Ecumenism

(…) It means that the Christian view reverberates with a momentum that makes you able to exalt all the good that is present in all that you meet, a momentum that makes you acknowledge your participation in that plan that will be perfectly realized in eternity and has been revealed in Christ.
Ecumenism starts from the Event of Christ, which is the Event of truth in all that is, of all time and space, of history. It is truth happening in the world–the Word has become flesh, the truth has become a human presence in history and remains in the present. This Presence invades–tends to invade–all of reality. When you are clearly conscious of the supreme truth that is the face of Christ, then you see something good in all you meet. Ecumenism is therefore not a generic tolerance that can leave the other person yet a stranger, but a love for the truth that is present in anyone, even if only a fragment of it. Every time a Christian meets a new reality he faces it positively, because it carries some echo of Christ, some echo of the truth.
Nothing is excluded from this positive embrace. This universality is the result of missionary experience implied in the choice that God makes of the baptized and in the destiny for which he is chosen. The task of the baptized is the universal mission that God communicates to him as a sharing in the great mission of Christ. So the more he is committed to this mission the more he is also committed to discover the good that persists in all things, the fragment or the reflection of truth. Since I am part of the reality of Christ, I look at the mountains, the morning and the evening, all reality, looking first of all for the ultimate root in everything I see. And the conviction that the truth is in me and with me makes me extremely positive about everything. Not equivocal, but positive. If there is the tiniest bit of truth in something I affirm it. In this way a “critical” approach to reality is born, according to what St Paul says, “pànta dokimàzete, tò kalòn katéchete,” (1 Thes 5:21) “sift everything and keep what is of value,” what is beautiful, what is true, what corresponds to the original criterion of your heart.
The Christ Event is the true source of the critical attitude, since it does not mean finding the limitations of things, but discovering their value. Along these lines, an episode in an apocryphal writing speaks of Jesus walking through the fields and seeing the rotting carcass of a dead dog. St Peter, who was in front, says, “Master step around it,” but Jesus went ahead and stopped before the carcass and said, “What beautiful white teeth!,” see The Unwritten Gospel … and Agrapha of Jesus, R. Dunkerley, ed. (London: Allen and Unwin Ltd 1925), p. 84. It was the only good thing in that rotten carcass. Limitations are notable and strike us all very easily, whereas the true value of things is discovered only by those who have the perception of being and of goodness, those who are able to bring out being and make it loved, without obliterating, cutting off, or denying, because to be critical is not to be hostile to things, but to love them.
(…) So there is one single source of a positive view of everything. On the other hand whoever is attached to a partial identification, to his own truth, cannot avoid looking at everything while defending his own position, unless he is totally skeptical or nihilist. Often the leaders of peoples, those with various claims to responsibility, if they are filled with common sense, favour a certain “ecumenism,” because they are terrified of war and violence, which are inevitable consequences when someone asserts only himself. So it seems that joining together, trying to respect each others’ identity might represent the realisation of eirene. But this is not peace, it is ambiguity. For at best this ends up as tolerance, in other words radical indifference. Thus the term “ecumenism” as it is proclaimed these days, seems to be the best expression of the good will of those who are in good faith, and are leaders of people, whether they are religious or political leaders. This “ecumenism” understood as a confraternity of the various philanthropic enterprises for building the world, turns out to be the chief enemy of the Christian identity. For at best it is an attempt at tolerance where each one is looking for his own interests and takes from the others what he finds useful. But if each one is only looking for his own particular interests, in the end they will all see each other as potential enemies to be defended against. For in the face of what interests us most, we cease to be tolerant.
Instead Catholic ecumenism is open to everyone and everything, down to the smallest nuances, ready to exalt what has a distant affinity with the truth with all possible generosity. If someone has discovered the real truth, Christ, he proceeds confidently in every kind of encounter, sure of finding a piece of himself in everyone.
True ecumenism keeps on discovering new things, so that there is never a total repetition: one is drawn on by an all-encompassing wonder before beauty. From beauty, time and time again are born images of unsuspected possibilities for repairing the ruined houses and building new ones (see Isa 58:12). This openness has us find ourselves at home with anyone who preserves a scrap of truth, and feel at ease everywhere. It is the concept of catholicity not understood geographically (as it has been since 1500), but ontologically defined by truth.
The Imitation of Christ says, “Ex uno Verbo omnia et unum loquuntur omnia, et hoc est Principium quod et loquitur nobis” (“From one single Word everything, and one single Word cries out everything. And this Word is the Principle that speaks in us”, see The Imitation of Christ, Book I, 3, 8). It’s impossible to find another culture that defines everything with such a unitary and powerful embrace, that leaves nothing out. Jacopone da Todi in the eleventh century said that everything happens so that we all go together into the “regno celesto che compie omne festo / che’l cor ha bramato” (“the heavenly kingdom that perfects every feast / that the heart has longed for”), Jacopone da Todi, “Cantico de la natività de Iesù Cristo,” Lauda LXIV, in Le Laude (Florence: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina 1989), 218. And again, in the finest verse of Italian literature, “Amor, amore, omne cosa conclama” (“Love, love, all things cry out”), Jacopone da Todi, “Como l’anima se lamenta con Dio de la carità superardente in lei infusa,” Lauda XC, in Le Laude, 318. The word love is to be understood in its ultimate sense, as synonymous with Christ, with God who has bent down over us and embraced us. All things together cry out the truth. All things–the flowers of the field, the leaves on the trees, all the pine needles on earth (who knows how God can count them all!?).