Vatican II on the Church and Ecumenism: An Anglican Comment

Extract

The promulgation at the third session of the Second Vatican Council of the three Constitutions De Ecclesia, De Oecumenismo and De Ecclesiis Orientalibus Catholicis is clearly an event of outstanding ecumenical importance, though its full significance will clearly appear only in the light of future thought and acitivity. Anything like a detailed consideration of the contents of the Constitutions would be quite impossible in the space at my disposal, but I hope that the comments which I shall make from an Anglican standpoint on some of the more striking characteristics of the first two may be of some interest and even perhaps of some usefulness to the readers of New Blackfriars.

To begin with De Ecclesia. In spite of the vicissitudes through which the Constitution has passed since the introduction of the original schema on November 30th, 1962 (and for information about this I am indebted to the extremely illuminating article by Père G. Dejaifve, S.J., in the Nouvelle Revue Théologique of January 1965), the overall impression which one receives is that of a remarkably systematic, comprehensive and unified document; only one section, which I shall refer to in more detail later, bears some visible marks of a clash of views which reached something less than full reconciliation. Most impressive of all is the way in which the presentation of the doctrine of the Church in primarily juridical and governmental terms which has characterized most Roman Catholic documents and treatises in the past has been completely superseded by an approach which is in the fullest sense biblical and theological.