104 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT Brother Roger visited him in March 1970. Brother Roger recalled: “Until my last hour, I shall see him again at the moment of our departure. He raised his hands as if he were presenting the Eucharistic cup and once again repeated: ‘The cup and the breaking of bread, there is no other solution; remember.’”253 According to Brother Roger, the community enjoyed the approval of the bishop of Rome, Pope Paul VI, from the outset. Sabine Laplane cites a letter by Brother Roger, in which he describes his visit to the pope in December 1972. Referring to occasions inwhich non-Catholics receive Communion at a Catholic Mass, Brother Roger quotes the pope as having said: “It is Christ who calls them.”254 The community took this as the pope’s encouragement to continue on the path towards a practice of Eucharistic hospitality in Taizé. Several theological and ecclesial developments accompanied the road towards Eucharistic sharing. In 1970, Brother Roger articulated his view on the role and significance of the papacy for all of Christianity, which Sabine Laplane relates directly to his wish for Eucharistic hospitality. 255 Brother Roger translated his personal experience of reconciliation with other Christians without breaking with his roots into a proposal for formal belonging to several ecclesial bodies at once in a 1972 article in Le Monde. He suggested: “Even with the eye on a more universal communion we cannot break with our original communion. To deny is not the dynamic of modern man. For the hinge generation, will we be able, then, to puzzle out a possibility for double membership?”256 Later that year, the ecumenical theological think tank Groupe des Dombes had its report on the Eucharist published in Taizé, in which Catholic and Protestant theologians (Brother of Taizé Max Thurian among the latter) presented a common Eucharistic faith, providing a doctrinal and pastoral 253 English translation by Marguerite Léna, “Living the Unhoped-for: Hope in Action,” in Brother Roger’s Contribution to Theological Thought: Acts of the International Colloquium, Taizé, August 31 - September 5, 2015. (Taizé: Les Presses de Taizé, 2016), 149. Original French as cited by Sabine Laplane: “La coupe et la fraction du pain, il n’y a pas d’autre solution ; rappelezvous,” Laplane, Frère Roger de Taizé, 349. 254 Laplane, Frère Roger de Taizé, 377. Original text in French: “C’est le Christ qui les appelle” (translation: FW). 255 Laplane, 358–60. 256 Frère Roger, “L’Église, un feu qui nous brûle,” Le Monde, January 20, 1972, https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1972/01/20/temoignage-l-eglise-un-feu-qui-nousbrule_3033528_1819218.html, cited in Laplane, Frère Roger de Taizé, 368. Original text in French: “même en vue d'une communion plus universelle, nous ne pouvons pas rompre avec notre communion d'origine. Renier n'est pas dans la dynamique de l'homme moderne. Pour la génération, trouverons-nous alors la possibilité d'une double appartenance ?” (translation: FW).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw