Harvesting the Fruits of Ecumenical Dialogue

Friday we were back to work. Our day began with the group who most relates to Lutherans and ecumenical work within the Vatican - The Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Cardinal Kasper (a German who just published a book titled Harvesting the Fruits) presides over this council and has championed the cause of ecumenism for many years. He is likely to retire in the next year. Joined by Bishop Farrell, Msgr. Turk and Fr. Fairbanks (from Philadelphia) the conversation went well. Having limited experience with ecumenical work, I watched as these leaders reviewed work that has been done. Like diplomatic work, ecumenism proceeds incrementally. It begins by finding common ground, then exploring it further to determine on what we can agree. The joint declaration on justification from ten years ago still serves as a our best point of commonality, while we continue to move further apart on other things (we don’t talk about those in such high level conversations). We save the difficult talks for times when the presiding bishop and cardinals are not in the room, or when those leaders are together without twenty others present. In short, we document our common ground and move forward incrementally again. Ecumenical work moves at glacial speed, and that is if churches don’t do things like we did this summer by making major policy changes.

I was humbled when Bsp. Hanson said, our church is twenty years old. We sat in a room 500 yards away from the grave of St. Peter. In Catholicism the tradition serves as an anchor for the Church. An anchor can hold a ship steady and keep it from being dashed against rocks or beached on a shore line, but an anchor can also keep a ship from moving. Here I gained new insight into the work of the Vatican. On the picture please note the Icon in the background (Cardinal Kasper sits closest to Bsp Hanson). In the Icon Peter and Andrew embrace representing the Western Church and the Eastern Church embracing as brothers.

Our second stop for dialogue took place in the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. While not as friendly (or intimate - if you can call any of this intimate), Cardinal Tauran impressed all of us with his background in diplomatic affairs for the Vatican and his incisive insight into working with people of other faiths. The Vatican takes the position that “All believers have the same dignity before God.” Note that not all religions are considered valid or equal, but all who believe in God have the same dignity. We talked a bit about Muslims and about Hindus. The Cardinal made a few comments about relations with the Jews and the Palestinian conflict. His time in Vatican diplomatic work informs his engagement of interreligious dialogue very effectively.

After lunch we visited the excavation under St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican has worked hard to verify the tomb of St. Peter. I am about to run out of battery power. If I do I will have to finish later.

From the tomb (I will be anxious to talk about this experience. I simply cannot do it justice here.) we ascended to the main floor of the Basilica. We had a woman from Minnesota as our tour guide. English fluency was a new twist among our tour guides. She is a doctoral student in Rome. She was outstanding.

TO MY RUNNER FRIENDS

I did take run one morning at 5:30. Our schedule has been brutal. The roads in Rome create a real problem - nothing straight, no great landmarks, virtually impossible to keep track of where you have gone or how to get back. I brought my Garmin just for this. After running down the Tiber River I ran back to where I had enter the sidewalk, then I need the GPS to get back to the hotel and without it I would never have found my way. I carried the address so I could ask for directions if I got hopelessly lost, but fortunately the GPS took me within a block. I plan to attempt a run Sunday AM before we leave for the airport. At this point it is a huge trade off between sleep and running - we can't have both.