ATLANTA (ABP) — According to Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton Gregory, leader of the Atlanta archdiocese, there is a new thing happening among Baptists and Roman Catholics – cooperation, increased understanding and potential for greater relationship.
“This could and can only happen because of the prayer of Christ for his church and the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” Gregory said. “This seems that this is really God's new thing, and it has created a significant beginning of a common tradition that we can share.”
Gregory spoke Wednesday evening, Sept. 28, to members of Atlanta's Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, whose pastor, David Sapp, invited Gregory in order to better understand and connect the church with Roman Catholics. “The world is put off by Christian division,” Sapp said. “It is a stumbling block for evangelism, for Christian influence in the public arena and for our own spiritual growth.”
The new Baptist and Roman Catholic collaboration Gregory spoke of has developed significantly in the last 40 years. According to Gregory, recent historical precedent for Baptist and Roman Catholic relations began with the American Baptist Convention (now American Baptist Churches, USA), which hosted a dialogue series with Roman Catholics from 1967-1972.
In the late 1960s, Southern Baptists formed the Ecumenical Institute at North Carolina's Wake Forest University, which hosted conferences about Baptist and Roman Catholic relations. Southern Baptists and the Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs established an ecumenical National Scholars Dialogue in 1978, which continued through 1988, discussing the church's nature and function, spirituality and social action.
“What slowly emerged was a realization that, in spite of centuries of divisions, decades of not even speaking or listening to one another, there existed a mutual heritage of faith,” Gregory said.
In addition to identifying common ground, these foundational conversations developed friendships based on respect and the ability to listen to each other, Gregory said. Today, Baptists and Catholics share a common mission and testimony to the world, particularly concerning family values.
Families can be a prime example of ecumenical cooperation in action, Gregory said. In marriages between Baptists and Roman Catholics, individuals must respect their spouse's faith, particularly if the family includes children, who then should be introduced equally to the Catholic and Baptist traditions.
“An awful lot of us don't know what our faith really teaches. Know your heritage. Know what makes you unique,” he said.
Gregory came to Atlanta in January, previously serving as a bishop in Illinois. His tenure as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops included leadership through the sexual-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.
Not all that Baptists and Roman Catholics share is ideal, Gregory said in post-presentation discussion. For example, Protestant denominations are facing similar clergy shortages as Roman Catholics, whose growing clerical drought is often falsely attributed to a priest's commitment to celibacy. “It's a larger societal issue,” he said.
Baptists and Roman Catholics also share today's culture, which is growing ever more hostile to religion and uses ecclesiastical problems as fuel to further discredit Christianity.
“We are living in a society where religion is … being thrown out of the public place. We [had] better stop fighting each other and find those things we can rally around together,” he said.
— Photo available from Associated Baptist Press.