Editorial

The Scandal of Division

In preparation for the year 2000, Christians could aske themselves two simple questions: What is it that unites us? What is it that divides us?

We Christians today are united with the Christians of four centuries ago, not because we face the same problems, but because we share the same faith.

And now I am no more in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in my name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Jn 17: 10-11

Every living Christian should quake as he reads these words. It would not be overly dramatic to say that this simple directive, "that they may be one," was the "death wish" of the one we profess as our Lord and Savior. We have failed, abjectly, to fulfill that wish. Today, with literally hundreds of different Christian denominations already dotting the globe, the body of believers appears more fractious than ever.

For the last several years Pope John Paul II has made his plans for the year 2000--the start of the third Christian millenium--a central theme of his pontificate. How should we celebrate that jubilee? In Tertio Millenio Adveniente the Holy Father offered a provocative suggestion: we should begin with a profound examination of conscience. Have we, as the body of Christ, proved faithful to the Gospel?

As this issue of Catholic World Report goes to press, we are witnessing yet another sad, vivid example of the fissiparous tendencies among Christians, as the Orthodox patriarchs of Constantinople and Moscow threaten to anathematize each other because of their quarrel over the loyalties of the faithful in Estonia. Coincidentally, in this issue we also focus on the heritage of the Eastern Christian churches. Taken together, our Dossier and our lead news story together offer testimony (as if any further testimony were needed) to both the folly of human pride and the unifying power of the Holy Spirit.

That power, which binds into one communion the prayers of all believers "always and everywhere," defies the ordinary laws of history, of time, and of space. Through the unique economy of God's saving grace, all faithful Christians form one Mystical Body, regardless of all the accidents of history and geography.

So it is that we, living in the late 20th century, are spiritually united with our ancestors who lived in the late 16th century. Like them we live in the aftermath of a pivotal ecumenical council (Trent in their day, Vatican II in our own). Like them we live in a world shaken by radical ideological trends in both theology and politics.

Still, on a much more fundamental level, we Christians today are united with the Christians of four centuries ago, not because we face the same problems, but because we share the same faith. The Spirit who speaks to us today is the same Spirit who spoke through the fathers of our Church: in Vatican II, and in Trent, and in Chalcedon, and in Jerusalem on that first Pentecost Sunday. We are one, as He is one.

FENCING IN THE SPIRIT

Ever since the time of the apostles, we Christians have shown a pathetic tendency to behave as if the power of the Holy Spirit could be confined to some particular, limited circumstances of time and place. The whole sad history of division among Christians could be seen as a futile series of efforts to contain the Spirit--to suggest that his counsel guided the Church at Pentecost but not at Ephesus, at Chalcedon but not at Trent, at Florence but not at Vatican II.

In the years since Vatican II, Catholics taken special pride in tracing our roots back to the earliest Christians. That is a healthy development. But if we feel our spiritual kinship with them, should we not learn from our forefathers' experiences? As Christianity first spread around the Mediterranean Sea, those early Christians felt the urgent need for a series of councils, to preserve the integrity of their faith. So they met and prayed and debated, and formulated (among other things) the Nicene Creed. If the Spirit inspired the Christian community to demand adherence to basic Christological dogmas in the 4th and 5th centuries, can he expect any less from us today?

We Roman Catholics feel estranged from our Orthodox neighbors. Yet consider how much of our faith we share in common with those fellow Christians who can accept, without reservation, the teachings of the Council of Nicea. Unlike so many soi-disant Catholics of our day, our Eastern cousins can accept the dogmas of the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, and the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist.

The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thous hast loved me. (Jn 17:22-25)

The issues which still divide us are real, and serious. But those which unite us are far more important. So we pray, together, for the fulfillment of our Lord's vision:

- Philip F. Lawler