Monday, November 29, 2004
ECUMENISM, AGAIN
A reader sent in the link to an interview with Cardinal Cassidy over at Zenit in which he talks about the changes in our view of other faiths.
This:
Q: What sort of progress has the Catholic Church made in the area of ecumenism since the Second Vatican Council?
Cardinal Cassidy: A tremendous amount certainly. I mean, up until then, our attitude in general toward the other Churches was that, well, "they could come home any time they wished … we were ready to receive them."
has changed to:
"No, we have to go out to our other brothers and sisters because Christ wants the unity of the Church."
We are bound, if we wish to be truly followers of Christ, to work for unity. And this doesn't just mean leaving the door open but rather looking for ways to go out and meet the others and to create a relationship by which they are ready then to consider the possibility of entering into full communion with us.
The former, a waiting with the open door, reflected the thinking behind Dominus Iesus...the belief that the Catholic faith is the one true and complete faith. The fullness of truth. We have not abandoned that position.
Further, missionary efforts always "went out" to meet humanity where it could be found, with the hope of drawing humanity to Christ.
The change, it seems to me, is that where once we went out to meet the individual in the hope of drawing him in, we now go out to meet the governing representative of the other faiths. So, the Pope appeases the Patriarch, where once the missionary nun and priest met with the people. The Pontifical Council meets with the World Council of Churches, or the Vatican representative meets with the U.N. Ecumenism seems to have replaced missionary efforts.
Yet the missionary effort is on-going. It just resides in the background, much like relationship with God resides in the background of Catholic thinking. Something we no longer talk about or actively promote. Today the missions are out there struggling on their own to raise funds and help people. And the question arises as we consider whether to send our dollars to the missions, are they drawing people to Christ in an active effort that could undermine interreligious dialogue, or are they just pouring out economic and other help without promoting Christ and Catholicism at all? When I read stories about missionary groups supplying condoms in Africa, I have to wonder.
Has this change resulted from the heterodox liberation theology? A sort of abandonment of what really wasn't working out too well? Have we abandoned missionary effort because geopolitical effort was thought to provide better hope for reconciliation? And has it?
One thing it has provided is a series of scandalous events that have caused Catholics to question the basics of the faith. Does Christ really matter anymore? Is any religion good enough to get to heaven? Are we wasting our time trying to live the more difficult Catholic faith? Can we import spiritual and religious practices from other religions? Is kissing the Koran the same as kissing the Bible? Are interreligious prayer events soul-edifying? Does everyone pray to the same God no matter what they call Him?
Then there is the matter of those encyclicals prior to Vatican II which forbid the very practices that ecumenism and interreligious dialogue promote. How do we weasel out of those prohibitions? How do we dismiss the anathemas of other Popes? And if we find the legal loophole that lets us do it, what consequence does that have for other doctrine--in fact for encyclicals in general--if some of them can be simply dismissed as no longer valid?
What we have gotten from ecumenism and interreligious dialogue is a state of confusion. The more I look at it, the more dismal it appears to be. And the more I look at Freemasonry, the more the similarities override the differences. The Lodge, too, promotes a big happy family of ritual attendees with no dogma and doctrine about a transcendent God in place. It's every Mason for himself where religion is concerned. Pick your own from among a wide variety of equal choices.
Now in coming upon Traditionalism, I'm finding this same thinking given a religious whitewash. There is a good reason Traditionalism has caught on in the Grand Orient Lodges. It is Masonic philosophy that attempts to separate out the more scandalous elements that crept into Masonry with the Paris occult revival. But despite its veneer of religion, it still looks at a variety of religious systems as being equally valid paths to God. Catholicism makes distinctions. Christ is unique.
For me the question it comes down to is how we are to interpret and abide by the First Commandment. Just what is a "strange god" in this age of interreligious dialogue and ecumenism? And how do we avoid having that strange god before us while still living the objectives of Vatican II?
