One challenge ecumenical leaders face is integrating the many solid ecumenical advances of the past half-century into the life of their churches, especially in an age where general religious illiteracy is on the rise, Christian Brother Jeffrey Gros told a national gathering of ecumenists Jan. 30.Brother Gros is a theology professor at Memphis (Tenn.) Theological Seminary who spent a quarter-century as a national ecumenical officer, first for the National Council of Churches and then for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
He delivered the keynote address for the National Workshop on Christian Unity, held Jan. 29-Feb. 1 at Arlington's Key Bridge Marriott Hotel.
The gathering drew nearly 400 national and local ecumenical officers of the Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian and other Christian churches.
Brother Gros opened his address talking about recent ecumenical advances "for which I would like to express gratitude to God."
He cited the recent World Methodist Council announcement that the Catholic-Lutheran "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" also expresses fundamental Methodist beliefs in that area, long considered a source of church divisions.
He also noted that the World Council of Churches text, "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry," marks its 25th anniversary this year.
"The study of this text at every level of church life, from congregations and ecumenical communities across the world to the focus of decision-making bodies within our churches, has contributed to both deeper levels of communion and even full communion agreements among some churches," he said.
He also thanked God that "some of the most polarizing issues in our society have begun to be discussed between our churches," including the difficult issue of homosexuality.
"Sexuality is or can be a church-dividing issue," he said, and it is important for the churches to work for ecumenical understanding even while facing divisions within their own churches on such issues.
He suggested that "the initial pioneering work of (the National Council of Churches Commission on) Faith and Order ... on homosexuality and the Vatican-World Council reflections on dialogue on sensitive ethical issues" can help frame ecumenical discussions in such fields.
He said that when the U.S. Episcopal Church agreed in 2003 to the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the church's first openly gay bishop, Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett of Seattle reminded his fellow Catholic bishops "that our dialogue is with the Anglican Communion and not one of its particular members."
He said when people ask him whether Catholics will call off dialogue with some other church because it differs with the Catholic Church on human sexuality or on public policy approaches to life issues, "I try to remind them that the ecumenical movement is about our common baptism -- or, as I say to my students, 'It is Christ, stupid!' not the culture wars."
He called the recent establishment of Christian Churches Together in the USA another ecumenical gift to be thankful for. That new forum for dialogue, consultation and joint witness brings under a single umbrella, for the first time, all five major families of Christianity in the United States: Catholic, Orthodox, historical Protestant, African American/ethnic, and evangelical and Pentecostal.
But the sheer number and quality of ecumenical advances in recent decades presents a major challenge to ecumenists, pastors, teachers and other church leaders, Brother Gros said.
"We are challenged by both an ecumenical overload of agreements to integrate into the mainstream of Christian piety and consciousness and a looming religious illiteracy in our churches," he said.
He said that last year, when he introduced students in one of his classes to the 2004 United Methodist statement on the Eucharist, "This Holy Mystery," the Methodist students "were elated with the text, and frustrated with their district superintendents for not having exposed them to it before this class."
"Our magisterial and ecumenical texts serve for very little if they do not become a source for the spiritual and pastoral formation of our people, especially our leaders," he said.
He said Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, a noted expert in catechetics, described the phenomenon of growing religious illiteracy in a recent speech. The archbishop said many young people in the 1990s and the current decade are significantly different in their religious attitudes from earlier generations: "They often do not contest what the church teaches. They simply do not know it."
The religious illiteracy Archbishop Wuerl referred to includes "ecumenical illiteracy," Brother Gros said. "This situation challenges us to work together and not to retreat from our commitments to one another in sectarian isolation."
"We have a common task of translating our ecumenical achievements into educable components, teachable content and methodology," he said.
Other challenges facing the ecumenical movement today include understanding ecumenism in its global context, meeting the fundamental Christian and ecumenical demand of "continual conversion" within all the churches, and meeting the "Hispanic ecumenical challenge" in the United States, he said.
He noted that 70 percent of U.S. Hispanics are Catholic and most come from highly Catholic countries, where ecumenism has not yet entered deeply into church life or popular culture, into a religiously pluralistic environment in the United States.
"The Catholic Church needs to be particularly concerned about the ecumenical priority in the U.S. Hispanic community, if it is not to see the 70 percent Catholic quickly drop to 40 percent or lower," he said.
- - -Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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