A document on church doctrine published by the Vatican on Tuesday is something much more interesting than a fist fight at a football final, writes Fr Myles Rearden.
According to The Irish Times coverage of July 11th, the just-published responses from the relevant Vatican department to "some questions regarding the doctrine on the church" are ecumenically retrograde. Even some "Vatican insiders", it seems, agree that they are "unlikely to help ecumenical dialogue".
I wonder if the various commentators, including spokespersons of churches, religious affairs correspondents, and even the "Vatican insiders" referred to, had digested the commentary on the responses that were published by the same Vatican department, at the same time, and available on the Vatican website.
The official commentator takes his stand on the principle that churches whose being "church" cannot be fully recognised by the Catholic Church, nevertheless possess "diverse elements of sanctification really present in them", and "undoubtedly possess as such an ecclesial character and consequently a salvific significance".
This position is the bedrock of all ecumenism. Anyone who, like the present writer, is engaged in practical ecumenism, knows that it is true.
Two of the "responses" deal with the somewhat technical expression "subsists in", used in the sentence of Vatican II: "This one Church of Christ . . . subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and Bishops in communion with him". The commentary referred to above makes the point that "subsistence in" has the meaning of "continues to exist". Thus, Christ founded his church (a point some contest, but clear from St Matthew's gospel) and that church has not gone away. It remains and must remain in existence as long as the human race does.
There are those who would happily reject that statement, but churchmen and churchwomen of all hues accept it.
The differences between us can be expressed by another element of what "subsistence" means, namely the actual existence of an individual entity, a person, for example, and in particular the person of the Son of God in Christ.
Now, the Catholic position is that "church" refers primarily to an individual reality, a single enduring reality. It also refers secondarily to local entities (Church of Corinth, Church of Ireland, Church of Christ), but such entities need to be united to the "mother church" in order to be church in the primary as well as in the secondary sense.
So, despite what the nameless Vatican insiders seem to think, some of the central points in the responses are crucial to ecumenical dialogue.
If there is ever going to be a fully universal church of Christ again, it will have to be able to recognise itself as historically continuous back to Christ.
It cannot fade into and out of existence like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland; real entities are not like that.
At the same time, the 2,000-year history of Christianity and of the Catholic Church shows an astonishing amount of change - as is inevitable in a living entity.
It can even be called "polymorphic", with the various churches that grew up within her or spun off from her at different times embodying a great deal of what the church was at a particular time and place.
Consider for example the Jerusalem church of the first decades with the Ethiopian church of today, the medieval monastic communities with the Moravian Brethren or the Society of Friends or the Salvation Army, as well of course as the Methodists and Anglicans and the Lutherans and the Presbyterians in all their different forms.
Needless to say, had they managed not to "spin off" (and not all did), it is to be expected that the "mother church" would have developed not as it did but in a way that would have embodied the particular genius of the parts that were lost to her. That of course would have required more understanding and wisdom than is likely to be always present in church leadership, at whatever level.
The point is that the inherently polymorphic character of Christianity needs the Petrine primacy to ensure its subsistence. Two of the other responses given by the Vatican department officials relate to the different ways in which the Catholic Church regards Oriental churches and the communities emanating from the Protestant Reformation.
The crucial issue is that of apostolic succession in the latter group, which the Catholic Church considers they do not possess, although at least some of them strongly maintain that they do.
Unfortunately, this remains one of the unresolved and painful issues in ecumenical discussions. Still, it is not one that the responses of the Vatican officials aggravate; they simply record it as a matter still needing attention.
The interest generated by the recent responses of Vatican officials to five questions regarding the church is scarcely all due to friendly interest, or concern about the welfare of Christianity. Creating dissension is a way of creating news.
It is to be hoped that anyone who rushed to comment without studying the Vatican's own commentary on its responses will find the time to read it.
What the responses represent is something much more interesting than a fist fight at a football final, namely careful examination of fundamental religious, cultural and human issues.
Fr Myles Rearden CM is the organising secretary of the Greenhills Ecumenical Conference and a staff member of St Patrick's College, Maynooth