The Commission on Faith and Order and the Second Vatican Council

The relationship between the Commission on Faith and Order and the Second Vatican Council is a distinct, yet partial, chapter of a much broader and more complex accounting of ecclesial relationships within the ecumenical movement, between the Roman Catholic Church and the wider ecumenical movement, and between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches (WCC). The Commission on Faith and Order has been shaped by these wider contexts, and in turn has shaped the Roman Catholic engagement with the churches and the WCC. Accounts of the relationship between the WCC and Vatican II are well documented in histories, such as the magisterial five volumes of the History of Vatican II edited by Giuseppe Alberigo, and other accounts of the council, such as the 2010 text Christian Unity: Duty and Hope, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. These histories seldom, if ever, mention the Commission on Faith and Order, and if it is mentioned, it is usually in the context of its Fourth World Conference in 1963, with reference to its treatment of “Scripture, Tradition and Traditions” and the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum. There are significant non–Roman Catholic accounts of the council, such as Lukas Vischer's chapter in Alberigo's series, “The Council as an Event in the Ecumenical Movement,”1 as well as his lengthier chapter on “The Ecumenical Movement and the Roman Catholic Church” in the WCC's own history of the ecumenical movement.2 Oddly for one who is emblematic of Faith and Order in the 20th century, Vischer rarely refers to Faith and Order in these accounts. A significant first-hand account of the relationship between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church is found in W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft's Memoirs, which likewise seldom refer to the role played by Faith and Order. The Commission on Faith and Order was not officially represented at Vatican II. One of the celebrated features of the council was the presence of 186 ecumenical observers appointed by their respective Christian World Communions and the ecumenical guests invited by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. The contribution of the ecumenical observers and guests was recognized throughout the council, as well as by historians of the council. A remarkable feature of a significant number of these observers is that they were, like Lukas Vischer, also deeply engaged in the work of Faith and Order. Some of the more distinguished ecumenical observers have also left first-hand accounts of their experience of and reflection on Vatican II: for example, Douglas Horton's four-volume Vatican Diary, Albert Outler's Methodist Observer at Vatican II, and George Caird's Our Dialogue with Rome. Anglican observer Bernard Pawley published three different texts on the council, including an extremely valuable book, The Second Vatican Council: Studies by Eight Anglican Observers. There are scores of other such works from the time of the council, some written by observers who were also members of Faith and Order. Yet they contain few references to Faith and Order. Pawley's The Second Vatican Council describes the ecumenical engagement within the council as though the WCC was absent, with the exception of one reference to a statement of the WCC on religious freedom in connection with the Declaration on Religious Liberty. This is an even stranger omission since one of the Anglican observers, Canadian Eugene Fairweather, a contributor to Pawley's volume, was a member of the Commission on Faith and Order throughout the time of the council. Much later, Fairweather was one of my professors and ecumenical mentors; anecdotally, I remember that one of the things that singled him out as a leading Anglican ecumenist was his nomination to Faith and Order in the 1950s. These observers were the official representatives of their respective churches or ecumenical institutions, and their horizon in the context of Vatican II was necessarily bilateral rather than multilateral. Yet the absence of mention or reflection on Faith and Order might suggest that the commission played a limited role – or no role – with the Roman Catholic Church during the time of the council. The evidence from the Commission on Faith and Order itself through years before and after Vatican II describes a different picture. In this paper, the primary sources for the history between Faith and Order and Vatican II are the published minutes of Faith and Order meetings during those years: the minutes and reports from the commission itself, the working committee, and the Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order of 1963. These minutes take the reader from the hesitant interest in the council reflected in the 1959 minutes to the nomination of Roman Catholic members to the commission – including the future Pope Benedict XVI – reflected in the 1968 minutes. The very nature of the primary sources places the emphasis of this account on the Commission on Faith and Order as a corporate body, rather than on the specific contributions of members of the commission in isolation. It must be admitted that the contributions of individual members of Faith and Order to Vatican II were extraordinary in scope and effect. I think first of Lukas Vischer: his initiation of so many of the activities within the commission to include Roman Catholics and his leadership among the ecumenical observers to the council. His reflections on the Second Vatican Council back to the WCC in reports and presentations represent a significant literary legacy. The timeframe in this account of Faith and Order's engagement with Vatican II (1962–1965) begins before and ends after the council, from 1959 to 1968. The widest timeframe of Faith and Order's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church for the purposes of this narrative is from 1928 to 2012; that is, from the 1928 encyclical of Pius XI, Mortalium animos, to the completion of the second Faith and Order convergence text, The Church: Towards a Common Vision, in 2012. In an odd way, Mortalium animos (“Mortal souls”) signals how important Faith and Order had become to the Roman Catholic Church. In a clear reaction to the World Conference on Faith and Order in 1927, the ecumenical movement as a whole was condemned. In the encyclical, Pope Pius XI condemned the ecumenical movement and prohibited Roman Catholic participation in it. Previously, Roman Catholics were forbidden to attend the Life and Work conference in 1925 as well as the First World Conference on Faith and Order in 1927. At the other end, in 2012, the Faith and Order Commission brought to completion its 20-year reflection on ecclesiology, which includes a reflection on “the question of a universal ministry of Christian unity.”3 Significantly, given the beginnings of the timeframe of this narrative in 1928, the convergence text on ecclesiology in 2012 not only contains a reflection on the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, but it was completed during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, himself one of the first Roman Catholic members of the commission elected in 1968. In short, precipitated by the first meeting of Faith and Order, in 1928 one pope formally condemned the ecumenical movement, and 84 years later, during the pontificate of another pope who was a former member of Faith and Order, the commission encouraged the churches to reflect on the papacy, ending its reflection with the question “If, according to the will of Christ, current divisions are overcome, how might a ministry that fosters and promotes the unity of the Church at the universal level be understood and exercised?”4 The accounting of this extraordinary progress between 1928 and 2012 can only be explained with reference to the Commission on Faith and Order and its role in Vatican II. It seemed likely that participation would be limited to Roman Catholics, and the question of unity dealt with primarily in that domestic context; considering the lack of contact with other parts of Christendom of many Roman circles it was perhaps better for the ultimate cause of church unity that no more was attempted at this time. The Roman Church was probably not prepared theologically or otherwise to make the right ecumenical decisions now.6 The expressed role of Faith and Order in the present context was “constant prayer for our Roman brethren” and a “constant willingness to enter into discussion when opportunities were presented.”7 More concretely, the commission agreed that the possibility be explored to have one or two Roman Catholic observers attend the meeting of the commission in 1960. The minutes of the August 1960 meeting of the commission indicate the presence of the first three official8 Roman Catholic observers: Fr René Beaupère, OP, a prominent member of the generation of French ecumenical pioneers; Fr Bernard, Leeming, SJ; and Fr Jérôme Hamer, OP, who would be the first consultant to the commission from the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.9 In the course of the meeting, Fr Hamer was invited to speak on behalf of the Roman Catholic observers. He began by presenting a detailed summary of Roman Catholic ecumenical engagement throughout Europe – Germany, France, Holland, England – in terms of theological dialogue, common academic study, prayer, study and formation. He addressed the upcoming council, and more specifically the recent creation of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity in preparation for the council. The creation of the Secretariat, he stressed, signalled an official organization dealing with relations between the Catholic Church and other churches. Further information would have to wait until the WCC central committee meeting a short time afterwards.10 In a discussion on the implication of Faith and Order work, the commission readily acknowledged the importance of the Catholic Church and its work for Christian unity: first, because of its size; second, because of Roman Catholic interest in this particular work of the WCC; third, because of the contributions of Roman Catholic theologians to the work of Faith and Order. The openness to furthering the dialogue was expressed: “We believe that this theological discussion should be pursued in whatever ways may be mutually acceptable.”11 In June 1960, just prior to the August meeting of Faith and Order, Cardinal Bea sent Mgr Willebrands to Geneva to meet with W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft to convey the news to him of the creation of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and to plan a meeting between Cardinal Bea and Visser ‘t Hooft. Willebrands was also authorized to attend the August meeting of the WCC central committee. When Bea and Visser ‘t Hooft did meet at the end of September 1960 in Milan, they discussed the possibility of Roman Catholic observers at the 1961 WCC assembly, and conversely, the presence of ecumenical observers at the upcoming Vatican Council. Significantly, the advice on this question was sought first from the WCC. The solution proposed between Visser ‘t Hooft and Willebrands was to send observers from the WCC and the “confessional federations or alliances.”12 The positive experience of the New Delhi assembly for the Roman Catholic Church further encouraged the invitation of ecumenical observers at the Vatican Council. As the official history of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said, “The mediation of Geneva would turn out to be fundamental in the task of having other churches send observers to the Vatican Council.”13 At the meeting of the Working Committee of Faith and Order during the summer of 1962, Lukas Vischer reported on the visits that he and his Faith and Order staff colleague Patrick Rodger had undertaken to a variety of Roman Catholic centres in Europe, and the importance of commission members taking their own initiatives with Roman Catholics. He announced that with the agreement of Mgr Willebrands and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, a consultation would be held at the Bossey Institute in 1963 among ten to 15 Faith and Order members and a similar number of Roman Catholic theologians to study the final reports of the various working theological commissions of Faith and Order. The other aim of the consultation was a preparation for the World Conference of Faith and Order, to be held in Montreal in 1963. Significantly, Vischer announced that “several Faith and Order Commission members would be present in Rome at the Second Vatican Council as officially appointed Observers of their respective denominations, and it was suggested that they should keep in contact throughout the duration of the Council.”14 Under the heading of “Major Items in the Programme of Faith and Order,” note was made of the involvement of Roman Catholic theologians, especially in the preparation for the World Conference of 1963. There is also the proposal that at the first meeting of the commission after Montreal in 1964, a long-term commission be established with Roman Catholic theologians to determine and initiate appropriate areas of joint study. The working committee also encouraged members of Faith and Order globally to initiate visits to Roman Catholic seminaries and other centres, and to plan hospitality for return visits. Moreover, Faith and Order was prepared to cover travel and entertainment costs to the sum of $8,000.00 per year to be covered by “Supplemental Funds for WCC Programme” work.15 I spoke of the deep astonishment that such a meeting was now possible. At last we could not only speak with each other and give common witness, but also pray together openly and publically [sic] for the unity of the church. It seemed that we had arrived at a period of acceleration of ecumenical developments. We had become accustomed to say: The Roman Catholic Church and the ecumenical movement. Now we had to learn that the Roman Catholic Church was becoming an active participant in the ecumenical movement.16 In the presence of our brethren from the Roman Catholic Church who are here as observers, we should like to say that the churches belonging to the World Council do not regard the Vatican Council as an event that does not concern them, but as an event which affects them all because it really concerns the history of the true universal church.17 It is a mark of the progress that had taken place in the nineteen months between New Delhi and Montreal, that in Montreal a main paper in General Session was given by a Roman Catholic scholar, and that in Section and Sub-section it was usually impossible to tell the status of the participants, since all participated with equal freedom.18 Roman Catholic scholars took initiative in engaging with Faith and Order before the world conference by sending a number of important responses to the preparatory papers on what would become the section reports on “The Church in the Purpose of God,”19 “Scripture, Tradition and Traditions,”20 “The Redemptive Work of Christ and the Ministry of the Church,”21 “Worship and the Oneness of Christ's Church”22 and “ ‘All in Each Place’: The Process of Growing Together.”23 Roman Catholic participants worked on each of the five section reports. Ultimately, Montreal 1963 marks the first truly global gathering of Orthodox, Roman Catholics and churches shaped by the Reformation. Following the Fourth World Conference, the commission met on 24 July 1963. The commission noted the success of the consultation of 15 Faith and Order members and 15 Roman Catholic scholars in March 1963. The minutes also note the engagement of Lukas Vischer as an observer to the Second Vatican Council, as well as ten members of the commission. It also noted the engagement of Faith and Order staff with Roman Catholic institutions, and their participation in various colloquia.24 After the success of the World Conference, the commission explored various ways of sustaining theological dialogue with Roman Catholic theologians. One possibility noted was the creation of a special joint commission to co-ordinate various study projects between the commission and Roman Catholic scholars,25 which would become in 1965 the joint theological commission under the auspices of the joint working group between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church. The roll call in the minutes of the meetings of the commission and the working committee from 1964 reflects the presence of two Roman Catholic observers, Fr J. Long and Mgr J. Vodopivec.26 The commission took note of the presence of Roman Catholic observers at its meetings and participation of Faith and Order members at Vatican II. And again, future possibilities for ongoing cooperation were discussed, such as inviting individual Roman Catholic scholars to be regular members of study commissions and the creation of a special mixed theological commission,27 raised earlier in 1963. While no decision could be made until after the completion on the Decree on Ecumenism, Faith and Order was preparing for a new relationship with the Roman Catholic Church after the council. The Roman Catholic observers are recorded to have appreciated the desire for ongoing collaboration.28 The minutes also reflect Faith and Order's preparedness to take up the request from the 1963 WCC central committee meeting for a Faith and Order consultation after the close of Vatican II to discuss the results of the council with the WCC member churches.29 The minutes of the 1965 meeting of the Working Committee reflect increasing levels of collaboration between Faith and Order and the Roman Catholic Church in areas such as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and at the level of Faith and Order's theological study commissions.30 For example, the studies on “The Nature of the Church,” “The Eucharist: A Sacrament of Unity” and “The Fixing of the Date of Easter” all included Roman Catholic consultants. The year 1965 marked the creation of the joint working committee between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, which first met in May of that year. Of the eight members from the WCC on the Joint Working Group, four were from Faith and Order: chairman of the commission Oliver Tomkins, Vitaly Borovy, E. W. L. Schlink and Lukas Vischer. A number of recommendations from the Joint Working Group that had consequences for Faith and Order were placed on the agenda of the working committee.31 Of first importance was the recommendation of the creation of a special theological commission by both Faith and Order and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity that would consider the theological issues between the Roman Catholic Church and other churches. The two topics immediately proposed were on “Unity and Authority” and the “Work of the Holy in the While the working committee discussed the of Roman Catholic in the it was to be of Roman Catholic participation in the commission were such as status or to the commission. The working committee to or decision on the creation of a joint theological commission until its meeting in after further consultation with the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity on such as the of the proposed commission. The second was the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The joint working group had for a joint consultation on prayer, in and the Week of Prayer for Christian The working committee that the common prayer and in were different from some of the the preparation of the text of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and proposed two the former were held to be more in the of the Secretariat for for advice from theologians from other churches in preparation for the at the of the Vatican council. It was proposed that such a consultation take place in Rome during the and that it as many Faith and Order as who were their churches at Vatican II. the staff to the minutes of the 1965 meeting of the working committee from to May of 1965 that an Roman Catholic from the of the Fr valuable to the Secretariat as a from the at and would a member of the Secretariat on a of absence from September to The note with some is on the of the WCC will be this is not a of a but rather an this signals a new within the of Faith and Order its own relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. The on the various Faith and Order studies reflects the ongoing participation of Roman Catholic Fr Jérôme Hamer, for is as a consultant to the study on Roman Catholic well as participation was in the study on new and the unity of the The working group the on the joint theological commission between the Commission on Faith and Order and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. The WCC central committee had earlier of the and proposed that be members from Faith and Order and five members from the Roman Catholic Church. The first on the agenda was to be and The working committee met on July and August before and after the meeting of the commission at In a discussion on of Roman Catholics in the Bishop Oliver Tomkins, the chairman of the noted that was now becoming important to have Roman Catholic in to of The was in reference to the joint theological like Faith and Order itself, was preparing a study on Lukas Vischer noted as a further the of time of Faith and Order staff and who were active on both The meeting of the Commission on Faith and Order took place July to August The of participants of the meeting of the commission the presence of four Roman Catholic observers: Fr Beaupère, Fr J. Fr J. Long and Fr In his to the Lukas Vischer the of Vatican II on the theological work of Faith and Order in terms of but also in terms of theological dialogue within the wider ecumenical For he the of the bilateral within and between the – the Christian World Communions – he a of the Second Vatican of the particular with the Roman Catholic Church and various Christian World were new relations at the such as dialogue and World of Churches While Vischer that the bilateral were of the Faith and Order movement, was the how the various would to one One agreed earlier by the working committee in was to the theological of the Christian World Communions to at the meeting of the Commission on Faith and in were such representatives present at The of representatives of the Christian World as Faith and Order its of member churches to include the level of world While the Joint Working Group a the time has to and our new in this We a proposal to the number of representatives of churches. these are to be taken with the and through In particular it is that by our meeting we have Roman Catholic members to reflect the of Roman Catholic theological I could say here a Roman Catholic participation in Faith and Order We are very at the discussion of this it is becoming clear that we to do our work in from each I can than from the Faith and Order Commission for collaboration will be very we have here to for an in work together in the after the meeting, a was sent to the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity to the possibility of members of the Roman Catholic Church to Faith and Order. While the from the Secretariat was the decision was made at various levels within the Roman A final did not from Rome until just prior to the 1968 WCC assembly, but it was and the of Roman Catholics were to be proposed for at the one of the results of the meeting of the commission was participation in Faith and Order. Faith and Order met three the 1968 assembly of the which took place the working committee met on the commission met on and the working committee met from The assembly was a in the of the WCC and the wider ecumenical movement, with particular and for the Commission on Faith and Order. Of particular note was the of Roman Catholics by the assembly to the commission. The minutes of the working group prior to the assembly reflect the of Roman Catholic theologians to the and the Roman Catholic participation in all of Faith and Order's The of Roman Catholics as members of the commission their status as observers, guests and consultants. the many months of for an from Rome having Roman Catholics as members of the was with the working committee the role of Roman Catholics within the they be of some theological such as one to the work of the joint theological or should they be as members in all of the of the It was the proposal that reflected the widest which was at the meeting of the working committee in the after the The members of the commission present in met for minutes on the of these were members of the new commission who had been elected by the assembly on The new commission in 1968 included Roman Fr SJ; Fr Bernard Fr and as a consultant to the commission from the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, Fr Jérôme but not among the first Roman Catholic members of the commission was the future Pope Benedict and were both elected to the working Significantly, the Roman Catholic members of the commission from Europe, and and not only the global of the Roman Catholic Church but also the so important for the WCC. The question of ecumenical observers discussed with Visser ‘t Hooft in September 1960 was formally proposed in 1960 and by Pope in The Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, through Mgr further discussed the of the observers at the meeting of the conference of of the Christian World meeting in At the of the council in 1962, were ecumenical observers and the number to 186 by the end of the The minutes of the Faith and Order meetings the presence of its members as observers at Vatican II. the 1963 meeting of the Commission on Faith and Order, the minutes note that at members of the commission were observers at the Vatican Council, including Lukas Vischer. The presence of the ecumenical observers at the council was further by the presence of official Roman Catholic observers in Montreal in 1963. The members at the 1965 meeting of the working committee that members of the commission who were observers at the council meet in Rome as of a Faith and Order consultation with the Secretariat for The minutes of the meeting of the working committee note that Faith and Order staff members Lukas Vischer and Patrick Rodger the of the Second Vatican Council in I have the of from the minutes of the Commission on Faith and Order, the minutes of the working committee, and the of the Fourth World Conference with the of in

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