An ecumenical gathering

I have a strong person devotion to the ecumenism and the ecumenical movement. I really believe — however foolish it might seem at time — that the Holy Spirit is guiding Christians into greater unity with one another. I accept without hesitation the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism. But it is becoming increasingly obvious to any reasonable observer that the initial enthusiasm of the ecumenical movement has given way to a “winter of ecumenism” that is increasingly looking more and more like a deep freeze colder than the temperature outside. Consider these facts:

• Apart from our relations with the Assyrian Church of the East, the Roman Catholic/Orthodox dialogues are at a standstill. Nothing concrete has happened for at least 15 years.
• The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission has been suspended, in the wake of the decision of the ECUSA to ordain Gene Robinson as bishop.
• The dialogues with the Lutheran World Federation produced a brilliant Joint Declaration on Justification, which (it would seem) in the end didn’t really resolve the controversy on this critically important Reformation doctrine. Case in point: it doesn’t seem to have helped our dialogues with other Protestant churches all that much.
• …and so on

So what do we do? Well, I can’t speak for the other communities of Christians, but I have a few ideas for us Catholics:

1. We need to place prayer at the centre of our ecumenical work. Personally, I sometimes pray a modified version of the Divine Liturgy that I call the “Office for Christian Unity”. It gives me a chance to reflect on our foundational texts on ecumenism, and to recognize it is all in the hands of the Lord.
2. We Catholics need to re-read the aforementioned Decree on Ecumenism. The Holy Spirit guided the production of this document, and it contains a fairly simple game plan for ecumenism within its few paragraphs. The problem is not that the program in the Decree hasn’t worked, but that it hasn’t really been fully tried.
3. We need to figure out who we are talking to, and make sure they have authority for something. Official ecumenical agreements are like international treaties: where there is no authority to back up the treaty, why sign it? So, for example, while we do need to have some international coordinating body for Anglican-RC dialogue, the real ecumenism is going to happen on the level of the national churches of the Anglican Communion.
4. Related to the previous point, we need to make sure that our dialogue partner agrees with the following philosophical positions: (1) that there is only one Truth, and (2) it is possible for human beings to attain genuine knowledge of this Truth. We waste our time when we have ecumenical partners who are only interested in dialogue without resolution, in a “process of reflection” without ever arriving at any conclusion, or who have basically given themselves over to some kind of post-modern agnosticism about Truth. Real ecumenism is about reconstruction, not deconstruction.
5. We need to have a clear and articulate teaching on salvation, and use that as our starting point in all theological discussions. All Christian theology ultimately comes down to soteriology, because Christ came to save us. There is no point in discussing church structure, liturgy, Mary, etc., if we can’t have a common soteriological reference point with our dialogue partner, because sooner or later a difference will get in the way. How do you get to heaven? Does sin matter? What about the Second Coming? This is important stuff, stuff that motivates people to become Christian, to stay Christian, and to evangelize — which means it matters when a Christian from one denomination is trying to figure out if a Christian from another denomination is really “one of us”. The less clear this is, the less confidence there will be that ecumenical discussions mean something in the first place.
6. I am of the opinion that dialogue needs to be broadened beyond the hierarchs and the professional ecumenists. Various organizations for Catholic ministries should have an “ecumenical office” to dialogue with their counterpart organizations in other churches, possibly even having joint conferences etc. The professional ecumenists can then, first and foremost, offer their services to help these intermediate organizations talk to each other.

Any other thoughts?