It has been widely acknowledged that Dr Hans Kiing’s The Council and Reunion (fluently translated by Cecily Hastings in a Sheed and Ward Stagbook) is one of the most important of the vast flood of publications released by Pope John XXIII’s announcement of his intention to summon an ecumenical council. So far, however, this acknowledgment has not been accompanied by any serious examination of the book, at least by Catholic reviewers in England. Its reception has been generally favourable, even rapturous (see The Clergy Review, January 1962, p. 33); but there seems to have been a marked disinclination to enter into detailed discussion. What is particularly unfortunate about this is that the book has become to some extent the manifesto of a party; there is sufficient evidence, though not in print, so far as I know, that a resolute opposition to the book among certain Catholics has been able to take shape in silence. It seems to me that silent opposition and vocal enthusiasm form a particularly vicious combination; and surely the best way of releasing what tension there is is to look at Rung’s book critically.

Criticism ordinarily implies detachment; yet it might be claimed that here if anywhere detachment is out of place. What could demand a more passionate commitment than the reform of the Church? The critical detachment which we shall try to practise here, then, is not a detachment from the profound reforming purpose of Kiing’s book or indeed of the Council itself; but it will be a serious attempt to find a standpoint which is neither simply ‘conservative’ nor simply ‘progressive’, nor for that matter simply ‘middle of the road’.

The Orthodox Churches are unanimous in their hostility to the existence of Catholic Churches of Byzantine rite. They fear that Catholicism seen within the framework of the rite that they know must needs be more attractive to Orthodox people than when seen within the framework of the unfamiliar Latin rite. But this tactical objection is not the only one. Behind it lies a deeper conviction, two convictions in fact.

First, there is the conviction that it is the Orthodox Churches, and not the Roman Church, that have remained wholly and completely faithful to Christ’s teaching and to the tradition of the Apostles and the primitive Church. This is so much so that in Orthodox eyes to make an act of adhesion to the Roman communion is to give up something of the revealed faith and to cut oneself off from the true Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe this conviction is mistaken, and we indeed have good reasons for doing so. But we must recognize that it is a conviction that governs the Orthodox attitude.

The other conviction is connected with the first one. It is that the Roman Church is not and cannot be anything but the patriarchate of the West, whose head is the bishop of Rome; she is therefore of her very nature, as it were by definition, limited to the Churches of the Latin rite.

It may be useful to return to our initial picture of a primitive community of believers, each with his gaze steadfastly fixed upon ‘the Man on the other side of Easter Sunday morning’, the Man whom we can no longer see except through their eyes. How, the critics ask, can we be sure that they see him truly—that their account of his words and deeds is correct? It was an account formulated by naive and credulous minds, minds already pre-conditioned by the fever of Messianic excitement which marked the closing years of the pre-Christian era, minds that were exposed, consciously or unconsciously, to a whole range of external religious influences, among which those of the Old Testament and rabbinic Judaism would only have been the first.

Within the fold of Judaism itself not only the more orthodox traditions of Rabbinical interpretation have to be taken into account, but the possible influence of enthusiast movements such as Essenism (as attested by the Qumrân writings) and related baptist movements. The outstanding characteristic of these movements is an intense and eager expectation of a personal and apocalyptic advent of God in judgment in the near future, and an insistence on penance and purification in preparation for this event. ‘Do penance for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ is one of the key sayings recorded of Jesus. How far, the critics ask, was it influenced by these ideas? How far was the original message amplified and embellished in terms of them by his followers?

To visit the Holy Land must be the dearest ambition of every Christian. To live in it as I have done for more than five years is a rare and wonderful privilege.

Even so my picture of the Holy Land is incomplete, for it has been tragically divided since the Jewish-Arab war of 1948 led to its partition between Israel and Jordan. The two countries are still at enmity, so the cleavage is absolute. Even the Holy City is rent in two, for the western suburbs have been developed to form Israel’s capital, while the eastern region, including the Old City, belongs to Jordan.

At an ordinary level there is no communication at all between the two countries, or even between the two halves of Jerusalem. Only diplomats and United Nations officials may move between the two with relative freedom, and by a special arrangement, tourists are allowed to pass—but not re-pass—from one to the other. For those like myself—and I am an Irish woman living in Jordan by reason of my husband’s employment—there are no such concessions. Never once in the years I have lived in Jerusalem have I set foot on the soil of Israel which lies only a few hundred yards west of our house.

To begin with I found this situation frustrating in the extreme, for from our windows we can clearly see people and cars moving about in the other Jerusalem which is so near—and yet so very far away. Gradually I have become resigned to the knowledge that I am never likely to see Galilee or Nazareth, which together with a great many places of purely historical interest, are ‘on the other side’.