"Ecumenism is Tradition"
Aside from the 1949 document from the Holy Office, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council to the present, I would be sincerely interested if you could point me to ONE official and authoritative document of the Church that even uses the word "ecumenism" prior to 1949. Ecumenical Councils, of course, were usually called General Councils, so besides that, please name ONE document and citation where the Church uses the word "ecumenism" in the same manner it is used today.
Tick... Tick... Tick...
Aside from the question of whether (and what kind of) ecumenism is good, it can be said that your test is not a good one. For the first couple of centuries of the Christian Church no one had ever used the word "homoousios". And yet that became the very watchword of orthodoxy eventually, so that those who would not use it were considered heretics. Many other examples could be given. (e.g. "transubstantiation", "Trinity")
The idea that we should treat other baptized Christians as brothers (estranged brothers, to be sure) rather than simply as enemies, is hardly alien to Tradition. Tradition has long made a distinction between "material heresy" and "formal heresy". There are "men of good will" (as in "pax hominibus bonae voluntatis") who are not Catholic, and we must reach out to them in truth and love.
LOL After I answer, I will put my head on my desk.
Mrshon, congratulations on the reference to the 1949 Holy Office Document. You are, obviously, very well-read and very bright. Please think about using the talents God graced you with in a manner otherwise than you are. Please consider that Holy Mother Church knows Tradition and tradition much better than me and thee - and even better than MurphE (couldn't resist the rhyme) who is, like you, similarly, graced with intellect and will and passion for certitude.
I would have answered earlier but I just got off my weird work rotation. In the summer, I work three fourteen hours days and then I get seven days off.
So, here goes.....
Instead of me pasting and cutting, I will post a few links which will answer your objections. I would ask, again, that you and MurphE reorient yourselves vis a vis the Church.
She is our Mother. She will not, she cannot, mislead us. It really is that simple. Holy Mother Church is worthy of our trust. The real question is - are we worthy of Holy Mother Church?
http://www.tomrichstatter.org/e%20Eucharist/e69ecume.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/731872/posts
I would not be so concerned if this were something from outside the Church. But when each one takes as his mission to criticize everything, when each one sets out to rewrite dogma and morality according to his own wishes, the Church disintegrates. When the center of unity becomes the target of the most impassioned attacks, each one feeling that he has the right to criticize the successor of Peter before the whole world on any point whatsoever, the Church herself is therefore wounded. Those who take this liberty do not fully realize what they are doing. Regardless of what pretext they may invoke, however, they are turning their backs on the gospel of Christ, and they scandalize, in the fullest sense of the word, many of their brethren.
Whether they wish to or not, they encourage the formation of small groups whose sectarian pretensions are equalled only by the poverty of their spirituality. The weakening of faith is coupled with the decomposition of the Christian community. They insult all those who hold on to what their faith requires of them as Christians. Inasmuch as it depends on them, they ruin the Church. A Church in which this form of disorder exists and where such morals are accepted is doomed.