Attempting to envisage what might constitute the content of a course of lectures on ecumenical theology in a Catholic institution, a graduate student in a non-theological discipline at a secular university recently suggested to me that such a series would perhaps consist of eight discrete hour-long discourses on ‘how to be nice’ to members of various non-Catholic churches and ecclesial communions in turn. No turning back is not, in that sense, a ‘nice’ book, though it does contain a good deal of niceness in an older and richer acceptation of the word, being marked by a stimulating subtlety and precision of thought. It is also a notably gracious and irenic text which would provide an ideal initiation into the ethos as well as the issues of contemporary ecumenical dialogue.
It is all but inevitable that the constituent parts of a collection of essays will be of varying weight, perhaps especially in a work such as this, drawn together by friends and colleagues as a posthumous tribute to its author, and those responsible for seeing this representative and retrospective sample of Professor Margaret O'Gara's work through the press are clearly aware of its attendant imperfections and idiosyncrasies. The author of the foreword explicitly draws attention to the occasional nature of much of the material – a feature, he notes, especially characteristic of ecumenical theology whose typical milieu is the dialogue meeting rather than the study. The editor, meanwhile, acknowledges the rather frequently repetitious quality of the writing, not only in terms of anecdotal illustration – one example, happily enough, being the reiterated presentation of the same gift between a married couple which O'Gara invokes on several occasions as an image of receptive ecumenism – but also as regards thematic content and even phraseology.
All of this makes the text a somewhat uneven, at times even a frustrating, read, but this should not be allowed to distract from its seriousness. Relatedly, the editor has taken the decision to divide the contributions into two main categories, with a number of shorter and more accessible articles gathered together under the rubric of ‘introducing the ecumenical perspective’, followed by a series of rather more lengthy essays addressed to ‘specialists’ in ecumenism and ecclesiology. It would be unfortunate if this were allowed to mask the methodological profundity implicit in the first section of the book. It would also be a pity if the material in the second part were read only by professional ecumenists.
Amongst the most striking and distinctive emphases in the introductory articles is a stress on friendship as the necessary environment for fruitful ecumenical theological conversation. It is a fascinating observation well-made, and one, as O'Gara implies, with significance for theological method extending far beyond the explicitly ecumenical. Doubtless the constraint – or, as one imagines O'Gara herself might say, the liberation – involved in working on bilateral commissions with the consequent necessity for framing agreed statements, does provide particularly fertile soil in which the virtues of friendship may grow, in which collaboration is exalted over competition, for instance, and in which a particular kind of painstaking intellectual courtesy might be expected most naturally to flourish. But, if so, ecumenical theology has perhaps thus developed a gift to be shared with the wider theological community. As O'Gara suggests, the intrinsically communitarian thrust of ecumenical theology is currently ‘counter-cultural’ within the academy, but it may yet prove to be of exemplary significance.
O'Gara is aware, however, that such theological companionship is not cheaply won, and writes movingly of the ascetic dimension of the ecumenist's vocation. Again, though some of the specific elements of this askesis are located primarily in the ecumenical context itself – the hard discipline of refraining from intercommunion at dialogue meetings being an obvious case in point – others, such as the necessity of engaging rigorously yet sympathetically with positions that are not one's own, are of more general application. The particular article which deals with all this, on the theological significance of friendship within the ecumenical movement, would, I suggest, be a valuable addition to any preliminary reading list for those beginning theological study, whether or not the course in question included an explicitly ecumenical component.
There are many other fine and suggestive things in the first part of the book; notably the idea of exploiting St John of the Cross's concept of the purification of memory as an aid to dismantling false images of both self and other in ecumenical dialogue. Throughout, the ecumenical perspective that O'Gara here introduces is at once intellectually credible and ecclesially committed.
The more substantial contributions in the section devoted to deepening the ecumenical perspective’ continue to manifest this double allegiance to church and academy, and with a degree of sophistication not invariably found in ecumenical theology. O'Gara is refreshingly prepared to root her treatment of the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the magisterium, for instance in a robust typological exposition of a series of fundamental theological and philosophical options. Although this is in one sense little more than a ground clearing exercise, it is a necessary, though often neglected one, if proponents of varying positions are not to argue past each other but truly to engage in dialogue: a point which, for the Catholic ecclesiologist, incidentally, has significance ad intra as well as ad extra
Essays on scripture and tradition, Anglican Orders and the Vatican I primacy debate all exhibit sensitivity to historical context and to theological complexity. Even where one might want to take issue with O'Gara's conclusions – it is by no means self-evident, for instance, that the centre of ecclesiological gravity is precisely where she places it in her treatment of the Vatican II subsistit controversy – the voice that emerges from this collection is a consistently attractive and compelling one.
