Pope’s 12th Encyclical Talks About Divisive Issue of Papal Authority : Church: Orthodox and Protestant officials remain cautious, but are encouraged by John Paul II’s letter.

When Pope John Paul II this week issued a new pronouncement on Christian unity, new hopes were rekindled that the historic divisions among Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox may one day be healed.

Ever since the Eastern Orthodox churches split with Rome in 1054 and Protestant churches organized after the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, the power and authority of the Pope has been one of the single most divisive issues separating the churches.

But in the 12th encyclical letter of his 17-year pontificate, released Tuesday, John Paul II said that while the authority of his office must remain absolute and supreme, he is willing to discuss how the Pope should exercise that authority as Christianity’s third millennium approaches.

“As bishop of Rome I am fully aware . . . that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his spirit dwells,” John Paul II wrote in his encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One).

“I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the [Pope’s] primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation,” he declared.

Orthodox and Protestants said they remained cautious because the Pope failed to spell out what he had in mind in examining papal authority. But they said they were nonetheless encouraged.

“What is new in the encyclical is the emphasis on primacy. I have never seen a papal encyclical prior to this one even mentioning the word primacy,” said the Rev. Milton Efthimiou, ecumenical officer for the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America. “If we can touch on any of the theological, doctrinal or ecclesiastical issues that divide us, it all comes back to the point of primacy.”

Both Orthodox and Protestants have challenged the Pope’s assertion of infallibility. And during the Catholic Church’s history, Orthodox and Protestants have at times chafed at actions taken by Popes as supreme pontiff. Protestants questioned the papal declaration that belief that the Virgin Mary was bodily taken into heaven should be accepted as an article of faith. Anglicans disputed a papal decree that the Anglican priesthood was invalid.

Protestants do not rule out some sort of primacy for the bishop of Rome, as they prefer to call the Pope. But much would depend upon how such primacy is exercised, they said.

“I think about the way Protestant churches are continually looking back to Rome. We’re always looking with our heads turned over our shoulders, if not straight on, to find an authority figure who can speak on behalf of the church,” said Cecil Roebuck, professor of church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

“The World Council of Churches doesn’t speak for the church. My suspicion is there is still this kind of twinge inside of us [Protestants] that says there is something more to this papacy than meets the eye.”

Clergy interviewed by The Times said the encyclical raises the possibility that John Paul II will widen discussions now under way within the Roman Catholic Church to restore greater autonomy to its bishops.

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“The fact that he’s thinking of how the papacy might be exercised in a new context giving more authority to local bishops is a very hopeful sign. This is very much the direction Anglicans would like to see the papacy rethought,” said R. William Franklin, a professor at the Episcopal Church’s General Theological Seminary in New York and a governor of the Anglican Center in Rome, which represents the worldwide Anglican Communion--including U.S. Episcopalians and the Church of England--before the Vatican.

No one--including John Paul II--is minimizing the difficulties that for a thousand years have divided the once united churches. But in keeping with Jesus’ prayer that “they may all be one,” [John 17:21] the Pope said Christians must try through prayer, guidance from the Holy Spirit, mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, and loving dialogue to bridge the gap that has caused so much pain and bloodshed.

To be sure, there has long been ecumenical cooperation at the local level as various churches combine efforts to feed the hungry, house the homeless, prevent violence and speak out against injustice. In Los Angeles County, the 42-year-old South Coast Ecumenical Council has long undertaken such programs.

But many of the member churches do not share the Eucharist or Communion service with each other and those prohibitions go to the heart of historic divisions over papal authority and the Catholic view that the Pope is the successor to St. Peter, whom Christian tradition holds was chosen by Jesus to lead the church.

“In any kind of ecumenical future, the bishop of Rome . . . needs a certain kind of authority, but that can’t be the kind of juridical authority he exercises over the Roman Catholic Church,” said Father Thomas Rausch, chairman of the department of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

And some are skeptical that while the Pope talks about how papal primacy should be exercised, he nonetheless sticks to Catholic dogma that makes the Pope the supreme authority of the church.

The encyclical will not silence all such criticism. Catholic theologian Hans Kung, who has been censured by the Vatican for teaching doctrine not in accord with church teaching, said in Tuebingen, Germany, that John Paul had missed a chance to move ecumenical relations forward.

“At the end of the second millennium since Christ, instead of relinquishing power in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, the Pope again entreats the other Christian churches to finally recognize his ‘watchful supervision’ over church teaching, sacraments, liturgy, mission, discipline and Christian life,” Kung was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.