Perspectief 2015-29

Perspectief 44 Peter de Mey “member” in the final version of Lumen Gentium, in the final version of The Church: Towards a Common Vision, membership terminology abounds. 4. The section on authority states, among other things, that “a relation of mutual love and dialogue unites those who exercise authority and those who are subject to it” and also insists that “the exercise of authority can call for obedience, but such a call is meant to be welcomed with voluntary cooperation and consent.” (§ 51) Here a Catholic reader is reminded of the following exhortation about the bishop in LG 27: “Let him not refuse to listen to his subjects, whom he cherishes as his true sons and exhorts to cooperate readily with him” or of LG 37: “The laity should, as all Christians, promptly accept in Christian obedience decisions of their spiritual shepherds.” 5. One wonders why it was necessary to repeat twice in our document that “the Church is not merely the sum of individual believers among themselves” (§ 23) and, about the universal Church, that “[i]t is not merely the sum, federation or juxtaposition of local churches.” (§ 31) This almost seems to be a direct quotation from the instruction Evangelii Nuntiandi issued by Pope Paul VI in 1975: “Let us be very careful not to conceive of the universal Church as the sum, or, if one can say so, the more or less anomalous federation of essentially different individual Churches.” (§ 62) III Partaking at one eucharistic table The desiderata of the Catholic Church in view of the revision of The Nature and Mission of the Church , however, have not always been followed. Despite their explanation that, “in Catholic thought, the sacrifice of Christ is understood to be present in the Eucharist because of the way in which it is related to the Paschal mystery”, this aspect is not mentioned when our document offers a summary of “[t]he progress in agreement about the eucharist registered in ecumenical dialogue.” (§ 42) The reflections on Eucharistic hospitality which The Nature and Mission of the Church had made in the box expressing the divergences with regard to the theme of the Eucharist, seem however to have been removed from the final text under Catholic pressure. A larger quotation from the PCPCU assessment makes this clear: