CHAPTER 7: LIVING IN COMMUNION 215 personal journey, guided by the Holy Spirit, is a discreet indication by the Holy Spirit for the future ecumenical path.”482 This section shows how one particular aspect of Brother Roger’s path has radiated upon the interviewees. Brother TC speaks about the period when Brother Roger received Communion for the first time from the hands of the bishop of Autun. In that period, Brother Roger’s path was still so new and original that he struggled to articulate it, and even more to be understood properly: He saw no problem to give Communion, and uh... ... for him it was the way of uh.... he didn't find the words for it right away I think, but he... he spoke in the seventies with something that Rome did not accept, the whole way of speaking, in his book about double appartenance, double belonging, we belong to both. We can belong to the church of the Reformation, but we belong to the Catholic Church as well, we can, and uh... and there was a strong reaction against this way of speaking in Rome uh... um... ... some cardinals were, one cardinal was very difficult man, he was very, very angry and, when Brother Roger spoke this way, and uh... and uh... ....483 TC continues by explaining that the formula which Brother Roger came to use often about his own identity was a reformulation of the principle of double belonging: And then, later on, in 198~... I think maybe two, that's when he said this thing in Rome in St. Peter's, when he spoke about, I found my identity by reconciling inside myself my Protestant with the faith of the Cath~ without breaking off, no? That was a very compact way of saying things, and... very, very few people understood, I think, what he meant. There was one journalist from Le Monde, who understood. That was Henri Fesquet, who used to write... ... uh... the religious column for Le Monde, [-] and he was a man of culture, he was a, he was a, the journalist for Le Monde, for the Council Vatican II, so, he published his memoires of Vatican II, and all his papers... so he was a man of culture, and he was there in 1982 and I think he was the only one who understood {FW laughs}. He had a little column in Le Monde, saying that, I think the title was, “Un tour de force spirituelle”...* tour de force, tour de force is uh... it means something very powerful... that turns things around. He understood there was a new, something new in what Brother Roger was saying... that he could be reconciled 482 Kasper, “Mercy and the Ecumenical Journey of Brother Roger,” 294. 483 TC-1,8a.
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