CHAPTER 1: ECUMENICAL PROGRESS AND STAGNATION 57 indicates that the Roman Catholic Church considers Protestant churches, ministries, and sacraments as improper rather than completely invalid, acknowledging their capability of mediating saving grace. This acknowledgement enables the positive evaluation of Unitatis Redintegratio, which speaks of partial or incomplete communion rather than of a lack of communion. On this basis, Rausch argues in favor of occasional Eucharistic hospitality, rhetorically contemplating: “Would not such an offer of eucharistic hospitality better engage the dialectic between the Eucharist as both sign of unity and means toward it?”147 Thomas O’Loughlin, professor of historical theology in Nottingham, has published a book in response to Pope Francis’ remarks to the Lutheran congregation in Rome. Addressing the issue of Eucharistic hospitality as both a “theological minefield” and a “pastoral minefield,”148 – tellingly illustrating the delicacy of the matter - O’Loughlin aims to promote “not more theological discussion but a change in mindset about the Eucharistic mysterium that then manifests itself in a renewed practice.”149 Fully aware that the Eucharist transcends these concepts and involves many other notions, O’Loughlin does not hesitate to reflect critically on current Eucharistic practice and theology starting from anthropological categories such as ‘meal’, ‘family’, and ‘hospitality’. He observes that our everyday experiences with these categories in which we are defined as a species, often contrast with the dynamics of our Eucharistic practices. In part, this can be explained by the otherness of the sacrament, but O’Loughlin challenges us to contemplate the possible implications for revising our understanding of the Eucharist. In addition, he poses some fundamental questions as he confronts current exclusivist practices with the theology of Baptism, the Eucharist as viaticum, and, perhaps most importantly, a theology of Divine acceptance. Dutch contributions In my own Dutch context, the national Council of Churches had addressed the issue of Eucharistic sharing during the ecumenical heydays following the Second Vatican Council, erecting a special working group called Intercommunion and Ministry (Intercommunie en ambt) in 1970. However, when the Old- and Roman Catholic Churches rejected its report in 1975, the 147 Rausch, 411. 148 Thomas O’Loughlin, Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic, 2019), 2–14. 149 O’Loughlin, xiv.
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