The Methodist head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, has expressed his support for full communion among all denominations by the middle of the 21st century. Step on for Rev Kobia inter-communion among all Christians.
“My vision for the ecumenical movement is that by the mid-21st century we will have reached a level of unity such that Christians everywhere regardless of their confessional affiliations, can pray and worship together and feel welcome to share in the Lord’s Table at every church,” said Kobia.
The Rev. Dr. Kobia is most certainly putting the cart before the horse, and in my mind that does not bode well for ecumenical dialogue. It is clear to me that Dr. Kobia and others of the same mind do little or nothing to contribute to genuine ecumenism when they display such staggering ignorance or willful blindness of the things that really divide us.
At present, the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches do not permit members of other denominations to join in their celebrations of the Eucharist. Intercommunion would be a significant symbol of unity among Christians.
Here is the problem, Communion is not a symbol for Catholics and Orthodox. It is the Body and Blood of Jesus. Not a whole lot of wiggle room here. Sticking your head in the sand over this issue is not ecumenism, it is syncretism.
In the realm of ecumenism, I believe that real progress is being made in particular between Catholics and the Orthodox. This progress is being made because we are openly and frankly discussing the things which divide us, not by pretending they don’t exist. Pope Benedict’s brand of ecumenism thus far has tended to the candid. Here is what we believe. Understand it. Then we can discuss it. Real progress with will only occur when then this Dr. Kobia’s brand of kumbayah ecumenism meets its well deserved fate in the trash bin.
January 28, 2008 at 9:59 pm
GREAT discussion of this. I read it this morning at another site and said to myself that he might be right in all denominations EXCEPT Catholic and Orthodox faiths; because communion is not sacramental (although I have heard that some groups say it is if “you” want it to be)
What I find smarmy is the sort of Orwellian Word-think that this chap is using. By the wording, it would appear that he is trying to infer that the Catholic Church, by sticking to its guns, is being obstructionist to the unity that Christ called for.
To this, I would reply that full communion for all “denominations” (I take exception with that term as well) can occur when all non-Catholic Christian Ecclesial Communities acknowledge the one true faith, and become Catholic; as the uniates have.
January 29, 2008 at 1:08 am
The ecumenical movement is a fraud. I might be persuaded to recant this view when I see a congregation of Southern Baptists praying the rosary in Latin.
The fact is that these people are “deluded by the deciets of the devil” as the old Good Friday prayer for heretics and schismatics used to say. Our duty, out of Charity, is to admonish them to return to the unity of Holy Mother Church. They can receive Holy Communion when they convert. Period.