CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

Unity’s High Price

If you care about Christian unity, last month brought good news out of Seoul, South Korea – but it also gave an urgent lesson of how costly such unity can be.

On July 18, delegates to the World Methodist Conference unanimously adopted the Joint Declaration of Justification which had already been approved in 1999 by the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, attended the signing ceremony in Seoul and proclaimed, “This is a historic day. This is a gift of God. We can be grateful for it”

The Methodist resolution noted that the signing “expresses a far-reaching consensus in regard to the theological controversy which was a major cause of the split in Western Churches in the 16th century.”

That split came when a Catholic monk named Martin Luther taught that humans were justified in God’s eyes by “faith alone,” without reference to their deeds. The Rev. Dr. Ishmael Noko, head of the Lutheran World Federation, called the new agreement “A new ecumenical landmark” which expresses “our shared Biblical faith in God’s justifying grace, a faith which paradoxically became an area of division in the Western Church.”

So now the major division between Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists (an offspring of the Anglicanism) is healed – five centuries after it began!

Embedded in this one historic event are several points of urgent timeliness for contemporary Catholics. For our Church today faces tensions and conflicts no less threatening than those brewing within Catholicism 500 years ago. Common sense dictates that we learn from that past, lest we repeat it.

I can name five lessons we should take from this long drama:

Lesson #1: Division is a shameful scandal. Christ’s command “Ut Unum Sint” (“That they may be one”) has been a major theme of Catholic teaching, especially since Vatican II, and was the title of John-Paul II’s great 1995 encyclical. The very purpose of our religion – to unite all of humanity in the redemptive body of Christ – is thwarted when Christians themselves are divided. How can we expect others to embrace us until and unless we embrace each other?

Lesson #2: Division generally causes more harm than good. Scandal aside, history proves that even the most profound conflicts that provoked division are outweighed by the damage that division causes. “Justification” was a central issue at the heart of Christian faith, but division over it split European culture and triggered repeated religious wars whose affects linger today (for example, in Northern Ireland). Besides killing thousands of ordinary believers, these wars destroyed Christianity’s image as a religion of peace and invited the widespread secularization of western culture.

Lesson #3: The damage of division is slow to heal. Five Hundred years of Catholic-Protestant conflict amounts to 25% of Christian history. So a full quarter of our past has been spent in scandalous division, during which Christians failed to practice the peace and unity they preach. It is no exaggeration to say that division was a self-inflicted wound that hobbled our religion in its mission for half a millennium.

Lesson #4: What once seemed like a mountain ends up looking like a molehill. If “Justification” was not finally worth fighting over for 500 years, many other disputed issues were downright petty by comparison. The “selling of indulgences” scandalized 16th century protesters, for example, yet today who worries about indulgences, purchased or otherwise? To cause such virtual and physical destruction over such questions is criminal folly—yet almost impossible to judge in advance.

Lesson #5: Unity depends on effectively resolving conflicts. Expecting history (in religion or anywhere else) to be conflict-free is like expecting a marriage to avoid all friction. It ain’t gonna happen. So unity can never depend on the absence of conflict—conflict must be mastered.

Unity will never be easy, and its price tag will include compromise, consensus, and sometimes even the ability to agree to disagree without dividing.

Since the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics have developed different approaches to conflict. Protestants have tended to agree to disagree (sometimes too quickly), but then split. Hence the more than 300 Protestant denominations in the US today. Catholics, by contrast, have tended to reject division in the face of conflict – but often they have preserved unity only by the stronger party imposing its will on the weaker one. This has prevented splintering, but often at the cost of festering resentment and the weakening of Catholic solidarity.

What can these five lessons teach us today?

In some ways, it’s obvious. Just think of the conflicts within Catholicism right now: (1) Contraception, (2) Celibacy, (3) Women’s ordination, (4) Homosexuality, (5) “Cafeteria Catholicism.”

Not a single one of these issues compares in importance to “Justification.” None of them touch on basic creedal beliefs or doctrines like the Trinity, the humanity and divinity of Christ, the nature of grace, etc. Compared to many past disputes over Christian Faith, the stakes today are simply not that great!

But what is enormously at stake is Unity itself. Any of these conflicts might escalate into outright division—and if they do, they will repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the 16th century. Any division of the church now would: (1) Cause terrible scandal on top of the recent scandals, (2) Destroy all the momentum toward unity gained in the last 40 years, (3) Open new, slow-healing wounds just when the old wounds had finished healing after 500 years, (4) Create a mountain of disunity out of a molehill of controversy, and (5) Demonstrate yet again our historic failure to resolve conflicts among believers.

The conclusion is common sense – indeed it is a no-brainer. However real current disputes may be, however sincere may be the convictions of all parties in such disputes, the lessons of history demand that those parties work to resolve their differences now.

Unfortunately, some Catholics have elevated their own concerns above unity itself—and seem prepared to knock the Church off the course toward unity, either by jumping ship or by pushing others overboard. Perhaps they are blinded by their own “good intentions,” but make no mistake. Such tactics have never served the Church well, and those who practice them now injure the body of Christ.

If modern Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists have succeeded in settling their differences where 16th century leaders failed, that only means the resolution came 500 years too late! If the conflicts are able to be solved now, then they should have been solved then—before all the damage.

And when it comes to current disputes, the same rule applies: they should be solved now, before it is too late.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

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