Crash Cart

CRASH CART! Part I

A Review of a Review: "The Strengths and Weaknesses of Ecumenical Movement So Far" A Keynote address by William Henn OFM Cap, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Rome

I named this review "CRASH CART" because the topic triggered that phrase from the House tv series, wherein whenever the doctors were on the verge of suddenly losing a patient they yelled for the crash cart containing life reviving devices and adrenaline shots. The tools on the Ecumenical "crash cart" that I refer to are linguistic in nature, injections of words and phrases..."renewal, revival, rethinking of structures..."seeking new ecumenical inspiration for the 21th Century". The speaker, William Henn OFM Cap is Capuchin-Franciscan friar and a member of the Faith and Order commission. He teaches systemtic theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and is involved in the Reformed-Roman Catholic and Pentecostal-Roman Catholic bilateral dialogues. In his address at Iona, he references a book called A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948. So much for Edinbourgh 1910 crash cart! Well to be fair, in this information age and the relative ease of worldwide travel, perhaps the last 15 years could be equivalant to 50 years worth of dialogue in the 16th century.

In Henn's initial summation of the last Conference, held in St. Albans Cathedral just two years prior, one could almost sense the loss of a romance in the "disillusionment and disappointment" described in the assessments, even malaise. However, a loss of a romance is sometimes a lesson in reality. The theme of ecumenism (at least one of the early themes), was the attainment of "visible unity". Christians however, are not naive, and "visible unity" for all intents and purposes is like the engagement period of a couple with the planning, the anticipation, and the gathering together with friends and relatives, an initial unity of appearance with the pledge of formal marriage in the future. However, in a prolonged engagement, a lot can happen; one party may want to finish college first, and get a career in education and social action. The nature of the promise changes. As time goes by the engagement becomes a kind of "marriage", the parties have been together so long, they can't imagine not being engaged. Nor can they agree to marry, and so it goes.

In Henn's keynote address to the weary, it's a task to reassure everyone that the wedding is still on. However, he lists as the first weakness of ecumenical movement the following: "We still are not united...''the most difficult problem for Church unity seems to be unity in faith." ''That is a truth not heard verbalized often because of it's logical implications. However, let me give an example of one way of looking at it. While researching ecumenism, I was a offended by the conclusions that one report stated on common worship. The problem, as they saw it, was that so many didn't understand what was being said. So the WCC committee contemplated on moving away from using words to using symbols. Not every symbol meant the same thing to various members and the need for new symbols was mentioned. What bothered me so much about this was the fact that there was an assumption that these problems were inherent in Christianity. My experience has proved that not to be true. In the recent past, I have been to churches that were completely in Romanian and in Russian. I could not have been more at home in the sense of common worship. I don't understand Romanian and very little Russian. A few years ago in Rome, I attended an ancient church with the Roman ruins just behind it, it was in Greek, the entire worship service was sung. A Syrian Bishop was visiting which was very special. I was in heaven for that hour and a half. This was a gift of ecumenism; not because of changes to worship, but because the building had been returned to the Church by Pope Paul II in the spirit of Vatican II. As the world of ecumenism has remained engaged in anticipation of future promise, the Church has not stopped living a realized promise since the beginning.