The Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches (JWG) is an ecumenical organization working to improve ties between the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and its separate brethren, mainly consisting of
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
and
Protestant Christians.
History
Catholic Conference on Ecumenical Questions
In 1951, ecumenical pioneer
Johannes Willebrands
Johannes Gerardus Maria Willebrands (4 September 1909 in Bovenkarspel, North Holland – 1 August 2006) was a Dutch Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 1 ...
helped organize the Catholic Conference on Ecumenical Questions, which was in contact with the World Council of Churches.
1965 meeting in Bossey
The first Joint Working Group meeting occurred in 1965 at the ecumenical institute of Bossey in Switzerland. This meeting came a few months after the promulgation of the conciliar document
Unitatis Redintegratio.
Debate on proselytism
The Joint Working Group has collaborated in dialogue on the topic of proselytism, which was deemed harmful to Christian unity.
Ups and downs in collaboration
According to Armenian Catholicos
Aram I
Aram I ( hy, Արամ Ա. Քեշիշեան; born Bedros Keshishian 8 March 1947), has been the head of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia since 1995 and he resides in Antelias, Lebanon.
Bibliography
Aram I has written the followin ...
, there have been ups and down in WCC-Catholic Church collaboration. In particular, he cites ecumenical tensions surrounding the ecclesial documents
Dominus Iesus
( en, The Lord Jesus) is a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (previously known as the "Holy Office"), approved in a plenary meeting of the Congregation and signed by its then prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later ...
and
Ecclesia de Eucharistia, as well as the question of the
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous ('' sui iuris'') particular churches of t ...
.
Current goals
Areas of concern for the Joint Working Group have been the communication of the results of its studies, deliberations, and declarations to the parent bodies, the reception of its reports, and the implementation of its recommendations.
Recent declarations
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References
World Council of Churches