The Ecumenical One-Way Road, Apologetics and St. Stephen

Ecumenism takes as it starting point that Christ founded just one Church, not many churches; hence the Roman Catholic Church has as its ultimate hope and objective - that through prayer, study, and dialogue, the historically separated bodies may come again to be reunited with it. (source: wikipedia)

Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. (source: wikipedia)

"The way and method in which the Catholic faith is expressed should never become an obstacle to dialogue with our brethren. It is, of course, essential that the doctrine should be clearly presented in its entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers loss and its genuine and certain meaning is clouded. (Unitatis Redintegratio)

Catholic ecumenism should not be confused with some kind of general Christian or intra-Protestant ecumenism. Catholic ecumenism is a one-way road.

CATHOLIC ECUMENISM: A ONE-WAY ROAD

By one-way-road, I do not mean a one-way communication channel whereby the Catholics do all the talking. However, Catholic + anyone dialog has a particular end as its goal. We should not pretend that dialog with the Catholic Church is just lip-flapping nor should we think that Christian unity is defined by those who merely "love Christ". That makes for common "fans" or face-bookish friends, not communion. One goal is a human one, the other divine. It is not merely that we would stand around a camp fire and hum "Amazing Grace". We desire all those who love Christ and find themselves separated from His Church--the visible Catholic Church--to be reunited to her. Our starting premise is dogmatic, nonetheless our tone can be irenic.

However, false irenicism blurs the line between dogma and friendliness. In conversations where dogma gets put aside so that we can be "charitable", the relationship will likely atrophy, not grow, because the relationship is built upon being shallow and trite with what is most important to us: truth. Don't get me wrong. We can feed the hungry together in the name of Christian love without blurring the line of dogma. However, we cannot talk about what it truly means to worship, to be saved, or to minister by not setting dogma as the centerpiece of the discussion. Further, if your constitution cannot handle the ensuing conversation, then I recommend you commit such activity to prayer not participation...

...because ecumenism and apologetics are not arch nemeses. In a world where "proving" and "debating" in the sphere of anything but the natural sciences is tantamount to being "judgmental" or not "nice", religion comes across like grandma's bake-goods. No wonder our children give it up like Santa Claus--it's because we treat it like Santa Claus. Thus, intra-faith dialog can take on--in this spirit of grandma's bake-goods--an Oprah-esque character. At the end of the show, everyone is crying, hugging and nobody knows what-the-heck just happened. We all still disagree, and nobody goes home with anybody else, but gosh-darnit it feels so darn warm and fuzzy.

Then how can we as Catholics be ecumenical?

"Catholics, in their ecumenical work, must assuredly be concerned for their separated brethren, praying for them, keeping them informed about the Church, making the first approaches toward them. But their primary duty is to make a careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be done or renewed in the Catholic household itself, in order that its life may bear witness more clearly and faithfully to the teachings and institutions which have come to it from Christ through the Apostles.

For although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace, yet its members fail to live by them with all the fervor that they should, so that the radiance of the Church's image is less clear in the eyes of our separated brethren and of the world at large, and the growth of God's kingdom is delayed. All Catholics must therefore aim at Christian perfection and, each according to his station, play his part that the Church may daily be more purified and renewed. For the Church must bear in her own body the humility and dying of Jesus, against the day when Christ will present her to Himself in all her glory without spot or wrinkle." -

Unitatis Redintegratio

Be concerned. Pray. Renew our Catholic identity. Be holy. Know the faith.

In a pharse:

BE CATHOLIC!

Maybe our problem is we do
not see this enough

Our separated brothers and sisters already know how awesome they are. The problem is that they think we bite. And you know what? A lot of the time we do: in our moral lives, in our liturgical shenanigans, in our less than clear presentation of the faith, in our failure to teach our children, and in our timidity to proclaim the Catholic faith in all its dogmatic beauty.

Why did you write this today, Brent? It's second day of Christmas, for good-ness sake. Yes, it is. And in the Catholic religion, the one instituted by the Savior whose birth we celebrated yesterday, today is the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. St. Stephen died for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic faith. As it was from the beginning and ever will be, evangelism begins with martyrdom:

We must die to our desire to be liked. 

We must die to our desire to be popular. 

We must be willing to lose everything for the sake of the Gospel. 

St. Stephen, pray for us