Religion: Protestants to Rome

In next fall’s Vatican Council, men and women who are not Roman Catholics will play two significant parts. About a hundred top Protestants and members of the Orthodox Church will attend as observer-delegates. And millions of Protestant churchgoers will be praying for the council’s success.

Last week, in a letter to all U.S. dioceses, the Right Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church (3,500,000 members), stated his hope for “frequent and regular prayers offered in each parish and mission church during the time when the council is in session.” Particularly appropriate, Bishop Lichtenberger thought, were three collects from the Book of Common Prayer. Among the readings: a venerable (1667) prayer for the church that asks God to fill it with truth: “Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it.”

Guest List. The list of observers for the Vatican Council is rapidly getting filled up. So far, the World Presbyterian Alliance, the Anglican Communion, the World Methodist Council, the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), the International Congregational Council, and the Lutheran World Federation have agreed to send observer-delegates, who will attend all public and some private sessions of the council. Last week in Berlin, the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, named as its delegate Dr. Edmund Schlink, a Lutheran ecumenical scholar from Heidelberg University. Meeting in Paris, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches agreed to send two observers, and named as one of them Dr. Lukas Vischer from the council’s permanent secretariat in Geneva. An expert on Catholicism, Dr. Vischer is little known in ecumenical circles. He is an ecclesiastical technician, capable of accurate theological reporting, but he clearly does not have the prestige or stature to speak for the World Council in Rome.

Fortnight ago, at the Vatican, Augustin Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity announced that a limited number of religion experts would attend the council as its special guests, distinct from the appointed observer-delegates. First three named: Prior Roger Schutz and Pastor Max Thurian, both Calvinists from France’s famed Protestant “monastery” at Tarze, and Lutheran Biblical Scholar Oscar Cullmann.

Jews Too? Not all non-Catholics share equally in the worldwide concern for the council. Many Orthodox churches will probably turn down the Vatican invitation on the ground that they are already members of the One, Holy and Apostolic Church; thus their metropolitans should have been invited as participating bishops, not as outside observers. Meeting in Amsterdam, the International Council of

Christian Churches, a federation of 88 fundamentalist churches, denounced the ecumenicism of the World Council of Churches, and voted not to accept an invitation to the Vatican Council even if one was offered.

Whether Jewish groups will attend the council, even in an unofficial capacity, is up in the air. At its annual convention in Miami last month, the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest organization of Orthodox rabbis in the U.S., passed a resolution disapproving any Jewish participation in the theological councils of Christian churches. But many Reform and Conservative Jews remain open to the idea.