Catholicity, faith and order, and the unity of the Church.

Gibaut, John St-Helier

Shakespeare's Romeo proclaims that % rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Yet horticulture, like ecclesiology, is dependent on names. The names Christians use, will not use, or cannot use about ourselves and others are intrinsically linked with the ecumenical project of receiving one another as members of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. This conference examines from different perspectives how we use the name "catholic"

I will examine "catholicity" as it has been treated by Faith and Order and draw a parallel between an ecumenical articulation of catholicity and the ecumenical articulation of "apostolicity" in baptism, eucharist and ministry (BEM). BEM's reorientation of apostolicity is an ecumenical gift that allows divided churches to recognize within one another, and to receive from one another, a much broader expression of apostolicity.

In the introduction to Reformation: Europe's House Divided, Diarmaid MacCulloch writes,

 Who or what is a Catholic? This Greek word has become one of the
 chief battlegrounds in western Latin Christianity, for it is used
 in different ways which outside observers of Christian foibles find
 thoroughly confusing. The word "Catholic" is the linguistic
 equivalent of a Russian doll. It may describe the whole Christian
 Church founded two thousand years ago in Palestine, or the western
 half of the Church which split from mainstream eastern Christianity
 a thousand years ago, or that part of the western half which
 remained loyal to the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) after the sixteenth
 century, or a Protestant European Christian who thought that the
 Bishop of Rome was Antichrist, or a modern "Anglo-Catholic" faction
 within the Anglican Communion. How can the word describe all of
 these things and still have any meaning? ... The Reformation
 introduced many more complications to the word; in fact there were
 very many different Reformations, nearly all of which would have
 said that they were simply aimed at recreating authentic Catholic
 Christianity. (1)

MacCulloch notes that '"Catholic' is clearly a word which a lot of people want to possess". (2) A problem from the 16th century onward has been the inability of the churches to recognize catholicity in one another on the grounds of doctrine, sacramental (and especially eucharistic) theology, ecclesiology, ministry, morals and the like.

While the word "catholic"--from the Greek kath' holou, meaning "in general", "on the whole", and "universal" is not a biblical term, it became part of Christian vocabulary in primitive times. The earliest extant usage is found in the teaching of Ignatius of Antioch on the eucharistic unity of the church under the bishop, in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans (8.2): "Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be; just as wherever Christ Jesus may be, there is the catholic Church". What makes the church "catholic" is the presence of the risen Christ.

By the mid-2nd century, catholicity became a more qualitative term in relation to features of the belief and praxis of Christian communities when judged to threaten the universality of the church and its gospel. Here, catholicity becomes synonymous with orthodoxy as contrasted to heresy and schism within, for instance, the Gnostic communities. The emerging Catholic Tradition is distinguished from other traditions in terms of doctrine, liturgy and morals.

Although such delineations are vital, over time the use of catholicity as criterion marked an impoverishment of the term. While an analogy to Pelagianism (or perhaps semi-Pelagianism) is no doubt too strong, there is a sense that the strongest accent of catholicity is not on Christ's presence in the church, but on the church's achievement in fidelity to canonical expressions of doctrine, ministry, liturgy and morals contrasted with those of the heretical and schismatic Christian communities. In the medieval West, for instance, catholicity is unequivocally associated with "Roman" and doctrinal orthodoxy. As the Reformation progressed, the simplistic apposition of "Catholic" and "Protestant" was a millennium in the making. There are, of course, reformation traditions that claimed or redefined the term "catholic" beyond simply "Roman", as evident in the teachings of John Calvin, Phillip Melanchthon, the English reformers, the 19th-century Anglican "Anglo-catholics", and others. And, of course, the Orthodox churches have always asserted their integral catholicity. But such broadenings of the catholicity beyond "Roman" continue to use the term as a criterion for delineating one Christian community from another. Diarmaid MacCulloch's identification of "Catholic" as the linguistic equivalent of a Russian doll thus is well-founded.

Catholicity, Faith and Order, and the ecumenical movement

Given its history, the word "catholicity" has had a confusing and confounding role in the history of the relationships between the divided churches. A significant ecumenical recovery of catholicity is associated with the Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC. The following Faith and Order texts on catholicity are not exhaustive, but they represent the major lines of Faith and Order reflection on the theme over the past fifty years.

World Conference on Faith and Order, Montreal, 1963

Faith and Order reflection on catholicity began in the 1960s, notably at the Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order in Montreal, July 1963. At a session dedicated to "catholicity", papers were offered by Russian Orthodox Archpriest Vitaly Borovoy and American Methodist Professor Claude Welsh. (3) In his introduction to that session, Lukas Vischer noted how the ecumenical movement had avoided a discussion on catholicity because of its polemical history, but stated that the time had come to begin to examine it ecumenically:

 Are not all churches, by the growth and progress of the ecumenical
 movement, brought under the necessity of asking afresh and in new
 ways what we mean when we all confess that the Church, the people
 called by God in Christ, Christ's own body, is catholic? We must
 not, therefore, avoid this term; we must rather attempt to grasp
 anew what is meant by it, and to free it from the impoverishment
 and reduction which it has suffered in the course of the history of
 the Church. (4)

While Vischer's brief two-page preface served to introduce the main speakers at that session, it delineated a trajectory on a renewed ecumenical appreciation of catholicity that would be reflected in ongoing Faith and Order reflection to the present:

 The common orientation toward the Lord, who is Head of the Church,
 has opened up a new way for all the churches to the infinite riches
 which are hidden in him. They are therefore no longer in a position
 to designate as an attribute of their own church, without
 qualification or in a static way, the catholicity which belongs to
 the Church by reason of its foundation upon Christ, the Lord of the
 world. True, they are all deeply convinced that they live this gift
 in a special way. How could they do likewise, if they proclaim
 Christ to the world? Some of them are also convinced that the gift
 cannot be realized outside themselves. However, the view that
 catholicity cannot be understood merely as a possession, but must
 rather be regarded as the task of the Church is being increasingly
 accepted. Catholicity is a dynamic term. The Church of Christ is
 not merely catholic, but is in process of becoming so, and the
 separated churches are bound together in the task of manifesting
 more fully the gift they have received. They are on the move
 together, and from this point of view, the ecumenical movement can
 be described as a movement which contributes to the growth of true
 catholicity. (5)

Joint Working Group 1968: "Catholicity and Apostolicity"

An important development was a text prepared jointly by Faith and Order and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome as part of the Joint Theological Commission of the Joint Working Group between the WCC and the Catholic Church. "Catholicity and Apostolicity" began in 1966 and was completed in 1968. It began by acknowledging that the term "catholic" had been used "to contrast certain Christian Churches with certain others'' (6) and that the time had come to resume an ecumenical study of both catholicity and apostolicity from fresh standpoints. It contrasted positions that identify catholicity as a given principle with those that identify it as a demand. Its treatment of catholicity achieved a fine balance of both positions:

 The Church is catholic in its being, because it is constituted by
 the gift of the Trinitarian communion which the incarnate Word
 makes to mankind; .... The Church henceforth proves itself catholic
 in its action insofar as it is in communion with Jesus Christ
 present and active in its midst by the power of His Holy Spirit]

Here, catholicity is understood as trinitarian, Christocentric, pneumatic, missionary and expressed in concrete service to humanity. (8) In this context, Ignatius of Antioch's teaching is articulated in a way perhaps more open than intended in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans: "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church":

 Thanks to the Lord who rules in it, the local community, assembled
 around Christ's minsters, in the communion of saints from Abel, the
 just, down to the very latest of the elect and, therefore, in union
 with the Church of all times in places, is a real expression of the
 Catholic Church. (9)

The gift of catholicity, however, can be betrayed in many ways, firstly by way of false teaching, expressed not only in doctrine, but also in praxis. "This is why the Church is catholic when it is orthodox". (10) Heteropraxis includes separation from the poor; membership based on race, nation, culture or class; formation of sects within the church; confessional pride; and misuse of "catholicity" by confusing it with a tolerance that threatens Christian identity. (11)

WCC Assembly, Uppsala, 1968: "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church"

Another source in the development of Faith and Order reflection on catholicity was the 1968 WCC Uppsala Assembly section report on "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church." The Assembly report began as a working paper of the Commission on Faith and Order, which later, at the request of the WCC, became an assembly report. (12) While this text exhibits remarkable parallels to "Catholicity and Apostolicity", significant departures bring it more closely in line with Lukas Vischer's 1963 vision, while at the same time expanding on it.

Like previous texts, the statement identifies the interdependence of catholicity and apostolicity, along with unity and holiness. A driving concern for Faith and Order was to avoid treating catholicity as a principle related solely to ecclesiology, but to connect it in the broadest sense of kath' holou to the fulfillment of God's mission in the world:

 Yet it is within this very world that God makes catholicity
 available to men through the ministry of Christ in his Church. The
 purpose of Christ is to bring people of all times, all races, of
 all places, of all conditions, into an organic and living unity in
 Christ by the Holy Spirit under the universal fatherhood of God.
 This unity is not solely external; it has a deeper, internal
 dimension, which is also expressed by
 the term "catholicity". Catholicity reaches its completion when
 what God has already begun in history in finally disclosed and
 fulfilled. (13)

This expansive vision of catholicity links the quest for the unity of the church with the unity of all humanity, effectively connecting the classic Faith and Order agenda with those of the Life and Work movement and the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.

In "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church", catholicity is presented unequivocally as a gift of the Spirit, but also "a task, a call and an engagement". (14) Its manifestation in terms of its worship, witness and service may be hindered, denied or break down, but the pneumatic gift and calling remain and are distinct from their manifestation, "hoping that by thanksgiving and repentance we may be renewed to receive and actualize that catholicity which is God's gift to his people". (15) This pneumatic understanding of catholicity comes close to a doctrine of indefectibility:

 The Holy Spirit has not only preserved the Church in continuity
 with her past; He is also continuously present in the Church,
 effecting her inward renewal and re-creation. The Church in heaven
 is indeed one with the Church on earth, yet the Church on earth
 does not stand outside the historical process. (16)

The gift of catholicity in "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church" is manifested in worship and witness, service towards the realization of genuine humanity, and the overcoming of discrimination and prejudice. It bears this in common with the 1968 Joint Working Group text on "Catholicity and Apostolicity".

It does not, however, equate catholicity with orthodoxy. The manifestation of catholicity may certainly be denied and hindered, but the gift of catholicity as such cannot be betrayed as suggested in "Catholicity and Apostolicity". For Faith and Order, catholicity is a gift, not an achievement; the gift, however, carries with it demands that catholicity is to be made visible and manifest in history.

Confessing the One Faith

The question of catholicity was treated by Faith and Order in Confessing the One Faith (first published in 1987), an ecumenical exposition of the apostolic faith as confessed in the Nicene creed. The text treats classic Faith and Order teaching on catholicity, with clear reference to the 1961 New Delhi assembly statement on the church (also prepared by Faith and Order):

240. Christ, full of grace and truth, is already present on earth in the Church Catholic. In each local church the fullness of grace and truth is present--a catholicity which requires the communion of all local churches and which pertains to the identity of each local church and constitutes an essential quality of their communion together. This Catholic nature of the church is realized and expressed in great diversity of Christian spiritual life and witness among all peoples in space and time. This catholicity transcends nationalism, particular traditions and all human barriers. It is a fullness of life. In the life of the Church the whole human being and all human situations are enlisted for the worship and the service to God in their diversity of rites and traditions. In the worship of each local church the whole mystery of Christ is present. Where Jesus Christ is, there too is the Church catholic, in which in all ages the Holy Spirit makes people participants of Christ's life and salvation, without respect of sex, race of [sic] position. (17)

While catholicity carries demands for its authentic expression, it belongs to the nature of the church by the presence of Christ and the Spirit: "Where Jesus Christ is, there too is the Church catholic".

The Nature and Mission of the Church, 2005

The current Faith and Order statement on ecclesiology, The Nature and Mission of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement, is far ranging in the themes it explores. Catholicity is not a chief theme in the text, but is treated in significant ways in the Faith and Order tradition, which emphasizes catholicity as a gift but also a calling and demand. In the first section of the text, "The Church of the Triune God", the Church's inherent catholicity as a gift from God is underscored, including a direct quotation from Confessing the One Faith:

12. Being the creature of God's own Word and Spirit, the Church is one, holy catholic and apostolic. These essential attributes flow from and illustrate the Church's dependence upon God ...

The Church is catholic because God is the fullness of life "who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4), and who, through Word and Spirit, makes his people the place and instrument of his saving and life-giving presence, the community, "in which, in all ages, the Holy Spirit make the believers participants in Christ's life and salvation, regardless of their sex, race or social position". (18)

In the second section, "The Church in History", the demands of catholicity are accented:

52. The oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church are God's gifts and are essential attributes of the Church's nature and mission. However, there is a continual tension in the historical life of the Church between that which is already given and that which is not yet fully realised. (19)

And later,

55. The essential catholicity of the Church is confronted with divisions between and within the Christian communities regarding their life and preaching of the Gospel. Its catholicity transcends all barriers and proclaims God's word to all people: where the whole mystery of Christ is present, there too is the Church catholic. However, the catholicity of the Church is challenged by the fact that the integrity of the Gospel is not adequately preached to all; the fullness of communion is not offered to all. Nevertheless, the Spirit given to the Church is the Spirit of the Lordship of Christ over all creation and all times. The Church is called to remove all obstacles to the full embodiment of what is already its nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. (20)

In keeping with the 1968 text on "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church", the manifestation or embodiment of catholicity may well be--and all too frequently is--challenged. Yet catholicity remains, because it belongs to the church's nature by the power of the Spirit. The demand of catholicity is for the church to become what it is.

WCC Assembly, Porto Alegre, 2006: "Called to Be the One Church"

The final instance of Faith and Order's treatment of catholicity comes from the text it prepared for the 2006 WCC assembly's statement on ecclesiology. The aim of the drafters of this text was to distil or glean the insights of Faith and Order's treatment of ecclesiology over many decades. This distillation is evident in the brief treatment on the meaning of catholicity, with an ensuing paragraph on mutual accountability:

6. The catholicity of the Church expresses the fullness, integrity, and totality of its life in Christ through the Holy Spirit in all times and places. This mystery is expressed in each community of baptized believers in which the apostolic faith is confessed and lived, the gospel is proclaimed, and the sacraments are celebrated. Each church is the Church catholic and not simply a part of it. Each church is the Church catholic, but not the whole of it. Each church fulfils its catholicity when it is in communion with the other churches. We affirm that the catholicity of the Church is expressed most visibly in sharing holy communion and in a mutually recognised and reconciled ministry.

7. The relationship among churches is dynamically interactive. Each church is called to mutual giving and receiving gifts and to mutual accountability. Each church must become aware of all that is provisional in its life and have the courage to acknowledge this to other churches. Even today, when eucharistic sharing is not always possible, divided churches express mutual accountability and aspects of catholicity when they pray for one another, share resources, assist one another in times of need, make decisions together, work together for justice, reconciliation, and peace, hold one another accountable to the discipleship inherent in baptism, and maintain dialogue in the face of differences, refusing to say "I have no need of you" (1 Cor.12:21). Apart from one another we are impoverished. (21)

In paragraph 6 the statement returns to earlier discussions on catholicity, in a more focused ecclesiological sense of the nature of the church and the relationships between the churches. It lacks the breadth of Uppsala's cosmic understanding of catholicity and challenge to the churches' praxis and engagement with the world. However, in paragraph 7 the demands of this sort of catholicity between the churches, including their "work together for justice, reconciliation, and peace", is unambiguous. In the increasingly conflict-ridden contexts the churches find themselves in at this time--both between one another and within individual churches--catholicity as expressed in the categories of paragraph 7 under the theme of mutual accountability represents a clear challenge to the churches to become what they are: Catholic.

Apostolocity and catholicity in ecumenical dialogue

While contemporary texts on catholicity, such as those from Faith and Order, underline the interdependence between catholicity, unity, holiness and apostolicity, they emphasize the nexus between the church's apostolicity and catholicity In terms of ecumenical methodology, there is another way the two should be related to one another: the way BEM has challenged the churches to receive and implement a fresh understanding of apostolicity needs to be explicitly made to the churches in terms of catholicity.

In the ministry section of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, published in 1982, Faith and Order creatively broadens the understanding of apostolicity beyond the category of an apostolic or historic succession of bishops to a sense of the apostolicity of the church itself:

 Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent
 characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the
 apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the
 Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission
 of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and
 suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local
 churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each.
 (22)

The text goes on to assert that the "primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole". (23) Within this broader vision of apostolicity, apostolic succession is found the orderly transmission of ordained ministry, including that of the historic succession of bishops, which is understood "as a sign, though not a guarantee, of the continuity and unity of the Church". (24)

And so, in "churches which practice the succession through the episcopate, it is increasingly recognized that continuity in apostolic faith, worship and mission has been preserved in churches which have not retained the form of historic episcopate". (25) BEM's reorientation of apostolicity and apostolic succession became an ecumenical gift that allowed divided churches to recognize within one another, and to recognize in one another, the mark of apostolicity.

For over forty years, from 1963 to 2006, Faith and Order reflection has creatively broadened the meaning of catholicity, defying Diarmaid MacCulloch's caricature of the Russian doll. This vision moves away from the impoverished understanding of catholicity as a quantifiable criterion for determining a church's fidelity to a degree of orthodoxy and orthopraxis, a sort of ecclesial possession that can be lost or an achievement to be maintained. Rather, in Faith and Order reflection catholicity is a gift of the Holy Spirit belonging to the very nature and mission of the church a fulfillment of the promise of its risen Lord, who promises to be present amongst us, even until the end of time, despite ourselves.

This vision of catholicity is not fundamentally about doctrinal truth or formulation, but is manifested more in an orthopraxis around fight relations between churches, between the church and the wider human family, and indeed with creation itself. Questions of orthodoxy in terms of faith and order are crucial to the work of Faith and Order; but they belong elsewhere, not under the category of catholicity. Catholicity is a gift, but also a calling and a demand; infidelity to the catholic calling of the church cannot negate its catholic nature and mission, any more than it can negate the risen Lord's promise to be with his disciples, even until the end of time.

A multilateral ecumenical examination of the term catholicity has taken place. We have to ask ourselves whether the time has come for a determined recovery of the language of catholicity by the churches. Three stages are necessary to this end.

The first is an ecclesial reception of Faith and Order teaching on catholicity, which is fundamentally dependent on a thorough reception of Faith and Order texts on ecclesiology, such as The Nature and Mission of the Church, "Called to Be the One Church", and their successors. Are these texts known by local Christian communities today? Who takes responsibility for enabling these texts to be received and lived by the churches?

Second, churches need to identify themselves as "catholic". What would it mean if separated churches could recognize and celebrate a degree of catholicity within themselves first and consequently in their ecumenical partners? What would it mean if members of the Church of Vaud identified themselves as a "Catholic Christians in the Reformed Tradition"? Or if those from the Evangelical Church of the River Plate saw themselves as "Catholic Christians in the Lutheran Tradition"? How can the churches, especially those shaped by the Reformation, recover catholicity as an inherent element of their ecclesial self-identities?

Third, equipped with a deep faith in their catholic identity that is rooted in their faith in--and experience of--the abiding presence of the Spirit of the one who promises to be with us until the end of time, churches need to live out the demands and calling of their catholic nature towards each other, the whole human family and creation itself. How can the churches live out the challenges the WCC poses for them in "Called to Be the One Church"?

Such a vision of catholicity convinces not so much by doctrinal authority or theological persuasion as by an authentic experience of catholicity in the church's life, witness, and in its worship--focused most visibly in the eucharist--in which "the local community, assembled around Christ's ministers, in the communion of saints from Abel, the just, down to the very latest of the elect" knows itself "to be in union with the Church of all times in places" and "a real expression of the Catholic Church".

(1) Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700, Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2003, p. xix.

(2) Ibid.

(3) See David M. Paton, "A Montreal Diary" in P. C. Roger and L. Vischer, The Fourth Conference on Faith and Order." The Reports from Montreal 1963, Association Press, New York, 1964, p. 16. For the addresses by Borovoy and Welsh, and Vischer's Preface, see "The Meaning of Catholicity", Ecumenical Review 16.1 (October 1963), p. 24-42. N.B. the papers on catholicity" were not reproduced in the report of the conference.

(4) "The Meaning of Catholicity", Ecumenical Review 16.1 (October 1963), p. 24

(5) Ibid., p. 25.

(6) Faith and Order, Louvain 1971: Study Reports and Documents, Faith and Order Paper No. 59, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1971, p. 135.

(7) Ibid., p. 136.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Ibid., p. 137.

(10) Ibid.

(11) Ibid., p. 138.

(12) New Directions in Faith and Order: Bristol 1967, Faith and Order Paper No. 50, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1968, p. 86.

(13) "The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church", in Uppsala 68 Speaks: Reports of the Sections, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1968, p. 13.

(14) Ibid., p. 13.

(15) Ibid., p. 15.

(16) Ibid., p. 16.

(17) Confessing the One Faith: An Ecumenical Explication of the Apostolic Faith as it Confessed in the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed (381), Faith and Order Paper No. 153, Revised Edition, Wipt & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2010, p. 77.

(18) The Nature and Mission of the Church: A Stage on the Way, to a Common Statement, Faith and Order Paper 198 WCC Publications, Geneva, 2005, p. 14-15.

(19) Ibid., p. 31.

(20) Ibid., p. 32.

(21) "Called to Be the One Church (as adopted by the Assembly): An invitation to the churches to renew their commitment to the search for unity and to deepen their dialogue", 23 February 2006, WCC website: http://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/ assembly/porto-alegre-2006/1-statements-documents adopted/christian-unity- and-message-to-the-churches/called to-be-the-one-church-as adopted.html

(22) Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1982, p. 28.

(23) Ibid.

(24) Ibid., p. 29.

(25) Ibid.

Canon Dr John Gibaut is an Anglican priest from Canada. He is director of Faith and Order at the World Council of Churches. This paper was originally presented in French as part of a 2010 seminar on Catholicily organized by the churches in Switzerland.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2011.00108.x