The top hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States decided yesterday to join the broadest alliance of Christian churches in the country so far, a new ecumenical group that would bring the church to the same table as conservative evangelicals and liberal Protestants.
Members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have played a central role in the formation of the group, Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A., since discussions began with leaders of other denominations in fall 2001. The conference approved membership in the group at a meeting in Washington.
Despite its emergence after an election campaign marked by controversial pronouncements on faith and politics by conservative Catholic and Protestant leaders, the new group is expected to skirt most controversial public policy issues, at least for now, said clergy members involved with the organization. Its goal appears instead to be more modest: to create a forum, once a year, where the leaders of a range of churches can discuss topics of common interest, from charity work to interfaith relations.
If the group wants to take a stand on abortion or stem cell research, however, its members can vote to do so, said the Rev. Arthur Kennedy, executive director of the secretariat for ecumenical and interreligious affairs at the bishops' conference. Yet formulating a common position on such a divisive issue may be difficult, given that the group will make decisions only by consensus.
The organization has about 23 members, Father Kennedy said, including Eastern Orthodox churches; the historic Protestant denominations, like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; evangelical churches; ethnic churches; and religiously oriented groups, like the Salvation Army and World Vision. The decision by the bishops' conference to join Christian Churches Together was seen from the outset as essential to the group's existence.
Although most churches engage in ecumenical dialogue with other Christians, those talks are usually bilateral. Moreover, evangelicals and Pentecostals have often not participated regularly in such talks. Through this new group, they can be brought into greater contact with the more traditional churches.
"This is more of an informational exchange," said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things, an ecumenical monthly magazine. "Churches are agreeing that their leaders should meet, like university presidents and others who meet regularly. It's a way of getting to know one another and finding out what others are doing and getting ideas." The decision by the bishops' conference to join Christian Churches Together is not without some wariness, Father Neuhaus said. The conference and the National Council of Churches of Christ, which represents the historic Protestant churches, talked for years until the mid-1980's about the Catholic Church joining the council. But those talks fell through because of concerns that the church would be too large to incorporate into the council and because the council was taking a more liberal approach to Christian teachings and to social and political questions.
The National Council of Churches helped create this new group but is not joining, although many of its member churches are. And the Rev. Bob Edgar, the general secretary of the council, said he did not expect Christian Churches Together to function like his group.
"My sense is that this group is less interested in action items than in building bridges," Mr. Edgar said, "and having a forum where we can talk together on issues that concern everyone, for example, how do we model interfaith ties with our Muslim and Jewish brethren?"
Participation in the group would certainly not limit policy positions of individual churches and groups, Father Neuhaus said. "Catholic bishops want to still have a discrete voice," he said. "They have enough difficulty finding agreement among themselves. They don't want to coordinate their position with a dozen other groups, too."
Separately, a report on how the church should handle Catholic politicians who disagree with official teachings on issues like abortion was distributed at the bishops' meeting. The report by the Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians reaffirmed a stance spelled out this summer that individual bishops had the autonomy to determine how they would deal with such politicians.
But groups of laity and clergy said they saw the report as giving Catholic clergymen the right to take a partisan stance on issues, given the stance conservative Catholic bishops uniformly took against Senator John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights. One group, Call to Action, which claims 25,000 members, said it planned to talk to other Catholic groups about challenging "single-issue bishops" who focused on right-to-life issues in the last campaign.