An Instrument of the Ecumenical Movement: The Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches

The publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry by the World Council of Churches in 1982 was the culmination of more than fifty years of ecumenical discussion. The document was designed to elicit official comment from the churches involved in its production and also to involve a wide membership of the churches in the process of reception of the text by taking its insights into their spiritual, pastoral and theological life. This present article analyses the response of the Roman Catholic Church. The response is largely positive, but the methodology of the document reveals unresolved tensions concerning theological reformulation while the wider issue touching reception in the life of the Church is avoided.

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The Ecumenical Movement in its Early Years

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History ◽

10.1017/s0022046997006271 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 465-485 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

DAVID CARTER

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Early Years ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Cultural Tradition ◽

World Council Of Churches ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

Protestant Churches ◽

The World ◽

Church Relationships ◽

World Council

The year 1998 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the World Council of Churches. Great, but subsequently largely disappointed hopes, greeted it. The movement that led directly to its formation had its genesis in the International Missionary Conference of 1910, an event often cited in popular surveys as marking the beginning of the Ecumenical Movement. This paper will, however, argue that modern ecumenism has a complex series of roots. Some of them predate that conference, significant though it was in leading to the ‘Faith and Order’ movement that was, in its turn, such an important contributor to the genesis of the World Council.Archbishop William Temple, who played a key role in both the ‘Faith and Order’ and ‘Life and Work’ movements, referred to the Ecumenical Movement as the ‘great fact of our times’. This was a gross exaggeration. It is true that the movement engaged, from about 1920 onwards, a very considerable amount of the energy of the most talented and forward-looking leaders and thinkers of the Churches in the Anglican and Protestant traditions. It remained, however, marginal in the life of the Roman Catholic Church until Vatican II, despite the pioneering commitment of some extremely able people amidst official disapproval. Some leaders of the Orthodox Church took a considerable interest in the movement. However, both the official ecclesiology and the popular stance of most Orthodox precluded any real rapprochement with other Churches on terms that bore any resemblance to practicality. Even in the Anglican and mainstream Protestant Churches, the movement remained largely one of a section of the leadership. It attained little genuine popularity, a fact that was frequently admitted even by its most ardent partisans. One could well say that the Ecumenical Movement had only one really solid achievement to celebrate in 1948. This was the formation, in the previous year, of the Church of South India, the first Church to represent a union across the episcopal–non-episcopal divide. This type of union has yet to be emulated outside the Indian sub-continent.One of the aims of this article will be to try to explain why success in India went unmatched elsewhere. The emphasis will be on the English dimension of the problem, though many of the factors that affected the English situation also obtained in other countries in the Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition. This assessment must be balanced, however, by an appreciation of the real progress made in terms of improved and even amicable church relationships.

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THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AS A MEMBER OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

The Ecumenical Review ◽

10.1111/j.1758-6623.1969.tb02244.x ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 3-6

Author(s):

H. S. Alivisatos

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

World Council Of Churches ◽

The World ◽

World Council

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Roman Catholic Contacts

Visser ’t Hooft, 1900-1985 ◽

10.5117/9789463726832_ch08 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jurjen A. Zeilstra

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

World Council Of Churches ◽

Vatican Council ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

History Of ◽

The Difference ◽

The 1960S

Chapter 8 deals with Visser ’t Hooft’s lengthy campaign to have the Roman Catholic Church join the World Council of Churches. It traces developments from the beginning when Protestant ecumenicity was firmly rejected, to the later history from the 1960s onwards. It explores Visser ’t Hooft’s contacts with the Dutch Roman Catholics Jo Willibrands and Frans Thijssen and early attempts at rapprochement, including the creation of the Joint Working Group. The chapter discusses the difference in agendas, and developments during and arising from the Second Vatican Council. It then relates the history of ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic Church in connection with the Roman Catholic movement under successive popes away from membership of the World Council.

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