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Where religious caricatures are still triumphant
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2018
Since Vatican Council II issued its Decree on Ecumenism, the rapprochement between churches has moved many a step forward. To be sure, one no longer finds the enthusiasm of the 1960's, but the dialogues between churches have gained in depth and seriousness what they have lost in facility and popularity. Again, the statements issued by the Lutheran-Catholic Conversations in America (on The Eucharist as Sacrifice, 1967; Eucharist and Ministry, 1970), or by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Conversations (Windsor Statement on the Eucharist, December, 1971; Canterbury Statement on Ministry, December, 1973) may be neither complete nor final; yet they witness to a growing consensus which would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. This consensus gives the lie to what had been for years an axiom in one stream of the ecumenical flow: Doctrine divides, service unites. The current ecumenical moment has put this maxim to the test and uncovered its inadequacy. It is not too optimistic to say now that doctrine is in the process of uniting.