Vatican II in retrospect, and ecumenical theology.

Gill, Theodore A., Jr.

The April 1965 editorial pages of The Ecumenical Review (volume 17.2) contained a series of seven "Comments on the Decree on Ecumenism enacted by the Second Vatican Council and promulgated on 21 November 1964." That council had famously invited observers from ecclesial communities other than the Roman Catholic Church, and the commentators in The Ecumenical Review were among those Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant theologians following developments in Rome: Oscar Cullmann, Robert McAfee Brown, Paul Evdokimov, J. Russell Candran, Hebert Roux, Oliver S. Tomkins and Jose Miguez Bonino.

Cullmann set the tone 50 years ago, in the first of the editorial comments on the council and its Decree on Ecumenism: "the will for renewal which pervades it from beginning to end is even more important than its actual wording." Alluding to remarks by Father Yves Congar, he agreed that "this is not merely a text; it is an act." Cullmann looked toward even greater ecumenical advances: "To me this seems to be a first step, foreshadowing a third Vatican Council...."

Several of the writers in 1965 pondered the designation of some other communions as "ecclesial communities" or "separated brethren," hoping for movement in that language. While Evdokimov saw the decree as "revolutionary," he pushed for further dialogue on such issues: "In spite of [the late] Pope John XXIII's desire to abolish the term 'separated brethren,' it appears again in the document. It is an unfortunate expression, for from what are we 'separated'? For a Christian the essential thing is not to be separated from communion with the Orthodoxy which dominates every historical institution, and every local branch...."

Robert McAfee Brown, while warning against "varying degrees of unrealistic euphoria" regarding Vatican II, still recognizes the phrase "churches and ecclesial communities" as a step forward: "... bearing in mind how recently no such admission of our 'ecclesial reality' would have been possible from the Roman Catholic side, it is most encouraging to see the [Vatican] Council acknowledging that the Spirit works through our 'ecclesial communities' and not just in spite of them." Beyond matters ecclesiological, he added, "There is an important invitation to Catholics and non-Catholics to make common cause in civic life. And there is, most important of all, a new openness to communicatio in sacris. While implementation of the latter remains in the hands of the local ordinary, specific encouragement is given to corporate prayer during the Christian Unity Octave and on similar occasions. The long-range significance of this is incalculable...."

For the most part, the editorial commentators of April 1965 were looking forward to a new age of encounter, particularly of dialogue in which delicately phrased assertions and ambiguities in the conciliar documents would be subjected to honest debate and dialogue. The fundamental question that seems to have preoccupied these authors' minds was that of ecclesiology. A prime example is found in Jose Miguez Bonino's observation on the question of the primacy of Rome in Catholic thought: "The dialogue with Rome gives to it a new urgency while it also perhaps lays bare a basic, though not always avowed, problem in ecumenical relations. It is to be hoped that, while remaining faithful to its own understanding of the truth, the Roman Catholic Church will not bracket this question out of discussion as 'non-negotiable,' and that the other churches will not entrench themselves behind a declamatory rejection of the 'claims' of Rome and refuse to come to grips with the basic question which these claims pose."

In 2014, 50 years after the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism, The Ecumenical Review looks back to the Second Vatican Council and to advances in understanding, dialogue and new understanding that it fostered (with modicums of frustration from stage to stage).

Martin E. Marty is, among many other things, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, his specialization being the history of modern Christianity. To borrow a phrase, he was present at the creation: in his current article, he recalls the experience of reporting on aspects of the Second Vatican Council while in the employ of The Christian Century magazine.

John Gibaut, currently the director of Faith and Order for the World Council of Churches, has been called to serve the Anglican Communion from March 2015 as their director for unity, faith and order. He provides us a survey of the effects of the Second Vatican Council on meetings of the WCC Faith and Order Commission between 1959 and 1968.

Donald W. Norwood of the United Reformed Church in the UK picks up on the subject illustrated in the April 1965 issue of The Ecumenical Review, the role and reactions of observers from other churches at Vatican II, as well as the contributions of younger Catholic theologians whose work had once been, or later would be, found "suspect" in Vatican circles.

Ernst Conradie, who was our guest editor in March 2013 for an issue on the implications of addressing the "God of Life," argues in his present article that we are experiencing a pressing need for "an adequate ecumenical theology of creation."

DOI: 10.1111/erev.12116