Sir, - The language of ecumenism may "have been habitually abused and discredited" by Irish Catholic priests and priests and ministers of other churches which subsist in the universal Church. But abuse of the language of charity, the language of Jesus of Nazareth, is altogether more durable than the occasional spat in the pages of The Irish Times.
And it is the violent abuse of the language of charity, not to mention, for the moment, the language of truth, which impels me to reply to the contribution of Father David O'Hanlon on matters ecumenical (January 31st). The rationale of this letter will be found in 2 Corinthians 5:14.
If "the vast majority of Irish lay Catholics are profoundly ignorant of what the Church. . .actually stands for", we may take it, then, that the mission to preach the gospel of God has singularly failed and the ecclesiastical establishment, responsible for that ministry since the Synod of Kells, stands convicted of ineptitude and dereliction of pastoral responsibility.
If, however, some misguided liberals, including "some Irish Catholic priests and Protestant ministers", seek to break down the barriers of hatred and division which have been erected by doctrinal, political, social and economic concerns between people who sought, according to their lights, to uphold gospel imperatives, some progress has been made.
It was, after all, the outsider, the maverick with the liberal agenda, Paul of Tarsus, who withstood Peter and James, the brother of Jesus no less (Galatians 1:6 - 2:21), and proved to be "more Catholic than the Pope", if I may be allowed a hopeless anachronism.
Nor is true ecumenism served by insulting hard-working parish clergy "too busy. . .to be bothered with interdenominational courtship". Many clergy are concerned daily with the pastoral care of (inter-faith) Christian couples and their children and find themselves at the very cutting edge of ecumenical realities. Only the pastorally immature fail to see the ecumenical necessities of everyday Christian living.
Ecumenism - a joy and a burden which devolves on all Christians - is ill served by mindless slogans. It is simply untrue to say that "the dogmas of the Councils are absolutely non-negotiable". In the Caput firmiter, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared: "The universal Church of the faithful is one outside of which none is saved" - extra quam nullus omnino salvatur. In the textbooks of dogmatic theology this teaching was universally characterised as de fide ("of faith"). It was the teaching of the Council of Florence, of Pope Innocent III and Boniface VIII in the Bull Unam sanctam. Pius IX declared: "By Faith it is to be firmly held that outside the Apostolic Roman Church none can achieve salvation. This is the only ark of salvation. He who does not enter into it will perish in the flood".
Yet for all that, few would hold that "outside the Church there is no salvation" is a doctrine of the Catholic Church today.
I have assisted in very minor ways at the two most recent Lambeth Conferences in Canterbury. Anyone who is privileged to witness such faith, such dedication, such evangelical determination, from bishops, priests and lay folk from around the world would not describe Anglicanism as "currently in ideological meltdown".
It is true that Anglicanism in these islands is in crisis, but Catholicism is equally in free fall. Both need serious and radical reform and mutual soul-searching to address the problems we jointly face.
It is painful to read the cavalier dismissal of "fundamentalist Protestantism" (no Catholic fundamentalists, thank God!) and "so-called eastern Orthodoxy". The Jewish faith gave us Jesus of Nazareth, the Greeks and North Africans gave us our creeds, their martyrs gave us our saints. And the Romans gave us Canon Law.
Is it too much to expect that, after all the killings of the past 35 years, we might begin to lay aside, in the name of the imperative of love enjoined on us by Jesus and Paul, ancient shibboleths of hatred and execration?
Please, David, grow up.
Readers should know that David is my nephew. - Yours, etc.,
Rev Dr JOSEPH O'HANLON, Blean, Canterbury, Kent, England.