I see you haven't answered my question.
If you really are a live committed Catholic then you'll be willing to go where you don't want to go and you'll see that Pope John Paul II was a good pope whom the Holy Spirit inspired.
...And I doubt that even you will find fault with the Holy Spirit.
UUS: Christ's words "that they may be one" are thus his prayer to the Father that the Father's plan may be fully accomplished, in such a way that everyone may clearly see "what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things" ( 3:9). To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire the Church; to desire the Church means to desire the communion of grace which corresponds to the Father's plan from all eternity. Such is the meaning of Christ's prayer: "Ut unum sint".
UUS: The prayer of Christ, our one Lord, Redeemer and Master, speaks to everyone in the same way, both in the East and in the West. That prayer becomes an imperative to leave behind our divisions in order to seek and re-establish unity, as a result also of the bitter experiences of division itself.
MA: For they are of the opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time existed, and does not to-day exist. They consider that this unity may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal.
A basic understanding of the encyclical tells one easily that JPII does not hold that the prayer of the Lord was not fulfilled in the unity of the Catholic Church. Actually, he says he does then decides that that is not what the prayer of Our Lord refers to. This is more of JPII's effort to find a way to prove universal salvation. Plus, he has the most basic non sequitur in his "Belief in Christ means to desire unity.." Unity with whom? each other? based on what? How about Belief in Christ means to desire unity with Christ, but that is not the meaning of Christ's prayer. Christ's prayer is that they The Apostles would unite and therefore form the Catholic Church. It is insulting to think that Christ's prayers are not answered.
11. Another danger is perceived which is all the more serious because it is more concealed beneath the mask of virtue. There are many who, deploring disagreement among men and intellectual confusion, through an imprudent zeal for souls, are urged by a great and ardent desire to do away with the barrier that divides good and honest men; these advocate an "eirenism" according to which, by setting aside the questions which divide men, they aim not only at joining forces to repel the attacks of atheism, but also at reconciling things opposed to one another in the field of dogma. And as in former times some questioned whether the traditional apologetics of the Church did not constitute an obstacle rather than a help to the winning of souls for Christ, so today some are presumptive enough to question seriously whether theology and theological methods, such as with the approval of ecclesiastical authority are found in our schools, should not only be perfected, but also completely reformed, in order to promote the more efficacious propagation of the kingdom of Christ everywhere throughout the world among men of every culture and religious opinion.
UUS: The prayer of Christ, our one Lord, Redeemer and Master, speaks to everyone in the same way, both in the East and in the West. That prayer becomes an imperative to leave behind our divisions in order to seek and re-establish unity, as a result also of the bitter experiences of division itself.
Ut Unum Sint is a treasure trove of misleading statements. It's no wonder there are no footnotes from any Church document before Vatican II in it. You see, the problem is that JPII will half of the time actually cite correct Church teaching. Our friend likes to post that part. But right alongside it is the "however" or the "speculation" or the "on the other hand" that sets up a contradictory formula. It's not meant to clarify, it's meant to confuse. (as in fuse together contradictory ideas)
Here are a few excerpts from an analysis of Ut Unum Sint from Ecumenical Review April, 2000 by William Henn:
In fact, there are many other elements of ecclesial life in addition to faith which unite Christians from the various Christian communities. These elements include sacraments, as well as the charisms and ministries which structure and serve the mission of the community. One of the more striking traits of Ut Unum Sint is its acknowledgment of the wealth of God's riches present in the various Christian communities: "If Christians, despite their divisions, can grow ever more united in common prayer around Christ, they will grow in the awareness of how little divides them in comparison to what unites them" (para. 22).(7)
Recognition of the authentic discipleship of other Christians and of the ecclesial qualities of their communities led to a famous change in the draft of paragraph 8 of Lumen Gentium.(8) The Council substituted the verb "subsists in" for the verb "is" in the sentence which thus came to read: "This church [the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of the creed], constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." By choosing not to affirm simply that the church of Christ "is" the Catholic Church, the Council refused to identify the two in an exclusive way. This change was made so that what was affirmed about the Catholic Church would not contradict the recognition that "many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines". These elements are "ecclesial", which means that the church of Christ is present and active in a Christian community to the degree that these elements are present. Ut Unum Sint summarizes this in the following way:
To the extent that these elements are found in other Christian communities,
the one church of Christ is effectively present in them. For this reason
the Second Vatican Council speaks of a certain, though imperfect communion.
The Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium stresses that the Catholic Church
"recognizes that in many ways she is linked" with these communities by a
true union in the Holy Spirit (para. 11).
One of the more succinct ways in which the Second Vatican Council described the church is in the opening paragraph of Lumen Gentium, which calls the church a kind of a "sacrament", that is a sign and instrument of union with God and among men and women. The Council applied a similar "sacramental" terminology to other Christian communities in the Decree on Ecumenism, which John Paul quotes:
It follows that these separated churches and communities, though we believe
that they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of
significance and value in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of
Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive
their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the
Catholic Church [Unitatis Redintegratio, para. 3, quoted in Ut Unum Sint,
para. 10].
Here we encounter a point which may seem offensive, even insulting. By what right can the Vatican speak of the "defects" of other communities? Does not the Catholic Church have its share of "defects"? And whatever "fullness" of grace and truth may be said to have been entrusted to the Catholic Church, is it not true that sinfulness and error not only can be but have been found among the members of that community?(9)
Both the Second Vatican Council and Ut Unum Sint wish to affirm the presence and action of Christ and the Holy Spirit in other Christian communities. At the same time, they wish to say that there are differences between the churches to the extent that each embodies within its faith, sacraments and communal life more or less of the elements with which Christ intended the church to be endowed. Besides recognizing the ecclesial value of other Christian communities, the choice of the verb "subsists in" used in Lumen Gentium was meant to acknowledge frankly what the Catholic Church believes to be its own distinctiveness vis-a-vis these other communities. Pope John Paul takes this up in the third chapter of his letter, just before entering into the discussion of the ministry of the successor to Peter:
The constitution Lumen Gentium, in a fundamental affirmation echoed by the
decree Unitatis Redintegratio, states that the one church of Christ
subsists in the Catholic Church. The Decree on Ecumenism emphasizes the
presence in her of the fullness (plenitudo) of the means of salvation. Full
unity will come about when all share in the fullness of the means of
salvation entrusted by Christ to his church (para 86).
This could be read as the old ecumenism of "return", now softened with a flurry of statements which praise other churches rather than disparaging them. Are the Council and the pope really saying nothing different from what was said by earlier popes, only now with a deceptively honeyed tongue? I think not. For now there is a clear acknowledgment of the active presence of Christ in the other communities and of the reality that the others have sometimes surpassed the Catholic Church in expressing or living important Christian truths and values. The pope addresses this in the context of the birth of the church at Pentecost:
The foregoing commentary has tended to focus precisely on the re-establishment of unity among Christians. Were this to suggest that Ut Unum Sint -- or the ecumenical movement as such -- is fundamentally self-centred and preoccupied with merely internal Christian problems, it would be unfaithful to both the encyclical and the ecumenical movement. Each chapter of Ut Unum Sint closes by looking beyond the church. Some of the most gratifying ecumenical achievements of the past thirty years are precisely examples of cooperation and common promotion of justice, peace and the integrity of creation which have tried to make more human the conditions in which men and women today live (cf. paras 40, 43, 74-76; para. 76 warmly remembers the days of prayer for peace at Assisi). In addition, Ut Unum Sint recalls once more that a principal purpose of unity is to serve mission. Lack of unity constitutes a "grave obstacle ... for the proclamation of the gospel ... It is a matter of the love which God has in Jesus Christ for all humanity; to stand in the way of this love is an offence against him and against his plan to gather all people in Christ" (para. 99).
By comparison with the earlier Catholic vision of unity summarized in the introduction to this article, John Paul's encyclical suggests two fundamental changes which have occurred under the impact of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent ecumenical experience.
First, neither the Council nor the pope has asked other Christians to "return" to the Catholic Church. The reason for this seems to lie in the realization that it would not be adequate to think of other Christians as having "left the church". Indeed, to identify the church of Christ exclusively with the Roman Catholic Church is the view that has turned out to be inadequate. "The one church of Christ is effectively present" in other Christian communities and the decisive proof of this, if any were needed, are the saints and martyrs who have been formed in these communions and who have given their noble testimony before the whole world.
Second, an integral or full profession of faith in all that God has revealed is a necessary condition for full communion. The faith which justifies and saves is also a confession which assents to doctrines. Moreover these doctrines include not only the articles of faith contained in the creed but also convictions about the sacramental life and the ministerial and charismatic order of the church. The full profession of faith, however, is made by historically conditioned human beings, whose formulas cannot exhaustively express the mystery professed. Doctrines illumine each other because they are organically related (the "hierarchy of truths") and insights from diverse ecclesial traditions, even some which may have appeared to conflict, may upon further investigation turn out to be complementary. Revealed truth in its entirety must be professed by the church in the "obedience of faith" (Rom. 16:26). And yet, as Christians seek to cooperate with God's grace of unity, they must be careful not to impose any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary (cf. Acts 15:28; Ut Unum Sint, para. 78). The whole church -- the people guided by the gift of the sense of the faith (sensus fidei), theologians competent through study and pastors assisted by the grace of ordination -- will be able to discern, under the Holy Spirit, what is "required and sufficient" (paras 78, 80-81).
I believe that these two shifts are intimately related to the two texts of the Second Vatican Council which were called Dogmatic Constitutions: Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum. The former proposes an ecclesiology of communion which makes possible a much more nuanced -- and for that reason more accurate -- understanding of the extent of the presence of the church of Christ. This opens the way for seeing ecumenism as the path which leads from real, yet imperfect communion to full communion. Dei Verbum, on the other hand, teaches that the Word of God was made manifest in history. This makes possible a much more nuanced -- and for that reason more accurate -- understanding of the profession of revealed truth in its entirety. Full acceptance of the word of God entails also the acceptance of the historicity of its being spoken in our human language and communicated from one age and from one culture to another. This opens the way for seeing the acceptance of the fullness of revelation in a way which respects the maturation in coming to "know" it, about which St Paul so eloquently comments when he writes: "speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Eph. 4:15).
In writing Ut Unum Sint, John Paul II was very conscious of being at the beginning of the third millennium since the birth of Jesus (cf. paras 1, 3, 57, 100, 102). It was during the second millennium that most of the divisions which still wound the body of Christ occurred. For these, Christians need to ask pardon from one another, but most of all from God (cf. the jubilee letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, para. 34). Ut Unum Sint was a plea written by an old pastor, an old "apostle", who now, five years later, must realize without illusions that his life is "already being poured out like a libation" and his departure cannot be so far away (cf. 2 Tim. 4:6). His plea is: "Do not lose heart. Do not let impatience derail the path to full communion. With humility and repentance, God's grace can penetrate the fertile soil of our obedience and the unity for which Jesus prayed, the night before his great sacrifice, may yet blossom into unexpected fruition in our time."
I'm waiting.
Still waiting for your reply.