What is ecumenism and why is it  important?

Hi Mason & Teo,

Lately I have been hearing about ecumenism and ecumenical services. In fact, I have attended an ecumenical concert and an ecumenical prayer service. I kind of know what it means but not sure. I think it has something to do with unity. What is “ecumenism” or “ecumenical” and why is it so important? (Unity Observer)

Dear Unity Observer,

Ecumenism is the effort of all Christians — all believers in Christ — to promote and foster unity throughout the world. The greatest ecumenist is Jesus Christ. In his prayer to the Father before his passion and death, he prayed, “That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us … so that the world may know that you have sent me.” (John17:21)

As he wrote in the first three chapters of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul thought the denominationalism or divisions in the church at the time were scandalous and intolerable. It was not like multiplying or subdividing in an organization. Rather St. Paul considered such divisions, factions and denominations as amputating limbs from a body. How could a divided church unify a divided world? The church’s desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit. (Decree on Ecumenism, 1)

Jesus Christ bestowed unity on his church from the beginning and it is something she can never lose. We hope it will continue to increase until the end of time. The church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 820)

Within this one church, God gives a variety and diversity of gifts. The church is not a family of one kind of people — that is, Jews, Greeks, Italians — but of all peoples. It is not bound to one culture; it draws men and women of every culture and every age to herself.

The first thousand years of Christian history was the millennium of Christian unity. The second thousand years, with its schisms and splits and the Protestant reformation, was the millennium of Christian disunity. The late Pope John Paul II voiced the bold hope that the third thousand years will be the millennium of Christian re-unity or reunification.

Of course, Jesus Christ is the key to Christian re-unity. The Catholic Church is the very body of Jesus Christ as your body is you. Your body is not a cage or a prison, it is you, though not the whole you. Your spirit, your mind, is also a part of you. Just as the church is the body of Christ, Christ is the head of the church and the Spirit enkindles it with life and vigor. To separate ourselves from the Catholic Church is to separate ourselves from Christ himself, to amputate ourselves from the body.

God is love and God wills us to share in his love. But, as a church, we have often been poor examples of God’s love to the world. The one Church of Christ — God’s one family into which he calls all men and women — continues to exist fully in the Catholic Church. But sin has always caused rifts. Individual sins and the consequences of original sin are always threatening the gift of unity. The lack of unity among Christians is a definite and sorry wound suffered by Christ’s church. It holds back the complete fulfillment of her universality in history.

When our brothers and sisters hunger spiritually, and they find Christ in other places or denominations, God allows it to happen because he loves all his children. But it is our duty as Catholics, through love and example, to welcome them back. As Catholics, we are called to embrace with hope the commitment to ecumenism. It is the duty of our Christian conscience to be enlightened by faith and guided by love. Let us not follow the negative example of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Let us not adopt attitudes that hinder the restoration of our separated brothers and sisters to full communion.

Eventually, all of us must render an account to God of what we have done or failed to do in fostering unity among all his disciples. So let us reflect, and reflect often, on what we are doing to further the cause of Christian unity.