A bit of history is needed in order to understand the present-day ecumenical options. I shall start with the year in which my own ecumenical involvement began. Fifty-five years ago, in 1950, there was general agreement, at least in France where I was then studying, on the goal of ecumenism and how to attain it. The goal was a visibly united church, but this goal would not be reached by the conversion of individuals or groups from one ecclesial allegiance to another. Rather it would take place in God's own time by means largely hidden but that can be pointed to by such words as convergence, rapprochement and integration. Each of the uniting bodies would have to change profoundly in order to enter into full communion, but they could do this, it was believed, without rejecting what is essential to their own identities.
The degree to which this quest would be successful before the eschaton God only knew, but to the degree that it was, the resulting ecumenical, catholic church would be richer and more variegated than anything we could imagine, and yet it would be genuinely one. This outlook is basically that of what can be conveniently named "convergence" ecumenism, which later became temporarily dominant.
Convergence ecumenism, insofar as it is understood as including Roman Catholics (and not just the Protestants and Orthodox who had organized the World Council of Churches in 1948), was in its beginnings when I encountered it. Those who were open to it were few in number and, on the Roman Catholic side, were suspect by church authorities. Yves Congar, O.R, author of Chrétiens désunis (1937; published in English as Divided Christendom), the first and, in some respects, still the greatest catholic ecumenical manifesto, was officially silenced in 1954, but his work set the tone for the discussions in which I was one of the student auditors. The air was electric with hope and excitement despite suppressive measures.
