The Ecumenical Significance of Evangelium Vitae

ONE IMPORTANT BUT OFTEN NEGLECTED CONSEQUENCE OF THE FERMENT IN ROman Catholic moral theology since the close of the Second Vatican Council (1965) has been the gradual displacement of the traditional categories for distinguishing Roman Catholic from protestant approaches to moral matters. While obvious differences still divide “moral theology” and “Christian ethics” (the traditional terms of the distinction), revision and development over the last thirty years in the former discipline have rendered suspect the familiar hooks on which the division has long been thought to hang. For example, the attention which sacred scripture now commands in much Roman Catholic theology makes the once commonplace opposition between a onesidedly “natural law” approach and a protestant “scriptural” approach to moral questions something of an unhelpful simplification. It would be difficult to assess with any precision the implications of this category displacement on ecumenical dialogue between the churches, especially since the developments on the Roman Catholic side are themselves very much the product of the ecumenical interaction stimulated by Vatican II. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that this evolving relationship makes it both possible and necessary to view the moral statements of the various communions—up to and including the magisterial teachings of the Roman Catholic Church—in an increasingly ecumenical light.