Another Olive Branch in the Eye

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 25, 2003

A Catholic priest received communion at a Protestant service during the phony Berlin Kirchentag last month, was disciplined by his bishop, was taken up as a martyr by the press, and has been supported by the Catholic Left.

Wir sind Kirche (We are Church), one of the groups who organised the ecumenical service, called for his reinstatement. "Imposing ecclesiastical punishment for accepting eucharistic hospitality in a Protestant service . . . is a heavy affront to the ecumenical movement and the Protestant Church," it said.

All (with the exception of the bishop's decisive action) entirely predictable.

Divisions among Christians are a scandal and Christian unity is imperative. All the more exasperating that ecumenism has effectively become the property of a partisan clique of half-believers. Does anyone seriously doubt that the satisfaction ecumenists get from such agit-prop stunts (about which the media are informed ahead of time) derives from the pain they cause the orthodox faithful and has little to do with reconciliation? Though they speak the language of healing, it's the new wounds that seem to delight them.