True Christian Unity
January 20, 2008

Readings for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1: Is. 49:3, 5–6

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 40:2, 4, 7–8, 8–9, 10

Reading 2: 1 Cor. 1:1–3

Gospel: Jn. 1:29–34

Link to Readings

By Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.

Each year the Catholic Church joins many of the non-Catholic traditions in observing an octave of prayer for Christian unity. The Octave began last Friday, January 18, and concludes on January 25, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

We tend to take Christian disunity for granted. Too seldom do we think about its deeply harmful effects. The truth is, division among Christians, as the Second Vatican Council told us, has tragic consequences (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 1). That division “openly contradicts the will of Christ”; it “scandalizes the world”; it “damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.”

The ecumenical movement, involving both the Catholic Church and many non-Catholic traditions, has long been endeavoring to work at this problem. The words “ecumenical” and “ecumenism” come from the Greek word oikoumenikos, which means “universal.”: The word is used to refer to any and all activities designed to foster unity among separated Christians.

“That All May Be One”

In the seventeenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, in the course of three verses (21–23), Our Lord prays four times that all His followers will be one in Him. Not one simply in an organizational sense—not one only in one ecclesiastical structure. No, one in Him, one in Him who is the Truth. He wills that all His people shall be one as He and the Father are one.

The Catholic Church is totally committed to achieving Christian unity. Vatican II had four stated goals, two of which focused on unity. One was to foster unity among Christians. The other was to work at calling all mankind into the Church’s fold (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 1).

John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint (“That All May Be One”) is the Church’s most extensive document on Christian unity. In that encyclical the Holy Father stated, ecumenism “is not just some sort of appendix to the Church’s activity.” No indeed, he said: it must “pervade all that she is and does. . . .” (no. 20)

The subtitle of Ut Unum Sint is itself significant: “On Commitment To Ecumenism.” In the introduction, John Paul declared that at Vatican II “the Catholic Church committed herself irrevocably to following the path of the ecumenical venture. . .” (no. 3). The Church’s Code of Canon Law, canon 755 (1) states that the Catholic Church “is bound by the will of Christ” to promote “the restoration of unity among all Christians . . .”

No other Christian tradition has so explicitly and firmly committed itself to the cause of Christian unity as has the Catholic Church. No other Christian tradition expends anything like the efforts of the Catholic Church to advance the cause of Christian unity.

The Only Way

But how are we Christians to be one? Not only does Jesus will that all His people be one. He has also provided the means by which they can be one—indeed, the only means.

We read this in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium):

Jesus Christ, the eternal pastor, set up the holy Church by entrusting the apostles with their mission as he himself had been sent by the Father. . . . He willed that their successors, the bishops namely, should be the shepherds in his Church until the end of the world. In order that the episcopate itself, however, might be one and undivided he put Peter at the head of the other apostles, and in him he set up a lasting and visible source and foundation of the unity both of faith and of communion. (no. 18)

And note the central role of Peter and his successors: “The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity . . . of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful” (no. 23).

In other words, we can say that the papacy is the sacrament of the unity of Christ’s Church. To speak of the papacy as sacrament is to say it is both the sign or symbol of Christian unity, and also the means whereby that unity is maintained. Apart from the papacy, there can never be true unity. As soon as some one breaks with the papacy and starts his own denomination (like Martin Luther or John Calvin), that denomination starts proliferating. And there is no end to the proliferation. We have over 30,000 separate denominations today, all contradicting one another, and several hundred brand new ones being created each year.

So the goal of all the Catholic Church’s ecumenical endeavors is to bring all Christians into the unity prescribed by Jesus Christ. Speaking of the Church’s ecumenical efforts, Vatican II taught that “. . . this holy objective [that is, the objective of all the Church’s ecumenical efforts]” is “ the reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ . . .” (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 24)

Who’s the Boss?

A non-Catholic theologian has facetiously noted that for the Catholic Church, “EC-U-MEN-ISM” really means “U-CUM-IN-ISM.” And he’s right! Repeatedly in her magisterial statements, the Church makes it plain that the Roman Catholic Church is “the one and only Church of Christ.”

The Catholic Church teaches that Christian unity is not an objective to be achieved, but a fact to be accepted. Vatican II told the world that the Catholic Church offers to all separated Christians and Christian ecclesial groups the “unity of the one and only Church, which Christ bestowed on his Church from the beginning.”

Furthermore, said the Council, “This unity . . . [exists] in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose” (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 4). Tragically, there are many Christians outside the Church’s visible unity, but the Church herself is not and will never be divided. So long as other Christians remain outside the Church’s unity, they will not be “blessed with the unity Christ wished to bestow on his people” (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 3).

All the divisions among Christians are rooted in one basic issue, the issue of authority.

Several years ago there appeared a widely hailed statement of theological accord between Catholic representatives and some Lutheran groups on the meaning of justification by faith. Differing understandings of the doctrine of justification are often referred to as the basic issue in the Protestant Reformation. This is wrong! The basic issue that provoked the break was the issue of authority: Luther and the others setting their authority against that of the Catholic Church.

All Christians agree we must seek unity only on the basis of truth. But this necessarily presupposes we know how to determine the truth of the Gospel. And this, in turn, presupposes we have a way by which we can determine what the truth is. And brings us right back to the problem of authority—which is the basic issue dividing us Christians.

A century and a half ago, Cardinal Newman succinctly stated the key issue in all efforts to restore unity among Christians: “There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of truth.” The Bible alone—which is the watchword of Protestantism—the Bible itself cannot be the final organ of truth. It was never meant to be that. The Bible is the record of God’s revelation, but in one regard it is like all other books: It has to be interpreted.

The Bible alone will not do. The existence of over 30,000 separate denominations, all claiming to be based on the Bible, proves that the Bible is not the organ of truth. When Jesus Christ willed that all His members should be one, He foresaw the need of infallible authority to guide them. That’s why He founded His Church, the Catholic Church, and gave her authority to teach and govern in His name.

Apart from that authority, there is no way under heaven by which the truth of God can be known infallibly.

You Can Help!

So what must you and I do about our Lord Jesus’ command of unity for His people?

The Church teaches us that every Catholic must be somehow involved in ecumenical activity. “The concern for restoring unity involves the whole Church, faithful and clergy alike. It extends to everyone, according to the talent of each” (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 5). Therefore, the Vatican Council exhorted “all the Catholic faithful . . . to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism” (no. 4).

In his encyclical on ecumenism, Pope John Paul taught us that the primary need of us all for engaging in ecumenism is to deepen our conversion to Jesus Christ. And then, as Vatican II noted, we have to make “a careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be renewed and done in the Catholic household itself” (Decree on Ecumenism, no. 4).

The fathers of Vatican II listed four basic duties Catholics must fulfill in ecumenical work. First, they must be “concerned for their separated brethren.” They must pray for them. They must keep the separated brethren informed about the Church. They must take the initiative in approaching their separated brothers and sisters in Christ and in inviting them into the Catholic Church.

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We Catholics need what many Protestants can offer us. Not more of the faith. The whole truth of Jesus Christ exists only in the Catholic Church. No. What they can do for us is to help us learn to live more effectively the riches we have as Catholics. Immediately there come to mind two areas in which some of the Protestants can teach us much: the areas of Bible study and evangelization. Perhaps you can think of other areas.

On the other hand, Protestants desperately need what the Catholic Church can offer to them. So long as they remain apart from her communion, they will always be hopelessly divided. (This applies to the separated Eastern Orthodox churches as well.)

By leaving the Catholic Church, Protestants have deprived themselves of the fullness the truth and of the sacraments. Above all, they cannot receive Christ as He intends himself to be received: Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Blessed Sacrament. No matter how deep their faith in Christ—and in many Protestants that faith is very deep—not matter how deep their faith in Christ, non-Catholics can never know Christ on His terms until they allow themselves to be drawn into the communion of Christ’s one true Church.

We must all pray that God will hasten the day when all who bear the name and baptismal mark of Jesus Christ can come together at one altar in His Church.

Father Ray Ryland is CUF's spiritual advisor.

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