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International Theological Commission
Memory and reconciliation

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  • 5. Ethical Discernment
    • 5.2. The Division of Christians
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5.2. The Division of Christians

Unity is the law of the life of the Trinitarian God revealed to the world by the Son (cf. Jn 17:21), who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, loving until the end (cf. Jn 13:1), communicates this life to his own. This unity should be the source and the form of the communion of mankind’s life with the Triune God. If Christians live this law of mutual love, so as to be one “as the Father and the Son are one,” the result will be that “the world will believe that the Son was sent by the Father” (Jn 17:21) and “everyone will know that these are his disciples” (Jn 13:35). Unfortunately, it has not happened this way, particularly in the millennium which has just ended and in which great divisions appeared among Christians, in open contradiction to the explicit will of Christ, as if he himself were divided (cf. 1 Cor 1:13). Vatican Council II judges this fact in this way: “Certainly such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, is a scandal to the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.”70

The principal divisions during the past millennium which “affect the seamless garment of Christ71 are the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches at the beginning of this millennium, and in the West - four centuries later - the laceration caused by those eventscommonly referred to as the Reformation.”72 It is true that “these various divisions differ greatly from one another not only by reason of their origin, place, and time, but above all by reason of the nature and gravity of questions concerning faith and the structure of the Church.”73 In the schism of the eleventh century, cultural and historical factors played an important role, while the doctrinal dimension concerned the authority of the Church and the Bishop of Rome, a topic which at that time had not reached the clarity it has today, thanks to the doctrinal development of this millennium. In the case of the Reformation, however, other areas of revelation and doctrine were objects of controversy.

The way that has opened to overcome these differences is that of doctrinal development animated by mutual love. The lack of supernatural love, of agape, seems to have been common to both the breaches. Given that this charity is the supreme commandment of the Gospel, without which all the rest is but “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1), such a deficiency needs to be seen in all its seriousness before the Risen One, the Lord of the Church and of history. It is by virtue of the recognition of this lack that Pope Paul VI asked pardon of God and of the “separated brethren,” who may have felt offended “by us” (the Catholic Church).74

In 1965, in the climate produced by the Second Vatican Council, Patriarch Athenagoras, in his dialogue with Paul VI, emphasized the theme of the restoration (apokatastasis) of mutual love, so essential after a history laden with opposition, mutual mistrust, and antagonism.75 It was a question of a past that, through memory, was still exerting its influence. The events of 1965 (culminating on December 7, 1965, with the abolition of the anathemas of 1054 between East and West) represent a confession of the fault contained in the earlier mutual exclusion, so as to purify the memory of the past and generate a new one. The basis of this new memory cannot be other than mutual love or, better, the renewed commitment to live it. This is the commandment ante omnia (1 Pt 4:8) for the Church in the East and in the West. In such a way, memory frees us from the prison of the past and calls Catholics and Orthodox, as well as Catholics and Protestants, to be the architects of a future more in conformity with the new commandment. Pope Paul VI’s and Patriarch Athenagorastestimony to this new memory is in this sense exemplary.

Particularly problematic for the path toward the unity of Christians is the temptation to be guided – or even determined – by cultural factors, historical conditioning, and those prejudices which feed the separation and mutual distrust among Christians, even though they do not have anything to do with matters of faith. The Church’s sons and daughters should sincerely examine their consciences to see whether they are actively committed to obeying the imperative of unity and are living an “interior conversion,” because “it is from newness of attitudes of mind (cf. Eph 4:23), from self-denial and generous love, that desires for unity take their rise and grow toward maturity.”76 In the period from the close of the Council until today, resistance to its message has certainly saddened the Spirit of God (cf. Eph 4:30). To the extent that some Catholics are pleased to remain bound to the separations of the past, doing nothing to remove the obstacles that impede unity, one could justly speak of solidarity in the sin of division (cf. 1 Cor 1:10-16). In this context the words of the Decree on Ecumenism could be recalled: “With humble prayer we ask pardon of God and of the separated brethren, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”77




70 Unitatis redintegratio, 1.



71 Ibid., 13. TMA 34 states that “In the course of the thousand years now drawing to a close, even more than in the first millenium, ecclesial communion has been painfully wounded…”



72 Unitatis redintegratio, 13.



73 Ibid.



74 Cf. Opening Speech of the Second Session of the Second Vatican Council (September 29, 1964): Enchiridion Vaticanum 1, [106], n. 176.



75 Cf. the documentation from the dialogue of charity between the Holy See and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in Tómos Agápes: VaticanPhanar (1958-1970), (RomeIstanbul, 1971).



76 Unitatis redintegratio, 7.



77 Ibid.






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