The End of Monologues, the Beginning of Dialogues

Even for all the years the var­i­ous Chris­t­ian churches were sep­a­rated from each other, they cer­tainly didn’t ignore each other. In fact, they needed each other—the evil foil to their own unspoiled right­eous­ness. Protes­tants needed their car­i­ca­tures of the pope and his evil ways, and the mind­less Catholic min­ions who obeyed him unques­tion­ingly; Catholics needed their stereo­types of mod­ernist, ratio­nal­ist, ulti­mately athe­ist Protes­tants who aban­doned all truth. The result was noisy, dual-track monologues—neither side lis­ten­ing or hav­ing any good rea­son to lis­ten. But it was also par­a­sitic: my truth hinged on your absolute falsehood.

So it’s pretty obvi­ous that long before churches could even con­sider merger, they had to get reac­quainted and find out what the other was all about. A lot can hap­pen in 450 years! Both sides had been through a lot and had changed in var­i­ous ways. There was a grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the need to do some clean-up in their own houses. The place to start was con­sci­en­tiously obey­ing the 8th Com­mand­ment: You shall not bear false wit­ness against your neighbor.

Uni­tatis Red­in­te­gra­tio explains what this means:

“The term ‘ecu­meni­cal move­ment’ indi­cates the ini­tia­tives and activ­i­ties planned and under­taken, accord­ing to the var­i­ous needs of the Church and as oppor­tu­ni­ties offer, to pro­mote Chris­t­ian unity. These are: first, every effort to avoid expres­sions, judg­ments and actions which do not rep­re­sent the con­di­tion of our sep­a­rated brethren with truth and fair­ness and so make mutual rela­tions with them more dif­fi­cult; then, ‘dia­logue’ between com­pe­tent experts from dif­fer­ent Churches and Com­mu­ni­ties.” (§4)

First, stop repeat­ing your own car­i­ca­tures, stereo­types, and out­right lies; sec­ond, start pay­ing atten­tion to what the oth­ers are really say­ing about them­selves. UR continues:

“At these meet­ings, which are orga­nized in a reli­gious spirit, each explains the teach­ing of his Com­mu­nion in greater depth and brings out clearly its dis­tinc­tive fea­tures. In such dia­logue, every­one gains a truer knowl­edge and more just appre­ci­a­tion of the teach­ing and reli­gious life of both Com­mu­nions. In addi­tion, the way is pre­pared for coop­er­a­tion between them in the duties for the com­mon good of human­ity which are demanded by every Chris­t­ian con­science; and, wher­ever this is allowed, there is prayer in com­mon. Finally, all are led to exam­ine their own faith­ful­ness to Christ’s will for the Church and accord­ingly to under­take with vigor the task of renewal and reform.” (§4)

Ecu­meni­cal dia­logue isn’t only good for indi­vid­u­als, but for the world—better under­stand­ing means coop­er­a­tion is pos­si­ble in address­ing all the world’s enor­mous needs.