Tuesday, September 06, 2005
BENEDICT ON ECUMENISM
Sandro Magister has the full text of Benedict's address to non-Catholic Christians in Germany, including his off-the-cuff remarks, up on the Chiesa website.
He is attempting to direct ecumenism into a channel that will not violate the teachings of each individual religion, but also will not place roadblocks to unity.
While I am in sympathy with his objectives, I still don't see how this can be done without doing violence to the teachings of the Church down through the centuries. Do we abandon the concept of heresy? Do we reject the teachings of prior popes? If we do, how then can we claim to be a people of Tradition? If we do not, how then do we reconcile the anathemas with our current friendliness?
I just don't see how we can go where he is going without destroying doctrine.
He readily admits that "Dialogue cannot come at the price of truth", and I agree. But how, then, can I also agree with "dialogue must be carried out in charity and truth." Aren't the two mutually incompatible? or more accurately, isn't dialogue substantially opposed to truth? We can hardly come to the dialogue table claiming we know it all and expect those with whom we dialogue to view that as charity, can we? The mere fact that we join with other ecclesial communities at the dialogue table presupposes that all at the table are equal.
