“I have come to the end of my service as the president of the Papal Council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians. For 11 years, this has been for me not just a demanding but also a riveting task. Absolutely a life-defining experience”. This is what card. Walter Kasper said today at a press conference as he greeted the press. While waiting for someone else to take his place at the Vatican ministry, the cardinal wanted to take stock of his personal experiences and what has been done over these years of ecumenical dialogue. “My feelings – he said – are conflicting: on one hand, being emeritus at the age of 77 is quite normal, even refreshing. But on the other hand, I leave a job I did with enthusiasm, that I have always regarded as a building site for the Church of the future. For the Church, ecumenism is not a luxury extra, it is one of its constituents, it is one of its main goals, and the same applies to religious relations with Hebraism”. “Where are we today?”, wondered the cardinal. “Firstly, I would like to point out that, however fundamental, documents of dialogue are not essential. Actually they would be a dead letter if they were not substantiated by personal relations, relations of respect, esteem, confidence and friendship”.
“Whenever such relations are missing – Kasper went on –, there cannot be any fruitful dialogue, which is always a dialogue of life. Ecumenism is not done from one’s desk. Dialogue is life. Dialogue is an integral part of the life of the Church”. Then the cardinal recalled all the trips and meetings that have dotted his ecumenical work over these years, speaking today of a “sound network of human relationships with Christians which, I am sure, will withstand less favourable events and are a sound basis for making further progress”. And he commented: “this is the real ecumenical innovation”. “The focus and the soul of such a lively ecumenism – he then added – is spiritual ecumenism. The unity of the Church cannot be planned or manufactured”. Then, using a metaphor, the cardinal compared ecumenism to an “invisible monastery in which people live and pray, scattered all over the world, but joined in prayer. Isn’t this an intense, deep ecclesial communion as it is?”. Then, card. Kasper’s “stock taking” went over his 11 years’ dialogue. With the Eastern Orthodox Churches (Coptic, Syrians, Armenians, Ethiopic, etc), with which, after “the first, extremely difficult years”, we reached agreements that can now be viewed as a “miracle of the Spirit”.
As to the Orthodox Churches, instead, card. Kasper recalled the suspension he had at the Baltimore session in 2000 and defined that moment as “a failure”, “the worst ecumenical experience I have ever had”. It took “5 years of patient negotiations” to re-establish our relationships and get to the Ravenna meeting, which marked a “great, unexpected turning point”. About dialogue with the Orthodox Churches, the cardinal pointed out also the “personal relations of confidence” and the presence of all these delegations at John Paul II’s funeral and the enthronement of Benedict XVI, “a clear and strong sign of the change that had taken place”. Then he took stock of the relations with the Churches and the ecclesial communities of the Reform. “Mistakes, or better, carelessness in the wording of the truth – Kasper admitted – have been committed among us and also by us”. But, as far as this dialogue is concerned, the cardinal referred back to the text recently published by the ministry, “Harvesting the fruits”, which takes stock of the results and agreements that have been achieved. “I leave my office – he then concluded – with hope, which is not human optimism, but Christian hope”. Confident that “ecumenism is not an extra, but a constituent of the Church”. Now, the “torch” will be taken over by a new generation that “will certainly look at these dialogues with new eyes”.

© SIR - 26 june 2010