Editor EMILIO CASTRO

Guest Editor JOSB MfGUEZ BONINO

Managing Editors JEAN STROMBERG THOMAS F. BEST MARLIN VANELDEREN

Book Editor THOMAS F. BEST

Editorial Assistant JOAN CAMBITSIS

The quarterly of the World Council of Churches

Editorial

This issue is devoted to the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the first modem encyclical on Christian social thought, issued by Pope Leo XI11 in 1891. This encyclical, a landmark in Roman Catholic social thought, has had an influence far beyond the inner circles of the Roman Catholic Church. The continuation of the concern for social matters by different popes and the Second Vatican Council has provided food for thought and lines of inspiration for Christian commitment in the face of social issues. Charity, love, Christian responsibility for one's neighbour, has always been an essential component of the life of the church. The new element in Rerum Novarum is its treatment of the problem posed by industrialization and modernization and with the growing gap, possibly confrontation, between the world of capital and the world of labour. Through the encyclical, the church exposed itself to the public discussion of fundamental issues of economic and power relations among the different sectors and actors in society.

The manifestation of love hnd charity in contemporary society calls for structural considerations. While human good will and individual commitment to God and neighbour will always be essential and necessary, they need to find expression in structural relations that assure a basic frame of reference for all individual efforts. The social encyclicals, the Second Vatican Council and, in the non-Catholic world, the manifestations of the organized ecumenical movement before and after the founding of the World Council of Churches have confronted those realities in the search for a word of wisdom for the concrete engagement of Christians.

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THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW

Given the importance of Christian social ethics, it is paradoxical that it is precisely in this field that the major difficulties in direct collaboration between the holy see and the World Council of Churches have occurred. It is not that there have not been important attempts. The creation of SODEPAX as a joint venture of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches was a response to the expectations of the growing ecumenical awareness of the 1960s and early 1970s. SODEPAX was a victim of its own success. It soon became a centre for dynamic social thought, and many similar groups were coming to life in different countries of the world. The question of the authority of SODEPAX and its relation to the constitutive bodies, the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, was raised in an acute manner until its official termination in 1980. SODEPAX was replaced by the formation of ajoint consultative group on social matters which met and compared notes regularly during subsequent years. However, that group felt frustrated at not being able to articulate their common thought in a way that enabled the two partners to assume common responsibility for a common social and ethical stand. There was on the one side the expectation of a common study process, and on the other the expectation of a common action process.

This difficulty has several facets. For the Orthodox member churches of the WCC in particular, as the article by Gennadios Limouris indicates very clearly, their pastoral emphasis in ethical issues and eucharistic approach to historical realities entail a certain reluctance to pass general judgments on historical situations. Perhaps there is also a basic difference stemming from ecumenical history. While the Life and Work movement - and later Church and Society within the WCC - could articulate a church-related social ethics, this was not binding on the churches. By contrast, pronouncements from the holy see obviously carry with them an enormous degree of authority for the Roman Catholic churches all over the world.

Another complicating factor is the double identity of the holy see as a state, able to approach governments and international organizations directly, and a church, called to appeal to the consciences of its members. This double reality imposes a style of operation and restrains open cooperation with bodies which are not submitted to those limitations or which do not have access to those possibilities. Moreover, there is the wider and more fundamental problem of who speaks for the church.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, it is evident, as several articles in this issue indicate, that there is a common agenda and there are many common stands. Let me illustrate this situation. For several reasons, it was impossible for the WCC and the holy see to issue a joint statement concerning the Gulf crisis. Yet there was an almost total coincidence of the positions taken by the holy see and the WCC in rejecting war and demanding justice for the Kuwaiti people. Common action in social ethics was not possible, but the Holy Spirit was at work, producing a similar stand in the face of a particular historical situation. Similar things could be said in relation to the uplifting of the poor, the challenge to the idolatry of state, party or market, the condemnation of racism and sexism, and the raising to the consideration of global public opinion of the moral and ethical dimensions of such issues as the international foreign debt.

It is evident that interaction at the grassroots level and the growing cooperation between theologians of different confessional origins are creating a common climate inside all our churches from which those who are responsible for articulating and

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EDITORIAL

expressing a social ethic are receiving inspiration, challenge and correction. It is important, therefore, that the debate on social ethics be extended to all levels of the life of the church, but it is also important for the credibility of the gospel that we should be able to articulate visibly at the world level common stands that will speak clearly of a Christian testimony to the world. John Pobee’s article indicates the absolute need for this common stand, while Jost Miguez Bonino, recognizing the difficulties, indicates some of the areas where it should be possible to attempt this common and public reflection on basic social issues.

We would like to invite our readers to a serious study of Cenfesimus Annus, the encyclical with which Pope John Paul I1 celebrates with gratitude Rerum Novurum. It is a very timely document, written under the impact of the events of 1989. Writing this editorial during a week when momentous events are taking place in the Soviet Union and in Yugoslavia, I see that the particular reference point of Cenfesimus Annus has not lost any of its validity. Next year, the attention of the world, and especially of the Americas, will concentrate on the five hundred years of colonization and evangeliza- tion of Latin America. This will oblige us to go more deeply in our social ethical thought to assume our historical responsibilities and to re-centre the debate on the search for justice for all those victims of centuries of colonization and economic marginalization. The ongoing search for justice, peace and the integrity of creation should provide avenues for more intentional cooperation and for a common witness to the liberating and redeeming gospel of Jesus Christ.

EMILIO CASTRO

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