What must Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians do for the sake of ecumenism?

Answer 1

"The Catholic Church embraces with hope the commitment to ecumenism as a duty of the Christian conscience enlightened by faith and guided by love…Jesus himself, at the hour of his Passion, prayed 'that they may all be one' (John 17:21). -- Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995.

The Catholic Church already has the following open dialogues with her sister Churches:

- The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
- The Joint Committee of Orthodox and Catholic Bishops
- The Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation
- The Polish National Catholic-Roman Catholic Dialogue
- The Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation USA
- The Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue
- Roman Catholic-Reformed Consultation
- The United Methodist-Catholic Dialogue
- Southern Baptist Convention-Catholic Dialogue
- The Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue
- Faith and Order Commission, National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA
- Consultation with the National Council of Synagogues
- Consultation with the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America

Here is the joint declaration of justification by Catholics (1999), Lutherans (1999), and Methodists (2006):

By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

--Is Catholic--

First, I would say that one should read DOMINUS IESUS
http://tinyurl.com/81n1

I would also read a followup by Ratzinger (now Pope B16)
http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/OBDOMIHS.HTM

Then I would read Ratzinger's
Called to Communion

Now prepared, I would read the relevant documents of Vatican II.

IN A NUT SHELL
Catholics should be more authentically Catholic. Catholics should ever seek after Christ and seek to ever be in deeper communion and obedience to His Church, the Catholic Church. Respect where non-Catholics are coming from. Draw out what is good and true in non-Catholic beliefs, and correct what is false. Catholics should not make a confusion between the Catholic Faith and beliefs that are lacking in fullness.

Non-Catholics need to be open to history, philosophy, and theology. They must seek after Christ, even when it become apparent that Christ leads all to the Catholic Church. Non-Catholics should understand their history more fully and understand what baggage they bring.

Both should seek after Christ and the Christian life, a life which calls for constant conversion and deeper obedience to the truth. There needs to be a mutual respect for differences while demanding solid grounding in truth--of revelation, tradition, history, and philosophy.

Answer 3

Agree to disagree. Doctrines are far apart, but people have somethings to offer one another.

Krister Stendahl, who is the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm and the former dean of Harvard Divinity School, gave a little bit of guidance on how to deal with other religions and on how to understand other religions.

He laid down three rules which might seem obvious but they are often ignored in trying to understand other faiths. One of them, the first rule was that when you want to learn about a religion you should ask the adherents to that religion and not its enemies. Now that seems fairly obvious but it is ignored an awful lot.

The second rule was: Don't compare your best with their worst, which is often done. We Christians believe in the ideal of loving everyone, but the Muslims look like those terrorists. What you do is take the worst example of the other guy's religion and compare it to the ideal, almost never reached in your religion and that's apples and oranges. If you are going to compare terrorists, you should compare Christian terrorists with Muslim terrorists. If you are going to compare ideals, you should compare the ideal in the other faith with the ideal in your faith. If you are going to compare your saint to something in their religion, find one of their saints and compare them. That's the only fair way to do it.

The third one was his principle was to leave room for what he called "holy envy." By holy envy, he intended the idea of looking at another faith and saying, you know, there is something in this other religious tradition that I really envy. I value it. I wish we had it. I can learn something from it.

Can you imagine what conversations with people of other faiths would be like if they followed Dr. Stendahl's three rules? What a much better dialogue we would have. Many more meaningful and deep discussions would be enjoyed.

Answer 4

Talking ecumenism is easy, union is hard. Union implies that all of us have been wrong in the past and maybe in the present. That is hard to swallow.

We need to pray and deepen our relationship with God, then it will be solved.

Answer 5

Talk to Rick Warren author of the book PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE

Answer 6

wtf is ecuminism im a non cathlic im a cristin though but not that poop(pope)stuff