[Catholic/Anglican Caucus] A Papal Audience That Rewrote Ecumenism

Since the 1960s, the Catholic Church has largely pursued a distinct model of ecumenism, one that deliberately sets aside what was once called an “ecumenism of return.”

In its place has emerged a vision of “journeying together,” in which separated Christians and Catholics are seen as travelling along parallel paths that may one day converge.

This shift has been especially evident in relations with Anglicanism. While the intention has been to foster dialogue, mutual understanding, and even visible unity, the deeper question remains whether such unity, as currently conceived, is either coherent or attainable.

For centuries, Catholic teaching on Christian unity was unambiguous: true unity meant the return of separated Christians to full communion with Rome, Holy Mother Church. Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos, made clear that authentic engagement with non‑Catholics must be ordered to their conversion and full incorporation into the Catholic Church. St Maximilian Kolbe, likewise, saw dialogue with non‑Catholics as ordered to their entry into the one true Church and was forthright in rejecting any notion of an ecumenism that relativised truth or bracketed conversion.

In the post‑conciliar era, however, this language, and indeed this goal, has largely vanished from official discourse.

The theological rationale for this shift is found in the documents of Vatican II, particularly Unitatis Redintegratio (Restoration of Unity). While reaffirming that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the means of salvation and that unity “subsists in the Catholic Church,” the decree emphasises dialogue, shared elements of sanctification, and gradual convergence rather than outright return.

This approach was reinforced in subsequent magisterial and theological pronouncements, Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint being one of the most significant. Pope Benedict XVI, too, stated on a visit to Germany in 2005 that even though unity subsists in the Catholic Church, ecumenism is not about absorbing others into the Catholic Church in a straightforward sense, but about growing together toward unity, what he called “unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity.”

Three years later, however, he established the personal ordinariates for former Anglicans, allowing them to enter into full communion with Rome while preserving elements of their Anglican patrimony. This move implicitly acknowledged that, at least in that case, the path to unity took the concrete form of return, not merely parallel convergence.

But that was anomalous to the prevailing direction perhaps most clearly articulated by Cardinal Walter Kasper, a leading architect of post-conciliar ecumenism. He argued that ecumenism’s goal is not a “return” to a pre-existing structure, but a reconciliation in which all parties are transformed through dialogue. For Kasper, unity did not mean one side simply conceding to the other, but rather a mutual journey toward some future form of communion. While this may sound generous and irenic, it intensifies a fundamental tension: if the Catholic Church already possesses the fullness of truth and the means of salvation, what exactly is ecumenism moving toward?

This tension becomes particularly acute in the context of Anglican-Catholic relations. The Anglican Communion emerged from a definitive break with Rome in the sixteenth century, and its doctrine, at least in much of the West, has diverged substantially from Catholic teaching, especially regarding the priesthood, episcopacy, sacramental theology, and moral precepts. To speak of “parallel paths” converging in the future risks obscuring these real and serious differences. It also raises the question of how unity can be achieved without explicit agreement on fundamental questions of truth and ecclesial identity.

The origins of this approach can arguably be traced back to a pivotal moment in 1960, when Pope John XXIII met the then-Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher at the Vatican. This historic, almost hour-long informal meeting — made at the request of Fisher who was returning from a long ecumenical trip to Jerusalem and Istanbul — was the first meeting between a pope and an archbishop of Canterbury since before the Reformation.

Conducted with considerable discretion at the Vatican’s behest, talk of a “summit” was dismissed by both sides. Rather it was meant to be a “courtesy call” and an act of “fellowship” without any post-meeting statement, and came in response to what the Anglicans detected was a “change of climate” at the Vatican, partly based on the fact that John XXIII had just set up the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity. The protocol made a further symbolic point: the two were to meet “as equals,” and there would be no kissing of the papal ring. When Fisher arrived at the apostolic palace, the Vatican awarded him special honours.

Aside from the symbolism, the meeting had two key aspects. The first concerns the content of the discussions, which appear to have been led by Fisher — although it should be noted that his is the only account of the meeting; no others were present apart from two interpreters.

When the Pope spoke during the meeting of the return of the separated brethren to Holy Mother Church, Fisher reportedly said:

It’s conceivable that Fisher made these comments public to placate some of his members who were wary of the encounter, but if what he recounted was true — and subsequent history suggests it is — the agreement marked a profound shift in Catholic-Anglican relations. From that point on, ecumenism increasingly came to be understood not as a call to return, but as a process of mutual journeying. This moment appears to have cast a long shadow over Vatican II, after which ecumenical documents and practice reflected a new “paradigm shift,” one in which the emphasis falls on dialogue, common prayer, and shared pilgrimage rather than conversion and return.1

Whether consciously or not, the Fisher-John XXIII meeting seems to have helped reframe the entire Catholic approach to Christian unity along those lines of a major shift having taken place. At the time, American Episcopalian bishop Stephen F. Bayne predicted it might have “incalculable consequences for years to come.” Others have since described the meeting as an “extraordinary breakthrough.” In light of later developments — from the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) to joint declarations and shared liturgical events — his prediction appears less rhetorical flourish than sober prophecy.

But how can unity be achieved without agreement on fundamental questions of truth? And if the Catholic Church truly believes herself to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, is it not natural — indeed necessary — to invite others back into full communion, contingent on them agreeing to the one, true faith and accepting it unconditionally?

Recent events only sharpen these questions and unresolved theological tensions. The visit to the Vatican in April of Dame Sarah Mullally, the first female Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, was marked by an effusive welcome that was interpreted as treating her as a legitimate bishop. Given the Catholic Church’s clear teaching on the invalidity of Anglican orders, let alone the inadmissibility of women priests, such gestures cause confusion and even scandal. They suggest a form of unity that does not, in fact, exist — a kind of ecclesial diplomacy that prioritises appearances over theological truth and clarity.

This ambiguity has characterised Anglican-Catholic relations since the John XXIII-Fisher meeting. It is a relationship sustained by goodwill and dialogue, but it often sidesteps the truth and the nature of the Church herself. Friendship and good relations may have prospered, but at inestimable cost: the Anglican Communion has spun off into ever greater heresy and dysfunction while the integrity of the Catholic Church’s own claims has been weakened by gestures that relativise her teaching.

As a priest–canonist recently put it to me: “If, at the institutional level, the Church’s leaders are prepared to set aside her own tenets and norms in order to accommodate a denomination, why should individual faithful not also feel free to pick and choose what they believe and still regard themselves as in communion?” In other words, a model of ecumenism that downplays conversion and full communion risks fostering a de facto ecclesial relativism, both ad extra and ad intra.

A second aspect of no little significance is that Geoffrey Fisher was a prominent Freemason, holding senior positions in several prestigious lodges for much of his life, including serving as Grand Chaplain in the United Grand Lodge of England, the governing body of Freemasonry in England and Wales. His membership stands in stark contrast to the Catholic Church’s constant judgment — maintained to the present day — that Freemasonry is, as Pope Leo XIII and other pontiffs firmly taught, intrinsically opposed to the Christian faith, and that membership of it constitutes a grave sin. Fisher, however, saw his Masonic affiliation as fully consonant with his Christianity, a position he publicly defended just a year before his visit to Rome.

It would be excessive to draw sweeping conclusions from this fact alone, yet it does add another layer of complexity to the origins of modern ecumenical relations and invites further scrutiny of the assumptions and motives at play during this formative period.

Ultimately, the question is not whether dialogue and charity are good but whether they can be a substitute for truth. If ecumenism becomes detached from the call to full communion with the Catholic Church, it risks becoming an end in itself — a perpetual conversation without resolution or conversion. Perhaps this is what the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor meant when he would often describe ecumenism as “a road with no exit.”

Furthermore, given the Church’s claims to absolute truth, is dialogue in the strict sense even possible — or desirable? A faith that believes it holds revealed truth is not in the market for an exchange of opinions; its task is to call others out of error and into truth. That is not “conversation” in the cosy, modern sense of synodality, but conversion.

True ecumenism, as understood by saints like Maximilian Kolbe — who incidentally was also a fierce opponent of Freemasonry which he saw as an organised enemy of the Catholic Church and of Christian souls — does not abandon the goal of unity in truth. Rather, it insists upon it. And that unity, if it is to be real rather than merely cordial, must ultimately be grounded not in parallel paths or some vague future convergence, but in a shared adherence to the fullness of the Catholic faith.

To know what an expert theologian thinks about this formative history of modern ecumenism, I asked Father Nicola Bux, a former consulter to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose reflections are below:

After the Second Vatican Council, despite all the dialogues and documents, Christian unity has not been achieved because the truth about the causes of divisions among Christians has not been spoken or acted upon, as was evident during the recent visit to the Vatican by Mrs Sarah Mullally. Despite the efforts, the division persists. Why? St. Paul writes: “It is necessary (δεϊ) that there be divisions among you” (1 Cor 11:19): the context is precisely the liturgical one of the “Lord’s Supper.”

Joseph Ratzinger notes that the Augustinian interpretation of the Pauline passage is open to the universal, so much so as to make it a dogmatic eschatological principle:

This truth about unity must be stated in its entirety. As Hans Urs von Balthasar says, one cannot ignore a fundamental premise which is “the certainty of being able to demonstrate within the Church the unity and fullness of Catholic truth and reality. Those who work toward the recovery of Catholic identity lay the foundations for a meaningful ecumenical dialogue” (A Short Guide for Christians, Milan 1986, pp. 114–115).

I conclude by recalling St. John Henry Newman’s “ecumenical method”: looking to the Petrine and Roman primacy — that is, to the necessity of visible unity around one person, the Pope. If this is avoided at the start of ecumenical dialogue, regarding it as an obstacle to unity, one must eventually arrive at it, since it is a truth to be believed. It is fitting to pray with him:

Father Nicola Bux is a priest of the Italian Archdiocese of Bari, a professor of theology, and a former consulter to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

After the meeting, and at Pope John XXIII’s explicit insistence — countermanding the Vatican Secretary of State, who initially wanted to restrict the visit — Fisher met with Cardinal Augustin Bea, head of the newly established Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Cardinal Bea went on to head the commission that drafted the Second Vatican Council Declaration Nostra Aetate, a document criticised for fostering religious indifferentism by speaking positively of other religions’ “spiritual and moral goods” without equally stressing their objective errors, the necessity of explicit faith in Christ, and membership in the Catholic Church for salvation.

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[Catholic/Anglican Caucus] A Papal Audience That Rewrote Ecumenism

An Archbishop of Canterbury's Masonic ties, his audience with John XXIII, and why the foundations of today’s Catholic–Anglican “journeying together” deserve far closer scrutiny.