SOURCE: “The Pope and Christian Unity,” in Contemporary Review, Vol. 269, No. 1568, September, 1996, pp. 135-8

[In the following essay, Sullivan examines John Paul's advocacy for reconciliation within the Christian Church. “While proclaiming, fearlessly, his office as successor of Peter,” writes Sullivan, “John Paul II has personally … shattered most of the post-Reformation arguments and obstacles to Christian unity.”]

There was considerable disappointment among many ecumenical Christians that the Pope did not use the occasion of his visit to Germany—where the Reformation began—to make any memorable pronouncement on Christian unity. Yet three letters did come out of Rome last year from, I think, the personal pen of John Paul II, which have astonishingly contradicted our media-controlled view of the triumphalism and superstar quality of the present Pope. Such is the potential impact of these documents that it seems that the present Pope has used his unique position to release ecumenism and lay wide open the future role and position of the historic papacy.

The three documents are: a letter on Christian unity called Ut Unum Sint; a letter to the Churches of the East called Orientale Lumen; and the third his famous millenium letter Tertio Millenio Adveniente. (Their texts can be found in L'Osservatore Romano of 2 May, 25 May and 10 November 1995.)

While proclaiming, fearlessly, his office as successor of Peter, John Paul II has personally with gentleness and precision shattered most of the post-Reformation arguments and obstacles to Christian unity. The best way to picture this breakthrough is the image of the Bishop of Rome, in penitential stance, kneeling at the threshold of the new millenium trying to lead his own to become a church in need of reform—‘semper reformanda’—facing the rest of the churches with the plea that ‘Peter’ being ‘once converted could confirm his brethren'. He, in the name of Peter, may once again in truth and love no longer be an obstacle to the dying wish of the Saviour ‘that they may be one'.

The approach of the millenium seems to exercise his mind, for he too has not many years left. In his letter on unity he stresses that the final wish of Jesus at the Last Supper was to pray to the Father that they may be one. His life so far has not achieved much here, perhaps; this urges him to risk all to break down the barriers to unity.

Martyrdom too has a fascination for the current successor of Peter. He has himself shed his blood in an attempted assassination in 1981. He writes that martyrs, in the East and in the West, were believers in Christ; united in following his footsteps, the martyrs cannot remain divided, and he asks for the churches to have a common list of martyrs to celebrate in unity so that we will respect each other's martyrs for a change, for ‘they profess together the same truth about the Cross'.

In a similar way he expresses love and veneration for the fidelity, example of Christian teaching, integrity and spiritual heritage of the Churches of the East. Recalling the many mutual exchanges of visits with those in communion with Constantinople, with Moscow, and with the Oriental churches he rejoices that this unity in faith and sacraments and friendship proves the reality of diversity within unity as a hallmark of catholicity.

Often the world-wide tours of John Paul II, as seen on television, appeared to be embarrassingly populist and almost un-Christ-like. The Pope reveals that behind all the public fuss there has been very direct and serious meeting of Christian minds. For he shows in his letter on unity that he has made it his duty to visit, in friendship and in real dialogue, the leaders of churches and other religions in every one of the countries he has visited.

It is quite touching for us in England to read, in this regard, of his visit to Canterbury in May 1982. For it was an earlier bishop of Rome who called on the young Augustine to go to that far away land and bring into the fold of Christ the Angels of those lands and to found the see of Canterbury. John Paul II recalls, with some emotion and affection, his visit to Canterbury, his prayer for unity with the Archbishop and the love and respect for ‘those elements of grace and truth and the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England’. He was, I believe, the first Bishop of Rome to visit this see founded at the request of his own predecessor.

Travelling has certainly broadened the mind of John Paul II for he lists the positive fruits which he has observed over the years of the Ecumenical Movement. He wisely notes that this, as a modern Movement, stems directly from the missionaries of the ‘Churches of the Reformation’, and humbly affirms how his own Church came only very late to the movement. He wants to make up for lost time. He therefore enumerates some very real lessons for his own Church.

For example, he says his own Church must get rid of some of the pet ideas of ‘Church', some of the false impressions left with them by their ancestors in the faith. Such notions that outsiders have no hope; that we must be hostile to dissenters: many of these ideas have become ingrained as a result of the hostilities arising from the Reformation period or from the fortress mentality of recent years. John Paul affirms that the Catholic Church has preserved unity for two thousand years, and most of the Church was united for the first thousand years, when East and West, Celts and Romans, all were in one Church. However, recently we seem to have rejoiced in our dividedness, and in so doing have hidden the face of Christ like a smashed church window. From this perspective, towards the end of this millenium, ‘both sides are to blame'. He cites the infidelity of some Church leaders, of some priests, the faults of members, the sins and betrayals, weaknesses and mediocrity of her children. Even so there are many shared values, beliefs and areas of co-operation.

These kinds of remarks and the tone of sorrow, the asking for forgiveness and the mood of penitence has got the ageing Pope into trouble. The Catholic press, so ‘loyal’, has not much reported these kinds of statements. Even Cardinals have expressed in public their rejection of the mood of admission of guilt, or of any faults from the past!

From all his experience of travel, of looking at history and an awareness of the urgency of his age and of the age of the world, John Paul II has tried to charter a new way through on his own initiative in an area that few others would dare to go.

Then, after bravely recognising the shared common heritage of many things in the churches, he calls for ‘honesty, truth and integrity'. Fancy words, phrases and grand statements of doctrinal committees must not risk ambiguity and false irenicism. Each of us must approach dialogue as a move to our own personal ‘conversion'. The fruits of dialogue must also become the common heritage of all Christians and not remain remote theological propositions. There are, he writes, five major problems at the present time:

1. the relationship between Scripture and tradition,

2. the Eucharist as a sacrament, as a sacrificial memorial and the Real Presence,

3. the ordination to the threefold ministry,

4. the magisterium of Pope and bishops as properly understood in relation to Christ,

5. the Virgin Mary, as Mother of God and as Icon of the Church.

But there is one other problem. This brings us to the nub of the question of unity and to the core of this letter from the Bishop of Rome. During his many travels and visits John Paul has been hit by a paradox: people of all churches, faiths, religions and countries have shown him great respect and have affirmed his undoubted world-wide influence. At the same time these very people have made it very clear that for many Christians his very office ‘constitutes a great difficulty: it has, over the centuries, built up many painful and hurtful recollections, stemming sometimes from personal sins, from structural sins and many non-religious factors.’

In his letter on unity John Paul says we must re-examine our painful past, purify past memories, the mistakes made, the factors involved in our deplorable divisions and we must pray for each other and seek our own personal conversion and repentance and the reformation that is necessary for achieving mutual respect for the diversity of our different spiritual heritages, both in the East and in the West.

As a first step John Paul wishes to give a lead and in a spirit of repentance on behalf of his own church he personally asks, in this letter and during his visits, for forgiveness from those countries he visits. The traditional stance of Rome in this matter has been to refrain from any admission of mistakes. John Paul has abolished this stance. The traditional view in Rome was for strict uniformity. John Paul, following the second Vatican Council, has on the contrary, affirmed true Catholicity is diversity—diversity of culture and of spiritual heritage. The old stance was against structural change—or any change. John Paul has refused any change in teachings, but wants to examine the way we express our teachings. He has affirmed that: ‘reading the signs of the time’ he sees a ‘new situation’ has arisen. He tells us that he has received many requests from the churches begging him to find a new way of exercising his personal office as a successor of Peter, a way which is open to this new situation in his own and in all the churches. He realises that often in the past ‘for a great variety of reasons and against the will of all concerned what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light’. The Pope then says ‘To the extent that we are responsible for these, I join with my predecessor Paul VI in asking forgiveness.’

He goes on to say ‘After centuries of bitter controversies, the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities are more and more taking a fresh look at this ministry of unity’.

Here, I think, we have a clear contemporary example of Newman's teaching about the development of doctrine. A new situation with pressure from below and above has given rise to the development of aspects, in this case of the role of Peter, which have been obscured and lay for so long hidden, but are now appearing as an authentic interpretation of Scripture and tradition. The old doctrine is then seen in a new light.

So it is that John Paul says: I want as Pope to start this re-examination of the role of Peter. I want this to be done in the light of Christ's word, his wish and prayer for unity. Many aspects need to be examined: doctrinal, disciplinary, social, historical and political considerations surround this task. The Bishop of Rome says ‘I cannot do this by myself’. He wants to accede to the many requests from around the world and from different churches. As unity cannot be achieved by one church alone, he calls on the bishops and theologians of all the churches to set about this examination. He hints that the turn of the millenium would be a good target!

Such a profound declaration from a Pope carries one's mind back over the centuries in search of such a precedent in the history of the papacy. No wonder commentators have been shy about it. They seem to have chosen to ignore it. John Paul, in a very moving remark, writes: ‘This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself.’ He proposes that ‘leaving all useless controversies behind, keeping only the will of Christ before us let church leaders engage with me in a patient dialogue on this subject and be moved only by that plea of Christ “that they may be one so the world may believe that you sent me”.’

As St Luke records the role of Peter is not ‘the exercise of power over people as the rulers of the Gentiles and their great men do but as leading them to new pastures.’ He sees the new idea, or the original idea of the Bishop of Rome with all the other bishops (he calls them too vicars of Christ) as a college of pastors keeping watch so the true voice of Christ may be heard in all the particular Churches.

For these reasons he says ‘I insistently pray to the Holy Spirit to shine His light upon us, enlighten all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may—together, of course—seek new forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognised by all concerned.’

The challenge to all the Churches is really put clearly. Are we willing to give up our pet ideas, our inherited prejudices, even our concept of church in order to become that church which Christ so earnestly prayed for? The Pope quotes, significantly (and perhaps biographically) the words in Luke's Gospel about Peter that he will have to ‘strengthen his brethren when he has been converted’ (Luke 22, 32). Of this, Peter's conversion, Pope John Paul II writes: ‘It is as though the Master especially concerned Himself with Peter's conversion as a way of preparing him for the task he was about to give him in his Church.’

In a final plea Pope John Paul prays that at the dawn of the new millenium we will not refuse to implore the grace to prepare ourselves, together, to offer this sacrifice of unity.