A Community for the Twenty-First Century

CORPUS has discussed informally the creation of a religious community or association over the last ten years. During that time, conversations with Episcopalian and Lutheran bishops explored the creation of an ecumenical community with CORPUS. This community, somewhat in the manner of Taize (the Catholic and Protestant monastic and vowed community in France accepted by the Vatican and Reformed Churches) would allow all members to maintain their original Church identity.

 

The new community would have three purposes:

 

• a sign or witness to people at large and our respective churches in particular that the spiritual bonds among the churches are profound enough to create significant communal sharing in the search for God;
• a more formal and intense commitment of all the members to the spiritual rather than the ecclesiastical, political or ministerial dimensions of church and human life;
• a communal resource for the participating church traditions to call on all or any of the members to serve in a ministerial capacity in any of the participating churches on a temporary or ad hoc basis.

It is the third of these purposes which may require further explanation.

 

The leadership of a validly and juridically defined Church would enter into a relationship with CORPUS and extend faculties or legal recognition to all members of the new ecumenical community. These members would be able to function as Catholics or as whatever their original Church identity happened to be. They would have civil standing or certification for ministerial service.

 

The Ecumenical Catholic Communion is an Old Catholic Church, with what Roman Catholics call valid orders and apostolicity. It is regarded by the World Council of Churches and the Vatican as a Church akin to the Orthodox or Polish National Churches, that is, a Church with a full sacramental life and a validly ordained episcopate and priesthood.

 

The Ecumenical Catholic Communion is a member of COR, the Catholic Organizations for Renewal. COR is a consortium or forum of some 30 Catholic reform and regional associations. It meets regularly and enters into dialogue and common action with its participating members. The Ecumenical Catholic Communion was recently admitted to COR because of its compatibility with COR's objectives and identities.

 

The CORPUS Board and the leadership of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion asked me to draw up a charter for a new religious and ecumenical community. It has the name of the Community of John XXIII. The charter is included as part two of this essay.

 

At the same time, COR asked me and a small committee to put together a theological reflection on how we, as Catholics, would enter into sacramental and ministerial relationships with other churches and still maintain our Catholic identity. The draft I am submitting to COR is included as part three of this essay.

 

I trust that these documents will assist CORPUS members as we enter into dialogue about whether CORPUS should form this new community. The CORPUS Board will give particulars, elsewhere in this issue of CORPUS REPORTS, about how the dialogue and the eventual vote of members will be conducted.

 

There are some concrete issues yet to be settled it and when the CORPUS membership accepts this proposal.  A structure for regional contacts of religious community members and a regular national meeting must be put in place. A choice of a responsible person, acceptable to CORPUS and the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, to guide the new Community, must be made. A level of financing and contributions to enable this Community to function must be established. The process by which members will be accepted and ministerial certification, for those who wish it, will be offered, needs to be clarified. All of these issues, I submit, can be put in place with relative ease once the concept, the theology and the legal identity of the Community is approved. I trust that the materials provided in this edition of CORPUS REPORTS will be sufficient to allow us to go forward with a vote whether to approve this concept.

 

CORPUS gains from this initiative an emphasis on the central role the spiritual life plays in our identities and ministries. It also offers ministerial opportunities for the membership. It does all this, I believe, without the surrender of our Catholic or reform credentials.

A COR Statement about Identity and Inclusivity

PREAMBLE

COR was established in 1991 as a consortium and forum for national and regional Catholic reform organizations. In the beginning, all members and applicants were baptized and formal members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Participation in COR was conditioned on these foundational identities even though members included divorced and remarried Catholics in non-canonical marriages, resigned priests and religious without Vatican dispensation, members formally censured or informally judged improperly Catholic by Church officials. These institutionally marginalized members were acceptable to COR as long as they were baptized, formal members of the Roman Catholic Church, committed to reform and invited into membership by a consensus of COR member organizations.

In recent years, COR has favored defining Church identity as "Catholic" rather than "Roman Catholic," sensing a tension between the letter and spirit of Vatican II and a Roman institution, which seems monarchical and restorationist. Yet COR seeks to remain within the tradition of a Church both Catholic and, indeed, Roman where that further adjective defines legitimate and not expropriated institutional structure.

SEVEN INDICATORS OF CATHOLIC IDENTITY

COR now seeks to include members who see themselves as Catholic and as fully independent of Rome. COR wishes to invite such applicants to membership but also to maintain its essential ties to its Catholic and even Roman roots.

We believe that this dilemma and opportunity might be addressed by considering seven indicators of Catholic identity, which are not at odds with our Roman origins.

1. Sacramentality

Catholic and Roman identity begins with the foundational sacrament of baptism. Vatican II found a way to make this sacrament Catholic even when it was not Roman. It declared that baptism in any Christian Church had the same value as Roman Catholic baptism. In doing this, it accepted the fact that other Christian communities were not foundationally at odds with the Roman Catholic Church.

Indeed, the Council and the later Code of Canon Law went further and affirmed that two Protestants married in a Protestant ceremony were sacramentally married in Roman Catholic terms. Furthermore, Roman Catholics could, under certain conditions, receive the Eucharist from Orthodox Christian priests.

It is, therefore, quite possible that a member seeking admission to COR and never having been formally Roman Catholic comes to us with baptism, marriage and Eucharistic connections, all expressed outside the Roman Catholic Church and all fully accepted by it. Such an applicant is foundationally already with us, not a stranger but a member of the family.

2. Intentionality

Sacramental life is linked inextricably with intentionality in the Roman Catholic tradition. Some who seek membership in COR may do so because they wish to access more fully the values of the Roman Catholic tradition, because they have no desire to be at odds with it and because they feel that they are distant from it for less than essential reasons. Such intentionality must count for something. Clearly, it complements sacramentality. COR offers some visible structure to accommodate such members on their spiritual journey and to gain from such members wisdom in helping us to make a Roman Church more fully Catholic.

3. Law

Both a Council (Vatican II) and Canon Law assure us that the Church of Christ subsists in the Roman Catholic Church. The fullness of the Church of Christ, therefore, is not present in only one Church. The whole Catholic Church is realized in a plenitude and diversity of Churches. The non-Roman Catholic applicant allows COR and the applicant to encounter the possibility of a more fully Catholic Church.

4. History

There is no way of addressing the history of Roman Catholic identity without taking into account the divisions, which have shattered the institutional unity of the Church of Christ. These divisions have kept many of us Christians separate from one another because of historical and doctrinal reasons that the Churches no longer find important. Non-Roman Catholic applicant approaches COR in a spirit of friendship and solidarity, seeking to heal a division no longer justified in the terms, which once causes it. The values of our past must not become such a burden that they take away our present and our common future.

5. Conscience

Vatican II affirmed conscience more emphatically than any other Council in Church history. As COR accepts a non-Roman Catholic member into its consortium, it honors the conscience of such a member who says, in effect, that there is no essential antagonism between who that person is and what Roman Catholicism seeks to become.

6. Pastoral Life

COR is, in part, an academy where we learn and an agent of reform where we act. It is also a gathering of Christ's disciples who seek to marginalize no one, especially those who come in from the margins and ask for inclusivity. COR's decision to admit or exclude needs to consider whether we do Christ's work if we exclude those who come to us in friendship and faith, those who suffer significant pastoral harm by our rejection of them, those who seek the bread of communion rather than the stone of alienation. This inclusion is all the more urgent when the applicant seems not to be at odds with all that is essentially Catholic.

7. Ecclesiology

The Church, our creeds tell us, is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. If we interpret these signs of the Church spiritually, the Churches are already united. The non-Roman Catholic applicant already experiences the unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church of Christ.

Roman Catholicism, however, finds its uniqueness by taking these four signs of the Church and giving them concrete, institutional expression. It finds: institutional unity in papal structure (however defined); institutional holiness in the range and centrality of its sacramental system (no Church has more sacraments or gives them so central a place in its life); institutional catholicity (by including in its tradition all the ecumenical councils from all the ages and the cultures, always influenced by them if not determined irrevocably by their doctrines); institutional apostolicity (in the Episcopal college).

We believe that these institutional expressions of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ define the Roman Catholic Church as different from other Christian Churches. We believe, furthermore, that non-Roman Catholic applicants may well seek membership in COR because they believe also in an institutional expression of these four signs of the Church of Christ and, through dialogue, may find a way for the papacy, the sacraments, the councils and the Episcopal college to be in full accord with their conscience and calling. It is often not the reality but the way it is defined and expressed which divides us.

CONCLUSION

These seven indicators of Roman and Catholic identity may offer COR and the applicant a way of becoming the Church of Christ in a manner that is not Roman or Catholic, as we have previously understood them. Indeed, together, COR and the applicant may be seeking something new and comprehensive, a work of the Spirit, astonishing and familiar all at once.

The Community of John XXIII

The Catholic reform movement has been exemplary in its theology and focused action for change in doctrine, structure and social justice. Its guiding light has been, of course, the Gospel message and life of Jesus Christ but also the contemporary influence of Vatican II and John XXIII. This reform movement has been searching more recently for ways to bring a greater ecumenical presence into its membership and a more intensive testimony to its spiritual commitments. Recent developments in the Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR) have addressed the ecumenical issue of membership. The present proposal for an ecumenical community of John XXIII seeks to intensify this ecumenical influence but, more pointedly, to emphasize the spirituality which gives people life in areas no other reform initiatives reach. 

One of the great glories of Catholicism, indeed one of its most creative contributions, has been the formation of formal religious communities. These religious communities seek a new way of forging bonds built on faith and mission by a common life, common prayer and common witness. 

The Community of John XXIII will be sponsored by CORPUS (from the Roman Catholic tradition) and by the Ecumenical Catholic Communion (from the Old Catholic tradition of Christianity). By working together, these two sponsoring organizations will show that the spiritual yearning we have in common transcends doctrinal and structural divisions. 

The Community of John XXIII will be open to any and all Christians who subscribe to its Charter and its way of life. Its Charter is simply stated in its three goals: a common life, common prayer and common witness. 

GOALS AND MISSION

The Community of John XXIII is committed to realize a common life, common prayer and common witness by taking into account the mobility, diversity, and secular values of contemporary life. 

1. Life

A common life among the members of this Community will be fostered by a public witness of commitment to three vows: frugality (poverty), solidarity (obedience), and fidelity (chastity).

The common life will be fostered by an annual meeting or chapter bringing together members for communal reflection on goals, mission and strategy. Regional meetings will also be made available to satisfy this requirement for meeting. 

Common life will be directed by a Spiritual Mentor, chosen by members to organize, lead, and challenge the Community. 

Common life will include accountability by means of an annual report by the Spiritual Mentor and Community to the sponsoring organizations (CORPUS and ECC). This common life will be developed on a model of consensus voting on all initiatives. It will include financial contributions, negotiated individually with invested members, to support the community mission. 

2.  Common Prayer

The prayer of the Community will be based on the biblical readings of the Ecumenical Lectionary throughout the Liturgical Year. Each month these readings will be electronically posted and members will be urged to make them part of their meditation and prayer. 

Occasionally, retreats and pilgrimages will enrich the common prayer of the Community. 

3.  Common Witness

Common witness will begin with an Investiture Ceremony of commitment to the vows, chapter meetings, direction of the Spiritual Mentor, accountability, consensus voting, financial support, common prayer, and apostolic work. All these items have already been addressed with the exception of apostolic work. 

Apostolic work and ministry will be defined in a dialogue between the Spiritual Mentor or Community and the individual member. It will be expressed in writing and in public proclamation at Chapter or in newsletter communication. This apostolic work may include service in pastoral and sacramental assignments and certification by the Community of the apostolic mission of its individual member. 

CONCLUSION

The purpose of the Community of John XXIII is the spiritual development and apostolic work of its members. It focuses its energy on the inner life of prayer and contemplation, seeking to challenge the minds and hearts of its members to a fuller living out of the Gospel message. It strives to do this by blending traditional and contemporary experiences with religious life. Its intent is discipleship with Christ and public commitment to common life, common prayer and common witness as a means to make this discipleship central.