The Vatican and Reunion
The new instruction issued from the Vatican on the relations between Roman Catholics and non-Catholics reveals in certain respects a welcome relaxation of attitude, hedged about though it is with reservations and provisos. It opens the door to discussions on reunion, while laying it down that Catholics can admit of no compromise in the matter of the Pope's primacy of jurisdiction, and insisting that the only real union is that effected "by a return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ." There is a clear consciousness of the need for closing the ranks as far as possible in defence of "the fundamental principles of natural law and the Christian religion against the enemies leagued together against God" and it is a real advance to have it laid down that, at meetings in which Catholics and Protestants participate, the opening
and closing of the meetings with a common recitation of the Lord's
Prayer, or some other prayer approved by the Catholic Church, is not distountenanced. This is movement, and in the right direction.
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