Shared Guilt

Is Protestantism alone to blame for the split between the two branches of Christendom? In the current issue of the Catholic liturgical monthly, Orate Fratres, the Rev. Joseph Lortz, professor of church history at Germany's Muenster University in Westphalia, declares that Roman Catholicism must share the guilt.

Long before Luther, writes Father Lortz, "there existed in the Catholic Church herself much that foreshadowed the Reformation . . . In other words, the so-called 'causes' of the Reformation had their origin within the limits of the Catholic Church . . . That means the Reformation had important Catholic roots."

For a European of 1500, the sickness of the church might have been hard to perceive. Father Lortz points out that the church then seemed to be at the pinnacle of its strength. But, he writes, while "the facades were still standing," there was no longer "always life in the structures . . . Religious impotence was most unmistakable in the case of the higher clergy . . . Nor may we forget what a devastating effect such weaknesses . . . necessarily exert on the life of the whole community . . .

"Whatever the guilt that rests upon the Reformers and on those who followed in their wake, it offers no excuse for our minimizing or failing openly to admit our own Catholic guilt. We are basically co-responsible for the divided Christendom of the past four centuries."

Father Lortz feels that Protestants and Catholics must also share responsibility for a formidable task before them. "We must recognize that our Lord knows of only one church. He wills that there be but one sheepfold and one shepherd. In one of the most solemn moments of His life He prays with moving intensity that we may all be one . . . It is high time that we, who through four centuries have so lightly taken the presence of this division for granted, pay sincere heed to the warning which these His words contain for us. And there is a further task. The striving for the unity of Christendom must burn into our consciousness as a chief goal of our hearts and of our ceaseless prayer.

"In this striving, charity must come first! The love of a common Lord must expand into a strong love for the brethren of other Christian bodies. We are responsible one for another."

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