What to do with a 'convergence'

...These expressions must be recognizable by other churches, not simply by Rome, as confessing the foundational apostolic faith...

...Partly because, since Vatican II and the substantial entry of the Orthodox into the WCC, Catholic voices have become more prominent in the ecumenical conversation...

...One is a sheer fact: Rome's bilateral and other ecumenical dialogues of the last twenty years identified enough "convergences" to force the question: What does one do with a "convergence...

...Will it do so...

...A convergence is not yet a consensus...

...It's a more penultimate question, concerning the ecumenical agenda of the 1980s and 1990s...

...Think what that means...

...Charles C. Hefting, Jr...

...But a sign of new ecumenical creativity needs to be shown...

...Will any of the divided churches ultimately be able to offer a believable expression of Christian variety in unity today without a deeper re-visioning of the role and ministry of women, and of the community of women and men in the church...

...But a second very important point necessarily follows: Whatever is to be done with convergences, it cannot ultimately and rightly be done by" any one of the divided churches, not even by the Roman Catholic church alone, but only by that church which "subsists in the Catholic church," essential "elements" of which, Vatican II tells us, "can be found 31 January 1986:51outside of her visible structure...

...I ask the question as an earnest well-wisher, a United Methodist, and as one who has witnessed the Roman Catholic role in the Faith and Order Commission for nearly twenty years...

...The M.A...

...Concerning the church's unity in relation to the world: The crucial question, not only for Rome but for Geneva, is whether our generation, trained by Western theology to see the issue as secularization, will be able, quite literally, "to do justice" to the many-sidedness of the ecumenical church-world issue...

...I need not point out the large theological agenda which such convergences imply: material clarifications of specific convergences such as the vision of the historic episcopate in BEM, and formal clarification of the nature and implications of a convergence beginning to take shape in the widespread "reception" of ecumenical documents...

...First, Hollywood has decided that America can take films with all-black'casts: in this respect, the film fulfills what A Soldier's Story had led us to anticipate...

...There is a waiting for an expression of the apostolic faith which is open to the pluralism, the mutual surprise and joy of discovery which belongs to an adequately diversified unity...

...that is an article of faith...

...g ONCERNING the church's unity in relation to the Gospel: Most churches are facing a "crisis in authority...

...One striking recent development has been the emphasis on "apostolicity" and "catholicity" alongside "unity" as primary ecumenical themes...

...The Fijian's question about using coconut meat and milk to celebrate the Eucharist must, despite unthinking smiles of Westerners, be considered valid alongside the Europeans' proposals about transignification...

...There is a waiting, especially among other churches, for something not yet uttered: for something expressed with real authority and "signifying" God's promise of renewal for ecclesial communion and human community...

...that secularization is the fundamental church-word issue, that discussion is elsewhere perceived to be distant and often irrelevant...

...A convergence is a mutual identification of a possible doctrinal consensus still out ahead of the divided churches, but honestly considered by responsible spokespersons to be attainable by each church in faithfulness to its own witness to the apostolic faith...

...J. Cheryl Exum Miles L Fay, S.J...

...Thomas E. Wangler James Michael Weiss For further information on graduate programs and resources, contact Dr...

...But is our understanding of apostolicity sufficient to deal with the future convergences and mutual recognitions toward which our ecumenical dialogues are beginning to point...

...More convergences than most of us realize have been discovered in bilateral dialogues, like the Anglican/Roman Catholic, and in multilateral ones, like Faith and Order's "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry" (BEM...

...For the ecumenical situation among the divided churches has changed markedly since Vatican ILl, and something new is being asked for...

...In the experience of the World Council of Churches, various attempts have been made to redefine the underlying issue...

...The theological task which that entails could be ground-breaking, not only for Rome but for the other churches and for the ecumenical situation in general...

...David Neiman James A. O'Donohoe Padraic O'Hare Pheme Perkins Susan M. Praeder Louis P. Roy, O.P...

...III II Screen I I 1 III I I I IIII IH II II I TENUOUS PLACES OUT OF AFRICA & THE COLOR PURPLE T HE COLOR PURPLE proves at least two things...

...Reductionisms will not help...

...Significantly, thirdworld voices in the oikoumene say that these attacks upon human personhood and community, and their growing infection of the Christian communion, are the most urgent churchworld issues today...

...For the sake of those human communities, in the name of that one apostolic faith, we need the creative ecumenical leadership now which Rome has an eminent vocation to provide...

...If not" return," what...

...Take seriously that you are not simply a Commission on ChurCh Order, say the Orthodox, but a Commission on FAITH and Order, for there can be no church unity which is not first of all a unity in the apostolic faith...

...DOCTORAL STUDIES In the Joint Graduate Program with Andover Newton Theological School leed to the Ph.D...

...The penultimates must also be respected...

...in the ultimate sense, but in the next decades...

...We hear much about the apostolicity of the past: about the origin of our faith artd the fidelity of its tradition...

...Stephen F. Brown Lisa Sowle Cahill Francis X. Clooney, S.J...

...The third world poses a congeries of issues: not simply science, technology, and secularism, but culture, human rights, economic injustice, militarism, racial conflict, sexual exploitation, and much more...

...T I wo poncrs seem compelling to me as I view our ecumenical future as churches with Rome...

...Because although no church speaks more urgently about apostolicity, the unity-creating power of the church's apostolicity is not sounding out very clearly today...

...Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J...

...The essential point to grasp is that these problems cannot adequately be boiled down to one comprehensive issue, not even to the question of human sin, which, both Gutierrez and Cardinal Ratzinger point out, is fundamental to all the problems...

...Visiting) Philip J. King Matthew L. Lamb Frederick G. Lawrence Claire Lowery H. John McDargh C. Sebastian Moore, O.S.B...

...Can any of the divided churches produce such a catechism without being profoundly changed in the process...

...Christ's oneness in the Spirit with the Father urges us to repent of our inability to come to God's table without turning our backs upon each other...

...Did the synod confront the new shapes of the church-world issue...

...As the Christian church enters the twenty-first century the crucial question is surely whether it will together confess the apostolic faith afresh as a word of hope for the divided and conflicted human communities on this planet...

...Harvey D. Egan, S.J...

...DEGREE may he qmrned In Theology or Biblical ShldiN...

...Why shouldn't it be like the openness of man and woman to each other in that fully personal, representative, and mutually submissive encounter which, Roman Catholics have taught, represents like no other "sign" the character of Christ's church...

...There is a waiting for church teaching with persuasive authority to represent the source of the church's unity: for an apostolic catechism which is truly universal, universal enough to be recognized, understood, and confessed by, and to initiate members into the comnmnion of all God's people in the one apostolic faith...

...That question was still below the horizon at Vatican II, but it is unavoidable today...

...Ernest L. Fortin, A.A...

...That issue has rapidly been assuming new shapes...

...The results of such a study could augment the developing sense of collegiality, and, Commonweal: 50eventually, could make more room for the third world to shape the mind of the magisterium...

...It is something more fragile and complex...

...Peace was stressed by delegates from the Northern Hemisphere, justice by those from the Southern, with culture the coming theme, especially for the Africans...

...The underlying reason, undigested yet by most of us, is that since about the middle of the twentieth century the majority of Christians live in the third world, which is itself a congeries of worlds...

...Second, Steven Spielberg can direct serious "adult" melodrama, not just science fiction epics which appeal predominantly to youthful audiences...

...There is a waiting, above all, for a convincing expression of the apostolicity of the future...

...And most know that somehow the answer lies in an adequate manifestation of the church's apostolicity...

...Concerning the church's unity in relation to the churches: On the premise -- absolutely fundamental for the other churches and, as far as I can see, unshaken by the synod -- that the "unique church of Christ . . . subsists in the Catholic church" (Lumen Gentium, 8), the Christian world has the right and obligation to look to the Roman Catholic church for leadership in discerning the next steps in our common ecumenical journey...

...Q AT BOSTON COLLEGE The Depmrtment of Theology at amlton College, a Iwdlng Catholic university In an ecumenical m~lng, sham the resources of eight other school8 In the ~ area through memberahlp In the Boston Theological In...

...But the more compelling reason is that thn conversation about "unity" is maturing...

...Nor is this the place to review the present ecumenical situation, with due attention to Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, and Rome's enormous ecumenical contribution at Vatican II and since...

...Biblical Studlw may he purmued as a minor ftold...

...Without them the twenty-first century will not receive from the churches a clear sign of hope for the renewal of human community...

...It is becoming clearer to us with every passing year that Rome really does mean that "return" is not the vision of the e~umenical future...

...Neither does a missionary strategy aimed simply at the "nonbeliever...

...Doesn't this question ask of all of us a profounder apostolicity...

...in this Bonhoeffer was right...

...The church-world issue has become in large part the church-worlds issue...

...And if, as some say, the next century is to be one of controversy between "North" and "South," a clear sign of reconciliation, lived out by the One Church in both North and South, is surely the inescapable vocation of the People of God...

...Ecumenists are realizing afresh that the ground of church unity is the apostolic faith...

...The classical Christian tradition -nurtured in the context of Greco-Roman antiquity, medieval and modern Europe and North America, with all its hard-won unities and cosmic vision, is fast becoming a minority point of view among contemporary Christians...

...Somewhat...

...Thomas H. Groome Margaret Gorman, R.S.C.J...

...At Vancouver (1983), there was a rivalry about what it should be...

...Not" what...

...the women's insistence on non-traditional language must be considered valid alongside Athanasius's insistence on the term homoousion...

...The church-world relation and church-Gospel relation have prior claim...

...Usa Sowle Cahill, Director of Graduate Programs, Department of Theology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167.(617)552-3880 * Commonweal: 52...

...In SystemMIc TheotoiW, History of Christian Life and Thought, or Christian Ethk...

...The decision to study the future role of the episcopal conferences could become a step toward more representative leadership from the third world...

...Why write about that to Roman Catholics...

...nearly 50 percent of the recently re-appointed Faith and Order Commission represent the third world...

...That is, of course, fundamental...

...Nor should they, when one considers what a remarkable thing a "'convergence" actually is...

...But such a confession of faith demands new instruments of confession -- ecclesial instruments to which the "convergences" point...

...That almost certainly implies, in the not distant future, truly ecumenical -- and increasingly canonically authoritative -convocations or councils in which the mind and faith of that one "catholic church" can come to fuller and richer expressions...

...i I I THEOLOGY AFTER THE SYNOD" ECUMENISM What to do with a ' convergence' I I I I I JOHN DESCHNER W l HAT KIND of ecumenical leadership should we expect from the Roman Catholic church after the recent extraordinary synod...

...It's not a question about the ultimate ecumen[ca[future...

...What kind of leadership should we expect from Rome, in particular, concerning three basic aspects of the ecumenical question: the church's oneness in relation to the world, to the Gospel, and to the divided churches...

...These penultimates and their attendant pluralisms require an adequate diversification in our vision of Christian unity, and an adequate adaptability in our aims for the Christian mission...

...And that diversification must challenge our traditional sense in the West of what is theologically important...

...Should we not expect creative ecumenical leadership from Rome especially in light of Rome's irreplaceable role in the Faith and Order studies: "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry," "Towards the Common Expression of the Apostolic Faith Today," and "The Unity of the Church and the Renewal of Human Community...

...Mary Daly Robert J. Daly, S.J...

...There we shall find real, not merely forma ! , authority: in the power of the apostolic faith to "author" i'enewal of life in Christ...

...However obvious it may be in Europe and North America I I III JOHN DESCHNER is Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas...

...Bonhoeffer's analysis of a "non-religious" world "come of age" just doesn't fit very well in the third world...

...And no church, Rome included, seems to have a very clear answer to it...

...Ecclesial consolidation is not, of course, the primary reason for looking toward such conciliar events...

...Here Spielberg has adapted Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of Southern black women enduring both racial and sexual oppression at the turn of the century...

...The fact that the December meetings postponed a proposal to reduce the secretariats -- for Christian unity, nonChristians, and non-believers -- to the status of councils was a positive sign...

...Raymond G. Helmick, S.J...

...A. Brandt Henderson James Hennesoy, S.J...

...Sixty percent of the synod's delegates were from the third world, we are told...

...Anthony J. Saidarini Margaret A. Schatkin Francis P. Sullivan, S.J...

...and Gutierrez's readiness to employ neo-Marxist tools of sociological analysis must be considered valid alongside Thomas's baptism of the classical virtues...

...SpielGRADUATE STUDIES IN THEOLOGY The Faculty: Mary C. Boys, S.N.J.M...