Despite disappointment and discouragement voiced over the slower pace of ecumenical talks than in decades past, Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory offered his view that it is \u201chigh season\u201d\u009d for the ecumenical movement during an April 20 address in Tampa.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome have even spoken of a \u201d\u02dcwinter\u2019 of ecumenism in the sense that the enthusiasm of the early days has given way to a more sober realism,\u201d\u009d Archbishop Gregory told participants at the April 19-22 National Workshop on Christian Unity.<\/p>\n
He referred to German Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, whose book assessing the past 40 years of ecumenical dialogue, \u201cHarvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue,\u201d\u009d was published last year.<\/p>\n
The book was written in part, according to Archbishop Gregory, because \u201cwe now face a new situation, quite different from the one we faced at the end of the Second Vatican Council,\u201d\u009d whose decree on ecumenism, \u201cUnitatis Redintegratio,\u201d\u009d helped pave the way for greater ecumenical dialogue in the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now realize that there was a kind of naive enthusiasm in those days, which now contributes to a certain fatigue or even disappointment,\u201d\u009d Archbishop Gregory said. \u201cWe know now that the ecumenical enterprise will be longer than it appeared to be after the council.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n