CENTRO PRO UNIONE N. 67 - Spring 2005 ISSN: 1122-0384 semi-annual Bulletin In this issue: Letter from the Director...............................................................p. 2 The Anglican Eucharist: One Rite, Many Theologies Paul F. Bradshaw .............................................................p. 3 Natura e missione della chiesa: Il contributo della Commissione “Fede e Costituzione” Angelo Maffeis .............................................................. p. 8 Rome and Canterbury — Steps toward Reconciliation Through the Sharing of Gifts Louis Weil ..................................................................p. 16 Communion eucharistique et communion ecclésiale:Une relecture de la première lettre aux Corinthiens Hervé Legrand .............................................................. p. 21 Centro Pro Unione - Via S. Maria dell'Anima, 30 - 00186 Rome, Italy A Center conducted by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement Director's Desk Normally the up-date of the Bibliography of the International Interchurch Theological Dialogues is printed in the Spring issue but due to the migration of our library program from the Aleph library automation system to “Amicus”, we have to postpone this up-date until the Fall issue of 2005. You may find the up to date (in real time) bibliography on our web site at all times (http://www.prounione.urbe.it Click on library and then on bibliography of interconfessional dialogues). In this issue, our readers will find two texts from the Centro Pro Unione’s special series on the Eucharist in preparation for the special synod to be held in October of this year. The opening text of Prof Paul Bradshaw of the University of Notre Dame (USA) and one of the principal experts for the current revision of the liturgical materials of the Church of England looks at the diversity of theologies found in the new rite. This issue closes with another text from the series. Prof Legrand reflects on the relationship between Eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion. From a consideration of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he offers some challenging questions that arise from the pastoral and ecumenical perspectives. We include two other texts in this number of the Bulletin. The first being the contribution of Don Angelo Maffeis who participated in the Faith and Order conference at Kuala Lumpur in 2004. His reflections are concentrated on the ecclesiological statement being formulated by the Faith and Order Commission on “The Nature and Mission of the Church”. This lecture was the seventh annual Fr. Paul and Mother Lurana lecture to be held honoring the co-founders of the Society of the Atonement. The fourth of the texts we offer to our readers was given as the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity lecture. Dr. Louis Weil, Episcopalian professor of liturgy at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (USA). In his conference he showed the necessity of sharing gifts across denominational lines especially in relation to structures of authority. We are in the final stages of planning for an ecumenical symposium sponsored by the Ecumenical Institute «Studi Ecumenici» San Bernardino and the Centro Pro Unione to be held at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum, Rome, from Dec 1-3, 2005. The theme of the symposium will be “The Relation between Bishop and the Local Church: Old and New Questions in Ecumenical Perspective”. For more information consult our web site. We would like to render homage to the ecumenical legacy of John Paul II who labored tirelessly for the unity of Christians. May he rest in peace. At the same time we take hope from the encouraging words of Benedict XVI who said that his ministry will “reach out to believers of all faiths and none, promising to continue ... sincere dialogue with them.” The Centro’s staff pledges our support to his efforts to respond to the Lord’s mandate, “that all may be one … so that the world may believe” (John 17:21) and to further dialogue and cooperation with all people of faith as the course set for the Church by the Second Vatican Council. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 (http://www.atla.com). James F. Puglisi, sa DirectorN. 67 /Spring 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 3 Centro Conferences CCCC The Anglican Eucharist One Rite, Many Theologies Dr. Paul F. Bradshaw Professor of Liturgy and Director, Undergraduate Studies, University of Notre Dame, London Centre (Conference held at the Centro Pro Unione, Tuesday, 9 November 2004) Eucharistically speaking, Anglicans are a very diverse people. We have among us those who are as high in their eucharistic theology as any Roman Catholic; and at the other end of the spectrum we have those with whom the sixteenth-century Protest- ant Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, would find himself very much at home. With such a diversity of theologies, then, how it is possible for Anglicans to live together in a single church, and moreover use the same eucharistic rites as one other? The short answer is: by very careful wording of texts and rubrics. In order to illustrate this, however, we need first to clarify the terms I shall be using. It is conventional to refer to Anglicans who espouse more Catholic doctrines as Anglo-Catholics and con- versely to refer to those with more Protestant beliefs as Evangeli- cals. For convenience I will use those labels in this lecture. It is important to note, however, that these descriptions do not refer to sharply defined groups within Anglicanism, but that there are varieties of Anglo-Catholics and different shades of Evangelical- ism, holding quite significant differences of beliefs on various matters, as well as a whole variety of theological opinions in between the two. Moreover, while some Evangelicals today are part of the charismatic movement, and consequently take a less rigid position with regard to classical Protestant issues, others are not. 1 In other words, we are dealing rather with a wide spectrum of beliefs, and hence any generalization about ‘what Anglo- Catholics believe’ or ‘what Evangelicals think’ will, like all generalizations, be true for some but not all of a group so labelled. Eucharistic Presence Let us, therefore, begin our examination of liturgical texts with the question of the relation of the eucharistic presence of Jesus to the elements of bread and wine. All Anglicans agree that in some sense the bread and wine are ‘consecrated’. In the classic English 1662 Book of Common Prayer the prayer before communion is entitled ‘The Prayer of Consecration’, and similarly a rubric at the end of the service directs that while any bread and wine remaining unconsecrated may be taken by the priest for his own use, left- over consecrated bread and wine must be reverently consumed immediately after the final blessing.2 Evangelicals who believe that no change takes place in the elements are thus prevented from treating consecrated bread and wine in the same manner as they would unconsecrated, and hence causing grave offence to those holding a higher eucharistic theology; but on the other hand the requirement that they view the bread and wine as consecrated does not demand that they understand by that word anything more than ‘set apart for a holy use’, as the Prayer of Consecration itself does not explicitly ask God to consecrate the bread and wine, but prays rather that ‘we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine ... may be partakers of his [i.e., Christ’s] most blessed body and blood’. Clearly, such language falls far short of what Anglo- Catholics would wish it to say, but as it does not actually deny anything that they hold true, they have been able to live with it over the centuries. Such deliberate ambiguity is also preserved in twentieth- century Anglican rites. As there is a whole variety of liturgical texts in current use in different parts of the worldwide Anglican Communion, it is impossible to give an adequate account of their various forms within the space of this lecture, and hence I will illustrate my contention solely by drawing on those in contempo- rary use within England, the eucharistic rites of what is known as the Common Worship series of texts, which were authorized in their final form in the year 2000. 3 These rites include both modern – and traditional-language versions, but it is on the modern ones that I intend to focus. Here there are eight different eucharistic prayers – and in the modern-language rite they are now called eucharistic prayers and not Prayers of Consecration, although the 1 For a taxonomy of Anglican Evangelicals, see Graham KINGS, ‘Canal, River and Rapids: Contemporary Evangelicalism in the Church of England’, Anvil 20 (2003) 167-84, also available online at: www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/docs/watercourses.pdf; for Anglican Evangelical eucharistic thought, see Christopher J. COCKSWORTH, Evangelical Eucharistic Thought in the Church of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 2 For the texts of the various revisions of the English Book of Common Prayer up to and including 1662 set out in parallel columns in order to facilitate comparison, see F. E. BRIGHTMAN, The English Rite (London: Rivingtons, 1915). 3 These texts are conveniently accessible online at: www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/hc/ hcfront.html.4 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 67 /Spring 2005 provision for what to do if the bread and/or wine prove insuffi- cient for the number of communicants is entitled ‘Supplementary Consecration’. In a similar manner to the 1662 rite, a rubric directs that ‘any consecrated bread and wine which is not required for purposes of communion is consumed at the end of the distribution or after the service’. But it is the content of the prayers themselves that is most interesting from the point of view of the theology of consecration. While one of the prayers, Prayer C, continues to adhere closely to the words of 1662 in asking that ‘we receiving these gifts of your creation, this bread and this wine ... may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood’, others reveal an advance on this language. Prayer D is the most conservative, merely asking that ‘by these gifts we may feed on Christ’, but the rest use expressions that centre on the request that the bread and wine themselves may ‘be to us’ (Prayers A, B, F, & H) or ‘be for us’ (Prayers E & G) the body and blood of Christ – not ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ, you will notice, as that would be going too far in one direction, while ‘be for us’ or ‘be to us’ can be understood as meaning simply ‘represent’. Institution Narrative Welcome though this switch of focus – from merely speaking about the communicants to saying at least something about the bread and wine – has been to those with a higher eucharistic theology, it has never been thought absolutely crucial as far as they are concerned. Those who adhere to the traditional Western view of eucharistic consecration, that it is the recitation of the words of institution in the prayer that brings about the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, have been satisfied that the rite is valid so long as this condition is met, as it always has been in Anglican rites. Yet even here the new rites manifest an interesting development. Traditionally in Anglican rites, as the Roman rite, the petition for consecration, if we may call it that in the Anglican case, has always preceded the recitation of the narrative of institution, so that the latter can be understood as fulfilling the request of the former, and thus the bread considered to be consecrated at the end of the narrative. This continues to be the case in half of the eucharistic prayers in Common Worship (A, B, C, & E), but the other four display what may be described as a more Eastern structure, with the institution narrative being part of the ‘praise’ half of the prayer rather than its ‘petitionary’ second half, and so it precedes rather than follows what we may better describe as the epiclesis, as in all of these modern prayers there is some reference to the Holy Spirit’s activity in conjunction with what is requested. 4 When just such an arrangement was proposed early in the twentieth century in an abortive attempt to revise the Prayer Book in England, it was firmly rejected by most Anglo- Catholics as undermining the Western theology of consecration, because it seemed to imply that the consecration was still incom- plete even after the words of institution had been said.5 It seems to have made its very first appearance in an authorized Anglican text in the Episcopal Church in the USA in the trial forms of services leading up to the 1979 revision of the Book of Common Prayer there, where it has remained, apparently without serious objection from Catholically-minded Episcopalians. Even its adoption in the Church of England Common Worship texts was not met with the sort of opposition that its predecessor was in the 1920s. One can only presume that in the meantime the sheer ridiculousness of thereby, if unconsciously, impugning the validity of the ancient eucharistic prayers of Eastern Christianity has prevailed. Epiclesis I said a few minutes ago that these epicleses now all include explicit reference to the activity of the Holy Spirit, but we need to note how careful is the language used. It would have been unacceptable to Evangelicals to have said something like ‘Send your Holy Spirit on this bread and wine...’, so the various prayers all resort to more elliptical phrases to refer to the activity of the Spirit in connection with the petition for consecration. Thus, Prayers A, B and C merely ask that what is requested may be done ‘by the power of your Holy Spirit’. Prayer D opts for invoking the Spirit on the community rather than the eucharistic elements: ‘Send your Spirit on us now that by these gifts we may feed on Christ’; while the other prayers exhibit a variety of more ambiguous petitions: ‘Send your Holy Spirit, that broken bread and wine outpoured may be for us the body and blood of your dear Son’ (Prayer E); ‘by your Holy Spirit let these gifts of your creation’ etc. (Prayer F); ‘Pour out your Holy Spirit as we bring before you these gifts of your creation’ (Prayer G); and ‘ send your Holy Spirit that this bread and wine...’ (Prayer H). Words of Administration We should also note in this connection how Anglican rites have dealt with the words used at the administration of the consecrated elements to communicants. The 1548 Order of Communion and its successor, the 1549 Prayer Book, adopted a translation of the words used in the communion of the sick in the medieval rite: ‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life’; ‘The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.’ Not surprisingly, Protestant opinion was unhappy with these words because they seemed to offer support for a Catholic doctrine which identified the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ. In the more Protestant 1552 revision of the Prayer Book, therefore, they were changed. In their place came simply ‘Take and eat this in remem- brance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving’ and ‘Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful’ – sentences that said nothing about the nature of the ‘this’ that was to be eaten and drunk, but laid emphasis instead on the inner feeding on Christ in grateful remembrance of his death on the cross. In a typical spirit 4 For a more detailed analysis of the rites, see Paul F. BRADSHAW (ed.), A Companion to Common Worship, Alcuin Club Collections, 78 (London: SPCK, 2001) I, 98-147. 5 See, for example, G. J. CUMING, A History of Anglican Liturgy (London: Macmillan, 1982 2 ) 179.N. 67 /Spring 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 5 of Anglican compromise, the revision of the Prayer Book made at the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I cleverly combined the two sets of words and required the whole pair of sentences to be said to each communicant, which greatly slowed down the speed of administration of communion for generations of Anglicans: ‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving’; ‘The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful’. In this way it was possible for some to interpret the second sentence in the light of the first - the ‘this’ that communicants were to eat and drink was obviously the body and blood of Christ mentioned in the first sentence – and for others instead to interpret the first sentence in the light of the second – the body and blood referred to were obviously that which had been sacrificed on Calvary and which the communicants were to recall with gratitude as they ate and drank bread and wine. In the Common Worship rites those lengthy double formulae remain as the standard words of administration in the eucharistic rites that follow the pattern of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, but in the modern rites they are just one of five possible options. There is also the standard ancient Christian form, ‘The body of Christ’, ‘The blood of Christ’ as well as a slightly longer version, ‘The body of Christ, broken for you’, ‘The blood of Christ, shed for you’. But if these texts might seem to some to imply too much that what is being placed in the hands of the communicants is itself the body of Christ or his blood, then it is possible to use instead ‘The body of Christ keep you in eternal life’, ‘The blood of Christ keep you in eternal life’, or the somewhat more poetic ‘The bread of heaven in Christ Jesus’, ‘The cup of life in Christ Jesus’, neither of which deny the presence of Christ in the elements but do not necessarily point in that direction either. Reservation of the Sacrament Before leaving the subject of consecration, one further aspect may be worthy of mention. Evangelicals in the Church of England have traditionally been opposed to the practice of reserving the consecrated elements once the service is over and of using them later for the communion of the sick, in spite of the ancient precedents for this practice. Their objection has been that this practice implies a localized and permanent presence of Christ within the eucharistic elements rather than a dynamic presence within the celebration itself, and their own custom has been for there to be instead a separate, complete eucharistic celebration at the home of each sick person. They have insisted that this was precisely what was intended by the rubric of the 1662 rite requiring left-over consecrated bread and wine to be reverently consumed immediately after the final blessing, and in the past opposed as illegal all attempts by others to introduce permanent reservation of consecrated eucharistic elements in church, whether in tabernacle, pyx, or aumbry. While vocal opposition to such reservation generally does not go on any longer, and the practice of reservation itself has become widespread, no explicit provision is made for it in the new rites, even though some have been heard to argue that the wording of the rubric about the consumption of what is left over as taking place ‘at the end of the distribution or after the service’ offers some leeway as to exactly how long ‘after the service’ this may be delayed. Thus Evangelicals may rest content that the practice is not given explicit acknowledgement within official Anglican formularies and so can be said to be no part of the doctrine of the Church of England, and others can remain free to practice a custom that is not prohibited by those same formularies. This is how we succeed in getting along with one another, although it is worth noting that some Evangelicals are now willing to admit that their unease is no longer with reservation as such but what it might lead to – devotions before the reserved sacrament or even Benediction. Prayer for the Departed A similar truce has also been reached over prayer for the departed in the eucharist, something else to which Evangelicals have traditionally been opposed. Among the texts authorized for use none prays explicitly for the departed, and so it cannot be claimed that this doctrine is officially approved by the Church of England. On the other hand, it is permissible to commemorate those who have died and commend them to God’s gracious keeping, employing whatever words those leading the interces- sion choose to adopt, since the rubric concerning intercessions merely says that ‘other suitable words may be used’. Thus the freedom exists to articulate other beliefs, providing that they are not contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, or to what any individual happens to think that the doctrine of the Church of England is on this particular point. Honour is thus satisfied on both sides. Eucharistic Sacrifice I would now like to move on to take a look at how the rites handle that other great controverted aspect of eucharistic doctrine from the Reformation era, that of sacrifice. The first English Prayer Book of 1549 showed itself firmly in line with the Conti- nental Reformation when it asserted in its eucharistic prayer that Christ by his death on the cross ‘made there by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world’. The emphatic nature of this clause was intended to leave no doubt that there was anything that needed to be supplemented or repeated in the eucharistic rite. The more Protestant rite of 1552 went further still. It eliminated all reference to the action of placing of bread and wine on the holy table, presumably lest any sense of offering could become attached to it, and it relegated to a position after communion that part of what had been the eucharistic prayer which had spoken of the offering of our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, of ourselves, our souls and bodies, and of our duty and service, so as to distinguish it the more clearly from Christ’s offering. Only after accepting by faith the benefits of Christ’s passion and participating in the holy communion were the communicants in a position to offer anything at all to God.6 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 67 /Spring 2005 The 1662 version did little to redress the balance from this decidedly Protestant inclination, but seventeenth-century high- churchmen and their successors clung as best they could in desperation to what crumbs of comfort they could find in it. Only one part of the service seemed to afford some hope of a more Catholic doctrine. Just before the monetary gifts of the people were collected and presented, the word ‘Offertory’, deleted in 1552, was restored to the rite (‘Then shall the priest return to the Lord’s Table and begin the Offertory’) and the intercessory prayer that followed this now besought God to ‘accept our alms and oblations’, whereas previously it had only mentioned ‘alms’. Although it is probable that by this double phrase the compilers intended no more than to distinguish money collected for the poor from other kinds of monetary gifts (both of which are now mentioned in the preceding rubric), yet it became the custom of those holding a higher doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice to claim that it referred to the bread and wine which had been placed upon the table just before the prayer, and that these were therefore thought of as being ‘offered’. For the rest of what they wanted, many in the end resorted to unauthorized additions to the ceremo- nial and texts of the rite in order to make more of the offertory, and some in the nineteenth century even went so far as to import the Roman canon itself, though often said silently so that there still appeared to be outward conformity. 6 Anamnesis When the opportunity eventually came in the twentieth century to consider possible revisions to the authorized texts, many desired to restore a more primitive shape, involving not only the moving of the post-communion prayer of oblation back into its former location within the eucharistic prayer itself but also the addition of some sort of anamnesis paragraph to link it to the narrative of institution, with which the 1662 prayer had abruptly ended. But the role of this anamnesis paragraph in earlier centu- ries had been in part to say exactly what the church thought it was doing in celebrating the eucharist, and that of course was some- thing on which Anglicans could not agree. It therefore became one of the most controversial elements in the whole rite. Dis- agreement over it was one of the factors responsible for the failure of the first attempt at a revised rite in England in the 1920s, and it dogged later attempts in the 1960s and 1970s. ‘We offer unto thee this bread and this cup’ was acceptable to some but obviously not to others, and even ‘we give thanks to thee over this bread and this cup’ caused dissension. An attempted compromise ‘we do this in obedience to his command’ failed to win the day. The text finally agreed was ‘with this bread and cup we make the memorial’ etc. Yet even this was controversial, some Evangelicals asserting that ‘memorial’ was a Catholic word that implied offering, while some Anglo-Catholics maintained that it was a Protestant word that did not go nearly far enough to satisfy them, a few even resorting, when saying the prayer, to the unauthorized addition of three more words to the clause to make it more acceptable to their theology: ‘with this bread and cup which we offer we make the memorial’. Later official revisions tended simply to produce minor variations on the originally agreed text: ‘with this bread and this cup we do this in remembrance of him’ and ‘we celebrate with this bread and this cup his one perfect sacrifice’, although the third eucharistic prayer in the 1980 Alternative Service Book was a little more adventurous, ‘we bring before you this bread and this cup’ – ‘bring before’ just about passing muster with Evangelicals where ‘offer’ would not. 7 The recent Common Worship texts seem to have succeeded in rising above these past controversies and producing material that is more broadly acceptable, although it is probably also fair to say that a new generation of Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals are generally not as interested in fighting the same battles as their predecessors. For the first time in England since the Reformation, offertory prayers appear in the official texts, or rather what are called ‘prayers at the preparation of the table’ (note the careful wording of this title). There are a total of twelve such prayers for optional use. Some of them refer explicitly to the money that has just been collected, as in ‘Generous God, creator, redeemer, sustainer, at your table we present this money, symbol of the work you have given us to do; use it, use us, in the service of your world to the glory of your name.’ Others are more general in character, as in ‘Pour upon the poverty of our love, and the weakness of our praise, the transforming fire of your presence’, while others refer more explicitly to the eucharist, as in ‘Wise and gracious God, you spread a table before us; nourish your people with the word of life and the bread of heaven’. But it is prayer no. 4 that is most interesting. For what we have here is a nearly verbatim reproduction of the Roman prayers at this same point in the rite, ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, through your goodness’ etc. Twenty years before, The Alternative Service Book had gone so far as to include as an option at this point in the service the response, ‘Blessed be God for ever’, but had not provided any texts to which the response might be used. Those who knew what those prayers might be and approved of them were free to add them, in accordance with the rubric that said ‘The president may praise God for his gifts in appropriate words’; those who did not know passed over the response without using it, or made up their own prayers; and who knew but did not approve passed over it in gratitude that the prayers were not printed there and so could not be said to be any part of the doctrine of the Church of England. Now, however, things have changed. The prayers are there, but only, as I said, in a nearly verbatim version of the Roman text, for there is a significant difference: the words ‘to offer’ in the prayers are replaced by ‘to set before you’, ‘through your goodness we have this bread/wine to set before you’. The careful choice of verb makes all the difference. The same is true in the anamnesis. While Prayers A & D retain the older compromise of ‘with this bread and this cup’, and Prayer C adheres to the Prayer Book tradition of not mentioning bread and cup at all at this point, Prayers B & E opt for the verb ‘bring 6 On this practice, see Mark DALBY, Anglican Missals and their Canons, Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Study, 41 (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1998). 7 On all this, see R. C. D. JASPER, The Development of the Anglican Liturgy 1662-1980 (London: SPCK, 1989) 250-258, 349- 352.N. 67 /Spring 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 7 before’, a development that had already been tried in the third eucharistic prayer of 1980 Alternative Service Book, Prayer E even going as far as to say ‘bringing before you the bread of life and the cup of salvation’ rather than the more prosaic ‘this bread and this cup’ of Prayer B and the Alternative Service Book. Although the remaining prayers (F, G, & H) make no explicit mention of bread and cup at this particular point, they all follow the anamnesis immediately with an epiclesis that does mention them. Prayer G even manages to introduce into the anamnesis the notion not simply that ‘we proclaim’ Christ’s death, as I Corinthi- ans 11 and the other eucharistic prayers have it, but that ‘we plead with confidence his sacrifice made once for all upon the cross’, and also to work into the epiclesis the verb ‘bring before’: ‘Pour out your Holy Spirit as we bring before you these gifts of your creation’. It seems that verbs like ‘set before’, ‘plead’ and ‘bring before’ are acceptable where ‘offer’ is not. Conclusion The glue that holds Anglicans together eucharistically, therefore, is careful and conscious choice of words and phrases that permit of diverse interpretation. Some, both inside and outside the Anglican Communion, may think that we should not pursue the route of deliberate ambiguity but instead say what we mean. However, like Alice in reply to the March Hare at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, we prefer instead merely to mean what we say. 8 For if we define too much, we could fall apart. Whether that path is a model to be commended for other attempts at overcom- ing historic difficulties and reconciling divided Christians, I leave to others to determine. 8 ‘“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least I mean what I say, that’s the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see!’” (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland).8 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 67 / Spring 2005 Centro Conferenze CCCC Natura e missione della chiesa Il contributo della Commissione “Fede e Costituzione” Dott. Angelo MAFFEIS Docente di Teologia sistematica, membro della Commissione Fede e Costituzione e della Commissione Internazionale del Dialogo Cattolico-Luterano Settima conferenza annuale in onore di Padre Paul Wattson e Madre Lurana White fondatori della Congregazione Francescana dell’Atonement (Conferenza tenuta presso il Centro Pro Unione, giovedì, 16 dicembre 2004) Il tema della chiesa è stato al centro della riflessione di Fede e Costituzione fin dai suoi inizi. La volontà di perseguire la meta dell’unità visibile tra i cristiani esige infatti un accordo fondamentale circa la natura della chiesa. Già nell’elaborazione del primo progetto della Conferenza mondiale di Fede e Costituzione, formulato nel1910, si sottolinea il carattere irrinunciabile della ricerca di un accordo sulla chiesa, sulla sua fede e sul suo ordinamento e si afferma che tale ricerca deve essere condotta “con lealtà verso la verità, così come noi la vediamo, e con rispetto per le convinzioni di coloro che differiscono da noi; ritenendo che gli inizi dell’unità si trovano nella chiara enunciazione e nella piena considerazione di quelle cose in cui differiamo, così come di quelle in cui siamo uniti” 1 . Il primo confronto, avviato nella Conferenza di Losanna del 1927, rivela in realtà quanto l’impresa fosse ardua. Il dibattito non ha infatti potuto andare molto al di là dell’esposizione delle concezioni ecclesiologiche delle diverse tradizioni ecclesiali, mentre la ricerca di convergenze nella visione della chiesa si è rivelata assai laboriosa 2 . Raccogliendo gli elementi di convergenza raggiunti, il rapporto della sezione III afferma che “la chiesa, in quanto comunione dei credenti in Cristo Gesù, secondo il Nuovo Testamento, è il popolo della nuova alleanza; il corpo di Cristo e il tempio di Dio, costruito sul fondamento degli apostoli e dei profeti, con Cristo stesso come pietra angolare. La chiesa è strumento scelto da Dio con il quale Cristo, per mezzo dello Spirito, riconcilia gli esseri umani con Dio mediante la fede, portando le loro volontà a sottomettersi alla sua sovranità e santificandoli con i mezzi di grazia e unendoli nell’amore e nel servizio per essere suoi testimoni e cooperatori nell’estensione del suo dominio sulla terra, finché il suo Regno venga nella gloria” 3 . Ma lo stesso rapporto deve riconoscere la profondità delle differenze che esistono riguardo alla definizione della natura della chiesa: “1. Alcuni ritengono che la chiesa invisibile è totalmente in cielo; altri includono in essa tutti i veri credenti sulla terra, compresi in qualche organizzazione oppure no. 2. Alcuni ritengono che l’espressione visibile della chiesa è stata determinata da Cristo stesso ed è perciò immutabile; altri che la chiesa una, sotto la guida dello Spirito Santo, può esprimersi in forme che mutano. 3. Alcuni ritengono che l’una o l’altra delle chiese esistenti è la sola vera chiesa; altri che la chiesa come l’abbiamo descritta si trova in alcune o in tutte le comunioni esistenti prese nel loro insieme. 4. Alcuni, pur riconoscendo altre comunità cristiane come chiese, sono persuasi che nella provvidenza di Dio e per l’insegnamento della storia una particolare forma di ministero si è mostrata come necessaria per il benessere della chiesa; altri ritengono che nessuna forma di organizzazione è intrinsecamente preferibile; altri ancora che nessuna organizzazione è necessaria” 4 . Per tentare di individuare una via d’uscita da una situazione 1 “Report of the Joint Committee of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church (Cincinnati, Ohio, October 1910)”, in G. K. A. BELL, Documents on Christian Unity 1920-4 (Oxford/Londra: Oxford University Press, 1924) 16. 2 La tradizione anglicana aveva elaborato una concezione dell’unità, che tuttavia si è rivelata inaccettabile per la maggior parte dei partecipanti alla Conferenza; cfr. in proposito l’accurata ricostruzione di G. GASSMANN, Konzeptionen der Einheit in der Bewegung für Glauben und Kirchenverfassung 1910-1937 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979). 3 “Report of Section III: The Nature of the Church”, in H. N. BATE (ed.), Faith and Order. Proceedings of the World Conference. Lausanne, August 3-21, 1927 (NY: G. H. Doran, 1927) 463. 4 Ivi, 465.N. 67 / Spring 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 9 che, per la mole delle questioni e la profondità delle differenze, era tale da scoraggiare anche i più fiduciosi nell’esito positivo dell’impresa era necessario definire una strategia. Una prima strategia, messa in atto da Fede e Costituzione e adottata in seguito dai dialoghi bilaterali, per passare dalla fase dell’esposizione e della spiegazione delle posizioni confessionali alla ricerca di convergenze, è stata la delimitazione delle questioni da affrontare. Il problema ecclesiologico non può essere risolto nel suo insieme, ma esige la chiarificazione graduale dei singoli aspetti che lo compongono, cominciando dagli ambiti più promettenti, che lasciano intravedere possibilità concrete di compiere passi in avanti. D’altra parte, questa concentrazione su singole questioni, per essere fruttuosa, esigeva di non perdere di vista il quadro complessivo della riflessione. Il documento di Lima su Battesimo, Eucaristia e Ministero (1982) può essere considerato come un frutto della scelta di concentrare l’attenzione su singole questioni e di cercare in questi ambiti le possibili convergenze. Le risposte delle chiese a questo testo di consenso hanno però ripetutamente sottolineato la necessità di chiarire il “quadro ecclesiologico” entro cui i contenuti delle tre dichiarazioni devono essere collocati e dal quale dipende, non marginalmente, il loro significato. In questo senso si esprime, tra le altre, la risposta cattolica che, a tale riguardo, afferma: “Riflettendo sul testo, pensiamo che molte delle critiche che possono essere formulate in proposito si riferiscono alle nozioni di sacramento (e sacramentalità), alla precisa natura della tradizione apostolica, e alla questione dell’autorità decisionale nella chiesa. Tutte sono parte della questione dell’ecclesiologia che dev’essere una costante preoccupazione all’interno del movimento ecumenico” 5 . La questione sollevata dalle risposte al BEM è stata ripresa dalla V Conferenza mondiale di Fede e Costituzione, tenuta a Santiago de Compostela nel 1993. “Le risposte al BEM – si legge nel rapporto della sezione III – sentivano il bisogno di un ulteriore lavoro sull’ecclesiologia che soggiace e comprende la comprensione e la pratica del battesimo, dell’eucaristia e del ministero; e la riflessione successiva ha suggerito che la nozione e la realtà della koinonia offre una categoria guida adatta per questo studio più approfondito”6. Questa rapida premessa di carattere storico intendeva solo ricordare che il problema su cui si sofferma la nostra attenzione ha accompagnato i lavori di Fede e Costituzione fin dagli inizi e si ripropone con forza nel momento in cui i risultati raggiunti su punti particolari sollevano la questione della coerenza complessiva del quadro entro cui si inseriscono. Non vogliamo ripercorrere il lungo dibattito sulla natura della chiesa e sulla sua unità sviluppatosi in Fede e Costituzione7, ma semplicemente proporre qualche riflessione sullo stato attuale della riflessione, alla luce della fase in cui oggi si trova la revisione del testo La natura e la missione della chiesa e del dibattito dell’assemblea plenaria di Fede e Costituzione che si è svolta l’estate scorsa a Kuala Lumpur8. È superfluo ricordare che queste osservazioni muovono dal punto di vista dell’ecclesiologia cattolica. Come ha sottolineato Alan Falconer nella relazione introduttiva letta all’ultima assemblea plenaria di Fede e Costituzione, la riflessione ecclesiologica è di vitale importanza in un contesto caratterizzato, nell’ultimo decennio, da un significativo sviluppo dei dialoghi tra le chiese. “In questo periodo di proliferazione di dialoghi ecumenici a livello internazionale, regionale e nazionale, la complessità del tentativo di mantenere e percepire la coerenza è stata evidente”. La molteplicità dei dialoghi pone dunque, secondo Falconer, il problema della coerenza tra le posizioni sostenute con i diversi partner e tra i risultati raggiunti nei vari dialoghi. Proprio a questa esigenza di coerenza intende dare una risposta lo studio ecclesiologico, che è stato concepito come una sorta di “BEM dell’ecclesiologia”, cioè un testo che, come il documento di Lima sia in grado di “dare espressione a quello che le chiese possono ora affermate insieme sulla natura e sulla missione della chiesa e all’interno di tale accordo, esplorare in che misure le rimanenti questioni che dividono le chiese possono essere superate” (n. 5). C’è dunque uno stretto legame tra il BEM e il testo ecclesiologico attualmente in fase di revisione. Da una parte, il documento sulla natura e sulla missione della chiesa intende rispondere a un’esigenza emersa con chiarezza dalle risposte al BEM; dall’altra, come il BEM, vorrebbe offrire punti di riferimento il più possibile condivisi alla ricerca del consenso teologico che negli ultimi anni è stata promossa da un numero crescente di soggetti e nei contesti più diversi. La speranza nascosta è che al testo sulla natura e la missione della chiesa arrida lo stesso “successo” che il BEM ha incontrato nella teologia e nella vita delle chiese. Riferendomi al testo ecclesiologico, vorrei richiamare i temi fondamentali dell’illustrazione della natura della chiesa compiuta servendosi del concetto di comunione e presentare qualche riflessione in proposito. Due aspetti della nozione di comunione sono messi in risalto: la realtà della comunione proveniente da Dio e comunicata all’umanità, chiamata a partecipare al dono divino, e la realtà concreta della comunione vissuta nella comunità ecclesiale attraverso i mezzi che santificano i credenti, i ministeri che servono l’unità della chiesa, le molteplici relazioni che alimentano lo scambio tra le chiese. 5 M. THURIAN (ed.), Churches Respond to BEM. Official Responses to the “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” Text. VI, Faith and Order Paper, 144 (Ginevra: WCC, 1988) 6 6 “Report of Section III: Sharing a Common Life in Christ”, in T. F. BEST - G. GASSMANN (ed.), On the Way to Fuller Koinonia. Official Report of the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order, Faith and Order Paper, 166 (Ginevra: WCC, 1994) 251. 7 Alcuni passaggi di questa storia sono illustrati in A. MAFFEIS, “Modelli di unità della Chiesa nella storia del movimento ecumenico e nel dibattito teologico recente” Teologia 19 (1994) 62-93. 8 Cfr. The Nature and Mission of the Church – A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement, Revised Faith and Order Paper, 181. Le citazioni senza diversa indicazione si riferiscono ai numeri dei paragrafi di questo testo [non ancora pubblicato].Next >