“Meeting par cum pari: Unitatis Redintegratio and the Possibility of Ecumenical Progress.”
In Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum. Ed. Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, 245–67. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020.
Abstract
In this chapter I probe some of the difficulties surrounding the desire to meet “on equal footing.” I will press the question of what unity means according to the Decree on Ecumenism, and the general drift of my considerations will be that the principle of meeting par cum pari is a difficult fit with the overall ecclesiology at work in Unitatis Redintegratio and, by extension, in Catholic doctrine. Before arriving at this more critical analysis, however, it is incumbent on me to observe that the decree presents a remarkable opening for ecumenical dialogue, one that would have been unthinkable in the context of earlier magisterial teaching on ecumenism. Although the language of the “spirit of Vatican II” may be controversial and can be misused, there is little doubt that the council documents breathe an unprecedented spirit of openness or aggiornamento.
