Bridgefolk
Statement of
Mission, Goals & Commitments
(DRAFT
PROPOSAL. Please send comments to steering@bridgefolk.net.)
Bridgefolk is a movement of
sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come
together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and
honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church. Together we
seek better ways to embody a commitment to both traditions. We seek to make
Anabaptist-Mennonite practices of discipleship, peaceableness, and lay
participation more accessible to Roman Catholics, and to bring the spiritual,
liturgical, and sacramental practices of the Catholic tradition to Anabaptists.
Toward these ends...
I.
We wish to be a blessing to Mennonites
and Roman Catholics,
We are painfully aware of past conflicts
and misunderstandings between our traditions. Thus, as we promote the witness of Mennonite discipleship and
lay participation, we seek to make fresh resources available to the Catholic
magisterium, not to undercut its authority.
Likewise, as we promote the resources of Catholic sacramental and
contemplative traditions, we seek to rediscover not devalue
Anabaptist-Mennonite practices of prayer, devotion and hymnody.
Specifically, we commit ourselves:
• to respect the authority of official bodies
in both traditions, being open about our intentions and vulnerable to counsel.
• to support fully the international
dialogue between the Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Commission
for Promoting Church Unity.
• to challenge our respective churches and
their official dialogue only in the spirit of Hebrews 10:24, which urges
believers to provoke one another to love and good works, thus evoking the best
of both traditions.
II.
We promise one another an exchange of
gifts.
Longing for the day when we can more
fully share the sacraments, we rejoice in the gifts we already may freely
share. Bridgefolk was born in the
sharing of stories and song. These in
turn witness to God's grace at work through rich practices of peacemaking,
devotion, discipleship, contemplation, and the doing of justice even to the
point of martyrdom. Everything else we
may do draws upon this source.
Specifically, we commit ourselves:
• to host a series of annual conferences in
cooperation with St. John's Abbey with the central goal of sharing our stories,
practices, and the gifts of our traditions.
• to publish a regular newsletter in order
to continue such sharing between conferences.
• to offer resources to any regional Bridgefolk
chapters as may form in the future, in order to facilitate their own
storytelling and formation.
III. We offer a home-away-from-home to Mennonites and Catholics whose spiritual journeys sometimes lead to the puzzlement and suspicion of their families or primary Christian communities.
The leadership of Bridgefolk
believes that the time may come when it will be possible to take the witness
and charism of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition into the Roman Catholic
Church without that witness being subsumed.
For the moment, however, there are only imperfect ways to be both
Mennonite and Roman Catholic. Many
Bridgefolk already find themselves at home in both traditions, yet for that
very reason, not entirely at home in either.
We sense a responsibility to provide whatever pastoral support and
mutual encouragement we can to "pilgrims" such as these.
Specifically, we commit ourselves:
• to make all of our conferences places
where lay people as well as scholars and clergy, women as well as men, and persons
at various points on the Mennonite-Catholic "bridge" are all welcomed
to participate and share their stories.
• to build fraternal relationships with
"ecclesial movements" such as Sant'Egidio and Focolare, which may
offer a model that allows Bridgefolk members to be both Mennonite and Catholic.
Although
we are a movement of Mennonites and Roman Catholics, we trust that the
particular ways by which we dialogue, exchange gifts, and work toward fuller
unity from the grassroots will contribute to the wider ecumenical movement and
to Christ's Church. Any mutual
enrichment between the Radical Reformation and Roman Catholic traditions, after
all, offers hope for integrating dimensions of Christian life that too often
become split:
· the sacramental
life and the life of discipleship
· the evangelical
or pentecostal impulse and the institutional impulse
· the active and
the contemplative
· the episcopal
principle and the principle of lay participation
Specifically,
we commit ourselves:
• to publish
resources that have been produced in and for our meetings, thus making them
available to a wider public.
• to explore
additional projects that further the Bridgefolk mission.
• to support and encourage
related projects by Bridgefolk participants, whether or not organized through
Bridgefolk.
3 June 2003