Ecumenism and the Catholic Health Ministry

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Ecumenism and the Catholic Health Ministry
Spiritual Care Champions November 4, 2008
John F. Wallenhorst, Ph.D. Vice President,
Mission Ethics Bon Secours Health System
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Objectives

• Understand some core concepts about ecumenism and
  interfaith dialogue
• Understand how Vatican II and Catholic theology
  advanced ecumenism and interfaith dialogue
• Understand how ecumenism practically affect the
  delivery of care, including pastoral and
  spiritual care services, and self-understanding
  of the Catholic health ministry

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Agenda

• Personal Pastoral Experience
• Spirituality, Ecumenism World Religions
• Catholic Approach
• Second Vatican Council
• American Catholicism John Courtney Murray
• The Church to Come Karl Rahner
• Health Care Application
• Discussion

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Personal Pastoral Experience

• Personal Experience
• Religious tradition of ones family
• Development over time maturation
• Current understanding of church
• Pastoral Encounters
• Understanding of common spiritual ground
• Respect for persons tradition
• Once again, encountering ambivalence in many

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Spirituality,Ecumenism World Religions
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Ecumenism World Religions

• Common Spiritual Constitution
• Ecumenism
• World Religions

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Common Spiritual Constitution

• Dignity of the Person
• Made in Gods image and likeness
• Divine origin and destiny
• Development
• Call to Community
• Person flourishes (or not) in community
• Emergence of tradition
• Reform and development

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Ecumenism

• Broadly
• Oikouneme inhabited world household
• Greater unity and cooperation among religions
• Dialogue without organic unity
• Mutual respect
• Interfaith pluralism

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Ecumenism

• More Narrowly
• Unity of Christian Churches
• Approaches
• Catholic Full unity
• Eastern Orthodox Reluctance
• Anglican Communio in sacris full communion and
  intercommunion
• Protestant both denominational unity and
  cooperation
• World Council of Churches, 1958 340 churches
• Joint Declaration on Doctrine of Justification,
  1999
• Rejected by some evangelical Christians

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World Religions

• Interfaith Pluralism
• Acceptance of other religions and forms of
  religious expression
• Some truth and true values exist in all religions
• Supports freedom of religious and protects
  religious expression
• Encourages dialogue and cooperation
• Not necessarily equivalent to religious
  relativism
• Belief that all religions provide equal access to
  the truth

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World Religions
Religion Number of Adherents 
1 Christianity 1.9 billion
2 Islam 1.1 billion
3 Hinduism 781 million
4 Buddhism 324 million
5 Sikhism 19 million
6 Judaism 14 million
7 Bahá'í 6.1 million
8 Confucianism 5.3 million
9 Jainism 4.9 million
10 Shinto 2.8 million
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• When the day of Pentecost had come,
• they were all together in one place. And
• suddenly from heaven there came a
• sound like the rush of a violent wind,
• and it filled the entire house where they were
• sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared
• among them, and a tongue rested on each of
• them. All of them were filled with the Holy
• Spirit and began to speak in other languages,
• as the Spirit gave them ability.
• - Acts of the Apostles 2

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Catholic Approach
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Foundations

• Stress on full unity of the Church
• One, holy catholic, apostolic
• All marks of the Church only in Catholic Church
• Lack of all marks false churches
• Institutional Church is the Church
• Hierarchical and monarchical
• Church is perfect, absolutely independent society
  
• Extra Ecclesiam nula salus

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Second Vatican Council

• Remote Context
• 19th and 20th century scholarship Scripture,
  biblical languages, history, liturgy
• Emergence of Catholic Social Teaching
• New engagement with the world and world issues

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Second Vatican Council

• Lumen Gentium (1964)
• Dogmatic Constitution on Church
• Affirms marks of Church and foundation by Christ
• Elements of salvation found in other Churches
• Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic
  Church
• Gaudium et Spes (1965)
• Pastoral Constitution on Church
• Addressed to the world
• Universal call to holiness human community
• Concern for social alienation, poverty, suffering
  and war

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Second Vatican Council

• Unitatis Redintegratio (1964)
• Decree on Ecumenism
• Seeking restoration of Christian unity
• Acknowledges Church identity of Christian
  Churches
• Scripture, Gods Spirit, Baptism
• Admits both sides to blame for rupture
• Nostra Aetate (1965)
• Declaration on Relationship to non-Christian
  Religions
• Human community from God
• Rejects nothing that is true and holy
• Often reflects truth
• Special, close union of Christians and Jews

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American Church

• John Courtney Murray (1904-1967)
• We Hold These Truths
• Reflections on religion and public life
• Religious freedom and separation of Church and
  state
• Participation in public debate without
  censorship or coercion
• Appeal to public virtue
• Dignitatis Humanae (1965)
• Declaration on Religious Freedom
• Unequivocal affirmation of religious freedom
• Other
• Academic and religious freedom in schools and
  universities
• Development of doctrine requires dialogue with
  non-Catholics and atheists

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The Church to Come

• Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
• Universality of grace
• Church is always in history and society
• Diaspora Church
• Age of Christendom is over
• Anonymous Christianity
• Church to Come
• Declericalized
• Focused on service
• Moral, without moralizing
• Concrete and spiritual
• Open

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Health Care Applications
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Health Care Applications

• Mission
• Ministry of the Church
• Broadly understood and respectful
• Catholic identity as an expression of common
  humanity
• Administration
• Ministry leaders
• Spiritually motivated
• Commitment to faith-based work
• More than the veneer of religion

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Health Care Applications

• Ethics
• Within context of whole Catholic tradition
• Social context and community responsibility
• Virtue ethics existing moral sensitivity and
  role of habit
• Not just focus on ethical prohibitions
• Pastoral and Spiritual Care
• Care for persons in their wholeness
• Respect for diversity of religious experience and
  expression
• Appropriate and thoughtful accommodation
• Promotion of religious respect throughout
  organization
• Spiritual environment

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Church with a Worldly Vocation

• Worldly Vocation
• Tension between compelling vision and practical
  realities
• World and work as arena for meaningful religious
  action
• Concrete choices and actions for infusing
  religious values in the secular realm
• John Coleman

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Discussion
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Questions Conversation

• What are some of the challenges?
• Personally
• Professionally
• Organizationally
• How do you address those challenges?
• What is the role of the ecumenism in the
  Catholic health ministry?

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Thank you.