Det fins ulike typer økumenisk dialog og kvaliteten på dialogen vil forandres ved en beslutning (om å ordinere kvinner til biskoper). Økumenisk dialog i ordets rette forstand har som mål å gjenopprette fullt kirkelig fellesskap, og dette har vært forutsetningen for vår (anglikanske-katolske) dialog så langt. Den forutsetningen vil realistisk sett ikke eksistere lenger hvis dere begynner å ordinere kvinner til biskoper.
Sist mandag 5/6, snakket Kardinal Kasper, leder av Vatikanets enhetskommisjon, til de anglikanske biskopene i England, i forbindelse med denne kirkens mulige åpning av bispeembedet for kvinner. Han sa da de nokså dramatiske ordene som jeg har oversatt til norsk over. Videre sa han også:
What follows from these conclusions and questions? What follows for the future of our ecumenical dialogue? One thing is certain: the Catholic Church will not break off the dialogue even in the case of such a decision. It will above all not break off the personal relationships and friendships which have developed over the past years and decades. But there is a difference between types of dialogue. The quality of the dialogue would be altered by such a decision. Ecumenical dialogue in the true sense of the word has as its goal the restoration of full church communion. That has been the presupposition of our dialogue until now. That presupposition would realistically no longer exist following the introduction of the ordination of women to episcopal office.
Following that action we could still come together for the sake of information and consultation; we could continue to discuss and attempt to clarify theological issues, to cooperate in many practical spheres and to give shared witness. Above all we could unite in joint prayer and pray for one another. All of that is, God knows, not negligible. But the loss of the common goal would necessarily have an effect on such encounters and rob them of most of their élan and their internal dynamic. Above all – and this is the most painful aspect – the shared partaking of the one Lord’s table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance. Instead of moving towards one another we would co-exist alongside one another.
For many that may seem a more realistic path than what we have attempted previously, but whether it is in accordance with the binding last will and testament of Jesus, ‘that all may be one’ (Jn, 17,21) is of course another question. The answer would have to be in the negative. I ask you: Is that what we want? Are we permitted to do that? Should we not ponder what Cyprian tells us, namely that the seamless robe of Jesus Christ cannot be possessed by those who tear apart and divide the church of Christ (De catholicae ecclesiae unitate, 1,6)?