210 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT by somebody telling me, no, or the other way around, someone, my pastor saying, no, to some Catholics come… so… I [haven’t had] the, I was lucky to live this… situation in a very open… condition… FW: So, why would you call that lucky? BE: Uh, because the goal {laughs}, because the goal of this dimension of unity, of the goal of ecumenism, was, was… being shared with those who [were] together. So, we [-], had these experiences together, so it’s lucky in the sense that… uh, yes, it’s, this confessional divisions at a certain point are secondary, so, if you consider your Christian identity as the primary identity and the confessional way, uh, the confessional identity the way how this primary identity is expressed, uh… these limits between, or, between Catholics and Protestants and so on, are just… should be overcome by some wider… understanding of what is Christ, and Christ is wider than… and he’s even wider than only protestants and Catholics, of course there are also Eastern churches and so on, but he probably also looks for communion between Christians and non-Christians. But perhaps now we’re going to far, but um… uh… so, our small limits inside of the Christian churches are a bit ridiculous if we consider all the, yes, the goal of reuni~ {struggles with the word}, uniting all human beings… in one family, so to say… so, in this sense lucky, to having been able to experience this sharing uh, among Christians, which belong to different churches, uh, whose differences are at a certain point… very secondary… ….475 In BE’s story, differentiating between a Christian identity and denominational identity, and prioritizing the former over the latter, has radical consequences. In his view, denominational differences should not intervene with a common identity in Christ. BE feels “lucky” to have encountered such a reality in Taizé and his youth group. In addition, he feels that restrictions within Christianity contradict the intention of Christ to reconcile all humanity: interestingly, BE refers to interreligious dialogue and mission. Clearly, he does not promote extending Eucharistic hospitality towards non-Christians in this quote, but he does refer to the Eucharist’s inherent intention to reconcile all humanity. In section 7.3, we will review another episode in BE’s interview in which he elaborates on one particular event of Eucharistic sharing in an ecumenical context. 475 BE-1,82-84.
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