Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism

This volume proposes a fresh strategy for ecumenical engagement - 'Receptive Ecumenism' - that is fitted to the challenges of the contemporary context and has already been internationally recognised as making a distinctive and important new contribution to ecumenical thought and practice. Beyond this, the volume tests and illustrates this proposal by examining what Roman Catholicism in particular might fruitfully learn from its ecumenical others. Challenging the tendency for ecumenical studies to ask, whether explicitly or implicitly, 'What do our others need to learn from us?', this volume presents a radical challenge to see ecumenism move forward into action by highlighting the opposite question 'What can we learn with integrity from our others?' This approach is not simply ecumenism as shared mission, or ecumenism as problem-solving and incremental agreement but ecumenism as a vital long-term programme of individual, communal and structural conversion driven, like the Gospel that inspires it, by the promise of conversion into greater life and flourishing. The aim is for the Christian traditions to become more, not less, than they currently are by learning from, or receiving of, each other's gifts. The 32 original essays that have been written for this unique volume explore these issues from a wide variety of denominational and disciplinary perspectives, drawing together ecclesiologists, professional ecumenists, sociologists, psychologists, and organizational experts.

Table of Contents:
Abbreviations Notes on Contributors I: Vision and Principles Prologue: Acts 2:1-11 1: Paul D. Murray: Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning: Establishing 5 the Agenda 2: Margaret O'Gara: Receiving Gifts in Ecumenical Dialogue 3: Ladislas Örsy, S.J.: Authentic Learning and Receiving: A Search for Criteria 4: Philip Sheldrake: Becoming Catholic Persons and Learning to Be a Catholic People 5: Nicholas Lash: The Church: A School of Wisdom? 6: Walter Kasper: Credo Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam - The Relationship Between the Catholic and the Protestant Principles in Fundamental Ecclesiology 7: Riccardo Larini: Texts and Contexts: Hermeneutical Reflections on Receptive Ecumenism II: Receptive Ecumenical Learning through Catholic Dialogue Philip Endean, S. J.: Prologue - Phillipians 1 3-7a 8: Keith F. Pecklers, S.J.: What Roman Catholics Have to Learn from Anglicans 9: Michael E. Putney: Receptive Catholic Learning through Methodist-Catholic Dialogue 10: David Chapman: A Methodist Perspective on Catholic Learning 11: William G. Rusch: The International Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue: An Example of Ecclesial Learning and Ecumenical Reception 12: Paul McPartlan: Catholic Learning and Orthodoxy: The Promise and Challenge of Eucharistic Ecclesiology III: Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Church Order Prologue - Ephesians 4: 7, 11-16 13: James F. Puglisi, S.A.: Catholic Learning Concerning Apostolicity and Ecclesiality 14: Denis Edwards: The Holy Spirit as the Gift: Pneumatology, Receptivity and Catholic Re-reception of the Petrine Ministry In the Theology of Walter Kasper 15: Joseph Famerée: What Might Catholicism Learn from Orthodoxy in Relation to Collegiality 16: Paul Lakeland: Potential Catholic Learning Around Lay Participation in Decision Making 17: Patrick Connolly: Receptive Ecumenical Learning and Episcopal Accountability within Contemporary Catholicism: Canonical Considerations IV:The Pragmatics of Receptive Ecumenical Learning Philip Endean, S.J.: Prologue - John 11: 43b-53 18: Mary Tanner, OBE: From Vatican II to Mississauga: Lessons in Receptive Ecumenical Learning from the Anglican-Roman Catholic Bilateral Dialogue Process 19: Donald Bolen: Receptive Ecumenism and Recent Initiatives in the Catholic Church's Dialogues with the Anglican Communion and the World Methodist Council 20: Geraldine Smyth, O.P.: Jerusalem, Athens, and Zurich: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Factors Inhibiting Receptive Ecumenism 21: Brendan Tuohy and Eamonn Conway: Managing Change in the Irish Civil Service and the Implications for Transformative Ecclesial Learning 22: Peter McGrail: The Fortress Church under Reconstruction? Sociological Factors Inhibiting Receptive Catholic Learning in the Church in England and Wales 23: James Sweeney: Ecumenism and the 'Tribe': A Sociological Perspective on Receptive Ecumenism 24: Thomas Reese, S.J.: Organisational Factors Inhibiting Receptive Catholic Learning V: Retrospect and Prospect Philip Endean, S.J.: Prologue - Revelation 1:9-18 25: Andrew Louth: Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning: An Orthodox Perspective 26: Nicholas Sagovsky: The Place of Anglicanism in Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning 27: Hervé Legrand, O.P.: Receptive Ecumenism and the Future of Ecumenical Dialogues: Privileging Differentiated Consensus and Drawing Its Institutional Consequences 28: Gabriel Flynn: Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning: Reflections in Dialogue with Yves Congar and B. C. Butler 29: Gerard Mannion: Receptive Ecumenism and the Hermeneutics of Catholic Learning: The Promise of Comparative Ecclesiology 30: Daniel W. Hardy: Receptive Ecumenism: Learning by Engagement 31: Jeffrey Gros, F.S.C.: Learning the Ways of Receptive Ecumenism: Formational and Catechetical Considerations 32: Peter Philips: Receiving the Experience of Eucharistic Celebration Bibliography Name Index Subject Index

Review :
`Review from previous edition All the churches have have a cause to be grateful for the imaginative way Dr Murray and his colleagues are promoting both ecumenism and the study of Catholic theology.' Paul Richardson, Church of England Newspaper `...it is heartening to see this sophisticated venture to revitalise ecumenical exchange explicity adopting interfaith strategies, guided by an intellectual humility inclining each to learn from the other. This tactic allows us to see how "ecumenism" can hardly be limited to inter-Christian exchange...This fivefold ordering offers clear direction in matters ecumenical to the superb participants. A properly eschatological intent is fleshed out in one essay after another by invoking the "pilgrim church" archetype: learning from others on the way to a goal all share, but which none can confidently articulate, as it eludes human construction.' David Burrell, The Tablet `there are many gems. The book, and the movement it articulates, is like the tiny tips of spring buds on a raw day before spring has begun.' Christopher Hill, Church Times