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Catholicism has managed to bypass or relieve many rancorous problems. Use of the Bible is far more widespread, and worship in common languages is the norm. While Rome still requires celibacy in the West, its Eastern rites retain their tradition of married priests. It has partially restored the practice that the laity may receive wine as well as bread during Communion, a point of sharp conflict in the 16th century. Other concessions flowed out of Vatican II, but a host of differences remains—including highly emotional issues, such as mixed marriages, divorce discipline, birth control, the rights of the laity and the official acceptance of abortion by some Anglicans and Lutherans. A grand four-sided reunion is likely to be frustrated by three overarching disputes:
Communion. To the casual eye, the four groups of Christians seem to hold roughly the same beliefs about the Eucharist. But the divisive, central question concerns belief in the "real presence" of Christ's body and blood in the Communion elements. In their talks with Vatican delegates, the Lutherans have affirmed the actual "presence of Christ's body and blood in, with and under bread and wine." The Anglican-Catholic unity commission jointly professes belief in Christ's "true presence, effectually signified by the bread and wine, which, in this mystery, become his body and blood." But last month the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a series of frosty "observations" on the all-important commission report, faulting the Anglicans for refusing to accept "transubstantiation." (This dogma means that while appearances remain the same, the words of consecration by a priest at Mass transform the entire substance of the bread and wine into Christ's literal body and blood.) However, Eastern Orthodoxy does not require any such formulation either, and Rome nevertheless recognizes its sacraments as "true."
The Priesthood. Catholics believe a priest must be ordained by a bishop historically tied to bishops who are linked all the way back to Peter and the Apostles: the apostolic succession. Anglicans have a special problem that the international dialogue must soon face directly. The reason: in 1896 Pope Leo XIII declared that Anglican orders are, and always have been, "absolutely null and utterly void," mainly because the 16th century ordination rite omitted the power of priests to offer a sacrifice of Christ in the Mass. Therefore Anglican Primate Runcie and other bishops are technically, in papal eyes, not ordained priests at all. (An added complication is Rome's insistence that women cannot be priests, while several Anglican churches, though not the Church of England, have ordained 400 women since 1971.)
Historians have sought ways around the dilemma, which would also apply even to the Lutherans, who lack bishops in historical succession in most of their churches. U.S. Catholic Bible Expert Raymond Brown contends that it is highly likely that in the early Christian period, churches with bishops recognized those without bishops on the basis of their apostolic beliefs, so that today's Pope could do the same. No such scheme is necessary with the Eastern Orthodox, whose priests and bishops Rome has always recognized as being in the apostolic succession.