God’s plan her ecumenical commitment to gather all Christians into unity.”17 This is the level of commitment to ecumenism, truly one requiring an inner conversion upon which John

Paul II frames his map for fuller study of certain areas.

6 Among these five areas for fuller study one presents the most immediate possibilities for progress. John Paul II states, “the relationship between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred Tradition, as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God.”18 It is here that the Ut unum sint’s possibilities for fuller study bring great opportunity initially and then as varied approaches to exegesis is wont to do, also presents more abundant complexities.

Wainwright called for two primary undertakings to advance this fuller study, first was the formation of joint study groups and secondly a complementary movement to approach the subject from the History of Scripture as opposed to Church History. As mentioned above, John Paul II applauded the formation of study groups of this nature and saw them as progress. It appears this ecumenical treatment of Scripture and Tradition is well underway with the Common Lectionary already in use in many Protestant churches.

The dialogue among clergy regarding this joint effort is an abundant field of opportunity as Wainwright suggests, “It may not be beyond the bounds of possibility that the Roman

Church, having seen its lectionary so gratefully received in some other communities, would in turn welcome it back with minor suggestions for improvement that have been made and tried.”19 With his optimism that all Christian preachers proceed with the Divine

Word as a homiletic anchor, Wainwright asserts, “Even now. Preachers are often able to prepare their messages together, and congregations to receive God’s Word in a uniting way.”20

It is in this Christian wide acceptance of the Word of God that Wainwright sees the complex dialogue around the topic of tradition can be carefully explored, ”Such a

Catholic acknowledgment of the supremacy of Scripture ought to satisfy Protestants who,

7 once they get beyond a sloganeering comprehension of sola Scriptura, realize that

Scripture is never in fact “alone” but is always read within a diachronic and synchronic community of interpretation for which it remains, of course, a permanent and unsurpassable norm.”21

One might ask how exploring for common ground in the history of scripture and the history of church could bring about differing types of dialogue? Wainwright has employed a tongue-in-cheek sketch of Church History to shed some ecclesiological clarification:

In the fifth century, the non-Chalcedonians split from the hitherto undivided church. Then the Byzantine East broke away in 1054. The unreformed Roman Catholics were left behind in the sixteenth century, while the continental Protestants had the misfortune of being foreigners. In the eighteenth century, even the Church of England refused Wesley’s mission, so that finally only Methodists remained in the body of Christ.22

This superficial sketch humorously demonstrates how easily a derailment might occur if we seek common ground and intentions in denominational Church Histories instead of within the History of Scripture.

The Nicene Creed is a shared pledge of fidelity to Scripture shared by Catholics and mainline Protestants. Wainwright states, “fidelity to scripture ---have always been taken as the irreversible deliverances and continuing guides of the Tradition in its interpretation of Scripture.”23 The teaching offices of Methodists and Catholics are both firmly grounded in faithfulness to Scripture. Wainwright found great optimism in the potential for traditions to be understood more fully by the faithful presence of Scripture’s voice in the development of both traditions’ teaching offices. Wainwright said, “Vatican

II recognized in paragraph 10 of Dei Verbum, this Magisterium is not superior to the

8 Word of God, but its servant; it teaches only what has been handed on to it.”24 As enthusiastic as Wainwright was about common ground being found in the foundation of the doctrinal elements of tradition being received from Scripture, he was still being a realist seeking to build on that common ground, but not ignoring the challenges. Clearly some other dialogues will present higher levels of difficulty.

4. More Difficult Ecumenical Challenges

We shall now visit the areas for fuller study within Ut unum sunt found to be more challenging by Wainwright. In his own worship, Wainwright brings a lifelong personal commitment to receiving communion as he considers the second of John Paul

II’s issues for study, including the Eucharist. The challenge comes in today’s firmly rooted Catholic doctrinal obstacles to sharing the communion table between Protestants and Catholics. Still Wainwright hopes to pursue a dialogue on the issue, “I would urge that Catholics and Protestants with some regularity be present at—and, as far as their disciplines allow, participate in --- the Eucharistic celebration of their conversation partners.”25 This is a patient process that might bear fruit only after greater unity is achieved allowing the revision of Catholic policies on reception of communion. However unity at one communion table might be challenged in practice today, Wainwright’s response remains theologically optimistic, “As a Protestant, I am committed to the

Pastoral recovery of the principle enunciated by John Wesley as the Supper of the Lord on every Lord’s Day.”26

“Ordination, as a Sacrament, to the threefold ministry of the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate” is the third of John Paul II’s areas identified for fuller study.27 Wainwright optimistically notes that, “almost all classically Protestant churches

9 do ordain to ministry in the name of Christ by the imposition of hands with prayer for the

Holy Spirit.”28 He admits the notion of an ontological change in the candidate at Catholic ordinations has weighed down the conversation in this area, but finds some common ground in looking to the shared intention for ministry to be of service to God’s community. His response brings focus to, “what is perhaps less noticed by Catholics is that, even among their seven sacraments, ordination is peculiar in being the only one where the act is not directly intended for the personal benefit of the recipient but is immediately oriented to the service of the entire community.”29 Preservation of the apostolic tradition and episcopal succession remain as areas that require further work.

Wainwright concludes,

I was there trying to take seriously the growing recognition that episcopal succession is a strand---whether an indispensible strand or not is, of course, the question still to be resolved--- in a more complex interweaving of other strands in the preservation of the Apostolic Tradition, and attempting to signal the status of Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith.30

Progress in the dialogue regarding ordination is particularly dependent on further study of the other identified areas to create a good platform for anchoring the conversation.

The fourth area for study seeks to consider, “the Magisterium of the Church, entrusted to the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him, understood as a responsibility and an authority exercised in the name of Christ for teaching and safeguarding the faith”31 Fuller study here seems challenging until progress is made around the Petrine ministry. Wainwright observes, “It is within the papacy that the clash between Protestants and Catholics over magisterium comes to its sharpest expression.”32

10 The source of legislative authority is a significant ecclesiological challenge in the dialogue. John Paul II recognizes the significance of this challenge; and in Ut unum sint he addresses the ministry of unity of the Bishop of Rome and asks for a patient dialogue,

This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea "that they may all be one ... so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn 17:21)?33

There is a long and wide discussion over whether the reformation was attacking the institution of the papacy or the practices of particular popes. At the heart of that dialogue, the notion of the primacy of servanthood ministry instead of primacy of dominion has also been the subject of ongoing promising dialogue among theologians.

Pursuing the areas where Protestants and Catholics clash can yield important progress if we maintain the commitment John Paul II asks of us and appreciate that final resolution of the challenges might not be immediate, but rather the final fruit of distant future work. Wainwright acknowledges the difficulty of this undertaking,

What now remains to be done in some way is the pursuit of that invitation launched by John Paul II in Ut unum sint to a “patient and fraternal dialogue” as to how the Bishop of Rome might best exercise his historic ministry in the service of an intentionally universal unity in the circumstances shaped by “the ecumenical movement in our century” and, more precisely, a half-century’s impact of Vatican II. In that encyclical letter of Ascension Day, 1995, John Paul II repeated from Vatican II the Catholic Church's “irrevocable commitment” to ecumenism and concluded by stressing the indispensability of churchly unity to the task of evangelization. 34

The further study of this difficult papal dialogue has gained growing support from the combination of persons and time, as more Protestants openly receive the presence and pastoral nature of the Petrine ministry of popes like John Paul II and Francis. Wainwright

11 concludes by realistically responding to the Protestant questions about the Petrine ministry, “It must, however, be admitted that such reconsideration is likely to be burdened, at least initially, by the previous exercise of the Roman magisterium in dogmatically defining the two Marian dogmas of the immaculate conception and the assumption.”35

This brings us to “the Virgin Mary, as Mother of God and Icon of the Church, the spiritual Mother who intercedes for Christ's disciples and for all humanity”, which is the fifth area for further study.36 Dialogue in this area has been made more difficult for some

Protestants, as mentioned above, by the imposition of an infallible teaching statement regarding the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Wainwright responds, “On the whole, Protestants have paid little attention to Mary’s place in the history of salvation, perhaps by reaction against perceived excesses in Catholic piety.”37 In informal dialogue, the Marian issue does not provide as much of a lightning rod obstacle as Petrine issues, yet as Wainwright concludes “Protestants and Catholics will be starting much further in arrears than in other areas, for Mary has not so far been the subject of sustained international bilateral or multilateral dialogue.”38 There remains much opportunity for dialogue!

5. Ecumenical Common Ground Twenty Years after Ut unum sint

The zeal for sola Scriptura as the exclusive source for doctrine has faded within mainline Protestantism, as has the desire to define Methodist polity against Catholic doctrine, in favor of a doctrine forming around the expressed intentions of the faithful.

The current internal Methodist dialogue around doctrine appears in some areas to be as

12 fractious as the Vatican II era did for Catholics. Same sex marriage and contraception ring harmonic emotional bells. Today’s ecumenical dialogue can find much to build upon from John Paul II’s Ut unum sint and Wainwright’s quest to determine if the reformation is over; within the framework of doctrine being responsive to the signs of the times and the place of the church, the common intentions of those faithful can continue to look to scripture and critically examine the path of doctrinal change.

In summary John Paul II brought in Ut unum Sint a myriad of ideas presenting great possibilities for ecumenical dialogue; his focus on five areas for fuller studies identified both challenges and opportunities. Geoffrey Wainwright found in all of those five areas opportunity, challenges and possibilities; yet he saw the common ground within the interplay of Scripture and tradition as the launching pad to bring the

Methodists and Catholics closer together.

An active joint historical approach to study Scripture might be the pregnant thought within Wainwright’s response to Ut unum sint; herein might begin the renewal of the inner conversion essential to true ecumenism. John Paul II’s call for conversion is timeless, it is as relevant now as it was in 1995, “There is no true ecumenism without interior conversion and purification of memory, without holiness of life in conformity with the Gospel, and especially without intense and assiduous prayer that echoes the prayer of Jesus.”39 With recent same sex marriage polity changes the Methodist Catholic ecumenical undertaking in 2015 may face more doctrinal separations than it did in 1995, yet for many the common intentions underlying doctrine have been brought closer together by a faithfulness to the Gospel, in the face of diverging doctrinal positions.

Wainwright concludes, “Finally, it might be considered that genuine and substantial

13 differences, which were insoluble when they first arose can now be reconciled and overcome through the discovery of new insights into the Gospel and the faith or (more likely) through the recovery of more original perceptions that antedate the

Reformation.”40

So it is in the common intentions of faithful Methodists and Catholics that underpin doctrine that the dialogue can continue to find the word of God in Sacred

Scripture as a bridge for many to find a way across the divide of the reformation. Is the reformation over? Possibly, the reformation has begun a new, but as a reformation of unity, a movement of all the faithful, not only official delegates, but Methodists and

Catholics sharing an intention that they may be as one.

Endnotes

1Pope John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 1995.

2Pope Paul VI Unitatis redintegratio,1964.

3 Pope John Paul II, Vespers Liturgy Homily at 40th Anniversary of Unitatis redintegratio, 2004, 4.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, 2.

6 Ibid.

7 Geoffrey Wainwright is a teacher, scholar and statesman born in 1939 in Yorkshire, England and reared in British Methodism. He received a B.A. and M.A. in Modern Languages from Cambridge University before preparing for Ministry at Wesley College. His first pastoral appointment was in Liverpool, England and then he went on to receive a

14

B.D. and D.D. from Cambridge and a D.Theol. from the University of Geneva. As a scholar he has authored nearly 300 articles and books. As a teacher he served in Cameroun as Professor of Systematic Theology before joining Union Theological Seminary as Roosevelt Chair of Systematic Theology. He has most recently taught at the Divinity School of Duke University and chaired the World Council of Churches Lima meeting, the World Methodist Council’s Committee on Ecumenism, and the international Methodist-Roman Catholic Dialogue the United States.

8 Geoffrey Wainwright, Is the Reformation Over?, given as the thirty-first annual Pere Marquette Lecture in Theology, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000), 39.

9 Pope John Paul II, Ut unum Sint, 1995, 79.

10 Ibid.

11 Wainwright, I.R.O., 8.

12 Ibid., 4.

13 Ibid., 6.

14 Pope Pious XI, Mortalium animos, 1928, 13.

15 George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 18.

16 Wainwright, IRO, 25.

17 Pope John Paul II, Ut unum Sint, 5.

18 Ibid., 79.

19 Wainwright, IRO, 41.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 39.

22 Geoffrey Wainwright, The Ecumenical Moment: Crisis and Opportunity for the Church, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 189.

23 Wainwright, IRO, 39.

24 Ibid.

15

25Ibid., 45.

26 Ibid.

27 Ut unum Sint, 79.

28 Wainwright, IRO, 46.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 48.

31 Ut unum sint, 79.

32 Wainwright, IRO, 49.

33 Ut unum sint, 96.

34 Geoffrey Wainwright, The Second Vatican Council: The Legacy Viewed Through Methodist Eyes, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 48:2, spring 2013, 202.

35 Wainwright, IRO, 51.

36 Ut unum sint, 79.

37 Wainwright, IRO, 51.

38 Ibid, 53.

39 Pope John Paul II, Vespers Liturgy Homily, 4.

40 Wainwright, IRO, 10.

16