Press Release:
How Are We “Called Together?”
A Mennonite/Catholic Theological Colloquium
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA
July 20-21, 2005

By Marilyn Stahl

Harrisonburg VA, August 4, 2005 (BRIDGEFOLK) — Roman Catholics and Mennonites gathered at Eastern Mennonite University on July 20-21 to reflect on “Called Together to Be Peacemakers,” the report of the first international dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Mennonite World Conference.  Approximately 30 theologians, historians and ecumenists attended.

Released in 2004, the report includes a common narrative of significant events in church history, focusing on the 4^th and 16^th centuries.  It explores areas of theological convergence and divergence between the two traditions on topics such as the nature of the church, sacraments and peacemaking.  It closes with mutual confessions of repentance for past violence and recrimination, as a path to the healing of memories.

The gathering was the first in-person program of the Mennonite/Catholic Theological Colloquium (MCTC) and was held immediately before the annual Bridgefolk conference.  Bridgefolk is a movement for grassroots dialogue and unity between Mennonites and Roman Catholics.  The MCTC convened to respond to the international dialogue’s report, with the theme “How Are We ‘Called Together’?”

The colloquium opened on Wednesday evening with an address by John A. Lapp, Executive Secretary Emeritus of Mennonite Central Committee, entitled, “Ecumenical Dialogue as a Ministry of Reconciliation.”   He noted many signposts of reconciliation between Mennonites and Catholics around the world and stressed that reconciliation is integral to the ministry of the church.

In response, Abbot John Klassen of St. John’s Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., reiterated that ecumenism is never an “add-on,” but is at the very heart of the gospel.   As expressed by Jesus in the Johannine tradition:  “I have come so that you might be one.”  Abbot John also addressed the relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation and the importance of hospitality.

The next day, a Mennonite panel and a Catholic panel responded to the report.  The Mennonite respondents were Earl Zimmerman and Nancy Heisey, both of Eastern Mennonite University’s Bible and Religion Department.  Heisey is president of Mennonite World Conference.  The Catholic respondents were Margaret R. Pfeil of the University of Notre Dame and co-founder of a Catholic Worker House in South Bend, and Drew Christensen, S.J., editor in chief of America.  Christensen was a participant in the five-year dialogue and contributed to drafting the report.

In his remarks, Zimmerman contended that re-reading history together is one of the really significant developments in the report.  He expressed a desire for a study from a Catholic perspective on the life of the 16^th century martyr Michael Sattler, a former Benedictine monk who wrote the Schleitheim Confession, a foundational Anabaptist text.

Zimmerman also noted that, in America, both Mennonites and Roman Catholics have been shaped by our experiences as immigrant churches and religious minorities in a predominately Protestant society, and noted the differing acculturation responses of the two traditions.  He encouraged participants to continue the on-going dialogue between our traditions, noting that there is “no great disappointment where there is no great love.”

The second Mennonite respondent, Nancy Heisey, noted that more than half of the world’s Mennonites live in the global South and framed her remarks on the basis of what she hears from Mennonites in that region.  While acknowledging the enthusiasm for dialogue with Catholics among Mennonites in North America and parts of Europe, Heisey noted a more hesitant response among Mennonite communities in Latin America and parts of Africa and Asia, due in part to different historical situations.       She affirmed the importance of communicating the significance of the international dialogue to Mennonite communities in the global South.  She juxtaposed the Mennonite concept of a global koinonia among congregations in the Mennonite World Conference with the term “catholicity.”  She also noted that her predecessor as president of MWC, Mesach Krisetya, participated without reservation in the pope’s Day of Prayer for Peace at Assisi because, Heisey said, he understood that we need each other.

The Catholic respondents brought additional perspectives.  As a Catholic, Margaret Pfeil asserted that the report didn’t go far enough in calling Catholics to deep mourning and real repentance for the persecution of Anabaptists in the 16^th century.  Remembering the martyrs, and recognizing that Christianity is an incarnational, flesh-and-blood religion, she posed the question of what might be worthy of our blood as a sign of our baptismal commitment today.  She suggested that local churches need to cultivate the spiritual weapons for discipleship, and introduced the concept of “liturgical asceticism.”  She stated that, springing from the waters of baptism and the eucharist, liturgical asceticism is “the discipline required to become an icon of Christ and make his image visible in our faces.”  She asked how our worshipping practices shape our Christian response to the social dimension of sin, challenging both communities to act in greater solidarity with the poor and to name and dismantle unjust structures of power.

Drew Christiansen, a participant in the international dialogue, noted that Mennonites and Catholics share a commitment to live out the call to holiness of life in the postmodern world.  Both traditions must discern good and evil in secular developments, or, in the language of Vatican II, “read the signs of the times by light of the gospel.”  This call is not limited to nonviolence, but includes love of the poor,  and requires personal and communal discernment.  Secondly, in a challenge to Mennonites, he posed a question about church and culture.  Does God speak to the Church through the world? This question was framed by Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, which “expressed gratitude for what the Church had been taught even by those who had persecuted her.”

Following the presentations, the participants meet in affinity groups around the themes of history, ecclesiology, sacraments and theology, peacemaking, and healing of memories to consider next steps in the dialogue.   Among the many suggestions for additional study were (1) exploring connections between spirituality, peace and asceticism; (2) exploring together what prevents Roman Catholics and Mennonites from sharing the bread and wine; (3) exploring the question of how institutions repent; and (4) promoting and developing ways of both deeply understanding of others’ perspectives and respectfully challenging the unstated assumptions or prejudices in the others’ perspectives.

Pandora Press recently published a condensed version of Called Together to Be Peacemakers, with study questions, to help make the scholarly study more accessible to local parishes and congregations.  The Bridgefolk Series, published by Pandora Press, was established to share resources, papers, conference talks and other conversations that are contributing to the exchange of gifts between Mennonites and Roman Catholics.  Other topics in this series include On Baptism, ed. Gerald W. Schlabach, 2004; and Just Policing, ed. Ivan J. Kauffman, 2004. Books may be ordered from www.pandorapress.com or on the Bridgefolk website at www.bridgefolk.net.