Assessing the State of Christian Unity

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Each year the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25) provides an occasion to review the current ecumenical situation. Are we closer to, or further removed from, Vatican II's hopes for the restoration of unity within the Body of Christ?

There are ecumenists on both sides of the Reformation divide who have had the impression for a long while that the movement is in a state of drift. Little new progress has been made since the extraordinary conciliar and immediately postconciliar years.

There have also been instances of retrenchment, particularly in the recentralization of authority in the papacy and in the cool reception accorded by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the Anglican-Roman …