The Pope’s statement is just that: a reiteration. There is nothing new in it; it simply restates the familiar position of the Catholic Church. Whenever one enters ecumenical dialogue it is critically important that one stay true to oneself. It is only in that way that it is possible to be a real conversation partner. From time to time it is important to make such clarifications. Especially is this important if the conversations themselves seem to be taking a direction that is not in keeping with the fundamental values that define the conversation partner. That, according to the commentary accompanying the statement, seems to have been his perception.

It is difficult to predict exactly how the Pope’s statement will effect ecumenical relations and the conversations that surround them. Inevitably such moments of clarification contain within themselves at least two different possibilities: one is to chill relations and the other possibility is to further them. The only way to tell the difference in intent between the two is to listen carefully to the next word that is spoken. Is that next word a word of invitation to further deepen a dialogue now reinforced by the always bracing words of a candor that flows from honest humility, or is the next word a word that flows out of an arrogance that, at its’ core, senses no need for the other. Given the Vatican’s long commitment to dialogue I can not but imagine that its hope is the former and not the latter.

I’m sure that many do not care, but I am equally certain that many do. Those who do care are among those who most passionately want God’s message of abiding love made ever more available.

The Pope’s message is a sober reminder of just how “wounded” our divisions have been made us. We are all "wounded" in the sense that our message is muffled. And that, in my view, is a wound that afflicts all Christian communities: the Episcopal Church, the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostals, independents, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic as well as all the rest. We are all incomplete to the extent that we are cut-off from the fellowship that each has to offer the other.