The ecumenical dialog on moral issues: potential sources of common witness or of divisions

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 1996

Foreword

Already in 1987, the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches (JWG) began to discuss new potential and actual sources of divisions within and between the churches, and it gradually focused on personal and social ethical issues and positions as potential sources of discord or of common witness.

The JWG summarized its reflections in its 1990 sixth report. The report noted that "in fact there is not enough serious, mature and sustained ecumenical discussion on many ethical issues and positions, personal and social; for example, nuclear armaments and deterrence, abortion and euthanasia, permanent married love and procreation, genetic engineering and artificial insemination" (III.1.c).

The JWG submitted the sixth report to the Roman Catholic authorities and to the seventh assembly of the WCC (Canberra 1991). Both mandated that the JWG should deepen the study as one of its priorities during the next period. It was not to examine the substance of the potentially or actually divisive issues, but it was to describe them and outline how they may best be approached in dialogue, in the hope that such issues can offer new opportunities for the increase of mutual understanding and respect and for common witness, without compromise of a church's convictions or of Christian conscience.

The JWG commissioned consultations, co-directed by Dr Anna Marie Aagaard (University of Aarhus), one of the WCC presidents, and by Fr Thomas Stransky CSP (Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Jerusalem), a Roman Catholic member of the JWG. The report of the first consultation, held in October 1993 (Rome),(1) was submitted to the JWG plenary in June 1994 (Crete, Greece) for decisions on future procedures. Tantur hosted the second larger consultation in November 1994.(2) A draft received the reactions of the JWG executive (February 1995) and of the Tantur participants. The JWG plenary in May 1995 (Bose, Italy) corrected a new draft, and accepted the text as a study document of the JWG itself.

The study is in two parts: (1) "The Ecumenical Dialogue on Moral Issues: Potential Sources of Common Witness or of Divisions; (2) Guidelines for Ecumenical Dialogue on Moral Issues.

The study is intended primarily for those dialogues at local, national and regional levels where Roman Catholics are partners. It may be useful for other bilateral or multilateral discussions.

It is important to understand that the study does not analyze specific controversial issues as such in an attempt to arrive at norms. Rather, it describes present situations and illustrates some underlying contexts which help to place the issues. It suggests possible ways and not the results of dialogue.

The JWG places this study within its general concentration on "The Unity of the Church -- the Goal and the Way" (cf. Sixth Report, III.A), and, more specifically, on new Christian ways of rendering common witness in society at large. Furthermore, the JWG is aware of the study in progress within the WCC (Units I and III) on "Ecclesiology and Ethics", and suggests that it may be complemented by the JWG study document.

His Eminence Metropolitan Elias of Beirut Most Rev. Alan C. Clark Co-moderators of the Joint Working Group 25 September 1995

1. Ethics and the ecumenical movement

Of increasing urgency in the ecumenical movement, in the relationships between the churches called to give common witness, is their need to address those moral issues which all persons face and to communicate moral guidance to church members and to society, at large.

1. Cultural and social transformations, conflicting basic values and scientific and technological advances are fraying the moral fabric of many societies. This context not only provokes questioning of traditional moral values and positions, but it also raises new complex ethical issues for the consciousness and conscience of all human beings.

2. At the same time, renewed expectations rise in and beyond the churches that religious communities can and should offer moral guidance in the public arena.

3. Pressing personal and social moral issues, however, are prompting discord among Christians themselves and even threatening new divisions within and between churches. This increases the urgent need for the churches together to find ways of dealing with their controversial ethical issues. By taking the time and care to listen patiently to other Christians, we may understand the pathways by which they arrive at moral convictions and ethical positions, especially if they differ from our own. Otherwise, Christians will continue often to caricature one another's motives, reasonings and ways of behaviour, even with abusive language and acts. Dialogue should replace diatribe.

Other Christians or other churches holding diverging moral convictions can threaten us. They can question our own moral integrity and the foundations of our religious and ethical beliefs. They can demean the authority, credibility and even integrity of our own church. Whenever an individual or a community selects a moral position or practice to be the litmus test of authentic faith and the sole criterion of the fundamental unity of the church, emotions rise high so that it becomes difficult to hear one another.