About 11.50 and recite here. Sir, how does that work? Each one on his own? Each one does it by himself. So, you can draw a quote if you don't have any time. So, we might begin the prayer. Come Holy Spirit, enlighten our hearts, our thoughts. May the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be guided by you and acceptable to the Father. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. So, some thoughts on the ecumenical commitment and the contemplative life. What is the relationship between the two? It is an immense area. For instance, last year at Sant'Anselmo,

[01:02]

there was a whole year's semester course just on ecumenism. Two of our people took that. Then, if you start getting into what is contemplation and then what is the relation of the two, one could talk for years and years. So, I will have to say just a few things. There's no presumption to try to say it all. And perhaps I won't even be able to say the most important things. Perhaps other complementary and more important things will come out in the discussion. And in your continuing reflection, I hope that this is something that can be ongoing. One of the criteria that I will use then, selecting out from a mountain of things one might say, I would tend to say the things that others might not stress. For instance, I'll be saying very little about the dialogue with the Orthodox. Not because this is not very important, but because others here are already experts in this area. Because, don't you know, Chemzos, very expert, will be giving conferences, etc.

[02:02]

So, there's no value judgment in what I put in and what I leave out. Just the criterion of what might be useful to say here so that you do come in contact with it. Some will be sort of basic ecumenical principles. But I hope they are always important, I hope. And I hope they always have some implications for the contemplative life. Ecumenical is a Greek word which means the whole inhabited world. This is the idea. The idea is the concern, the Christian preoccupation for all the Christian churches. It's used in a more technical sense of just the Christian churches, the dialogue among them. In a broader sense, it includes the opening out to all the religions, also non-Christian religions, and indeed to all men of goodwill. So, the basic thing is this sort of universal opening out. Now, what is this, how is this tied in with contemplation?

[03:03]

Well, one of the constant antiphons will be coming back again and again here, either explicitly or, I hope, always implicitly. Everyone here can make his own tie-ins. But whatever contemplation is, it certainly has to do with a deeper communion, union with God and with Christ, so that we can say evermore with St. Paul, I live, not now I, but Christ in me. And this means that it's more Christ in us, his vision, his heart, his mind, than us, that at a certain point is seeing things, is responding to things. And as we noted with Pope Leo, this vision of Christ, this love of Christ, this truth of Christ is without limits. This is the thing. It's not narrow, it's not these in, yes, but those out, etc. It embraces all mankind, so that paradoxically, to the point that we authentically focus in on Christ and the Father and the Spirit, to that extent, we broaden out and embrace evermore all of mankind.

[04:10]

Christ came. The primary goal of his coming was love, was reconciliation of all mankind, was breaking down those walls of division, St. Paul says. So that this must, I should think, also be in the heart of the contemplative. And also the hermit. When you look at, for instance, St. Peter Damian's Dominus Vobiscum, the Lord be with you, you all know that tract. And the whole business of why does the hermit in his cell say the Lord be with you, in the plural, if he's alone, and St. Peter Damian's reply that just as each individual member of the universal body is inserted in the whole, so in some mysterious way the whole is present in every individual member. So the whole mystical body of Christ is present in the hermit's cell. Now we'll be seeing that through baptism, all Christians, also Methodists and Baptists and Anglicans and Orthodox, are inserted in Christ's body.

[05:13]

So that we should think of that, the Lord be with you in the hermit's cell, as being addressed to the whole Christian communion. So in the hermit's cell there are also Baptists and Methodists and Anglicans and all sorts of people. And the hermit should slowly, slowly open his heart, sort of gather in these people in monastic hospitality and pray for them, pray with them, etc. So, there's three basic parts to this thing, and maybe I won't be able to finish, so that we could take it up again next week, sort of rob a little space from English mystics. But the three basic parts, we might begin with Thomas Merton, sort of be more immediate and close. Then we might go on to the Council, see some of the fundamental ecumenical principles there, that I think have real implications for the contemplative life also. And then the third part, then go on specifically to the Anglicans and to our initiative, what we foresee with this possible monastic foundation in California.

[06:21]

And at the end, questions, demands, debate, and so forth. So, Thomas Merton. We've all already seen, rather briefly, in some of our discussions, some of the problems in interpreting Merton. Because he's a very poetic spirit, he's a very broad and complicated spirit. In one essay, he might stress one thing, and in another essay, quite a different thing, and they almost seem like two people. But I don't think he's ever telling lies. I think these are different dialectic dimensions of the same man. Now, whatever you do with Merton, and however you try to push him, I think it would be very hard to come up with a Merton who's anti-ecumenical. Indeed, I think you could argue that one of the primary characteristics of Merton, one of the keys to him, is this incredible ecumenical openness as a monk. And I think it becomes ever more astonishingly open as you go on. It's not that he becomes more and more narrow, but more and more very serenely broad.

[07:28]

He's interested in agnostics and atheists and their intuitions of transcendence, as he says. He's interested in Zen Buddhism. He's interested in the whole Hindu tradition, in the fathers, in the whole Orthodox tradition. He has all sorts of nice things to say about the Anglicans, which I won't bother to cite, but also about the Protestants, Luther, Barth, the whole thing. And, as I say, this becomes more and more serenely open as he goes on. I think one couldn't even say that first he gets into the uniquely monastic experience, and then he's able to open himself out. Sometimes we use a rather simplistic before-after model. First I'll do this, and then I can do all sorts of things. I think with him it is, as he moves ahead, his growth in Christ permits him to open out ever more. And as he opens out ever more, this enriches precisely his contemplative prayer, his contemplative experience.

[08:28]

His reading Zen offers new dimensions, and then he goes more into his contemplative, and then he opens out, and the Sufis offer another dimension, etc. So I think it's this kind of dialectical moving ahead. He goes down to the deep things. This is the uniquely monastic approach. And at the deep things, he does discover this amazing common heritage, common religious experience. In division, in diversity, he's never a kind of sloppy eclectic. This is a great danger of serious ecumenism, just putting it all together like a happy Irish stew. He does distinguish levels and degrees and notes problems, etc. But this never prevents him from being open in dialogue to the authentic religious, spiritual values of all these heritages, and also to see the limits of his own position, etc.

[09:29]

We might, to give this a little more focus, as I say afterwards we can discuss, debate the whole thing, we might focus on one of his essays that deals explicitly with this theme. It's entitled Ecumenism and Renewal. It was first published in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies in 68. You remember he died in December of 68, so this is one of his last essays. Now, this is rather weaker than I would like, because here, when he's talking about ecumenism, he's talking specifically about the Protestants, and specifically the Lutherans. And this is good. And everything he says here, I think, is true also, the dialogue with the Anglicans. But I think you could say more with the Anglicans. Here he's dealing with the monastic life here, and the Lutherans here, and saying, how can you get them together? Now, it's a little different with the Anglicans, because they've been living the monastic life for a hundred years, and some argue that there is in their spirit an essentially monastic Benedictine note to begin with,

[10:35]

since they've come out of the medieval English experience, and they insist on that continuity, etc. So, everything here is true, but I think you could argue a furtiori, all the more it's true with the Anglicans. So he starts by praising Taizé. He also has another article, by the way, praising Taizé in Mysticsons and Masters. The highly successful Protestant monastic experiment of Taizé has in a short time come to be seen by many Catholics as a providential sign of the times, and even as a paradigm for Catholic monastic renewal. It does combine a traditional form of Christian monastic life with a welcome flexibility, and with a strong ecumenical emphasis. The combination of these elements is even more significant than the fact that a Protestant monastery should exist. So he's saying the key thing here is not my word they're Protestants, but that they're putting together these three things of the monastic heritage,

[11:37]

welcome flexibility, and this real ecumenical commitment. I might note that about the year he wrote this, apparently, Roman Catholics started wandering into Taizé to become members, and now there are over ten Roman Catholic monks fully professed at Taizé, also priests. I'm in correspondence with one of them, a Roman Catholic priest who's a full member of the community of Taizé. All the problems of liturgy, of Eucharistic sharing, etc., have been resolved with the full benediction of the Roman Catholic bishops. So that sometimes these things like ecumenical monastic communities seem sort of wild things, far out, sort of really avant-garde, pioneering. But many of the aspects have been worked out. So, and then he goes into a rather complicated analysis of the history of the thing.

[12:39]

He's not just interested in getting Protestants and Lutherans now together with monasticism, but he says, let's look back. What was Luther doing? He was saying no to the whole medieval heritage of which monasticism was an important part. So he was saying no to monasticism, at least a kind of monasticism he knew, and Merton notes that it was a kind of a flabby monasticism. It was a kind of Baroque and also very legalistic, rigid monasticism. Then what happens? He says no. We have the reform. Catholics get all nervous. There's the counter-reform. There's Trent. And you get a monasticism that, according to Merton, is even more rigid, more legalistic, more problems. So he's seeing this whole problem in a long-ranging historical. So after Trent, the tension thus set up between the zeal for monastic reform within traditional structures and the often tendentious attack on monasticism from without

[13:41]

provided plenty of energy and motivation in individuals and communities. There was this great upsurge of let's get monasticism going again. The result was a rather inflexible but sincere devout life. Stern emphasis on regularity, not to say legalism, was justified by a casuistical and sometimes arbitrary theology. Monastic determination after Trent bore fruit now in a fantastically single-minded intentness on, quote, heroic virtue, unquote. Now in touching though bizarre manifestations of a mystical stamp. And he goes on and on about these dangers of kind of this type of monasticism after Trent. Not only among monks, but in all kinds of sectarian milieu, this state of struggle and of tension sustains an illusion of special election and incorruptible truth. We're in reaction against them, a kind of a siege mentality, so we insist we've got it.

[14:44]

We've got the rule, we've got the truth. The endemic disease of monasteries is that people in them do so much to save their souls that they lose them. I think this is rather marvelous Merton irony, instead of the gospel, lose your souls to gain them. We're so concentrated on being saints and not in the sense that they are damned for being good, but in the sense that they concentrate on such particular limited aspects of good that they become perverse and singular. This is interesting. I think this is the essentially ecumenical Merton open to the universe who says, watch out for this narrowness, this getting it all down to me and my sanctity. And then he goes on and on. Fidelity to tedious but predictable rule can become an easy substitute for fidelity in openness and risk to the unpredictable word. This is very beautiful. It's rather close to a kind of a Camaldoli spirit, I think.

[15:47]

On the one side, the word of God, which is unpredictable. The challenge of freedom in the spirit. On the other, let's get the rules, let's get the observance, etc. But the whole point of monastic desert life is precisely to equip the monk for risk, for walking with God in the wilderness and wrestling with Satan in vulnerable freedom. He says, instead of this wilderness faith in peril, one in this other model after Trent accepts faith in another kind of desert, that of protective authoritarian routine. So this is the problem when you're discussing the Protestants and monasticism. Which Protestants and what monasticism? Then he says, now Luther is saying no to this. He gets out of this. Now, his saying no and his getting out can be an authentic monastic challenge to us to renew him. When one experiences the sterility and unfreedom of an existence,

[16:51]

which has become self-contradicting, then one can, of course, completely repudiate it, get out of it, put it behind him. That is what Luther did. His repudiation of a false and formalistic monasticism struck a blow for monastic truth. First he was talking about this, we've got the whole truth and rigidity, etc. He says the authentic monastic truth precisely is served by Martin Luther, by his saying no to this whole thing and getting out and insisting on other things. In doing so, he was really being faithful to the grace that had originally called him into the cloister. I think this is the Merton that goes beyond appearance. This is the typically monastic Merton. He can go beyond the let's defend our team sort of thing, protective mentality to say no. His going out might be a faithful monastic renewal gesture and might be fidelity to what he was called into to do. This is the dialectic that he sets up.

[17:56]

So you might get into a kind of renewal of monasticism, getting behind this trend rigidity precisely through plugging in to the ecumenical, an ecumenical opening out. This is his basic thesis of the essay and it's the basic thesis then that I would suggest. It is at this precise point today then, given this situation that we do, that two important lines of development are, one hopes, going to intersect in monasticism. One, the lived theology, which is the monastic experience. He insists very much on this. And two, the expansion, expansion and opening of perspectives, which lead to a lived unity, the common sharing of Christian grace in crisis, irrespective of Christian divisions. So first, we can't set aside authentic monastic charism.

[18:58]

And second, we can't maintain this rigidity and narrowness. We have to open out and the ecumenical gives us this possibility. And he says, I'm going to add a third dimension, going even beyond the dialogue simply with Christians to all men of goodwill, as Pope John would say. I would also extend this to meet a third line, the common religious aspiration of humankind and its groping for transcendent experience, however you want to qualify it. So he says three dimensions. First, the monastic life must have an authentic relevance to its own right as a focus of Christian experience with a monastic orientation. And he does very much insist on this. Second, the monastic life must preserve or acquire an ecumenical relevance in the form of an openness which is not only ready and able to discuss creedal or sectarian differences with polite detachment, but which is able to share on the deepest level the risk and agonies of Christian life.

[20:02]

Third, the monastic life must prove itself able to be relevant even to the unbeliever who is nevertheless concerned with self-transcending experience. Then he gets involved in a very complicated thing about vows. Can you have a monasticism without permanent vows? And he says, maybe you can. It might be a very good thing. I'd like to stick myself with vows, but seeing the more traditional benedictine concept of metanoia. Then he goes back to this thing of renewal of our monasteries precisely through ecumenical opening out. And he says, a greater flexibility in the monastic structure would permit the development of ecumenical monastic communities. There is no reason why non-Catholics and even unbelievers should not be admitted to a serious participation, at least temporary, in monastic community life. Here he's talking about non-Catholics, especially Lutherans,

[21:04]

and even unbelievers here in monastic life there. Again, the problem is rather diminished if you've got Anglican monks who might have been already living in the monastic vocation for 30 years here and Roman Catholic monks here. It's a different problem that he wasn't dealing with in 68. There weren't even Roman Catholic monks at Taizé yet. But, again, I think it's true and the old a fortiori all the more argument. Obviously, the details would have to be worked out, but there is nothing in the monastic life itself which makes this impossible. So he's talking even about doing it with unbelievers. The monastic spirit is alive today, seeking new ways to express its eschatological hope and to become vitally aware of its own latent potentialities. That is why, on the one hand, Protestantism itself is contributing to the monastic renewal, and why, on the other, monasteries are promising to become centers not only of ecumenical discussion, but of deeply lived and participated ecumenical experience.

[22:09]

I might just mention in the marching here that, maybe all of you know, but at the Holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, we have had for some time now a Swiss Reformed pastor living, one would say, the full aramidical life with us. He's in the cell, and he participates in the full liturgical life, the reunion of the community, et cetera, whereas the choir have it. He preaches once a week, takes his turn, every Wednesday, as a matter of fact, so he's preaching today. Joshua, and it's been a very rich experience. Sometimes when we think putting a contemplative monastic aramidical life together with ecumenism, you've got to compromise and water down. I would note also in this experience, Joshua is a man of profound prayer and tremendously dedicated to silence and to solitude, et cetera. So it's not a this and trying to get it together with some sort of compromise with this, but all the people at the Hermitage say, and there's been incredibly little difficulty about the thing,

[23:11]

precisely because he is such a man of interior prayer, of the bishop has come and blessed his cell. So what he was saying might be done is being done. I've heard it's already the case also in various monasteries in the States. Often you don't announce it from the housetops, because there's a whole question of scandalizing the little ones, et cetera. But there is this movement forward that Merton, I think, rather prophetically foresaw, and, of course, all this has implications for our hopes for the little monastic foundation in California. Now, what do you do together when you get into the monastery or the Hermitage together? He says two things, silence and dialogue, and he concludes this way, and I think it's a lovely concluding key of the fuller Merton. It has both elements together. The unique, and also we've been talking about silence and word in this period, the unique and precious dimension that the monastic life can contribute

[24:14]

to ecumenical experience is the deepening of unity that comes not only from talking together, but from being silent together. The monastic life, when it is true to its own charism, is pervaded with a sense of the definitive that comes to those who in silence refrain from the futility of articulation. So being together, getting down to the deeper roots of our unity and also of our problems. Yet also, and here's the balancing Merton, what must be grasped are the provisional needs to be articulated in honest and undogmatic speech. The two go together. The monastic dialectic of silence and language underlines the deeper dialectic of eschatology and incarnation. Both of these two decisive, essential dimensions of Christian experience in monasticism, in all forms of life, and they concretize themselves in silence and the word.

[25:17]

Both the words and the silence which complete each other in deeply validating Christian experience are rooted in the ultimate presence and reality of love. So it all really gets back to that point also, the relation of, I think, contemplation and the ecumenical. So now to rush into the area of ecumenism. What are we talking about when we're doing ecumenism? As we'll see, there's many ways you can do ecumenism. It doesn't mean just conferences and weeks of study, et cetera. But you do want to do it seriously, and you want to get to the principles. And something like history of ecumenism. As I say, sometimes someone may spend a whole year on this, but we'll try to do something in 15 or 20 minutes. As you know, the ecumenical movement started in the stricter sense sometime last century.

[26:17]

You can focus in on several things that were developing then, especially among the separated brethren. And here, to wave the Anglican flag, they were real pioneers. Their own Lambeth quadrilateral set sort of the Magna Carta. It was the Magna Carta basis of the ecumenical movement right up to the present time. They set the rules, so to speak, and the principles, and the things you can't abandon. You don't want to subject or absorb any experience, but that each ecclesial experience can bring its own richness to the final church, et cetera. What they said really many, many years ago are still the ground rules of the game. Now, at the beginning, when among the separated brethren there was this movement, and it was gaining momentum, the immediate Roman Catholic reaction was very negative. I don't think one can deny that. It's a historical fact. Very negative indeed. There were some very official documents very down on this new beast, ecumenism.

[27:21]

And this was because, we now realize, there was a kind of an operating model in our head at the explicit level or often on the unconscious level of what the true church was. And it was a very simple model, and it was that first model there. The one true church is very simply our church, the Roman Catholic Church, and it is the sheepfold. And the others, the Protestants and the Orthodox, they're the heretics. At the very least, the schismatics, who were outside the sheepfold. So there's really no ecumenical problem. There's only one church. There's simply the problem of the sin and the stubbornness of these heretics and schismatics. And if they want to resolve the problem, all they have to do is return to the sheepfold. This was the model. So we'll keep the door open. We'll be polite to them when they come back, though they must confess their errors and repentance, et cetera. But this was the very simple model. So according to that model, one of the implications, at least on the unconscious level, is the more divided they are, the better,

[28:24]

because a house divided against itself cannot stand, et cetera. So all the better. It's one of the signs that they are not in the truth. There were all sorts of slogans. Only truth has rights. Error has no rights. And they're outside, and so the more divided they are, the more confused, all the better. So the ecumenical movement was seen as a threat. There's no doubt about it. And to the whole ecumenical movement, we responded very strongly, official documents saying no Catholic should have anything to do with the ecumenical movement because it was saying no to the fundamental working model we were going with. And so that was the situation. Also, Father Walter Abbott, for instance, quite a scholar, and in his introduction to the document on ecumenism, he notes another more nuanced language. Each year in January, for many decades,

[29:25]

Roman Catholics have offered eight days of prayer for church unity. Until 1959, just 20 years ago, the general idea behind those days of prayer was the hope that the others would return to the one true church. So it's the one sheepfold, the others return model. That was it. And we were praying for their conversion. So you pray for Christian unity, etc. But it was in that sense. Now, things have changed. That's why it's a little delicate talking about ecumenism. We're in one of those areas where the church has changed. And some people like change. Other people don't like change. But you do plug into emotional things here, subconscious things. So it does get tricky. Certain of the brethren aren't here. They might be better. But you do get into this problem. And the ecumenical movement has noticed that some of the biggest obstacles separating us aren't doctrinal differences or anything.

[30:27]

They're cultural differences. They're psychological differences. But someone who, from the age of one on, has heard in one way or other expressed from maybe the parents, the mother, the father, the priest, everything, that first model, it's very difficult to plug into other models. But the church has changed. And this is one of the awkward things. A couple of weeks ago, someone put on the bulletin board a little quote about, quote, ecumenism, unquote. It was rather negative. And it quoted some, what was it, an archbishop or something who came from Italy and spoke in the States. But the key thing there was the date. He spoke there in 1921, I think. And that's the key. Had that person come to me, I could have given him statements much more official, much more violently anti-ecumenical than that one. But again, the dates are important. This is one of the areas where... So up to 59, certainly it was that way. Now, some are still speaking that language.

[31:30]

And his group. But I think if you're in any sort of symphony, harmony, a communing with the council, you know that things have changed. Just at the very, before the council even got started, Pope John started making noises about what the council would be about. It meant that the church was starting to take a whole different approach to this as Father Abbott noticed. Pope John desired, and here's quotes from Pope John himself, to invite the separated communities to seek again that unity for which so many souls are longing in these days throughout the world, precisely in the ecumenical council. Thus, the Pope took a number of remarkable steps in that direction. He asked that observers be delegated by the Protestant and Orthodox churches. He had them seated in St. Peter's right across the aisle from the cardinals right up in the places of honor. He established a secretariat

[32:31]

for promoting Christian unity. It would be at the service of the observers. It was then made permanent by Paul. Really revolutionary things. To head the new secretariat, he made a providential choice, the biblical scholar, Cardinal Bea, et cetera. So before the council even got off the ground, quite remarkable things were happening. Then, in the council, any one of the council documents you could look at and see the remarkable ecumenical implications there. You don't just have to focus in on the document on ecumenism. If you look at the church, the whole theology there, collegiality, a basic value for the Anglican heritage, certainly for the Orthodox, et cetera. Or the whole model of people of God, the whole theme of continual reform, the confession of a sinful church, et cetera. All of these things are the speaking of a new language which make ecumenism much, much easier. If you look at the document of the liturgy, the centrality of the liturgy, sort of putting private devotions, et cetera,

[33:34]

in this more central, in the context of this more central moment. Or the document on revelation, the centrality, the primacy of the word of God, et cetera. All these documents are ecumenical in that sense. The Anglican observer at Lambeth, Canon Pauli, he wrote an immense book on the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue through four centuries. It's in the library, in that multimedia display I put up there. But he said, when we were at the council, we were just delighted. It was almost as if, he says, in a kind of Anglican arrogance, it was almost as if the whole thing had been written at Lambeth. Because there is, for them, quite an Anglican language here. For the Orthodox, there's also some things that approach them more. And also for the Lutheran tradition, et cetera. But there is a new language here. Now, if you focus specifically on the decree of ecumenism,

[34:35]

it's a beautiful document. I hope everyone has read it and meditated it. And I'll just refresh certain of the things here. They start out saying, oh, this is so central to us. Again, ecumenism wasn't important to all the Catholics. It was very marginal up to 59. And you could barely get a week of prayer out of it. And I remember Catholics saying, you could never go into a Protestant church. It was mortal sin in all this. But promoting the restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the chief concerns of the Second Sacred Ecumenical Synod of the Vatican, a church established by Christ. The Lord is indeed one and unique, yet many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true heritage of Jesus Christ. This is the problem. We're starting to come to terms with this scandal of our divisions. Without doubt, this discord openly contradicts the will of Christ, provides a stumbling block to the world,

[35:36]

and inflicts damage on the most holy cause of proclaiming the good news to every creature. Also, our theologians are finally saying that the sin of our divisions is the worst sin of all, in a certain sense, because it's a sin directly against the communion, the reconciliation that Christ died and rose again to consign to us. It's a sin directly against that communion that should be the primary witness, before the words begin, to the whole world of that love which Christ has come to bring. This was especially felt in the Third World Unfortunately, we in Europe and America have gotten so used to there being one church here and another church just down the street and they're both preaching Christ and they're having nothing to do with each other. We've almost accepted this as kind of the normal situation. Indeed, we sort of like it. It gives us a sense of our club here and exclusiveness, and we've got our in-group and a kind of a pride that they're still

[36:39]

on the outside, et cetera. The Third World was really scandalized when our missionaries arrived. One missionary would proclaim Christ here, who's reconciling all men, and another missionary there would proclaim the same thing, but say it had nothing to do with those. This was incredibly contradictory. What we finally became aware of that also. Now, the Council says, thank goodness there's this ecumenical movement going that the Council recognizes started with our separated brethren. There's the Holy Spirit there. As I say, if you compare this with certain official documents 30 or 40 years before, the difference is incredible. In one official document, the leaders of the ecumenical movement were called proud men whose God is their belly, et cetera, et cetera. But here we get in a different approach where we're saying the Holy Spirit is acting there. Nevertheless, and despite the scandal of our divisions, the Lord of Ages wisely and patiently

[37:40]

follows out the plan of his grace on behalf of us sinners. The whole language is new. We're no longer talking about those sinners, but us sinners. In recent times, he has begun to bestow more generously upon divided Christians remorse over their divisions and longing for unity. This is a grace. Everywhere, large numbers have felt the impulse of this grace. And among our separated brethren, there increases from day to day a movement fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit for the restoration of unity among all Christians. So here, explicitly, they're saying this ecumenical movement started and is moving among the Protestants and Orthodox is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Taking part in this movement, which is called ecumenical, are those who invoke the triune God and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. Then our Catholic side. This sacred synod, therefore, gladly notes all these factors. It has already declared its teaching on the Church,

[38:42]

the document on the Church, and now, moved by a desire for the restoration of unity among all the followers of Christ, it wishes to set before all Catholics certain helps, pathways, and methods by which they, too, can respond to this divine summons and grace. So now we can also get on the boat because the boat is inspired by the Holy Spirit. And here are certain principles. And we just can't go through all these principles, but I would note the very biblical language, the very Ironic approach. Now, there are certain basic principles that are very decisive here. It says that there are divisions, the faults have been the fault of both sides. I won't read all the texts here, but if you look at number three, this is very explicit. One cannot impute the sin of division to the separated brethren now. Sometimes if a Methodist shows up at the door, we think underneath, at least on the unconscious level. He's a sinner because he doesn't become a Catholic.

[39:44]

It says one cannot impute the sin of separation to those who at present are born into these communities and are instilled therein with Christ's faith. Once we might have said are instilled therein in heretical error, et cetera. No, are instilled in Christ's faith. The Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers. For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are brought into a certain, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Here we're starting to move towards the second model now. These are brothers. These are Christians inserted into Christ, inserted into his body. All those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ. They therefore have a right to be honored by the title of Christian and are properly regarded as brothers, insistence on this category. They're Christians, they're brothers in the Lord by the sons of the Catholic Church. Moreover, we've so many centuries

[40:48]

been stressing what divides us. Now we're starting, as Pope John said, to note what unites us. Moreover, some, even very many, of the most significant elements or endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church herself can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. Here we're starting to get more subtle about the visible, the invisible. The written word of God. These are things that they can have too. The life of grace, faith, hope, and charity, along with other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit and visible elements. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to him, belong by right to the one Church of Christ. So they have all these things and they are Christians. They are our brothers. Now in the past, if you were incredibly open-minded, you could almost operate out of that first model and say all these things, saying, yes, individually, John there, that Methodist,

[41:49]

and Paul, that Baptist, et cetera. Each one of them, in his heart of hearts, is very sincere and has Christ. He's invisibly part of the Roman Catholic Church. But the problem with that first model is it takes no recognition of the fact that there are other churches out there. They're not just individuals, Paul and John. But John belongs to a whole big church, maybe of millions, and Paul of another of millions. There are hundreds of millions of Christians who are not Roman Catholics. And they're not just out there individually, each one on his own, but they belong to churches. Now, after much struggling and debate in the council, a document officially recognizes this. There are churches out there, and those churches are instruments of salvation, instruments of grace. So now we are getting into the second model. The brethren divided from us also carry out many of the sacred actions of the Christian religion.

[42:49]

Here we're getting into the whole area of liturgy. Undoubtedly, in ways that vary according to the condition of each church or community. So now we've got churches. We're talking not just about the church and then the heretics, but about churches. These actions can truly engender, these actions, liturgical actions, can truly engender a life of grace and can be rightly ascribed as capable of providing access to the community of salvation. It follows that these separated churches, in the plural, and there's a footnote noting this in all the debate that occurred, and communities, it's flexible here, because some of the communities are so distant from us and they might not have the Episcopate, they might indeed not have any sacrament like the Quakers. So you can't just indiscriminately say churches. But some of the communities are so close to us, have so many elements, that you do have to start talking about churches. So it follows that these separated churches and communities,

[43:51]

though we believe they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation, for the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them, the churches, as means of salvation, which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church. So here I think we have, at an implicit level, something like this model. You can get all sorts of models out of Vatican II, pushing and shoving, but I think, talking it over with other ecumenists, etc., that lots of theologians would say this is the basic working model now. It's not saying that all the churches are equal. There is a privileged church, which I've marked a little heavier there, the Roman Church, which has, in some sense, the fullness of all truth necessary for salvation, and which has the primacy of Peter, etc. But there are other, no longer just individuals,

[44:53]

outside the one true church. There are other communions, and all of these are inserted in Christ, and all of these, taken together, in some sense, represents the larger church. Unfortunately, they are not in communion fully. Sacramental and doctrinal. This is the problem, these arrows, which indicate tension and disagreements. This is the ecumenical problem. And so I think something like this is the model, when we say one holy Catholic and apostolic church. That is true now, but it's particularly an eschatological hope. We've never claimed that even the Roman Catholic Church is perfectly united. With schisms and ephebra, etc. It's perfectly holy. It's perfectly universal, etc., etc. So we've got this now, and then we've got a tension towards the not yet. In this theology of brothers,

[45:54]

or because church is Greek, in Greek is feminine, of the sister churches. And this is a whole patristic and even biblical theology. The sister churches. We're getting back to that. We're rediscovering it in St. Paul, for instance. When St. Paul talks of ecclesia, it's very rarely in our sense of the one universal church. It's usually the Church of Rome, the Church of the Colossians, the Church of Ephesians, etc. He has all these sister churches, but hopefully in communion of sacrament and doctrine. So you have the larger universal church. Now, this is where we're tending towards. This is the Vatican II model of the coming great church. It's, I think, usually the patristic model and also the Anglican model. I think it's sometimes the orthodox model, but I'll leave that to the experts. Of the ecumenical movement. It's not just unity, but safeguarding diversity. The whole thing of St. Paul, the body of Christ,

[46:56]

with the diversity of organs. And this is beautiful. So in the coming great church, the Church of the Reformed will continue to underline the word, the churches, the orthodox, who knows, etc. So safeguard diversity, but in one communion. Now, what will Rome... You can have sister churches with an older church, an older sister, an elder sister, who sort of guides things in decisive moments. That's the function of Peter. For instance, the Anglicans recognize most of them and have for years the primacy of Peter, the whole issue of is in what sense, etc., etc. But in any case, so this doesn't mean just leveling all the churches and it's all the same in a kind of sloppy, sentimental... It's saying, no, there's very articulate, different functions of the different sister churches. But that's where we're coming. Pope Paul VI, at the canonization of the 40 English and Welsh martyrs, made a statement about the Anglican communion,

[47:58]

which is very important, and which is very much pointing towards this model. Because there were Anglican observers there, there's a permanent Anglican center in Rome for dialogue with Rome, because the Anglicans are committed all the way. So the pope is saying now, addressing these Anglican observers and the Anglican communion, there will be no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and the worthy patrimony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican church when the Roman Catholic church, this humble servant of the servants of God, is able to embrace her ever-beloved sister, capitalized sister, in the one authentic communion of the family of Christ. So here he's saying, we're not trying to say no more Anglican tradition, liturgy, etc., patrimony. You've got to join us, you've got to leave it all and become more Roman than us. This was the model of many of the converts from Anglicanism in the last century.

[48:59]

They became more Roman than the Neapolitans. No, the whole Anglican heritage there will be safeguarded, but we will have this embrace in the one family of God. And he's explicitly calling the Anglican communion here church, which is a little paradoxical, because they themselves tend to call themselves communion. This is their model of the Episcopal church in the U.S., with that in Australia, with that in Canada. United in the one communion of churches. But he, to stress, because had he just said communion, this might have seemed like a slight slight. So he's bending over backwards, saying, the Anglican church, our sister, and we're not going to... So this is decisive for, I think, this new theology of what it's all about. Now, this is technical ecumenism, but I think this also has all sorts of implications, also for our monastic life, for our contemplative life, for our life of prayer, et cetera. You can use all this, I think, as parables of different ways.

[50:01]

For instance, relation between two monastic communities, perhaps in the same congregation, or the monastic family. This ideally is the Benedictine congregation of different families, different communities, each very different, but in intercommunion, centered on the one Christ. You can, and some years ago, you could get into that first model. Ours is the one true Benedictine observer, and all the others are not good to the extent that they do not resemble us. Then you can get into at least a kind of a dialogue situation, et cetera, but with tensions, et cetera. But ideally, the great variety of monastic families throughout the world could live in this kind of... Then on a personal level, I'm not much of an artist, but if this were done well, it could be a kind of a mandala. That is, a meditative symbol that enables us to focus and to enlarge our hearts. The center is Christ.

[51:02]

One could talk about the various dimensions of each person. The Victorian school talks of the body, the mind, and the spirit in each man. And we can't repress any of these or try to get rid of it, but we must get each of those in a kind of a harmonious intercommunion, all centered in Christ. So this kind of model can serve for all sorts of things. There's an orthodox friend of Camaldoli. He spends a great deal of his time at Camaldoli. Then he spends a great deal of time at Monte Athos. He's a real artist, and he helps them restore the icons there. He does lots of paintings or icons for us. One of them is very interesting. It's three monks, one very young, one middle-aged, and one older. It's kind of a parable of kind of hopefully the growth in monastic contemplative spirit. And the very young one there is very tense, and his face is angry and...

[52:04]

And the middle-aged man, he's still got his problems. You can see it on his face. But he's starting to get it together, and there's more varied dimensions that are now coming out explicitly, etc. And the older monk has a beautiful, serene face. Obviously, he has many, many sides to him that are harmoniously. So if you could sort of shift these into countenances, this is what he did kind of as this little parable. Of course, you could have young monks who are already here and old monks that are still there. But that first model, that it's all in me, and if you don't agree with me, you're in error. And there's a lot of anger, really, and tension in that first one. There's still tension in the second one, but you're starting to try to get it together. In the third, there's lots of harmony. And so, as I say, this is technical ecumenism, but I think you can apply it on several levels. I'll try to wrap this up. Then there's all sorts of exhortations then to all Catholics

[53:09]

to get involved in this thing. Maybe I won't even read them, but if you don't believe me, they're saying this is a duty of every Catholic, according to his way, etc. Then there's the stress that we can learn from the separated brethren. We don't claim to have it all. The Holy Spirit is there. We can learn from there. Another passage that's very decisive. An amazing, curious passage. It says there's defects in all sorts of things in the Catholic faith. Therefore, if the influence of events or of the times has led to deficiencies in conduct, in church discipline, or even in the formulation of doctrine, as the footnote says, this is incredible. This is at paragraph 6, which must be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself. These should be appropriately rectified at the proper moment. He has stressed that the church should be in continual reformation, etc.

[54:10]

So, that whole business. Now, how do contemplatives plug into this? There's a whole beautiful section on what they call spiritual ecumenism. There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of heart, for it is from the newness of attitude, from self-denial and unstinted love, that yearnings for unity take their rise and grow towards maturity. We should therefore pray to the Divine Spirit for the grace to be genuinely self-denying, humble, gentle in the service of others, to have an attitude of brotherly generosity towards them, citing St. Paul with patience, bearing with one another in love. The basic recognition that if we're going to get here, it's not going to be through subtle negotiation and skillful whatever. It's going to be a grace of the Holy Spirit. So, the whole thing of conversion of heart, of prayer, etc. This change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians,

[55:16]

should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement and can rightly be called spiritual ecumenism. So, I'll wrap it up here. We haven't said anything about our dialogue with the Anglicans and concretely our community. That could come up a bit in the questions and dialogue, or I can go into that some minutes at the beginning next week. So, now we might take five minutes, sort of stretch, and then come back here. Any discussion, questions, objections about all this, or also about specifically the Anglicans, the foundation, what it might be like, what it might not be like, etc. Okay. Because there's not that much time. People can always join in. Sure, we can explain more or less the context.

[56:19]

So, any problems, questions, underlines? It's all lucid. You said some aspects are already worked out in terms of the ecumenical living together between Protestants and Catholics. I'm not familiar with Taizé, and I imagine maybe you have that model sort of work in your community, in a way or something. But how do you actually, in reality, do it? How much do you share? Yeah. Taizé is a real help to anyone interested in ecumenism and monasticism because they have been living this since, certainly since, well, 1940.

[57:21]

Pastor Schultz, he was alone for years and years and years, but from 1948, he's been together with Brother Rilly, so that's a big help. Now, every monastic ecumenical community is rather different. It starts from, for instance, Taizé wants to be fully integrated, one community. I saw a shadow, so I might wait. So, their model is one community. I think that Bruno's coming. He might want to be in it. But anyway, what we would share with him is working on things. Certainly, you eat together. Certainly, you conduct. There's not a Roman Catholic way of eating potatoes in a Reformed way. Then the divine office. This can be shared, and this is extremely important. Then the whole thing of basic monastic life, of who takes turns cooking, who washes the pantry, etc. Just the basic.

[58:25]

The tricky thing is the Eucharist, and there are various ways of handling this. Then again, your basic model. You have one community year or two. If a Roman Catholic goes there, he goes to join that one community, and his superior is that Father Schultz. This is remarkable. This will not be the case with us. At least for the foreseeable future, we talk about a joint community. So, we will be juridically distinct, but hopefully spiritually converging. So, if a Roman Catholic comes to us and wants to join, he'll become a comalvalese with the whole... We're explaining the whole thing of how you work out the concrete problems of ecumenical living together and to what extent Taizé helps. Now, I was mentioning that we are less ambitious than Taizé in the sense that Taizé wants to be one integrated community. So, a Roman Catholic who enters there, his superior is the Protestant pastor

[59:27]

and Brother John, this priest who wrote me. He says, we are one community, and they don't even like to talk about what the Roman Catholics do relative to the... He said, that's getting back to differences. People from Taizé can be very touchy about these questions. So, the main thing is what unites us. We're one community, et cetera. We will be much less ambitiously a joint community, juridically distinct. So, if a young man, Roman Catholic, wants to come and join, he will enroll on the Roman Catholic side. Thus, all our constitutions, et cetera, apply there. Juridically, that foundation depends from the general's council, et cetera. If an Anglican comes, he joins the Order of the Holy Cross with their constitutions, et cetera. Therefore, different superiors, different novitiates, that whole thing. So, it's much... Certainly, we can share the divine office. How do you do that? You can do two models. One is the Taizé model of working out one liturgy. Or, there's the Chevton model of,

[60:28]

in the morning, Vaude's Western Rite, in the evening, Vesper's Eastern Rite. We are tending towards that, rather, because Taizé insists that it's a parable of the coming great unity. We want to be a parable of the coming great unity, but in diversity. So, instead of working out some sort of common denominator liturgy, which would take a lot of work and a lot of... It should come out of a lived monastic experience. You can't work it out at the table. So, a kind of a Vaude's Anglican Rite, Vesper's Roman Catholic Rite sort of thing. We were thinking that, for the Roman Catholic site, we would be happy to take, simply, the liturgy as it's celebrated here, largely. I don't foresee any need of any... But, anyway, we can... So, hopefully, there would be a real continuity with New Camali in that regard. Again, juridically, the foundation and New Camali

[61:29]

are quite autonomous, and one doesn't want to infringe on the liberty of the other or cause troubles for the other. But there, hopefully, will be a spiritual bond, and one of the expressions of that will be this one liturgy. Then, Anglican morning prayer, according to the liturgy of the Order of the Holy Cross, that they've been living with for 100 years, modifying, enriching, et cetera. So... So, now the problem is the Eucharist. Taizé, I am told, works this out this way. They have a Eucharist only once or twice a week celebrated. The Roman Catholic priest celebrates it and distributes. Then they have communion service, and he distributes to all the brethren, also the Protestants, with the blessing of the bishop. Weekdays, instead, you have communion services, and the Protestants are on one side. It's an Anglican priest who gives communion to them, and the Roman Catholics are on the other side. That's the official position.

[62:31]

It gets complicated because there are unofficial things done, because the ecumenical always permits the exception in certain circumstances that are not public, et cetera, et cetera. And the bishops know about this, but they don't want it announced from the housetops, et cetera. So we will now have to get in dialogue with the bishops, Roman Catholic and Anglican of Oakland. We're told that the Roman Catholic is very open ecumenically. Of course, there's all sorts of things being done ecumenically in the Berkeley area, carefully, thoughtfully, and sometimes not so carefully, et cetera. But we would always want to be in full communion with him, et cetera. So that's just a sketch of some of the aspects. Other questions? There are two questions. On the church model, there's many systems of churches with diversity of merit, et cetera. I think the critical point is, et cetera,

[63:34]

because in that model, there's no doubt that diversity is a fully necessary and a sign of health and all that. Diversity in culture, diversity in observance, diversity in leadership, and so on. But like that word, diversity for the Anglicans tends to extend itself and for other people into other areas where it's simply... I mean, there's a kind of... And when you're talking about sister churches, it's like a different meaning to the term. Sometimes we would tend to use it, you see. And there's a kind of painful difference there. We use it where, you know, very deliberately painful difference. I mean, like, simply on a concrete level, it's like this woman's ordination thing, you see.

[64:38]

So I guess there's various things here. Sacramental priesthood. So it's very... You have to be very careful there not to go from model 2 to model 3. And avoiding pain of that difference, you see. That's... I guess it's more a question of kind of common, it seems to me. And I think there's a great tendency today in that area myself, as a witness, understandably enough, because all the things you said

[65:41]

are absolutely true, because the scandal of separation, the fall-line on both sides, etc. And there's a guilt feeling involved there on my side, especially on everybody's side. But... And so I'd like to, for example, to solve this difference that in kind of a careless, haphazard way sometimes, I think, what you said, this is now in regard to the second point. What you said at Taisei is one thing, because it would have to be official approval of the bishop, and then there's other things that the bishop's approval and this and that. You know, kind of unofficial. But... So... There are kind of haphazard, very casual, superficial approaches to this. And just to give you an example from Merton's life, he gave a...

[66:42]

I got this from a close friend of his. He gave a retreat to a group of peace activists. Dan Bergen was one of the people there. This was in the 60s. And some of them were Catholics, some of them were not Catholics. And there was a Eucharist at the end of the retreat, and Father Bergen was the soloist, the principal soloist. And during the mass, he gave out the Eucharist to everybody. And... And afterwards, this I got a script from his friend. He was the first person to see Merton after this incident. And in... These are the exact words he used. He said, Merton used him as a punching bag to vent out his anger at Bergen because of his indiscriminate...

[67:47]

or his very kind of... casual approach to the Eucharist and everything. Merton himself was very careful. I mean, to make a distinction between being very open, very warm-hearted, very dialogical, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but to be careless, to be casual, and superficial, and unsacramental on the doctrinal level, that is something that, you know, Merton was very careful about. And that especially goes through, and more so, you know, in the dialogue between... the meeting between Christians and non-Christians. I mean, this really used to be a tricky ground for people courting on this trip to Asia. You forget little things like the man saying his office while he was on the trip, you know,

[68:51]

and carrying his favorite relics with him, and things like that. That's a completely different area, but I'm just saying that he was able to be both like that is, I think, extremely important. Wow. To try to answer very briefly, and then maybe we can open up also again next time. So, I guess there's various dimensions to this comment. For instance, one might simply be, what could this et cetera indicate? Diversity of liturgies, et cetera. What could it indicate for us? Let's be very rigorous here. Specifically regarding the Anglicans, for instance. There's a lovely article in the recent Way, the journal, the English journal, I guess, of the Jesuits, by this Father Yarnold, who is the Roman Catholic expert on Anglicans. He does a projection of what will be the coming great church, as we hope for, sort of projecting from this model of Pope Paul VI.

[69:53]

And he says, the Anglican communion would be treated as a separate patriarchate. So, the question, what are these et ceteras? A separate patriarchate under the Archbishop of Canterbury, with its own canon law, liturgy, and traditions. Anglicans would acknowledge the Pope's primacy of jurisdiction, but would be affected by it only when it was needed to repair some breakdown in the workings of the Anglican jurisdiction, or when there was need of a final court of appeal. So, what would this et cetera mean? It would mean, for instance, theological heritages. We've gotten now that we know that you can have a plurality of theologies. You can have the Thomas School and the Franciscan in a monastic way of doing theology, according to the clerics. So, there is an Anglican way of doing theology. There is an Anglican piety. Lancelot, Andrews, and Herbert, and the 17th century divines, et cetera. There's an Anglican canon law.

[70:54]

There's an Anglican hierarchical structure, with bishops, archbishops, which is that structure basically established by our own Augustine, sent from Gregory, et cetera. So, all that would... Diversity. So, that's an example, for instance, of schools of spirituality, et cetera. So, lots of things can legitimately go there, already for us. First thing. Second, the different ways of understanding language, like sister churches. We might understand it one way. The Anglicans might understand it another. The Orthodox another. Protestants... This is certainly true. So, you've got to be very careful of a sloppy use of a language that papers over. Fortunately, the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics have been involved in a very rigorous theological dialogue since the beginning of this decade, set up by an Anglican-Roman-Catholic joint commission. I didn't find the documents here in the library,

[71:55]

but they're very beautiful documents. One on the Eucharist, the center of our faith and the center of our problems. One on the ministry, who celebrates at this Eucharist, and one on authority. They found in the Eucharist substantial agreement, and they found just the opposite. We thought, that is, we were using differences of language, thus we had differences of substance. They found underneath this difference of languages the same substance. Roman Catholics said transubstantiation, and Anglicans said, we can't understand this language, we don't accept it, it's Aristotelian. We talk of real presence. And after a very rigorous study, they say the conclusion is the substantial agreement on what the Eucharist is. Sometimes difference of language. Sometimes you use different language to say the same thing. Sometimes certainly you use the same language to say different things. Fortunately, the rigor in theological work, I think, is being respected. Women's ordination, that's a big one. I would just mention that

[72:59]

after these three documents, there was an elucidations published because it was a reaction all over the world to these three documents that talked about the substantial agreement on the Eucharist, et cetera. And in that period, the Anglican communion was wrestling with this complicated issue of women's ordinations, which cuts through all the churches, certainly the Orthodox to a much lesser extent. But there are even Orthodox theologians in private who are saying, but certainly you know, in the Roman Catholic Church it's being very debated. Some of our, frankly, greatest theologians say there's no obstacle like Rahner and our own Wacken Scheme, et cetera. But that's another thing. But my only point is, the agreements on Eucharist ministry, et cetera, are they all set aside by the fact of the ordination of women? And this elucidation saying, no, not at all. Now, it believes, this commission, that our agreement on the essentials of Eucharistic faith with regard to

[74:00]

the sacramental presence of Christ and the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist and on the nature and purpose of priesthood, ordination, and apostolic succession is the new context in which the question should now be discussed. I'm reading the wrong section. They're saying here the whole question of the validity of Anglican orders has to be reconsidered. These documents aren't often known about, but they say some amazing things. They're way ahead of the common understanding. This calls for a reappraisal of the verdict on Anglican orders. They say that the problem of the ordination of women causes certainly problems. It believes that the principles upon which its doctrinal agreement rests are not affected by such ordinations, for it was concerned with the origin and nature of the ordained ministry and not with the question of who can or cannot be ordained. Objections, however substantial, to the ordination of women are of a different kind from objections raised in the past

[75:02]

against the validity of Anglican orders in general. So this is theological precision, saying who can be ordained is one question. What is ordination? What is ministry? What is Eucharist is another. And we found remarkable agreements in this area. So the whole women thing has to be worked out, but that doesn't in any way cancel out the substantial agreement we have. The whole question of indiscriminate Eucharistic sharing certainly, you know, Chen was very rigorous on this. Sloppy Eucharistic sharing. Now, I don't know, what about concretely the Anglicans? That's the question. Again, you have the context of this substantial agreement about what is the Eucharist. You have the judgment of our own Father Vagagini who's on the International Pontifical Theological Commission. He says, if an Anglican approaches the altar, you should never refuse him that our agreement of what is Eucharist, what is ministry, is so substantial that it is... Yes? But the people, you know,

[76:09]

the people who speak Anglican, here we have Episcopalian. From my little experience, the variety of belief among Episcopalians is very wide. You have those who believe, you know, we believe, you know, close to Catholic, but at the other extreme, you have people who are just Protestants, period. They don't believe in the real presence like we do at all. That's the thing, you know. And you just look at the talent, you know. When they come up with these documents, you always have those who are, hey, I'm an Anglican, I don't believe in this at all. I never believed all my life. I never believed in the real presence. Don't force me to... So, it's true that the intelligentsia, you know, these theologians, they agree. But what about the whole flock of people who, you know, in this country have a lot to mean. They are far from believing in the real presence in this particular church. Certainly, there is a tremendous pluralism of beliefs in the Anglican communion. And also, now, I think we have to acknowledge in the Roman, we've tried to pretend

[77:12]

up to now that this is only with the Anglican, but if you get a Hans Kuhn, who is still in communion, together with a Lefebvre, et cetera, how to do the Eucharist, et cetera, we now have a Roman Catholic low church, high church way of... Should we stop now? No, that'll be over. Pardon me? No, go ahead. So, there is that. How do you understand inviolability? How do you understand the Eucharist, et cetera? We have the same thing. And the Orthodox throw that sort of objection against us. Now, there's a positive and a negative side. I think, rigorously, it shouldn't be true that any Anglican doesn't believe in the real presence. You might use different language. For instance, on these commissions, they were very carefully, to be sure, that all levels of the Anglican tradition were represented. Also, the low church. This was an error in the early dialogues with Lord Halifax and Cardinal Mercier. Lord Halifax was high, high, high church, so you've got that... It's much easier.

[78:12]

But, in these Arctic documents, you had all areas of the Anglican community represented. The low, most evangelical, that, by the way, is now very interested in the dialogue with Rome, the so-called broad church, the high church. Now, the Anglican church, as a whole, has acknowledged these Arctic documents as truly reflecting their faith. This at Lambeth, this U.S. church at Denver, so also the low church. Now, certainly you have ignorance, you have people as you have Protestants, I mean as you say, as you have Catholics saying all sorts of things. They did a survey in Italy. I think 27% of Roman Catholics said that they didn't believe not only in hell or purgatory, but even in heaven, incredible things that blow the mind. So, maybe they didn't understand what they were saying, etc. But, Arctic does represent the

[79:14]

position of the whole of the Anglican communion, first. Second, this difference of the Anglicans, again, is often sort of sneered at or worried over, etc. This is one approach. Again, I think it is more and more characteristic of the Roman Catholic church. Another thing is, it is also a richness. The Anglican church is called Bridge Church. It's always had a special ecumenical vocation, because it claims to be Catholic. It insists on this continuity with the pre-reformed church in England, and that's especially the high church, but also the low church insists on this. Then it does take certain of the key elements of the Reform of Martin Luther, the centrality of the word, the Eucharist in the living language, etc., and say, we also want this. So it tries to, and this is a real tension, tries to keep together these two poles, the Catholic and the Reform. So, if we do something with the Anglicans, it's not just with the Anglicans, it's opening up this bridge to the whole

[80:14]

of the Reform. That's why, for instance, Innocenzo is very interested. He says you can't have ecumenism that goes just in the direction of Orthodox. It's very nice, it's very convenient, it's easier, etc. Though, underneath, it's much more difficult. Talking about differences of language, when we were at St. Vladimir's, they said, at this point, they really aren't interested in ecumenism with anyone, and for this reason, that we're really speaking a whole different language. Innocenzo says, to a large extent, it's true. We can read the Orthodox theologians and think we're understanding it all, but often it comes out of an entirely different way of looking at things, an entirely different culture, etc. But, when Anglicans talk and speak, etc., usually they are much closer to us, and usually they are functioning as a kind of a bridge with the whole Reform heritage, which we can't just close off. So, if some are just Protestant, there can't be any Anglican who's just Protestant in the sense that he isn't recognizing

[81:15]

the creeds, the apostolic succession, the bishops, the Eucharist, the real presence in the Eucharist, etc. This is the land of quadrilateral. So, if someone says this, he's being very sloppy, as some Catholics might say this. But... Just to a practical thing, the church at Berkeley, where we were, you know, they say that, to show that, to meet some of the theologians at the GTU there, and Anglican or Episcopalian theologians, have not any personal debate in the UK, and to avoid the fighting between them, they don't put the theological presence. They don't have any... The little church there has no real presence at all. And it's supposed to be a church of the... An Anglican church, a Episcopalian church. If it isn't a Episcopalian church, at Berkeley, why do they... Why don't they keep the Blessed Sacrament in the church? Here again, you have to be very rigorous. The real presence in the Eucharist

[82:15]

is one question. The advisability, usefulness of the... What do you call it? The... Yes, is another issue. Also in our dialogue with the Orthodox, you can completely believe in the real presence, but wonder if it is advisable to have a strong devotion centered on the tabernacle. There's a whole section in here that's very, very subtle. Reservation. Also, the dangers of our position, which we've suffered with here. At a certain point, the tabernacle can be more central than the altar and this sort of thing. Now, we are getting back to the ancient church's usage, and here I'm not a liturgist, so I don't... But the ancient church's usage, as I understand, is at least not to put it on the central altar in a huge tabernacle that sort of dominates the whole thing. The tendency is at least to put it to the side in some sense. Where to the side, etc. What is its function to the side? Primitively, it was there for if people should become sick. It wasn't a primary center of... So Anglicans

[83:16]

would certainly believe in the real presence. They would... Most of them reserve... I suspect it, I don't know, but somewhere it'll be there for the sick. It won't be in... It'll be there. So, I would distinguish. I think if you would ask an Anglican if he believes that Christ is really there in the Eucharist, he would say yes. There are some Protestants who are getting way, way, way, way down, just as an example. If there are crumbs after communion, they can just throw them away. They're so insistent that this is just a symbol of the interior spiritual. Now, this is the key. The Anglican would never throw away the species, but would always consume it or keep it. So, but there's a whole section up. But just the way he celebrates

[84:34]

it, like he said, in terms of throwing away whatever was taken back to the bread box in the kitchen. But see, that's precisely the point. Now, if one of those guys gets into a dialogue or situation, say with a Quaker or something like that, and they say, wow, we agree, or something like that, and so you've got two theologians agreeing with it, but that doesn't represent about a real communion like that. And in a certain sense, theologians agreeing still is only how should we say, at best, a beginning step. Right. So, I think time is a factor here. That this thing has got to unfold, as it were, going away from the intellectual, verbal level to the actual practice. And also, the sense of, and this is the thing

[85:36]

about, I think, the Roman churches, the sense of the magisterium that kind of preserves a continuity in the midst of various interpretations. The truth kind of emerges or kind of perseveres through time as various things fall apart, like the Arians and the historians and various interpretations of the divinity of Christ. So, I mean, this is the kind of thing in terms of what's going on now, I think, in this area. You can have several theologians come together at a conference, and we agree that this isn't really yet the full voice of the Church. I have something similar to this. The Orthodox, they have in Geneva, they have a communicable

[86:36]

patriarch, you know, there is a representative, a group that discusses the Orthodox religionship with the Protestant Church. But they had in Istanbul he said, well, and he has to follow the rest of the other, they said, well, we don't agree with that. See, that's it. And they are there, but he doesn't want to, he's following, they feel uneasy about it. We agree with a certain thing, but many of the things we don't agree. And they are there, that's a group of Orthodox in dialoguing with the Protestants. This is, I think, where monks can be very decisive. You know, Cenzo says that in the Orthodox world, Montiathos is more decisive, even in the patriarchs. And this can be a little dangerous because Montiathos is beautiful and et cetera, Starets is et cetera. But there's also an extremely conservative current there that can take over. But the vocation

[87:36]

of the monks in the ecumenical endeavor, that is ecumenism can help renew and extend the monastic life, but also the monastic life can help really here. Taizé is an example. So, as you say, it's not enough to have the theologians saying these things, and even the official organs saying this represents our faith. Now, a symbol like Taizé, men of diverse faiths, just living under the same roof, these monks have told me, it's an incredibly powerful symbol. It draws these tens of thousands of visitors, that gets complicated, et cetera. But it's felt by the young people. Again, you don't want to be sloppy ecumenically. But if we are to the point, as Merton says, of some ecumenical monastic witness, this is a way of getting the people into this whole reality in a very powerful way, on an entirely different level than documents. So, the problem of theologians only, this is, I

[88:37]

would just quote here about this substantial agreement as to the Eucharist. What does this mean? That is an agreement, a unanimous agreement, also the low church representatives, et cetera, on essential matters where it considers that doctrine admits no divergence. That if there are any remaining points of disagreement, reservation in the tabernacle and all the rest, they can be resolved on the principles here established. So there's a real optimism here that at the heart of our faith is the Eucharist, is Christ, et cetera. And with the Anglicans, we are now in substantial agreement. So this is quite a... Now, to get this out of the documents and into the consciousness and hopes and commitments of the people, as I say, I think the monk can help here at many levels with shared experiences with prayer and all the rest of it. I think they don't have much problem because the Catholics have their mass for them all together, and the other monks have their mass. They don't combine hope together. They don't have one

[89:39]

Eucharistic liturgy. Well, I mentioned this, I guess, while you were out. We were told by people who were just back because it changes from year to year, what they are now doing is the one Roman Catholic priest is celebrating Saturday and Sunday and giving communion to everyone with the permission of the Roman Catholic bishop to Eucharistically share with the others. It's also clear with these people that they have a very rich Eucharistic theology. This is clear. There are currents of the Lutheran heritage. So he is sharing. Then quite a few hosts are set aside, and then there are communion services the other days with an Episcopalian and with a Roman Catholic. And frankly, people cross over. They don't always... And another thing is other things are done in a kind of a private exceptional basis of public celebrations, etc., that the bishops really know about, but they don't want they be made public at all. So the

[90:40]

old model of two entirely separate ones, the Catholics celebrated underneath and the Protestants above and you could sort of hear each other. Things are constantly on the move and now this is their model. That is the most difficult point, and we'll just have to see what the bishop wants, permits, etc. These Protestants, they are coming very close to the Catholics, so much so that they are rejected by all the rest of the Protestants. They don't agree with them because they say that they are betraying the Lutheranism. They don't believe in monasticism. They don't believe in the Eucharist. So they are very close to us. Oh, indeed. This is a problem with the Lutherans. They are not representative of the Protestant world. Oh, yes. Now this problem, in some sense, has been resolved with the Anglicans through Lambeth, through Denver, etc. The official organs representing the bishops, the clergy, and the laity saying, these documents represent

[91:41]

our faith. And now the religious life, the Anglican communion has had Benedictines and Franciscans and all sorts of people for a hundred years. They are now recognized by the official canon law of the church. They're praised in their official documents, etc., etc. This is another tricky one. As I mentioned in this elucidation, the whole commission, with the Roman Catholics, is requesting urgently, it calls for a reappraisal of the verdict on Anglican orders in Apostolici Curre, in the light of the substantial agreement of what is the Eucharist. There is another complementing, complicating factor since the time of Apostolici Curre. The Anglicans

[92:43]

started ordaining their bishops with the presence of old Catholic bishops. Now we certainly recognize the validity of old Catholic bishops. So, after Apostolici Curre, what you get at the very minimum are these currents of validity coming in. If you want to say that the Anglican current in itself is completely invalid, but through the old Catholic participation, and this is so widely distributed now, it's that bishop who ordains these priests, and from these priests this bishop, and the great majority of Anglican clergy are now valid simply by this minimal through the old Catholics. But, this is a different approach. This is saying we've got to reconsider the whole thing of what is validity of form. There's a little pamphlet in the multimedia display in the library by, again, Father Yardley.

[93:39]

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