VOLUME NINE NUMBER TWO SUMMER 2001
We can perhaps apply what Pope John Paul II said in April 2001 about globalisation to the situation of interchurch families in the church. ‘The person must prevail over structures’, he declared, and added: ‘Moreover, it is not enough to criticise; it is necessary to go beyond; it is necessary to be builders.’
Here are themes dear to interchurch families. Caught within structural church divisions, these families witness to the priority of persons over structures. But criticism of the structures is not enough. Interchurch families have tried, over the years, to take upon themselves their ‘difficult task of becoming builders of unity’ (Evangelii nuntiandi, 1975). Often enough they have done this by ‘going beyond’, mindful of the words of the late Francis Thomas, Bishop of Northampton, to a group of interchurch families: ‘Going beyond the rules is not the same thing as going against them’.
In this issue of Interchurch Families there are examples of ‘going beyond’ accepted patterns that our divided church communities have inherited from the sixteenth century. Last year, on his first visit to the World Council of Churches as Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Bishop Walter Kasper (now Cardinal and President of the Council) said it is ‘important to consider how far the significance of baptism as the sacramental basis of Christian unity can be expressed more clearly in liturgy’. He stressed: ‘The question is how far we can celebrate our common Christian faith together’ (PCPCU Information Service, 103 p.74). This question has preoccupied interchurch families for many years, in their celebrations of marriage, the sacraments of Christian initiation, and the ongoing celebration of the eucharist, and they have tried hard to ‘go beyond’ what most people have told them is possible.
In talking of social change in April 2001 Pope John Paul II went on to say: ‘It is part of Christian realism to understand that great social changes are the result of small and courageous daily options.’ Some of the actions recorded here are small, but they are courageous, and they have made their own irreplaceable contribution to the building of unity between our divided church communities.
Ruth Reardon
9.2.1