Since his dual appointment by Pope John Paul II as both head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Pontifical Commission for Relations with the Jews, the openly heretical Walter Kasper (I will not dignify this Church-wrecker with the title Cardinal) has been running amok in the Church, attempting to undo the Church’s constant teaching on Her relations with Jews, Protestants and Orthodox.

        In previous columns I have documented Kasper’s arrant denial of the necessity of Jewish and Protestant conversion, as well as his denial of the historical apostolic succession and his outrageous call for a "re-evaluation" of Pope Leo XIII’s infallible pronouncement on the absolute invalidity of Anglican priestly ordinations. This bird has even dared to describe as "historically conditioned" the infallible teaching of the First Vatican Council on papal infallibility. Will no one in the Vatican stop him? Of course not — given the present diabolical disorientation in the Vatican.

        Kasper’s recent comments on the state of "ecumenism" are, notwithstanding his heresies, quite useful in demonstrating the utter failure of this novel undertaking in the Church. As reported by Zenit.org on November 4, 2003, during the plenary assembly of the useless Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Kasper lamented that internal strife within the Orthodox and Protestant sects "harms the dialogue" with the Catholic Church and "leads to a paralysis of ecumenism and even to its impotence." No kidding!

        Kasper further complained that "on one hand, old confrontations are being surmounted, or at least we are getting closer, and, on the other, new differences emerge." By "differences" he means rejection of the Church’s teaching on such matters as "abortion, divorce, euthanasia and homosexuality." (Notice Kasper failed to include the Church’s teaching against contraception.) In other words, aside from the vague assertion that we are "getting closer" with the Protestants and the Orthodox on "old confrontations" — that is, the Catholic Church is softening Her position, while they remain obdurate — Kasper can point to no real achievement of the "ecumenical movement."

        Yet Kasper went on to say that there is "great joy" in ecumenical dialogue because "one meets many serious Christians who pray, who have the desire for unity" and "are spiritual men." How is it that these "spiritual men" who pray so much remain obdurate in their dissent from the most basic teachings of the one true Church, including (in the case of the Protestants) Her teaching that abortion and sodomy are abominable crimes against the law of God, and (in the case of both Orthodox and Protestants) the primacy of the Vicar of Christ? As for "the desire for unity" Kasper professes to see in these people, his own capitulations and heretical public statements to curry favor with them demonstrate that it is a unity only on their terms which they seek.

        As Pius XI wisely observed in his encyclical Mortalium animos: "For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, the Mother and mistress of all Christ's faithful?"

        Ecumenism is a total failure precisely because it does not exhort the Protestants and the Orthodox to return to the unity of the one true Church, but rather engages us and them in an endless, pointless, useless "dialogue" that leads nowhere and leaves non-Catholics confirmed in their errors.