Like yeast in dough, for 40 years ecumenism has been quietly leavening the life of the churches. We so take ecumenism for granted that we often do not recognize how different the shape of Christian life is today from 40 years ago. Cordial relations and cooperative efforts have replaced hostility. For example, for centuries hymnody divided Catholics from Protestants. Today we sing one another’s hymns. Catholics prize “Amazing Grace” and sing with gusto “How Great Thou Art,” and Protestants can be heard chanting “Ubi Caritas” and “Veni, Sancte Spiritus.” During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18-25, we pray that the Holy Spirit will bless us with still greater unity.

Among the churches splintered by the Reformation, liturgies are looking more and more alike today. Since the Second Vatican Council, Catholics have put more emphasis on the Liturgy of the Word. At the same time, the Council’s revision of the Lectionary helped inspire a parallel text, the Common Lectionary, now used by several Protestant denominations. Revisions of Protestant worship services reflect a classic Christian focus on the Eucharist; many Protestant churches that had communion services only infrequently now hold them monthly, or more often. Albs and stoles, even chasubles, are found in churches that once saw only pulpit gowns.

As the Catholic Church marks the 40th anniversary of Vatican II’s “Decree on Ecumenism” (Unitatis Redintegratio), we should bear in mind that the Council intended ecumenism to be integral to an understanding of the Church. From the floor of the Council meeting hall, Pope Paul VI declared that the decree “explained and completed” the “Constitution on the Church.” In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995), Pope John Paul II made clear the centrality of ecumenism to the postconciliar agenda of Church renewal. “Ecumenism,” he wrote, “is an organic part of [the Church’s] life and work, and consequently must pervade all that she is and does: (No. 20). Underscoring the point, where the Council wrote of “separated brethren,” Pope John Paul II speaks of “our fellow Christians.”

As the churches work to achieve the full visible unity for which Christ prayed, Acts 15:28-29 provides the practical rule: “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves not to impose on you any burdens beyond [the] essentials...” Unity is necessary in essentials; in other matters there may be legitimate diversity. “In everything,” the Council wrote, “let charity prevail.”

Progress has been substantial. The U.S. Catholic-Orthodox dialogue has made serious progress in recent years on Orthodox recognition of Catholic baptism and on the 1,000-year-old credal difference over the term filioque, the term for the Catholic version of the Nicene- Calcedonian creed that proclaims belief that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The U.S. Catholic-Lutheran dialogue prepared the way for the landmark Catholic-Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999), which addressed perhaps the most fundamental controversy of the Reformation.

The dialogue with the Reformed Churches in the United States has made significant progress on the question of the Eucharist; and last year’s report of the International Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue has opened the way to greater Catholic collaboration with the pacifist churches and the Anabaptist tradition in general. In our own diocese, among many other things, I have participated in pulpit exchanges with a number of denominations. The Diocese of Sacramento has an active Ecumenical Commission and a number of leaders from various Christian denominations were observers at our Diocesan Synod last October.

There continue to be obstacles, even setbacks, of course. Yet, Pope John Paul II made clear, in a joint message issued in 1996 with George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, that problems should not impede the quest for unity. For example, we cannot recognize the validity of Protestant orders, but we still pray and work for unity, nonetheless. Ultimately, unity will be a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Like a seed growing unseen, the Holy Spirit has been at work bringing Christians closer together. Discerning eyes can begin to make out the lineaments of the one Church of Christ. As our differences diminish, it is time to appreciate better the gifts we bring to the search for unity. For, as the Council wrote, “Catholics must gladly acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments for our common heritage which are to be found” among our fellow Christians. “It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood.”

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