(5 of 6)
As in any area of life, progress is likely to depend upon the initiative of an adventurous few. Joseph Cardinal Ritter of St. Louis and the Bishops of Oklahoma City-Tulsa and Wheeling have already announced plans to hold "Little Councils" in their own dioceses, in which laymen as well as priests and nuns will take part. Boston's Richard Cardinal Gushing plans to establish lay councils in every parish.
In the view of many churchmen, the renewal achieved by Vatican II challenges Protestantism to put its own houses of God in order and revise its attitude toward the church against which the Reformation rebelled. "If the Roman Catholic Church had looked 450 years ago as it looks today," says Germany's Evangelical Bishop Otto Dibelius, "there would never have been a Reformation." Says U.S. Lutheran Leader Franklin Clark Fry: "Thank God that the council responded to the leading of the Holy Spirit as far as it did."
Spirit of Fraternity
One likely result of the dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, in the view of Pittsburgh's Catholic Bishop John Wright, is "immediate unity in good works and charity"—more cooperation by missionaries of both churches, common action on social issues, frequent prayer in common, even a joint Catholic-Protestant Bible. But, warns Dr. Alan MacArthur of the Church of Scotland, while "the glaciers are melting, the Alps remain." Many Catholics and Protestants now regard the dogmatic differences between their churches as less and less relevant—but differences are still there. The theologians frankly admit that divided Christianity is intellectually no closer than before to resolving such issues as the role of the Pope, the nature of church organization, the place of Mary in Christian devotion. On this score, all that has happened is that Vatican II has raised hopes for unity where there were none before.
The council's work may have only limited effects in the world of politics, economics and other "practical" matters—but effects there will be. For one thing, the Church of the Council has a new attitude toward Communism, contrasting with the almost crusading anti-Communism of Pius XI and Pius XII. While Paul, more conservative than John, has warned afresh of Communism's errors, Vatican diplomats have been busy negotiating better operating conditions for the church in Iron Curtain countries. Nowhere in council pronouncement is there a condemnation of Communism by name. There is room for debate about the wisdom of this new posture, but the fact that the church is willing to take the risk is a sign of a new flexibility. To a great extent, the church now seeks to combat Communism less through head-on hostility than by championing social reform.