Perspectief 2015-29

Perspectief 42 Peter de Mey pre-Vatican II position of the Catholic Church” and expressed its frustration that this was mentioned in a consensus text on the Church: “one could ask who maintains this position today and for what reasons.” I am not always happy with the way divergences are presented in the current text. Quite a few times one already starts indicating the existence of divergent positions in the paragraph preceding the passage in italics. When treating the issue of Church as sacrament, the different positions of the churches involved are even mentioned in three different places, in § 27, in footnote 12 and in the passage in italics. For Catholics it remains difficult to understand why this Faith & Order document is on one hand able to affirm that the Church “is both a divine and human reality” (§ 23) and is “an effective sign and means (sometimes described by the word instrument ) of the communion of human beings with one another through their communion in the Triune God” (§ 27), but is unable to accept the nuanced teaching of the Catholic Church on Church “as” sacrament in the opening paragraph of Lumen Gentium. It is clear that I now made the transition from a discussion of the style of The Church: Towards a Common Vision t o a discussion of its ecclesiological content. II Similarities and contrasts with Roman Catholic ecclesiology At many places in our document, the ecclesiological vision of Faith & Order has been construed with elements borrowed from or also found in Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Therefore, it is to be hoped that the official response of my Church to The Church: Towards a Common Vision will be as positive as the PCPCU’s assessment of The Nature and Mission of the Church . I will now mention five examples which make it clear that the drafters of the 2013 agreed statement on the Church ended up with a very “Catholic” ecclesiology. 1. It was the explicit request of the PCPCU that the revision of The Nature and Mission of the Church would present a more elaborate understanding of the note of apostolicity. “Apostolicity is not only based on the fact that the Word is sent by the Father, but also that the prophets and apostles and their successors are sent.” The 2013 version of the text reads: “The Church is apostolic because the Father sent the Son to establish it. The Son, in turn, chose and sent the apostles and prophets,