|
|
The Ministry of Church
Presbyterian & Reformed-Roman Catholic Dialogue
1968
The agreements which follow have been
reached by the undersigned members of the theological commission of the
bilateral consultation appointed by the Catholic Bishops’ Committee for
Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the North American Area Council of
the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and represent their present assessment
of the question of the ministry of the Church.
- Summary of
Discussions So Far Held
For varying
periods of time members of our commission have discussed ways and means by
which our ministries could be united and each of us led to a deeper knowledge
and love of the other. Our concern in the early meetings was to see how the road
lay to full intercommunion. But it soon became clear that this end lay far
beyond us, because the traditions of which we are a part have been separated
for centuries and because there was not full acceptance amongst us of each
other’s ministries. At this point, therefore, in our discussion we moved away
from churchly questions and asked, instead, particular and practical questions
about the Church’s ministry to the world. But this in turn forced us to inquire
why in fact we remain separated from one another when the world’s needs are so
great, and to see if there may be a way of reconciliation. One inescapable fact
of our present situation is the division of the church, a division which is a
symbol of but also a scandal in an alienated and divided world. We know that we
are charged with the responsibility of bringing healing to the broken human
family, but we also know that in its own life the Church has contradicted and
frustrated its purpose.
In the
later meetings of the group, therefore, we turned to the needs of the world,
hurt as it is by war, hungry and torn by riots, for it is this world and no
other that provides us with the reason for our ministry and suggests to us new
forms in which to express that ministry. Manifold opportunities for bearing
effective Christian witness and service in the human family not only offer
extraordinary possibilities for cooperative Christian living and ministry,
cooperation in dealing with the urban crisis, the issues of war and peace,
racial unrest, family life, and all matters involving human dignity. We think
also, for example, of collaboration in the joint continuing education of all
those who serve the church.
- Norms By Which Our Ministry Is Shaped
Any form of
ministry by the church is a participation in Christ’s own ministry and servanthood.
Those who would serve men must serve as their Master served. They must love and
serve the actual world in which they live. But their ministry to this world is
not a lordship, but a bond-service. It is not imposed as a rigid pattern, but
undertaken willingly in new ways which express and fulfill the command of our
Lord to go and teach and celebrate his sacraments.
Hence, the
most decisive norm for contemporary forms of Christian ministry should be
whether or not they enable men to understand, articulate and begin to realize
their deepest needs – worship, love, justice, reconciliation and community, to
name some of the most important. Any structures which effectively hinder the
achievement of those needs do not witness to the primary ministry of Christ
must yield to other forms of ministry which do. In this context we acknowledge
as an undiscussed problem the consequences and analogies which are to be drawn
from the Lordship of Christ.
- The Common
Priesthood
Within the
Christian community all the faithful are called and empowered by the Holy
Spirit to enter into and express the ministry of Christ. There is a whole range
of gifts of the Spirit – gifts of service and love, rich in their diversity,
not limited to the few, but possessed by men and women, young and old alike.
All baptized and believing Christians share the grace of God’s Spirit, the
freedom of the gospel, and the basic equality of the priestly people of God. It
is our conviction that this doctrine of the common priesthood of the faithful
needs to be magnified and lived out more within both our traditions. The Holy
Spirit works where he wills and as he wills through all the people of God,
calling them to their ministry. All Christians alike participate in the
ministry of Christ to the world, serving, nourishing, healing and building up.
- Special Ministries
Within this
community, where there is such diversity of gifts, some are also called by the
Holy Spirit and ordained by the Church to undertake special ministries on
behalf of the servants of Christ and through them on behalf of the world. This
calling of some to nourish, heal and build up the household of faith in the
ministry of word and sacraments is a particular gift of the Holy Spirit.
Ordination to this ministry is therefore also a gift of the Spirit to empower
them for their ministry. This empowering comes both from the Spirit and from
the Church; the power given, however, is not power to dominate but to serve in
Christ’s stead and to do what he wills to be done for his world through his
Church.
In this
whole context we acknowledge as an undiscussed subject the ordination of women.
In some Reformed Churches women are already ordained to the ministry of word
and sacrament.
- Ordination and the
Indelible Character
The Christian
community prays at each ordination with the laying on of hands for the gift of
the Spirit. To assert or to deny an ontic change at ordination can lead to a
misunderstanding of its effect. Yet the new purpose toward which this person’s
life is directed through this commission to ministry does truly and radically change the individual
concerned, in the sense that he now bears and is implicated in a nexus of new
relationships in the church and receives and exercises a new responsibility
within its life.
There is a
particular commission and charism in ordination to the special ministry of word
and sacraments. The conceptions of ministerial order held by our respective
traditions appear to be significantly different. In the Catholic tradition the
priest in a particular way represents Christ to the people, but he himself is
also a representative of the people before Christ. In the Reformed tradition
ministerial order is not generally conceived of apart from pastoral
functioning. When Roman Catholics speak of indelible character conferred in
ordination, their meaning is that the person who has been commissioned by the
Church for this ministry retains during his life radical empowering to serve as
priest, even though he ceases to exercise his priesthood. His ordination cannot
be repeated any more than can his baptism. Reformed churchmen, while unwilling
to speak of a conferring of an indelible character, do not deny the necessity
of ordination in principle as long as the church continues on its pilgrimage,
nor is reordination practiced among them. Both alike agree that the ordination
is a gift by which the pilgrim church is enabled to serve the world until the Kingdom of God is fully present.
- Varied Historical
Forms of Rule in the Church
In all
ministries of the pilgrim church there are some permanent elements. There are
also however, some historically conditioned elements – naturally enough, since
every ministry is a ministry incarnate at a particular place and time. The
intense historical consciousness and research of our time and the study of the
origins of our ministries show us clearly that many elements in them are
historically conditioned. Thus, it is useful for Catholics to know that what is
usually called monarchical episcopate (found, for example, in St. Ignatius of Antioch in the second
century) can be seen to be preceded by earlier and different forms, for
instance, a collegial episcopate or government of presbyters, and so on.
Presbyterian polity, on the other hand, though it is in intention an attempt to
recover an early scheme of ministry, has also been historically conditioned. Recent
historical studies indicate that there was a great variety of forms of ministry
in the early church, and it seems clear that later patterns of ministry and
priesthood were preceded by highly flexible and charismatic ministries. Modern
patterns of ministry and priesthood can themselves be both flexible and
charismatic, and we do not think that it is our task to reconstitute ancient
forms in our day, though restoration of the married diaconate within the Roman
Catholic church illustrates how earlier forms of
ministry can be creatively reinterpreted in our day. But we can learn enough
from the past to know that neither the monarchical episcopate nor any corporate
polity have been the only legitimate forms of rule within the church.
- The Idea of the Pilgrim Church
Certain
older ideas that equated the church with the Kingdom of God
have to be corrected by modern theological and exegetical studies which have
recovered for us an eschatological dimension in our thinking about church and
ministry. Our whole thinking about the church has now a less absolute character
than it had. The church’s ministry at the present must be open to all the
diverse ways by which the pilgrim church seeks to achieve its goal. This means
that we must be ready for change and not confuse permanent elements in the
ministry with passing ones. The paradigm of the Kingdom of God
is of use to us here because it serves to draw us on in the hope that God’s
purposes will be fulfilled and indeed are beginning to be fulfilled through our
existing ministries. But it also reminds us that we go, seeking a city. The
Church is on the way, but it has not arrived. Our future hope and present
limitation do something more for us: they help to shape our present ministries,
adapting them for the future.
- Intercommunion
No
renunciation of the episcopate by the Roman Catholics is here proposed nor of
their ministries by the representatives of the Reformed Churches. What we do
offer is a genuine statement of intention to move together to the future God
will give us in the hope that the knowledge and love which have grown amongst
us may encourage the appropriate authorities to help us both to move together
toward this future.
If such an
intention is given by us and a firm commitment given to each other, both the
demands we face and the hopes we have confront us directly with the problem and
the need of intercommunion. We recognize that theologically convictions and
pastoral sensitivity on both sides prevent us from acting without due care. At
the same time we feel pain when we realize that, though we are one in many
ways, at this central point we remain divided. It may yet be possible for us to
penetrate the theological principles governing intercommunion in the hope of
laying open the significance of the eucharist as the divinely given sacrament
of unity and the medicine of our divisions. We, therefore, hope that God will
soon give us the time and opportunity to take into our hands this means which
has given for repentances, reconciliation, and unity.
The
question of ultimate reconciliation and mutual acceptance can no longer be
evaded and we know for certain that we shall return to it. In a broke world
this reconciliation would be a sign of hope. In a world which has been drawn
closer than ever together, but is faced with the possibility of deeper division
caused by war or other human tragedy, such a daring step would point men, we
believe, to Christ, the Hope of the World.
- Questions Still At
Issue
Many
questions still need to be discussed by us, for instance, the primacy of the
Bishop of Rome, sacerdotal priesthood, the apostolic succession. To exclude
these questions from our report may make a common statement on ministry seem
artificial, and we do not seek to awaken expectations which may be disappointed
by further clarification when we face in future discussions the crucial issue
of orders. Yet it has been possible for us to indicate at least these
preliminary agreements and disagreements. The heavy emphases made in this paper
and the lengthy discussions of problems of the ordained ministry may well
appear to be a distortion, but they may also point out the way which leads us
to full communion and liberate us for our ministry to the world.
|