NEWS BRIEFS Mar-17-2005 By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Ecumenism undergoing 'radical change' in 21st century, cardinal says
NEW YORK (CNS) -- The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity told a New York audience March 16 that ecumenism was the will of Jesus and central to the task of the church, but could not simply continue in the path it took in the past century. Speaking of a "chaotic situation" brought by a "new fragmentation," Cardinal Walter Kasper said the ecumenical movement was currently "undergoing a most radical change." "The enthusiasm of the '60s and '70s has dissipated by now," he said. "We must prepare ourselves for a much longer journey." For this journey, he proposed an "ecumenical consensus process" that listened to all who had heard the word of God over the past centuries and "to all our contemporaries who hear God's word together with us." Cardinal Kasper made his comments in a lecture at Fordham University after Jesuit Father Joseph M. McShane, president, gave him the university's honorary doctorate of humane letters.