INTRODUCTION 3 . INTRODUCTION es, the springtime of ecumenism has flowered on the hill of Taizé,”1 said Cardinal Walter Kasper at the funeral of Roger Schutz-Marsauche in 2005. Brother Roger was the founder and first prior of the ecumenical community in the small village of Taizé in Burgundy, France. The community had been a sign of ecumenical hope for sixty-five years that day. Remarkably, however, Cardinal Kasper – the Roman Catholic Church’s most senior ecumenical officer at the time – uttered these words in a period commonly referred to as the ecumenical winter, in which the movement encountered a crisis preventing it from establishing the goal of full, visible ecclesiastical unity. The cardinal analyses: To some degree the crisis of the ecumenical movement is paradoxically the result of its success. Ecumenism for many became obvious. But the closer we come to one another, the more painful is the perception that we are not yet in full communion. We are hurt by what still separates us and hinders us from joining around the table of the Lord.2 This pain, experienced by many, sparks the question of Eucharistic hospitality: would it be possible to share the Eucharist already in this stage of the ecumenical process? In their 1983 proposal for an imminent reunion of the (German) churches, Heinrich Fries and Karl Rahner adequately captured the paradox of the 1 Walter Kasper, “Cardinal Kasper’s Address at Brother Roger’s Funeral,” 2005, https://zenit.org/articles/cardinal-kasper-s-address-at-brother-roger-s-funeral/. 2 Walter Kasper, “Present Situation and Future of the Ecumenical Movement,” 2001, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_ chrstuni_doc_20011117_kasper-prolusio_en.html. “Y
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