Thinking Faith - Dialogue and the Church

Though entitled "Dialogue and the Church", this series of three articles from the Jesuit on-line journal Thinking Faith is really about dialogue with other Christian churches, that is, about ecumenical dialogue. The articles can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

The author, Paul Murray, is a contributor to an idea that he terms "Receptive Ecumenism". Given that the formal theological dialogues that might be represented by, for example, ARCIC, have not produced the progress towards corporate unity that was their original hope, "receptive ecumenism" gives priority to the partners in dialogue identifying what they might learn/receive from the others without compromising their own belief.

In Part One, there is a reflection on the meaning of the word "Catholic" as "in accordance with the whole". The first context for this reflection is a vision of "Catholic" as embracing everything in creation and onwards, towards and embracing Jesus Christ. As a question of dialogue, this means that everything in this world can express something of the truth of God. The second context might be described as "Petrine" and "Pauline". The Petrine principle is seen as the centripetal instinct which holds all things together in a unity of faith. The Pauline principle, however, is an opposite principle which seeks to take the fullness of the faith out into encounter with the nations. The two principles are complementary. Paul Murray suggests that the Catholic Church is rather good at recognising the Petrine principle, but that we could gain from the Protestant denominations a stronger sense of the Pauline principle.

Indeed, it may be that we as Roman Catholics need to re-receive the authentically Pauline dimension to our Catholicity from our Protestant brothers and sisters and the practices and structures that operate in their churches.

We can, of course, imply that the Protestant denominations would gain from a stronger appreciation of the Petrine principle. But what I found very interesting in this article was its implicit suggestion that to talk about the Petrine office or principle is something that is of the essence of ecumenical dialogue, and not at the periphery. Recent events in the Anglican communion, for example, show by their demonstration of the results of its absence, how vital a decisive reference point for doctrinal unity is.

Part Two presents a kind of "hermeneutic of continuity" as far as the idea of dialogue and the Catholic Church is concerned. The argument is that "a very considerable number" of Catholic theologians engaged with modern thought and culture before the Second Vatican Council. Paul Murray cites Newman and Rosmini from the 19th century and Adam, Guardini, de Lubac, Congar, Lonergan and Rahner as examples from the 20th century. So the idea that dialogue was absent from the life of the Church before Vatican II is not accurate.

In the documents of the Council itself, Paul Murray presents an argument (from Ann Michele Nolan) that two different Latin terms, "colloquium" and "dialogus", are both translated by the English word "dialogue", though they have significantly different implications in the orginal Latin. The Latin "colloquium" refers to dialogue as a kind of open conversation whereas "dialogus" refers, in the documents of the Council, to calls for formal exchanges between different parties and so has a more restricted sense. This more restricted sense should be seen as a concern to identify common ground with the interlocutor so that a more effective communication of existing Catholic understanding (as distinct from fresh understanding) can take place. This, Paul Murray suggests, may explain why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has tended to give negative judgements on some ecumenically produced documents - it has been putting into practice this latter understanding of dialogue. So the Council itself is not as liberal in its understanding of dialogue as some might think, and this has been reflected in the life of the Church since the Council.

Part Three argues that it is possible to see in all of created reality a Trinitarian structure that derives from the Trinity who is/are its Creator. Writing of our appreciation of a particular scene or view in the world, the author writes:

So, we have showing forth and recognition and the energy, the movement, that brings this to be, but there is also a third dimension to the experience. This is the dimension at once of limitedness and excess; the dimension of both appreciating the intensity of the particular scene we behold and recognising it precisely to be particular and partial.

This limitedness/excess presents the world, and the Trinitarian God who is shown forth through it, as intrinsically dialogical. We are led to wonder at what we have already seen, but also to an openness towards the more into which we are still to grow. This is the underlying principle for an idea of dialogue as "receptive" in the sense of "receptive Ecumenism" referred to in Part One.

Whilst one or two aspects of this series of articles remain a little confusing (for me, for example, is the reference at the end of Part Three to "the diverse expressions of Christianity that have emerged over the course of Christian history as Christianity has become incarnated and shaped by quite different ... contexts" and the in passing remarks about dialogue within the Catholic Church), there is a very interesting focus on central Catholic teachings: the meaning of the word "Catholic" and of the Petrine office, and the focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. The teaching of Vatican II on dialogue is also presented in a way that was new to me - and which will encourage me to have a Latin text alongside the English translations as I read the Council documents!