Peter Novecosky, OSB

Ecumenical leader retires

Cardinal Walter Kasper announced June 28 that he has resigned as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Now 77, he reached normal retirement age two years ago; he has been the Vatican’s point man for ecumenism for more than a decade. His replacement has not been named as of press time, but it is widely rumoured to be Swiss Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel, president of the Swiss episcopal conference.

As Kasper left his post, he said there is “a solid network of human relationships among Christians that, I am sure, will also be able to resist less favourable events” and represents “a secure basis for further steps forward.” A strong supporter of recent popes’ encouragement for ecumenism, he said ecumenism cannot be considered a “luxury” for the church, but that it is “one of her main objectives, and the same is true for religious relations with Judaism.”

Kasper told journalists that he is retiring with a spirit of hope, “which is not human optimism, but Christian hope.” The torch now passes to a new generation that “will surely look at the dialogues undertaken with new eyes.”

Kasper was not afraid to look at the church with new eyes himself. As Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Germany’s fourth largest Catholic diocese, he joined other members of the German episcopate in 1993 in signing a pastoral letter allowing divorced and civilly remarried German Catholics to return to the sacraments — a move later overturned by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

In 2000 he was critical of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document Dominus Iesus, which he believed was an offence to the Jewish people. More recently, in early 2009, he admitted that the pope’s decision to rehabilitate ultra-conservative Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the Holocaust, was dealt with poorly and was the result of bad management in the Vatican hierarchy. Kasper acknowledged that communication between decision-makers had been lacking. “There wasn’t enough talking with each other in the Vatican and there are no longer checks to see where problems could arise,” he said.

In 2009, with the assistance of his staff and other Catholic theologians involved in dialogue commissions, Kasper authored the book Harvesting The Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue. This book provides a summary of what has been accomplished through ecumenical dialogue over the past 40 years and assesses some remaining problems. The scope of the book includes the four most long-standing Western bilateral international dialogues: with the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council, the Anglican Communion, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

At a symposium in Rome launching the book, Kasper reviewed the ecumenical landscape. He said all churches have become aware that division “stands in contradiction to the will of Our Lord and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to all nations.” This is the motivation to “overcome old prejudices and misunderstandings” and attain a degree of mutual understanding. He pointed out that the last decades “have been marked by growing mutual respect, trust and friendship. Indeed, these are the true fruits, which are even more important than the fruits we have gathered in our documents.”

He noted that ecumenical agreement is based on a common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Trinity, as found in the Creed. Progress has been made in understanding the fundamental truth of the doctrine of justification through Jesus. “Important progress,” he said, “has also been made in ecclesiology, the relationship between sacred Scripture and tradition, the sacramental nature of the church, apostolic succession and ministries in the church. . . .”

The key issue in ecumenical theology today, he said, has to do with hermeneutics — the way in which we interpret authoritative sources. The problem relates to “the relationship between an historical-critical reading of the Bible and a reading in the light of tradition and the church’s self-awareness. . . .”

The fundamental hermeneutical problem, he continued, “is how to translate and interpret the message revealed once and for all into the contemporary context, how to sustain the ongoing relevance of the Gospel message without falling into the trap either of fundamentalism or of relativism. These are problems that face all the churches.”

Ecumenists want churches to give a common witness. This witness is based on the one Lord. The hurdles and challenges in today’s world are the same for all. May the successor to Kasper build on the vision that he has provided.