This is the official Roman position as seen in the Second Vatican Council Decree on Ecumenism. One of the chief concerns of this Council was “promoting the restoration of unity among all Christians.” According to the Decree, the ecumenical movement is striving to overcome the obstacles to full ecclesiastical communion. The meaning of this is clearly stated: “Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those whom He has regenerated and vivified into one body and newness of life – that unity which the holy Scriptures and the revered tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the all-embracing means of salvation, that the fulness of the means of salvation can be obtained.”
In his address to the Old High congregation, Conti drew attention to the slow progress in the ecumenical movement at the ‘grass-roots level’. However, he cautions against the frustration of forcing inter-communion upon each other. Instead, he quotes the second Vatican Council’s way forward, such as prayer services for unity and ecumenical gatherings, which is termed ‘spiritual ecumenism’. ‘This change of heart’ which makes Protestants pray together with Roman Catholics is ‘the soul of the whole ecumenical movement, and can rightly be called spiritual ecumenism.’ Common worship, which signifies the unity of the Church and provides a sharing in the means of grace, is too premature. In other words, Vatican II views such joint prayer services as opportunities for changing the heart and attitude of ‘separated brethren’ towards Roman worship. Once the heart is changed, then they can be
5Second Vatican Council: 1962-65.
6The Scotsman 30/8/90. Quoted in The Bulwark, Dec 1990, p.15.
7The Decree on Ecumenism: The Documents of Vatican II, London, 1967.
incorporated into Roman worship.
1999 – “the Year of the Great Return” to the Roman fold?
Instead of Protestants forcing Romanists into inter-communion, Conti endeavours to set the agenda himself. “It helps to have a programme which can focus objectives and harness energies,” he says. “Our sights are set on the advent of the Third Millennium.” “Pope John Paul II, in a beautiful encyclical letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium approaches), has suggested that we mark the remaining years of preparation, 1997, 1998 and 1999, by focusing in turn on God the Son, our Redeemer; God the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier; and God the Father.”
The strange Trinitarian order the pope of Rome has suggested becomes clearer as Conti continues. He informs us that 1997 is meant to be a year to deepen our personal commitment to Christ. The year 1998 “would be the year of Baptism (and Confirmation) when our celebration of this divine institution would help us appreciate our membership of the Church through the grace we receive by means of water and the Holy Spirit.” But the interesting year is 1999, dedicated to God the Father. During this year they would look back over man’s inhumanity to man; “as we review the past Millennium we would see it marred by the emergence of profound divisions, among them the schism between the Churches of East and West, and the breakup of Western Christianity. If we are to look forward in hope and love we will need to be reconciled as nations and as Churches. The year 1999 would be the year of repentance and reconciliation, the Year of the Great Return, the year when the prodigal son returns to his Father. I commend this programme to you.”
This ambiguous language needs to be clarified. It is possible to interpret his words as meaning that when the churches get together, and come under the umbrella of Rome, that this is equivalent to the prodigal son returning to his father; i.e. it is equivalent to the prodigal Protestant son returning to the father-fold of Roman Catholicism. There can be no doubt that the Vatican II documents view the ecumenical movement as aiding the return to Rome.
The hidden agenda
Conti does not say if the pope of Rome says anything about the year 2000. However, knowing the Pope’s veneration for the Virgin Mary, is it out of place for us to conjecture that he has reserved the ‘big year’ for Mary? It is a strange omission from Conti’s speech. Why did Conti not tell us what he plans for 2000? Why stop short at 1999? Conti’s article in Life and Work, referred to previously, is entitled, “We Catholics have no hidden agenda.” It is certainly true that in it he openly twits the Protestant churches with their refusal to join the Roman communion, but in his ‘sermon’ we are left wondering what the
rest of his agenda contains.
What is clear is that Rome wants to set the agenda and its pace. They do not wish to be pushed too quickly into common worship. Rather, they wish to soften up non-Romanists and help them to become accustomed to Roman forms of worship through joint prayer sessions and carefully managed ecumenical events.8
Common action may break down prejudices against each other. In the forefront of such common action is ‘moral ecumenism’. “Ecumenical dialogue could start with discussions concerning the application of the gospel to moral questions.”9
When it comes to theological problems, these are only to be discussed in prescribed circumstances: “Such meetings require that those who take part in them under authoritative guidance be truly competent.”10 So the agenda is set – let gullible Protestants join with us in prayer sessions, in prayer breakfasts, in moral crusades, and become acclimatised to our form of religion. Don’t let Romanists get involved in theological discussion; leave that to the Roman experts, for the Vatican documents accept that Protestants are “constant and expert”11 in their study of the Bible. Ecumenical meetings are not designed from the Roman viewpoint to instruct Romanists in the Protestant understanding of the Bible except so far as to inoculate them against it. Ecumenical meetings have the primary aim of gathering the erring prodigals back to the embrace of the father, il papa in Rome.