How
can the vigour and vitality generated by the 10th Assembly of the World
Council of Churches bring new impetus to the ecumenical movement?
How
can Christians of different denominations rediscover their common
spiritual roots?
And how are Catholic leaders aiming to implement the
goals of the Assembly in the life of their own local Churches?
At
the conclusion of her trip to Busan, South Korea for the 10-day WCC
Assembly, Philippa Hitchen put those questions to the Archbishop of
Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, a member of the Catholic delegation and
outgoing co-moderator of the Joint Working Group of the Catholic Church
and the World Council of Churches.
Archbishop Martin began by discussing
the documents the Group has produced since the last Assembly in Porto
Alegre, Brazil seven years ago:
“The
document I like best – we produced 3 documents on reception, on young
people – the one I like is looking at the spiritual roots of
ecumenism….the more we understand the saints we have in common, then we
come closer, I think, to the fundamental roots of ecumenism…
Looking
in the same way at liturgical texts, hymns and Christian literature,
from before the division of Christianity – these are aspects of what we
share and we don’t give enough attention to them..
What happens when I
go home, what sort of message do I bring as a diocesan bishop, how do
we ensure the experience we’ve had here can become part of the day to
day life of a Christian in my and other countries….
The experience of
this Assembly on a human and spiritual level is quite remarkable, there
are very few other worldwide Christian gatherings which are like
this….for all of us, to see the variety that’s there, that Christian
unity shouldn’t end up with uniformity, it should end up with respecting
a lot of this diversity and liturgical practice in the life of the
Church….
There’s a certain vitality in the Assembly, a lot of it due
to the fact that there are younger people there….I wonder that, for
example, at our Synod of Bishops, is there a way in which we might be
able to include some of this diversity, some of this joy of the young
people…even the freedom to be provocative at times….I think that’s
important too..”