2014 PLENARY ASSEMBLY
PROLUSIO OF THE CARDINAL PRESIDENT

THE GOAL OF ECUMENISM: PRINCIPLES, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FIFTY YEARS AFTER “UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO”[1]

Cardinal Kurt Koch

1. Christian unity and the renewal of the Church

The heart of all ecumenical endeavours is the restoration of the lost unity of the Church. Anyone who has a concern for the unity of the Church therefore needs to know who and where the Church is. Ecumenism and a clear knowledge of the nature of the Church are so integrally linked that they cannot be separated. This interconnection is expressed already in the external fact that at the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council two other important Council documents were adopted by the Council Fathers and promulgated by Blessed Pope Paul VI on the same day – that is, on 21 November 1964 – as the Decree on Ecumenism “Unitatis redintegratio”, namely the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “Lumen gentium” and the Decree on the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite “Orientalium ecclesiarum”. In the latter Decree the Catholic Eastern Churches – which on the one hand are oriented towards the Eastern churches in theology, liturgy, discipline and law, but on the other hand live their Eastern church tradition in communion with the Bishop of Rome and esteem this unity to be essential to their existence as a church – are expected to take up a special ecumenical responsibility in promoting Christian unity, above all with the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. “The Eastern Churches in communion with the Apostolic See in Rome have a special duty of promoting the unity of all Christians, especially of Eastern Christians, in accordance with the principles of this sacred Synod’s Decree on Ecumenism.”[2] The thematic link with the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church is just as clear insofar as the Decree on Ecumenism – particularly in its first chapter on the “Catholic principles on ecumenism” – is closely oriented towards the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church.

This connection proves to be of fundamental significance because it sheds an illuminating light on the principal question of how the various Conciliar documents, and more precisely the Constitutions and Decrees of the Second Vatican Council, relate to one another. This question has gained renewed relevance in view of the fact that more recently not a few tendencies have been noted towards questioning or at least minimalizing the theological binding force of the Decree on Ecumenism.[3] One of the main arguments in this regard claims that in the Decree on Ecumenism we are not dealing with a Constitution but “only" a Decree which is therefore accorded primarily pastoral and disciplinary significance and little binding force.

This argument is undoubtedly correct to the extent that the Second Vatican Council distinguishes between Constitutions and Decrees. But that does not of course provide an answer to the question of how doctrinally binding decrees are, as can be clearly determined from the fact that the Council of Trent promulgated only decrees, but indeed included among them very significant and binding doctrinal texts. The question of the binding force of the Decree on Ecumenism can obviously not be satisfactorily answered with the distinction between constitutions and decrees or with the tangible historical difference in language use between the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council. Even the often invoked distinction between binding doctrine and pastoral significance does not in the end take us any further. If by the word “pastoral” one means “putting into effect the abiding actuality of dogma” in the sense that dogma, precisely because it is true, must again and again be put into living effect, and to that extent must be re-interpreted pastorally,[4] then there can be nothing pastoral worthy of the name without a clear foundation in the doctrine of the Church, just as there can be no doctrine without a pastoral purpose.

One must rather proceed from the fact that the distinction between constitutions and decrees at the Second Vatican Council is to be explicated in the sense that decrees mostly represent concretizations of the questions arising from a constitution for the practical life of the Church. In this line of thinking, the Decree on Ecumenism is to be understood above all against the background of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, and cannot be interpreted in antithesis to it. This conclusion means that in regard to their binding force, a distinction can be made between the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church and the Decree on Ecumenism at most in regard to form, but not on the other hand in regard to content, insofar as the preliminary dogmatic decisions and foundations of the Decree on Ecumenism are to be found in the Dogmatic Constitution, and the ecumenical path followed by the Council is grounded in the essential theological nature of the Church itself.

This view of an indissoluble nexus between ecumenism and ecclesiology is in full accordance with the vision which Saint Pope John XXIII had for the Second Vatican Council and which had notably appeared to him during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 1959. The two chief concerns that had moved him to call the Council were for him intimately interconnected, namely the renewal of the Catholic Church and the restoration of Christian unity. Just how closely John XXIII saw the interconnection of these two chief concerns and how high a priority he placed on the ecumenical concern becomes particularly clear in his decision during the fourth General Congregation in October 1962 to elevate the Secretariat for the Unity of Christians that he had founded in 1960 together with all its members and consultors to the same level as all of the ten other Council Commissions, which at the same time implied a special position.

That ecumenism can be considered by no means to be a subsidiary theme of the Council but rather belongs at its heart was also the fundamental conviction of the great Pope of the Council, Blessed Paul VI. For him the ecumenical concern was an important leitmotif also and especially of the Conciliar renewal of the Catholic Church and its self-understanding, in fact so much so that one must speak of an actual reciprocal effect between the Catholic Church’s opening to ecumenism and the renewal of its ecclesiology.[5] In this sense Paul VI emphasized already at the beginning of the second session of the Council in his fundamental opening address – which the Council Consultor at that time Joseph Ratzinger has attested as having a truly ecumenical character[6] – that the ecumenical rapprochement between separated Christians and churches was one of the central goals for which the Second Vatican Council had been called,[7] its spiritual drama as it were. And at the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism Paul VI maintained that this decree explained and completed the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “ea doctrina explicationibus complete”.[8] This formulation expresses unmistakeably that Paul VI in no way esteemed the Decree on Ecumenism as theologically inferior but rather ranked it alongside the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in its theological significance.

In the same way Saint Pope John Paul II in his ground-breaking encyclical on engagement in ecumenism “Ut unum sint” confirmed the fundamental declaration that the Decree on Ecumenism held fast to the doctrine of the Church as set down in the Constitution “Lumen gentium”, in particular in the chapter on the people of God.[9] In this sense Pope John Paul II emphasized that the path of ecumenism is the path of the Church and “is an organic part of her life and work”.[10] And in response to various doubts on the part of both the advocates and the opponents of ecumenism he stressed definitively that the Catholic Church’s decision in favour of ecumenism is irrevocable because the Church at the Second Vatican Council had committed itself irreversibly to “following the path of the ecumenical venture, thus heeding the Spirit of the Lord, who teaches people to interpret carefully the ‘signs of the times’ ”.[11]

2. Ecumenism as ecclesiological juridical obligation

It can therefore be no surprise that a juridical obligation of the Catholic Church to ecumenism is declared in the new “Codex Iuris Canonici” (CIC) promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983. For Pope John Paul II the post-Conciliar renewal of Church law had to pursue the goal of translating the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council, more precisely the Conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language.[12] That this concern was very important for him in his legislative role was underlined by his statement that the new Codex formed part of the Council itself and was as it were the “final document of the Council”.[13] The Pope wished to put into effect the indissoluble nexus between the ecclesiology of the Council and the revised canonical law also and in particular in view of the ecumenical commitment of the Church.[14] Just as the Council had identified and acknowledged the ecumenical movement as the work of the Holy Spirit and challenged all members to take an active part in it, the goal of restoring the unity of Christians represents one of the decisive motifs in the codification of universal canonical law by Pope John Paul II. In the CIC one therefore finds logically a consistent explicit juridical obligation of the Catholic Church to participate in the ecumenical movement. When it is expressly emphasized that the goal of the ecumenical movement is “the restoration among all Christians of the unity which the Church is bound to promote by the will of Christ”,[15] then the normative dimension is grounded in the testament of Jesus Christ, and one must virtually speak of an ecumenical obligation iure divino.

Against this background it is easy to understand that in the view of the Council and the new canonical law the ecumenical concern for unity is a “is the concern of the whole Church”, not only of the shepherds but also of the faithful.[16] What Saint John Paul II thereby inscribed in the “family tree” of the Church is valid above all for the ecumenical responsibility of the diocesan bishop,[17] of whom it is said in the CIC that “he is to act with humanity and charity toward the brothers and sisters who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church and is to foster ecumenism as it is understood by the Church”.[18] It is instructive that the juridical obligation of the diocesan bishop to foster ecumenism is found in the CIC in the context of the description of the duties of the diocesan bishop, in particular the exercise of his ministry as shepherd. With this precise placement expression is given to the fact that fostering the ecumenical concern within the ministry of the diocesan bishop is not a question of personal predilection and it is not simply a supplementary pastoral duty that one could or might subordinate in favour of other apparently more important priorities. The ecumenical responsibility in the ministry of the bishop is not his choice but a duty, indeed a “sacred duty”.[19] For it is implicit in the pastoral ministry of the bishop itself, which is essentially a ministry of unity which is to be understood more broadly than the unity of the diocesan community alone but encompassing also and specifically all baptised non-Catholics.

Even more clearly than in the Codex of 1983 for the Latin Church the ecclesiological juridical obligation is formulated in the codex promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1990 for the Catholic Oriental Churches, in the “Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium” (CCEO).[20] Its fundamental significance from the ecumenical perspective can be discerned already in the fact that the Catholic Church for the first time in its long history now possesses two different juridical codices, and thus acknowledges a certain juridical plurality. In contrast to the CIC which does not contain a specific systematic section on the ecumenical responsibility of the Church, but instead refers to ecumenical matters in various norms, the CCEO – besides several individual ecumenically significant canons – dedicates a separate title to the ecumenical commission of the Church, that is title XVIII which bears the name “Ecumenism or Fostering the Unity of Christians”.[21] Particularly striking in the ecumenical perspective is the limitation of the duration of the validity of the CCEO. As maintained already in the conclusion of the Decree on the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite that all “directives of law” of the Decree are valid only in view of the present situation, “until such time as the Catholic Church and the separated Eastern Churches come together in complete unity”,[22] so also Pope John Paul II emphasized in his Apostolic Constitution “Sacri canones” that the Canons of the CCEO have validity “until abrogated or changed by the supreme authority of the Church for a just cause, of which causes full communion of all the Eastern Churches with the Catholic Church is indeed the most serious”.[23] The clear limitation of the duration of the validity of the CCEO and the transitory nature of its norms which are undertaken in ecumenical perspective means in concrete terms that at a time when full communion is realized between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, for which the Catholic Eastern Churches bear a special responsibility, the duty of the CCEO will be fulfilled and new legislation will need to be introduced.

This recollection of the legislative work of Pope John Paul II is important above all because it represents a great aid on the ecumenical level in also keeping alive and promoting today one of the elementary concerns of the Second Vatican Council. With his two canonical codices Saint John Paul II demonstrated to the whole Church that the ecumenical responsibility of the Church emerges directly from Conciliar ecclesiology, and that it represents a strict obligation.

From this overview of the juridical consequences we now return to the Conciliar documents and reflect on the new ecumenical development which the Second Vatican Council made possible. At heart this consists in the fact that in contrast to the period before the Council, which was characterised by a concept of the Church with a widespread extensive claim to the exclusive identification of the Church of Jesus Christ with the Catholic Church and thereby by a monopolizing concept of the Church, the ecclesiological self–understanding of the Catholic Church was reformulated by the Council in the sense that the ecumenical concern is intrinsic to itself, above all in stating that non–Catholic Churches and ecclesial communities do indeed live in an as yet not full communion with the Catholic Church. Developing and giving concrete form to this new course in the light of the Decree on Ecumenism will be dealt with more precisely in the following part of our discussion.

3. Ecumenical implications of Conciliar ecclesiology

The intrinsic unity of ecumenism and ecclesiology is already concentrated in the Proemium of the Decree on Ecumenism and is expressed in clear words in its first sentence, where the ecumenical commission of the Church is described and at the same time the goal set by the whole Council is defined: “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council.”[24] The obligation of the Catholic Church to participate in the ecumenical movement is there articulated theologically with the fundamental faith conviction that Christ intended one Church that is indeed “one and unique”. This faith conviction is then confronted with the historical and still empirically tangible fact that there are de facto a multiplicity of churches and ecclesial communities, which moreover all lay claim before humanity that they alone “are the true heritage of Jesus Christ”. Because that can give rise to the fatal impression “as though Christ Himself were divided”, the Council feels compelled to conclude that the division of the Church “openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature”.[25] There the fundamental perspectives are named which form the point of departure and the foundation of the ecumenical responsibility of the Catholic Church. Over the 50 years since the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism they have by no means lost any of their topicality, since we have to confess honestly that we have not achieved the goal of the ecumenical movement, namely the restoration of the unity of the Church, and there is still much to be done. It therefore seems necessary to return to the fundamental perspectives of the Decree on Ecumenism to rediscover them in their roots in Conciliar ecclesiology, as presented above all in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, and to ask how they are placed today.

a) The eschatological dimension of the Church and the ecumenical movement

In the second chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church the Church is profiled above all as the people of God that finds itself on an earthly pilgrimage between “already” and “not yet”, and is underway through history, which points decisively to the eschatological dimension of the Church. Because the Church itself is understood as an eschatological movement, the ecumenical movement too can be taken up and integrated into this eschatological dynamic, There the ecumenical movement is also linked to the mission movement, so that ecumenism and mission are shown to be the two forms of the one eschatological way of the Church.[26] Just as the Church in its missionary movement takes up the riches of the various peoples and cultures, purifies and enriches them but also allows itself to be enriched by them, the elixir of life of ecumenism consists in a reciprocal exchange of gifts, by which it at the same time enriches those gifts and makes the gifts of others its own in order to lead them to the fullness of catholicity.

The close connection between mission and ecumenism was clearly raised to consciousness above all at the first World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910, where it was acknowledged that the division of Christianity represents the greatest obstacle in the missionary task of Christians. The insight that the missionary vocation of the Church and ecumenical responsibility belong indissolubly together, must be revitalised today as an abiding challenge. This is particularly true in regard to the so-called mission countries, which Pope Francis decisively refers to in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii gaudium”: “Given the seriousness of the counter-witness of division among Christians, particularly in Asia and Africa, the search for paths to unity becomes all the more urgent. Missionaries on those continents often mention the criticisms, complaints and ridicule to which the scandal of divided Christians gives rise.” Consequently, “commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ can no longer be a matter of mere diplomacy or forced compliance, but rather an indispensable path to evangelization”.[27]

Mission and ecumenism belong closely together also because Christian mission is addressed to all humanity and ultimately aims at the facilitation of the unity of humanity. In view of this goal the Church understands itself, as is emphasized already in the first Article of the Constitution on the Church, as the sacrament for salvation, more precisely as the “sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race”.[28] That leads to the impelling question of how the Church can be the sacrament of the unity of humanity when it before the world still presents the embarrassing spectacle of its own fragmentation. Here is the most profound reason why the Council mustered the courage to define the continued division of Christianity as a “scandal for the world” and to call frankly by its name the enduring abnormal situation of separated Christianity. For the fact that Christians who believe in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the world and are baptised into his body continue to live in separate churches is the great offence that Christendom still today offers to the world and that deserves to be defined as a scandal. This consists not only in the fact that we cannot celebrate the eucharist together, but even more fundamentally in the fact that we are still separate as churches and divided as Christianity. For the splits in the Church are to be identified as the division of that which is essentially indivisible, namely the unity of the body of Christ.

If we take seriously this sensitive diagnosis by the Council, that poses on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism the self-critical question whether we still really sense the scandal of the division of the one body of Christ or if we have already accommodated to it and have come to terms with the pluralism of churches and ecclesial communities, so that the search for unity not only appears to be unrealistic but also as not even desirable. The consequential renunciation of the search for unity of the Church represents a particular temptation in ecumenism today. It is not rare to see this relinquishment as grounded in Sacred Scripture, by pointing to the fact that the earthly Jesus had dealings with very different groups and groupings, namely with Pharisees and Sadducees, with Zealots and Essenes, with Samaritans and others. This claim that is as such correct must be countered by the fact that Jesus did not come to terms with this wounded and torn people of God, but saw his mission in leading the people of God out of its divisions and into unity. With the New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink one must see the fundamental event in the whole appearance of the earthly Jesus in “gathering together the people of God”, for which the calling and constituting of the Twelve was the clearest sign: “The disciples are not only to assist Jesus in his gathering of the people of God but they were to in themselves be an already realised part of the gathering and unification of Israel. They are the heart, the nerve centre of the renewal of the people of God.”[29]

A similar question mark is to be placed behind the frequently repeated thesis of the Protestant New Testament scholar Ernst Käsemann, by which he also attempts to justify the great church schisms, namely that the New Testament canon did not found the unity of the Church but the multiplicity of confessions.[30] This thesis is enjoying a comeback when for example the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany in its basic text on the commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 refers to this thesis for understanding and honouring the Reformation churches as “part of the legitimate, because in conformity with scripture, pluralisation of the Christian churches”.[31] Against this position the objection has rightly been raised that it equates to an anachronistic undertaking to trace the current historically developed situation of separated and parallel confessionally defined churches and ecclesial communities back to the New Testament. Cardinal Walter Kasper has therefore pointedly demonstrated: “For Paul such a co-existence and pluralism of various and differing confessional churches would have been a totally unbearable thought.”[32] It is not the canonisation of the pluralism of the churches including their separations but the search for unity that has its foundation in Sacred Scripture.

The fundamental ecumenical attitude of conversion demanded by the Decree on Ecumenism must therefore today in the first instance be conversion to the passionate search for unity. In the conviction that there can be no true ecumenism without conversion, the Decree on Ecumenism understands the ecumenical movement as a whole as a conversion movement. In faithfulness to the Council Saint Pope John Paul II in his encyclical on the commitment to ecumenism “Ut unum sint” emphasized that the current ecumenical situation is to a great degree made more difficult by “complacency, indifference and insufficient knowledge of one another”, and that commitment to ecumenism must therefore be based “upon the conversion of hearts and upon prayer”, and also lead to the “necessary purification of past memories”.[33] In his view the entire Decree on Ecumenism is permeated by the spirit of conversion.[34] In the first instance that does not of course involve the conversion of others, but one’s own conversion which encompasses the readiness to perceive one’s own weaknesses and deficits. Such conversion presupposes above all constant self–assessment against the gospel of Jesus Christ and the will to restore the unity which is the inalienable presupposition for a credible Christian mission of the Church on its path through history until the eschatological fulfilment.

b) Ecumenism in the light of the Conciliar communio ecclesiology

The theological understanding of the Church as the people of God in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church opens a further ecumenical perspective. The Council’s decision to assign particular significance to the second chapter on the people of God – according to Joseph Ratzinger in his commentary on the Constitution on the Church that appeared soon after the Council – was also made for ecumenical reasons and was grounded in the belief that this concept of church could be better conveyed in a graded affiliation of the non-Catholic communities with the Catholic Church than with the image of the body of Christ.[35] That opens up a perspective of the essential leading principle of the ecumenical concept of the Second Vatican Council which consists in a graded concept of the Church, according to which the non-Catholic churches and ecclesial communities participate in a graded manner in the unity and the catholicity of the Catholic Church and live in a not perfect communion within it. For Catholic understanding of ecumenism the distinction between a full communion and a still not perfect communion is constitutive. This means that the goal of ecumenism consists in the restoration of full communio and that the Conciliar understanding of ecumenism is grounded in the ecclesiology of communio[36] which according to the important Article 4 of the Constitution on the Church is formed according to the primal image of Trinitarian communio and is therefore to be understood as the icon of the trinity.

The theological foundation of this communio ecclesiology and the resulting graded and therefore ecumenically open understanding of the Church can be identified in baptism, which is the sacrament of faith on the basis of which all the baptised belong to the one body of Christ. Non-Catholic Christians are not outside the one Church but already belong to it in a fundamental manner, as Article 15 of the Constitution on the Church expressly emphasizes: “The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter.” Since baptism is the entrance to the Church and therefore also to ecumenism, and since baptism and its reciprocal recognition forms the fundamental basis of all ecumenical endeavours, Christian ecumenism is always “baptismal ecumenism”.[37]

This fundamental ecclesiological insight forms the point of departure of the Conciliar Decree on Ecumenism that already in the first chapter on the “Catholic principles of ecumenism” sees in baptism the grounds for the affiliation of all Christians to the Church: “For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”[38] The important consequences of this are drawn in the third chapter on “Churches and Ecclesial Communities separated from the Roman Apostolic See”: in the description of separated ecclesial communities in the West, before the ecclesiological deficits such as the absence of the sacrament of orders and the failure to retain the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness are named, baptism is given particular emphasis because if it is administered rightly according to its institution and received in faith, a person is truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ, and is reborn to a sharing of the divine life. Therefore it is stressed that baptism establishes a sacramental bond of unity which links all who have been reborn by it.[39]

From the fundamental significance of baptism and its reciprocal recognition for all ecumenical endeavours we cannot of course draw the conclusion that baptism and its recognition can form a sufficient basis for an ecumenical Eucharistic communion. For according to the Decree on Ecumenism, baptism is “only a beginning, an inauguration”  because according to its essence it is “wholly directed toward the fullness of life in Christ” and is therefore oriented toward the “complete profession of faith, complete incorporation in the system of salvation such as Christ willed it to be, and finally complete ingrafting in eucharistic communion”.[40] The Decree on Ecumenism emphasizes expressly that “the ecclesial Communities which are separated from us lack the fullness of unity with us flowing from Baptism”.[41] This statement implies that while baptism as a shared sacramental bond grants a fundamental but still imperfect communion and therefore is only the beginning and point of departure of Christian life and ecclesial communion, only the eucharist represents its fullness and culmination.

This view of the relation between baptism and eucharist leads to a precise definition of the situation of ecumenism today, that it is located between the fundamental communion in the sacramental bond of baptism on the one hand and the not yet possible full communion in the eucharist on the other. That further steps will be possible on the path from shared baptism to the not yet possible Eucharistic communion involves taking baptism radically seriously and drawing the consequences from the basic consensus in the doctrine of baptism for a more binding ecclesial communion. The ecclesiological implications of the doctrine of baptism must consequently be given increased emphasis on the agenda of ecumenical dialogues.[42]

c) Confessing the one and unique church

The graded understanding of the Church at the Second Vatican Council outlined above is only comprehensible against the background of its fundamental conviction that Jesus intended a church which is one and unique. Therewith the Decree on Ecumenism takes up the confession of the one church which in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol stands as the first of the four essential characteristics which are the markers of the church, namely unity, sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity. All Christians agree on this creed. But the Christians who confess the one church live in various churches and ecclesial communities separated from one another. That results in the theological task of holding fast and maintaining this fundamental Christian conviction of the one Church, also and precisely in the face of the divisions that continue to exist in the Church.[43]

The fact that there are multiple divisions cannot mean that the one and unique church no longer exists or does not yet exist; the Council is instead convinced that it already exists in reality. Conciliar ecclesiology therefore confronts from the ecumenical perspective the elementary challenge of bearing the theological responsibility for both the unicity and the historically concrete existence of the “one church”. That involves an important test case of the Conciliar understanding of the church. Namely, if one were to consider the conviction of the unicity of the Church dispensable, the consequence would be an “ecclesial relativism” in the sense that the church could only exist in the plural. If instead one were to give up the conviction of the historically concrete existence of the one Church, the consequence would be an “ecclesial mysticism” in the sense that the one Church would only exist as a Platonic idea.^[44]

Beyond both extremes the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “Lumen gentium” addressed this difficult question and attempted to answer it with the famous “subsistit” formula, in which according to the assessment of the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the whole ecumenical problem “is concealed”,[45] and in view of this formula Gérard Philips as redactor of the Constitution on the Church predicted that much ink would flow on the significance of this formula”.[46] In its most basic kernel this formula means that the one and true church of Jesus Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church which lives in communion with the Bishop of Rome and with the bishops one another, that means, is concretely present and abidingly to be encountered. According to this fundamental ecclesiological conviction of the Council, the one Church of Jesus Christ is not to be considered as a hidden entity remaining behind the various ecclesial realities which is then to be realised in various ecclesial realities in a different manner but is instead an already existing reality with a concretely definable place in history where it is abidingly to be identified.[47] The ecclesiological formula “subsistit” gives expression to “the particular and not multipliable nature of the Catholic Church”: “The Church exists as subject in historical reality”.[48] The unity of the church to be restored by the ecumenical movement is consequently not a free-floating entity. It already exists in the Catholic Church but in view of the multiple divisions of course not in its truly catholic fullness.

This view of the unity of the Church is linked to the additional conviction of conciliar ecclesiology that the “the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element”.[49] Because being the body is essential for the Church and the one Church has a concrete form, the unity to be restored must be a visible one, as the New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink emphatically stresses: “We must not suppress the real division of the Church and create a substitute in interiority or invisibility. The true unity must be a corporally visible tangible graspable unity. Otherwise it would not accord with the fundamental law of creation and salvation history.”[50]

Here we touch on a point that is still controversial in current ecumenical discussion, as can be illuminated in the theological debate which Pope Benedict XVI conducted with the Protestant exegete Rudolf Bultmann in his interpretation of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in the second part of his book on Jesus of Nazareth.[51] For Bultmann the authentic unity of the disciples in the view of John’s gospel is “invisible” since it is “not a worldly phenomenon at all”. In this double statement Benedict XVI fully agrees with Bultmann in the second statement, while he fundamentally questions the first statement. That the unity of the disciples and therefore also the unity of the future church for which Jesus prays is not and cannot be a worldly phenomenon, Benedict takes as a matter of course as he expressly maintains: “Unity does not come from the world: on the basis of the world’s own efforts, it is impossible. The world’s own efforts lead to disunion, as we can all see”.[52] As much as Benedict XVI agrees with the Protestant exegete that the unity of the disciples cannot come from the world, just as strongly he disputes on the other hand the conclusion, that it is therefore invisible. Even if unity is not a worldly phenomenon the Holy Spirit is at work within the world. The unity of the disciples must therefore be of a kind that the world can recognise it and through it come to faith, as Pope Benedict expressly emphasizes: “While it does not come from the world, it can and must be thoroughly effective in and for the world, and it must be discernible for the world. The stated objective of Jesus’ prayer for unity is precisely that through the unity of the disciples, the truth of his mission is made visible for men.”[53]

This insistence on the visibility of the unity of the disciples and therewith of the Church is articulated with the basic ecclesiological formula “subsistit” with which the Second Vatican Council wished to unite and maintain two convictions: on the one hand it wanted to confirm and renew the traditional claim that the one and true Church of Jesus Christ exists inalienably in the Catholic Church. By replacing the earlier “est” with “subsistit in” the Council, intending this formula to be understood as an ecumenical “opening clause”,[54] wished on the other hand to create space for the recognition of elements of the true church of Jesus Christ outside the borders of the Catholic Church, in the conviction that, as Saint Pope John Paul II expressly emphasized outside the communion of the Catholic Church there is no “ecclesial vacuum”: “Many elements of great value (eximia), which in the Catholic Church are part of the fullness of the means of salvation and of the gifts of grace which make up the Church, are also found in the other Christian Communities.”[55]

Such statements do not constitute a return to an earlier ecclesiology known as an “ecclesiology of elements” which indeed leaves a strong quantitative impression and was rightly criticised already at the time of the Council. For the Second Vatican Council understands the non-Catholic communities not as realities that have maintained a quantitavely determinable remainder of elements of the faith but in the sense of the Conciliar communio ecclesiology as totalities that live these elements within their overall ecclesiological understanding. With Pope Benedict XVI one can even judge that on this path “room has been created for the Plural churches alongside the singular”.[56]

d) Crucial distinction between churches and ecclesial communities

The development of the Conciliar ecclesiology of communio also in view of the ecumenical question enabled the Second Vatican Council, in the face of the many divisions and splits that that we see over the 2000 year history of Christianity, to distinguish two fundamentally different types of church split. In the third chapter that presents the churches and ecclesial communities separated from the Roman Apostolic See in the East and the West, and that discusses paths to reconciliation leading to unity, the Decree on Ecumenism establishes initially that there are “two chief types of division as they affect the seamless robe of Christ”[57] and intends to focus them in more detail, namely on the one hand on the great schism in the 11th century between the Eastern and the Western Church or more precisely between Rome and the Eastern Patriarchates, and on the other on the church divisions within the Western Church in the 16th century. Between the two fundamentally different types of division, one can see not only a difference of time and geography but above all an essential difference: while in the division between the Eastern and Western Church the basic ecclesiological structure that had been formed since the second century was maintained in both churches, namely the eucharistic and episcopal basic structure, the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation developed a new and different type of being church.

Therefore the Council was confronted with a difficult ecclesiological question of how the various non-Catholic communities are to be more precisely defined. With regard to the Eastern Churches there was no particular difficulty in defining them as churches since in them the ministry of bishop standing in apostolic succession and all the valid sacraments are given, and they therefore have at their disposal the essential ecclesial elements which constitute them as individual churches, even though the unifying relation with the bearer of the Petrine ministry as the hierarchical foundation of unity between the individual churches is lacking. As far as the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation in the West are concerned on the other hand, the problem arises whether the term church in its theologically content-rich sense can also be used there where the episcopal ministry in apostolic succession is not or at least not with certainty present, and where only part of the sacraments is acknowledged. As Johannes Feiner in his commentary on the Decree on Ecumenism reports,[58] opinions of the Council fathers diverged widely. While some wished that non-Catholic communities in the West too should be defined as “churches”, of course in an analogous sense, others objected that an ecclesial community in which there is no episcopal ministry in apostolic succession cannot be termed a “church” or the term can only be claimed in incomplete communion with the Catholic Church. In view of this grave dissension the Viennese Cardinal Franz König made the suggestion in the council debate that was in the end passed, one could and should term these communities as communitates ecclesiales in order on the one hand to acknowledge that they possess an ecclesial character and that they fulfil the mission of the church among their believers, but on the other hand to affirm that these ecclesial communities in the Catholic view lack constitutive elements of being fully church.[59] The Decree on Ecumenism names the essential deficits with regard to the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation as the “absence of the sacrament of Orders” and in consequence the non–maintenance of the “proper reality of the eucharistic mystery in its fullness”.[60]

For the Second Vatican Council the episcopal ministry in apostolic succession and the validity of the eucharist are the crucial criteria for applying the term Church for those communities separated from the Catholic Church because according to Catholic understanding the Church in the authentic sense can be spoken of there where we find the episcopal ministry in the sacramental succession of the Apostles and the eucharist as sacrament presided over by the bishop and the priest.[61] This fundamental ecclesiological matter was called to mind by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its “Declaration on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church” in the Jubilee Year 2000. In it the Eastern churches are honoured as “true particular Churches” and with respect to those communities which have not maintained the valid episcopacy and the original complete reality of the Eucharistic mystery, the judgement is made that they are “not churches in the proper sense” but that those baptised into these communities stand on the basis of their baptism in a “certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church”.[62] This pointed distinction in “Dominus Iesus” between Churches and ecclesial communities became the occasion for vigorous criticism in ecumenical circles[63] and called forth much dispute.[64] On the other hand, everyone who knows the field knows that this declaration contained nothing new. For one cannot overlook the fact that a truly varied understanding of the church exists in the various churches and ecclesial communities, as is indeed confirmed for example by the Evangelical Church in Germany when it stresses emphatically that the Reformation insight of the priesthood of all believers led to a “total re-ordering of the essence of the church” through the Reformation, by which there are pastors (male and female) simply for the sake of good order, in principle every Christian can administer the sacraments, that is administer baptism and distribute the Lord’s Supper.[65]

In order to do justice to both sides of this question, Cardinal Walter Kasper suggested speaking of a different type of church in relation to the communities originating in the Reformation.[66] This terminology Pope Benedict XVI also took up in his significant interview book with Peter Seewald “Light of the World”, when he emphasizes that the churches that emerged from the Reformation “embody a different mode of being a church. As they themselves insist, it is precisely not the same mode in which the Churches of the great tradition of antiquity are Churches”.[67] This terminological resolution poses the question even more urgently of the clarification of the understanding of the church at the level of content, which has until now not been satisfactorily dealt with in ecumenical dialogues. It represents one of the great theological legacies of the understanding of church and ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council and must today be placed at the heart of ecumenical conversations.

e) Ecumenical unity in diversity

The strong emphasis on the historical visibility of and concrete corporeality of the church and its unity could give rise to the impression that Conciliar ecclesiology leaves no space for diversity. That this impression is deceptive becomes clear when we pass before our mind’s eye the constructive steps in regard to ecumenism that the Second Vatican Council undertook with its rediscovery of the unique and irreplaceable constitutional structure of the Catholic Church, that can best be compared with an ellipse with two focal points, namely the unity of the universal church and the diversity of the local churches. The Catholic Church is constituted at one and the same time as universal church and as local churches.[68] For Catholic understanding of the church, the interplay of singular “Church” and plural “Churches” is characteristic in the sense that the one universal church consists in and of the many local churches and vice versa, the many local churches exist as the one universal Church.[69] In this fundamental interplay for the Conciliar renewal of ecclesiology the “ecumenical problem as a whole” is already set out.[70] In the ecumenical field, the plural “Churches” is of course not to be understood as the many local churches or sister churches in which the universal church is present, but those ecclesial communities which stand outside the full unity of the Catholic Church. That leads to the question of how the Catholic Church can and should relate to the plural “Churches” which exist outside the Catholic Church, namely in the independence of confessionally separate communities.[71]

With this question we touch on the goal of all ecumenical endeavours and are placed in the midst of ecumenical wrestling of the present time. Here the major problem can be diagnosed in the fact that no really resilient agreement has so far been achieved between the various churches and ecclesial communities on the goal of the ecumenical movement, and that earlier partial consensuses have in part been questioned once more so that the goal of ecumenism has in the course of time become increasingly unclear. Here we are faced with the crucial paradox of the current ecumenical situation. For if the various partners in ecumenism do not share a common goal, they stand in danger of heading in different directions in order to realise in the end of course that they have distanced themselves even further from one another. Thus it becomes an urgent task to ascertain where the ecumenical journey is headed.

The Catholic Church and also the Orthodox Churches hold fast to the original goal of visible unity in the faith, in the sacraments and the ecclesial ministries. This goal is grounded in the conviction already present in the Early Church of the inseparability of ecclesial communion and confessional communion, so that all ecumenical endeavours are directed towards the fact that different Churches and Ecclesial Communities can recognise one another as sister churches on the basis of the shared confession. The interplay of singular “Church” and plural “Churches” that is constitutive for Conciliar ecclesiology therefore implies for the ecumenical question that the ecumenical unity of the church to be restored is to be understood and formed in the sense of a unity of churches which indeed remain churches but become one church. Therefore, the goal of the ecumenical movement in the Catholic view consists in “transforming the plural of separated confessional churches into the plural of local churches who are in their multiformity really one church”.[72]

This original goal has however been largely abandoned by not a few of the churches and ecclesial communities that emerged from the Reformation, in favour of the postulate of reciprocal recognition of the various ecclesial realities as churches and therefore as being part of the one Church of Jesus Christ. This postulate does not of course claim that the unity of the church is in principle invisible; the visible unity of the church consists then simply as the sum of all present church realities. This re-definition of the ecumenical goal is doubtless most clearly expressed in the Leuenberg Concord of 1973, with which this model of a communion of churches was agreed upon by the Protestant churches in the communion of the Leuenberg churches.[73] It understands itself consciously as a communion of churches of different confessions which on the basis of a common understanding of the gospel, above all of the doctrine of justification, grant one another communion in word and sacrament, including the mutual recognition of ordination, so that communion of churches is essentially understood as pulpit and altar communion. The ecumenical goal is considered to be already achieved, whereby the separated churches while maintaining their confessional identity remain as independent institutional realities and recognise one another reciprocally as churches. The Leuenberg Concord is the characteristic “Protestant model for church unity”[74] and is considered to have proved itself within Protestantism. But the problem consists in the fact that the churches and ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation also consider this model to be adequate for ecumenism too without really taking into account that it is to a great extent in opposition to the Catholic understanding of ecclesial and ecumenical unity.

f) Unity of the Church and ecumenical goal

The fact that no really satisfactory understanding has so far been achieved on the goal of ecumenism must be followed up further. Then it becomes clear that the essential reason for this lies in the fact that each church and ecclesial community has and realises their own specific confessional concept of the unity of their own church and is therefore keen to transfer this confessional concept also to the goal of ecumenism. That there are therefore as many views of the ecumenical goal as there are confessional ecclesiologies[75] can be demonstrated through a brief comparison of the Protestant with the Catholic understanding of church.

In the first instance we must proceed from the fact that the Reformation tradition has been characterized to a great extent by a decisive rejection of the concept “church”. The Reformer Martin Luther judged the concept “church” as “a blind and unclear word”, declared it to be a negative concept and gave expression to the theological nature of the church in the concept “congregation”. This rejection of the concept “church” can be followed through the history of Protestantism up to Karl Barth, who did indeed write a “Church Dogmatic” but nevertheless considered it theologically advisable “if not to totally avoid the dark and loaded word church at least to use it as far as possible in such a way that it could in any case immediately and consistently be interpreted by the word congregation”.[76] In contrast to their own tradition the Protestant churches today decisively understand themselves to be churches. What has remained however is the focus of their understanding of the church on the congregation. The Protestant understanding of the church finds its clear stress and as it were its point of gravity in the concrete local congregation. This understanding has found its classical formulation in Article 7 of the Confessio Augustana, according to which the church is the congregation of believers in which the gospel is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered according to the gospel. Since this takes place in the concrete local congregation it is the prototypical realisation of the church. That leads to the further ecclesiological question regarding what ecclesial significance the church fulfils in the larger region of the diocese, the national church or the universal church. That we find here a clear need for theological clarification is evident for example in view of the confessional world alliances such as the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which are not in themselves church but simply federations of ecclesial communities or at most are on the path from federations towards communities of churches. That is also the reason why Protestant church understanding does not have a universally recognized theology of the episcopal ministry as a service to unity at the regional level of the church much less a theology of the ministry of unity at the level of the universal church. Indeed, if the concrete individual congregation is seen as the crucial form of the realization of church, then the ministry of the local pastor proves to be the prototype of ecclesial ministry and the bishop’s ministry, as it were, as a pastoral ministry with a leadership function.

That church is present in each congregation in which the word of God is proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered is also evident in the Catholic view. According to the Catholic understanding of the church, the Church of Jesus Christ is wholly present in the concrete Eucharistic congregation, but the individual Eucharistic congregation is however not the whole church. The unity of the individual Eucharistic congregations between one another and in unity with the relevant local bishop and the Bishop of Rome is therefore constitutive for being church and to such a degree the church is ultimately to be understood as a worldwide network of eucharistic communities in which the Bishop of Rome “presides in love” as defined by Ignatius of Antioch. From that it can be taken for granted that the Catholic understanding of church is distinguished by a decidedly universal dimension, of course not in contradiction to the various local churches but in the interweaving of the unity of the universal church and the diversity of the local churches. The church is in the Catholic view at the same time communio ecclesiae and communio ecclesiarum. It is constituted as universal church and local churches at the same time and therewith as papal and episcopal. Therefore it has a custodian of unity at all levels, namely the pastor at the local level, the bishop at the regional and the pope at the universal level.

Keeping in mind the various confessional ecclesiologies and the varied conceptions of church unity, we find confirmation of the previously expressed assumption that the lack of a consensus of the goal of ecumenism has its origins in the largely absent ecumenical consensus regarding the nature of the church and its unity, and we need to reflect that there is a great need for clarification of the understanding of the church from the ecumenical point of view, not only with regard to the question of what the church is, but above all the question of where it concretely subsists.

4. Conciliar ecclesiology and ecumenism as the Magna Carta of the Catholic Church

It is to be hoped that the commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 may inspire the churches and ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation to seek further clarification. In this regard, the foreground question must be how these ecclesial communities reflect on the Reformation today: whether as traditionally in the past as a breach with the previous tradition of Christianity which began something new, or in continuity with the whole tradition of the universal Church, in which the first 1500 years are shared by Catholics and Protestants. It is the question that Cardinal Walter Kasper as the then President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity already many years ago directed at the Reformation communities in view of the pending Reformation commemoration, inquiring whether they would perceive the Reformation as a “new paradigm” taking a marked distance from what is Catholic due to an abiding fundamental differentiation with respect to what is ‘Protestant’ ” or whether they would understand it in the ecumenical sense as the “reform and renewal of the one and universal Church”.[77] From the answer to this question depends not only the manner in which we Catholics can participate in the Reformation commemoration but also and above all how the ecumenical dialogue of the Catholic Church with the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation can continue in the future.[78]

From there we return to our initial reflection that a credible and abiding ecumenism presupposes a clear knowledge of the nature of the Church. If therefore further steps become possible on the path to ecumenical unity the ecumenical clarification of the understanding of the church and of unity must feature as the main item on the ecumenical agenda of the list of subjects to be pursued. Therein consists even 50 years after the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council the still largely relevant challenge in which the ecumenical responsibility of the Catholic Church emerges naturally from Conciliar ecclesiology. The ecclesiology and ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council represent still today and in the future the Magna Carta of the Catholic Church.

ENDNOTES

[1] Prolusio at the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Rome, 18 November 2014.

[2] Orientalium ecclesiarum, 24.

[3] Vgl. W. Kardinal Kasper, Das Ökumenismusdekret des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils und seine bleibende theologische Verbindlichkeit, in: Ders., Wege der Einheit. Perspektiven für die Ökumene (Freiburg i. Br. 2005 ) 16-25.

[4] K. Kardinal Lehmann, Das II. Vatikanum – ein Wegweiser. Verständnis – Rezeption – Bedeutung, in: P. Hünermann (Hrsg.), Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil und die Zeichen der Zeit heute (Freiburg i. Br. 2006) 11-26, zit. 18.

[5] Vgl. H. J. Pottmeyer, Die Öffnung der römisch-katholischen Kirche und die ekklesiologische Reform des 2. Vatikanums. Ein wechselseitiger Einfluss, in: Paolo VI e l’Ecumenismo. Colloquio Internazionale di Studio Brescia 1998 (Brescia - Roma 2001) 98-117.

[6] J. Ratzinger, Das Konzil auf dem Weg. Rückblick auf die zweite Sitzungsperiode des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Köln 1964) 21.

[7] Ench. Vat. Vol I Documenti del Concilio Vaticano II, 104 f.

[8] Ibid.

[9] John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 8.

[10] Ibid., 20.

[11] Ibid., 3.

[12] John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution “Sacrae disciplinae leges”, 25 January 1983.

[13] John Paul II, Speech to participants in the course on the new code of canon law, 21 November 1983.

[14] Vgl. K. Koch, L´attività legislativa di Giovanni Paolo II e la promozione dell´unità dei cristiani, in: L. Gerosa (ed.), Giovanni Paolo II: Legislatore della Chiesa. Fondamenti, innovazioni e aperture. Atti del Convegno di Studio (Vaticano 2013) 160-177.

[15] Canon 755 - §1 CIC 1983.

[16] Unitatis redintegratio, 5.

[17] Vgl. K. Koch, Il Vescovo e l´ecumenismo, in: Congregazione per i Vescovi, Duc in Altum. Pellegrinaggio alla Tomba di San Pietro. Incontro di riflessione per i nuovi Vescovi Roma, 11-20 settembre 2012 (Città del Vaticano 2012) 283-300.

[18] Canon 383 - § 3 CIC 1983.

[19] W. Kardinal Kasper, Priesterlicher Dienst an der Ökumene. Chancen und Grenzen, in: G. Augustin / J. Kreidler (Hrsg.), Den Himmel offen halten. Priester sein heute (Freiburg i. Br. 2003) 78-90, zit. 79.

[20] Vgl. K. Koch, L’incidenza del CCEO sul dialogo ecumenico, in: Pontificio Consiglio per i testi legislativi (ed.), Il Codice delle Chiese orientali. La storia, le legislazioni particolari, le prospettive ecumeniche. Atti del convegno di studio tenutosi nel XX anniversario della promulgazione del Codice dei Canoni delle Chiese orientali (Città del Vaticano 2011) 43-50.

[21] Canons 902-908 CCEO.

[22] Orientalium ecclesiarum, 30.

[23] John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution “Sacri Canones”. To the Venerable Brothers, the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Beloved Sons, the Presbyters, Deacons, and other Christian Faithful of the Eastern Churches, 18 October 1990.

[24] Unitatis redintegratio, 1.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Vgl. W. Kasper, Eine missionarische Kirche ist ökumenisch, in: Ders., Wege zur Einheit der Christen = Gesammelte Schriften. Band 14, 1 (Freiburg i. Br. 2012) 621-634.

[27] Francis, Evangelii gaudium, 246

[28] Lumen gentium, 1.

[29] G. Lohfink, Jesus und das zerrissene Gottesvolk, in: Ders., Gegen die Verharmlosung Jesu. Reden über Jesus und die Kirche (Freiburg i. Br. 2013) 156-177, zit. 167.

[30] E. Käsemann, Begründet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche?, in: Ders., Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen. Erster und zweiter Band (Göttingen 1970) 214-223.

[31] Rechtfertigung und Freiheit. 500 Jahre Reformation 2017. Ein Grundlagentext des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) (Gütersloh 2014) 99.

[32] W. Kardinal Kasper, Katholische Kirche. Wesen – Wirklichkeit – Sendung (Freiburg i. Br. 2011) 226.

[33] John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 2.

[34] Ibid., 35.

[35] J. Ratzinger, Einleitung, in: Konstitution über die Kirche. Lateinisch und Deutsch (Münster 1966) 7-19, bes. 12-13.

[36] Vgl. Zukunft aus der Kraft des Konzils. Die ausserordentliche Bischofssynode `85. Die Dokumente mit einem Kommentar von Walter Kasper (Freiburg i. Br. 1986).

[37] E.-M. Faber, Baptismale Ökumene. Tauftheologische Orientierungen für den ökumenischen Weg, in: D. Sattler / G. Wenz (Hrsg.), Sakramente ökumenisch feiern. Vorüberlegungen für die Erfüllung einer Hoffnung (Mainz 2005) 101-123.

[38] Unitatis redintegratio, 3.

[39] Ibid., 22.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid., 23.

[42] Vgl. W. Kardinal Kasper, Ekklesiologische und ökumenische Implikationen der Taufe, in: A. Raffelt (Hrsg.), Weg und Weite. Festschrift für Karl Lehmann (Freiburg i. Br. 2001) 581-599, zit. 599.

[43] Vgl. K. Koch, „Die einige und einzige Kirche“. Ökumenische Perspektiven der Kircheneinheit, in: Communio. Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift 43 (2014) 112-125.

[44] Vgl. W. Thönissen, Katholizität als Strukturform des Glaubens. Joseph Ratzingers Vorschläge für die Wiedergewinnung der sichtbaren Einheit der Kirche, in: Ch. Schaller (Hrsg.), Kirche – Sakrament und Gemeinschaft. Zu Ekklesiologie und Ökumene bei Joseph Ratzinger = Ratzinger-Studien. Band 4 (Regensburg 2011) 354-275, zit. 263-264.

[45] J. Cardinal Ratzinger, Die Ekklesiologie der Konstitution Lumen gentium, in: Ders., Weggemeinschaft des Glaubens. Kirche als Communio (Augsburg 2002) 107-131, zit. 127.

[46] G. Philips, L’Église et son mystère au deuxième Concile du Vatican. Tome 1 (Paris 1967) 119.

[47] Cf. Lumen gentium, 8 and Unitatis redintegratio, 4.

[48] J. Cardinal Ratzinger, Die Ekklesiologie der Konstitution Lumen gentium, in: Ders., Weggemeinschaft des Glaubens. Kirche als Communio (Augsburg 2002) 107-131, zit. 127.

[49] Lumen gentium, 8.

[50] G. Lohfink, Jesus und das zerrissene Gottesvolk, in: Ders., Gegen die Verharmlosung Jesu. Reden über Jesus und die Kirche (Freiburg i. Br. 2013) 156-177, zit. 177.

[51] J. Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco 2011) 93–102.  Vgl. dazu K. Koch, Christliche Ökumene im Licht des Betens Jesu. „Jesus von Nazareth“ und die ökumenische Sendung, in: H.-J. Tück (Hrsg.), Passion aus Liebe. Das Jesus-Buch des Papstes in der Diskussion (Mainz 2011) 19-36.

[52] Ibid., 95.

[53] Ibid., 96.

[54] W. Kardinal Kasper, Katholische Kirche. Wesen – Wirklichkeit – Sendung (Freiburg i. Br. 2011) 235.

[55] John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 13.

[56] Papst Benedikt XVI. und sein Schülerkreis – Kurt Kardinal Koch, Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil. Die Hermeneutik der Reform (Augsburg 2012) 62.

[57] Unitatis redintegratio, 13.

[58] J. Feiner, Kommentar zum Dekret über den Ökumenismus, in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche. Band 13 (Freiburg i. Br. 1967) 40-126, bes. 50-58 und 92-93.

[59] Vgl. Relatio König vom 19. November 1963, in: Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II / 5, 552-554. Vgl. dazu D. W. Winkler, Wann kommt die Einheit? Ökumene als Programm und Herausforderung = Kardinal König Bibliothek. Band 4 (Wien 2014), bes. 101-106.

[60] Unitatis redintegratio, 22.

[61] Vgl. K. Koch, Die apostolische Dimension der Kirche im ökumenischen Gespräch, in: Communio. Internationale katholische Zeitschrift 40 (2011) 234-252.

[62] Dominus Iesus, 17.

[63] M. J. Rainer (Red.), „Dominus Iesus“. Anstössige Wahrheit oder anstössige Kirche? Dokumente, Hintergründe, Standpunkte und Folgerungen (Münster 2001).

[64] M. Gagliardi (ed), La Dichiarazione Dominus Iesus a dieci anni dalla promulgazione (Torino 2010).

[65] Rechtfertigung und Freiheit. 500 Jahre Reformation 2017. Ein Grundlagentext des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) (Gütersloh 2014) 90-91.

[66] W. Kasper, Situation und Zukunft der Ökumene, in: Theologische Quartalschrift 181 (2001) 175-190, zit. 185.

[67] Benedict XVI, Light of the World. The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times (San Francisco 2010) 95.

[68] Vgl. A. Buckenmaier, Universale Kirche vor Ort. Zum Verhältnis von Universalkirche und Ortskirche (Regensburg 2009).

[69] Cf. Lumen gentium, 23.

[70] J. Ratzinger, Das Konzil auf dem Weg. Rückblick auf die zweite Sitzungsperiode des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Köln 1964) 51.

[71] Vgl. K. Koch, Dass alle eins seien. Ökumenische Perspektiven (Augsburg 2006), bes. 2. Kapitel: Systematische Verortung des ökumenischen Kernproblems.

[72] J. Kardinal Ratzinger, Luther und die Einheit der Kirchen, in: Ders., Kirche, Ökumene und Politik. Neue Versuche zur Ekklesiologie (Einsiedeln 1987) 97-127, zit. 114.

[73] Vgl. H. Meyer, Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung des Konzeptes „Kirchengemeinschaft“. Eine historische Skizze aus evangelischer Sicht, in: J. Schreiner / K. Wittstadt (Hrsg.), Communio Sanctorum. Einheit der Christen – Einheit der Kirche. (Würzburg 1988) 204-230.

[74] W. Hüffmeier, Kirchliche Einheit als Kirchengemeinschaft – Das Leuenberger Modell, in: F. W. Graf – D. Korsch (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Einheit. Protestantische Ansichten der Ökumene (Hannover 2001) 35-54, zit. 54.

[75] Vgl. G. Hintzen / W. Thönissen, Kirchengemeinschaft möglich. Einheitsverständnis und Einheitskonzepte in der Diskussion (Paderborn 2001); F. W. Graf / D. Korsch (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Einheit. Protestantische Ansichten der Ökumene (Hannover 2001).

[76] K. Barth, Einführung in die evangelische Theologie (Zürich 1962) 35.

[77] Kardinal W. Kasper, Ökumenisch von Gott sprechen? in: I. U. Dalferth / J. Fischer / H.-P. Grosshans (Hrsg.), Denkwürdiges Geheimnis. Beiträge zur Gotteslehre. Festschrift für Eberhard Jüngel zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen 2004) 291-302, zit. 302.

[78] Vgl. P. Klasvogt / B. Neumann (Hrsg.), Reform oder Reformation? Kirchen in der Pflicht (Leipzig – Paderborn 2014).