NEWS STORY: World Council effort to expand church unity seen as unfocused

c. 1998 Religion News Service HARARE, Zimbabwe _ As the World Council of Churches enters its final weekend poised to take votes on proposals to create a new forum for church unity discussions, the plans are being questioned by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church _ the group the proposal most directly targets. Bishop Mario […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

HARARE, Zimbabwe _ As the World Council of Churches enters its final weekend poised to take votes on proposals to create a new forum for church unity discussions, the plans are being questioned by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church _ the group the proposal most directly targets.

Bishop Mario Conti, the Catholic bishop of Aberdeen, Scotland, attending the Eighth Assembly of the 339-member body, said the proposal to create a new”forum”that, while not a decision-making body, would more closely link the WCC with Catholics and Pentecostals, is still unfocused and it remained unclear how the proposed forum would differ from current ways in which the council and the Vatican carry on ecumenical dialogue.


At the same time, Conti also said it would be”imprudent”for his church to seek membership in the WCC.

Some 1,000 delegates and another 4,000 observers and delegates are attending the 50th anniversary 12-day meeting of the WCC and debating what form the future of the ecumenical movement will take in the new millennium.

WCC officials have been searching for ways both to hold the current membership together under the threat of some Orthodox churches to leave and to expand the drive for Christian unity.

At a news conference, Conti spelled out a number of reasons _ historical and practical _ for why the Catholic church did not join the WCC, noting for example that while the WCC was formed in the wake of World War II, the Vatican did not become involved in ecumenical efforts until after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.

By that time, he said, Catholic membership in the overwhelmingly Protestant and Orthodox council would have had a”destabilizing”effect.

That destabilizing risk continues today, he said, because of the size, and structure, and ecclesiology _ theory of church organization _ of the Catholic church.

Conti’s fears were expressed by a number of participants during the debate this week on the proposed changes to the shape of the WCC. It is unclear, for example, whether Roman Catholics would participate in the council as one enormous global church, making it by far the largest member, or whether each individual country would join through its own national bishops’ conference, still overwhelming the council with a proliferation of smaller Catholic churches.


Conti, however, said his main concern for being wary of the WCC had to do with Catholic self-understanding. He said that Orthodox”ecclesiological presuppositions”are similar to the Catholic and his church might therefore have very similar problems in the WCC as do a number of Orthodox bodies.

Two Orthodox churches _ the Georgian and Bulgarian _ have quit the council in recent years and the Russian Orthodox Church _ the WCC’s largest member denomination _ has threatened to leave.”It would seem imprudent for us to venture onto ground which they themselves find hardgoing,”he said.

Some Orthodox churches resent what they find to be a liberal Protestant bias in the WCC but one Orthodox scholar, speaking at a WCC-sponsored”padare,”or forum, said the criticism was misplaced.

Professor Ion Bria of the Romanian Orthodox Church, said the problem was less that of the WCC than that of the Orthodox churches themselves and their need to come to grips with the new reality brought about by the end of the Cold War. The bulk of Orthodox churches are in countries once behind the Iron Curtain.

Leaders of Orthodox churches, he said,”were shocked by a new beginning they were not ready for, but people embraced the change, they were exposed to literature in libraries across their borders hitherto inaccessible, and new voices from new movements were formed.” At the news conference, Conti was asked by Diane Knippers of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an umbrella group of conservatives in mainline Protestant denominations, whether Roman Catholics, Orthodox and evangelicals shared similar frustrations over the”liberal Protestants”who”control”the WCC.”I don’t think (unity in frustration) is the best basis on which to be united … but there’s no doubt that there is an affinity”between Catholics and Orthodox on a number of moral questions.

But Conti also said that despite the church’s reservations about the WCC,”that does preclude … supporting one another in the one ecumenical movement.” The assembly also:


_ Heard Janice Love, the moderator of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, hail the British government’s decision to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain.

_ Elected a new central committee _ the group that runs the WCC between assemblies _ after a sometimes sharp debate in which churches were told they were not going to have women elected to the governing body.

_ Rejected a bid for membership by the Celestial Church of Christ in Nigeria because the denomination still has polygamous clergy.

_ Heard a first reading of the message _ the concluding statement _ that will be issued by the assembly that was greeted by polite applause and scathing criticism.”It will disappear down the sink like a marshmallow,”said the Rev. Gregor Henderson of the Uniting Church of Australia. He called the draft of the four page statement”a disappointment.”

DEA END ROBERTS

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!