Review of Current Religious Thought: July 06, 1962

It is, i think, worthy of remark that meetings between the pope and the heads of Protestant churches are always the result of a one-way traffic, for this fact is symptomatic of the shape of things to come should reunion with Rome ever become a reality. The pope sits in the Vatican and waits for others to make their way to him: so too in the wider sphere of the ecumenical movement Roman Catholicism ever speaks in terms of a return to the papal fold. It conceives of a movement in one direction only. This at least is comprehensible in view of the insistence of the Roman church on the irreversibility of her position, in accordance with which it is Protestants who are outside the one true church, being guilty of schism and heresy. At the same time we should remember the claim of the Reformers that it was they who were returning to the apostolic standard of truth from which the papal church had departed, and that it was the unwillingness of the latter to reform herself once her errors had been pointed out to her which was the cause of the disruption of the sixteenth century.

By the creation of a Secretariat for Unity and the convoking of a Vatican Council for the latter part of this year the pope and his church have in a manner of speaking entered into the ecumenical arena. What may be expected from these new developments? Not any significant change of direction on Rome’s part. The January issue of the Roman Catholic periodical The Month contains an article by Cardinal Bea, who has become well known through his appointment as head of the Secretariat, on “The Council and the Protestants: Possible Contributions to Church Unity,” in which he significantly speaks of Protestants as “our separated brethren, cut off from the Church for several centuries past,” and advocates, as a legitimate ecumenical activity, “fraternal collaboration with our separated brethren in any work that does not directly involve Catholic doctrine.” It is constantly apparent that Rome is under no circumstances prepared to entertain the possibility of reform of her doctrine. Thus Cardinal Bea approvingly observes that “the most authoritative modern historian of the Council of Trent”—a reference to Professor Hubert Jedin of Bonn—“notes very well that its teaching requires not reformation but completion.”

This is confirmed by Professor Jedin in an article on “The Council of Trent and Reunion” in the January number of The Heythrop journal. On the ground that the definitions of that council are “the official Catholic answer to Protestantism” he declares that “after the Council of Trent Catholics knew exactly what to believe and teach on Scripture and tradition, original sin and justification, the sacraments and the veneration of saints. Trent, which is accepted by Rome as one of the authoritative General Councils, condemned with its anathemas the distinctive doctrines of the Reformation. Affirming that there is “an unbridgeable gulf” between Roman Catholics and Protestants “in their views on Council and Church,” Professor Jedin will not countenance “revision of Trent” as a “possible way towards rapprochement and reunion.”

So, too, Professor Hans Küng of Tübingen, in his book The Council and Reunion, is emphatic that Roman Catholics “cannot speak of any ‘deformation’ in the Church’s dogma,” and therefore that, although in one sense there is such a thing as a development of dogma, “dogmatic definitions express the truth with infallible accuracy and are in this sense unalterable.” Diagnosing that “the Petrine office” is “the great stone of stumbling,” he asserts that “the question ‘Do we need a Pope?’ is the key question for reunion.” He freely admits that it is a “gigantic claim” of the popes to be the vicars of Christ; but this is the core of the papal system. Maintaining, however, that the utterance of the pope is “the voice of Christ through the voice of him who during the time of His absence is to shepherd the flock,” he concludes that “what is needed … is for Protestants to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd”—that is to say, by submitting themselves to the papal rule.

It is evident, then, that Rome does not intend to budge in any consequential manner. So far as she is concerned, the traffic will be in one direction only. Professor Küng, it is true, addresses himself to Protestants in the most amiable and conciliatory tones. To be able to speak to each other frankly and respectfully is all to the good. But all alone it is plain that Protestant and Roman Catholic conceptions of what it means to be reformed differ fundamentally from each other. Thus, despite the official condemnation of the Reformation by the Council of Trent, Dr. Küng contends that the council “became an epoch-making, universal expression of the Church’s reform of herself from within.”

The reforms which he calls for in his own church at the present time—for example, services in the vernacular, worship that is congregational, communion in both kinds, the abolition of the index—would indeed afford points of contact, for Protestantism reformed herself in these and other respects long since. But they affect the branches rather than the roots. On it is the radical reformation of Roman Catholicism which Protestants should demand as the sine qua non for reunion. This is the only realistic alternative to the absorption which Rome requires, and which is implicit in her kindly talk about a “homecoming.” We must not allow ourselves to be blinded to the fact that truth is truth and error is error in the twentieth no less than in the sixteenth century. At the same time, however, we should do all that we can to encourage movements of reform within the ranks of Roman Catholicism, and especially the setting of an open Bible before the people; for the Word of God is ever the principle of genuine reformation within the church. And we must not cease to pray that God in his sovereignty and grace will perform a mighty reviving work in our day, not only amongst Roman Catholics but also amongst Protestants, so that multitudes may be blessed and enabled to rejoice in His goodness.

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