Finding ways to express what we believe together

Over a period of four decades of prayer and dialogue with Christians and Jews, Archbishop Brunett expressed a passion for unity

BY GREG MAGNONI

Archbishop Alex J. Brunett remembers being tense during his first, formal presentation as a diocesan ecumenical officer for the Archdiocese of Detroit.  He was in Rome in 1973 and had just begun a year of international study on ecumenism and interfaith relations.

	Above, the then-Bishop Alex J. Brunett of Helena (at right) visits in Rome with the Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey (center), Bishop Joseph Gossman (second from left) of Raleigh, N.C. and Bishop John Snyder of St Augustine, Fla. At left he meets the leader of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

His research in Rome began at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.  The council at the time was under the leadership of Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, who had been named its Secretary when the council was created in 1960 by Pope John XXIII and promoted to President in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.

Although not an official delegate, Father Brunett was invited to observe the plenarium and to participate under mandate from his archbishop and at the courtesy of Cardinal Willebrands.  Those participating were divided into study groups, and Father Brunett was assigned to a group discussing local ecumenism that included bishops from a variety of nations and continents. 

The archbishop greets Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the South African prelate’s visit to Seattle.

“When I went into the meeting, they were all Bishops and I was the only priest,” he said.  “So they made me the secretary.  I took the notes and wrote what I thought was appropriate and gave the report back to the plenarium.”

He said in a 2007 interview that when he was called on to deliver the report, “I can remember being very nervous because I had never done anything like this.  Because they were translating into several languages I remember Cardinal Willebrands saying, “just speak more slowly.” 

The report, which he helped develop and write, was adopted and reprinted largely as he had drafted it.  It was the first tentative step on the path of ecumenical/interfaith dialogue that would cover nearly four decades and provide a major subtext to his vocation as a priest, pastor, bishop and archbishop. 

International studies
Father Brunett had been named chairman of the archdiocesan theological commission by his archbishop, Cardinal John Francis Dearden of Detroit, in part because of his studies in theology, but also because of the work he had done to produce a groundbreaking document responding to the decrees of the Second Vatican Council.  The document, “Synod 69,” was among the nation’s first diocesan roadmaps for implementing the Vatican II documents at the local level.

In light of council documents such as Unitatis Redintegratio and Nostra Aetate ,Cardinal Dearden told him he needed an expert who could act as his theologian on ecumenical and interfaith matters.  In the early 70s, ecumenism and interfaith relations were unexplored frontiers at the diocesan and parish level, and they represented new horizons not only for Father Brunett, but for the Archdiocese of Detroit, where he had grown up and begun his priesthood in 1959. 

Prior to going to Rome, Father Brunett spent time at the Irish School of Ecumenics in Dublin.  After the plenarium, he left Rome to study in Israel, but first made stops in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and Poland to observe firsthand the situation for churches in what was then the Soviet Union, and to gain information about the relationship between the Orthodox churches and the communist government.

He traveled from Rome to the Middle East for ecumenical studies in the Holy Land.  He toured ancient ruins in Egypt and spent Christmas in Lebanon with the family of a professor he had hired to teach at St. John’s Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Mich. while serving as academic dean.   

From there he traveled to the Tantur Institute for Ecumenical Studies, which had opened in 1971.  Located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Tantur is an international institution for theological research and pastoral studies.  Father Brunett did his studies there soon after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and he had an opportunity to discuss the writings with the scholars conducting the research.

In those early days of ecumenical exploration, no guidelines existed for local ecumenical dialogue.  As he began his duties as Director of the Division of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Father Brunett immediately began collaborating with Protestant leaders to develop guidelines for ecumenical activities. 

He authored a handbook that was among the first published in the nation to clarify approaches to  ecumenical marriages, preaching and other aspects of ministry confronting Catholic priests following the Second Vatican Council.

“There was great euphoria among priests and ministers because this was something new,” Archbishop Brunett remembers of those early local efforts to promote Christian unity.  “We were breaking ground.  But the differences in our theology were clear. That hadn’t changed.

“We had to confront the fact that maybe this was a different kind of unity.  For us Catholics, the Eucharist is still the Eucharist.  It is still the central point of expressing our faith.  We can’t simply abandon the Eucharist and substitute prayer services,” he said.  “So we had to come up with guidelines. 

“How can we get along?  Can we pray together?  In the very beginning …we began to do studies throughout the country.  We developed documents on covenant relationships, about prayer life, spiritual life, about marriage and baptisms.”

Interreligious Dialogue
At the same time, local opportunities for dialogue between the Catholic Church and other faith traditions were opening up.  A call from his archbishop and a transition to a new parish after 18 years would provide then-Monsignor Brunett with an opportunity to demonstrate the Catholic Church’s sincerity in entering dialogue with the Jewish community.

Father Brunett had been working to promote interreligious dialogue since 1976, participating in Jewish-Catholic programs, editing several studies and publishing numerous articles on the subject and serving as President of the Ecumenical Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies, an organization he co-founded.  In 1989 Father Brunett was chosen by Temple Beth El of Birmingham, Mich. to receive the Leo Franklin Award in Human Relations in “recognition of his efforts to combat anti-Semitism and to create a climate of mutual respect in Catholic-Jewish relations.” 

While director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Father Brunett, left, was honored with this award from the American Jewish Committee for “distinguished and untiring efforts to build bridges of understanding between Christians and Jews.”

Perhaps the most dramatic example of his early efforts to promote respectful dialogue between Christians and Jews, however, came after he was named pastor at the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Mich. in 1991.  One of the most beautiful churches in the United States, the Shrine had become a symbol of anti-Semitism for some because of the controversial radio broadcasts of its founding pastor, Father Charles Coughlin.

In typical fashion, the newly-appointed pastor made preparations for an interreligious prayer service at the Shrine undaunted by its notorious reputation among leaders of the Jewish community.

“I remember the different speakers, and one of the Jewish speakers … brought into focus how ‘we would have never thought, never imagined, that we would step foot into this place, but because of [Monsignor] Brunett we would be welcomed here,” said Chuck Dropiewski, former parish minister of education at the Shrine of the Little Flower.  “He said ‘we see this as a new step, a different step into the future.’  I will never forget that night,” Dropiewski said.

Several years later, in April of 1996, then-Bishop Brunett was named recipient of the DOVE Award, presented by the Ecumenical Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies in Detroit, Mich..

International dialogue
After Pope John Paul II named him Bishop of the Diocese of Helena, Montana, Bishop Brunett was elected chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs in 1996.   He was later appointed by the Vatican as a member of the International Roman Catholic-World Methodist Dialogue and, while still serving on that body, he also was appointed co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).

He served on both international dialogues for a brief period before turning his full attention in ecumenism to dialogue with the worldwide Anglican Communion.  He was an official observer at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, at the University of Kent, England in 1998, where the issues of authority and homosexuality in the communion were matters of contention among Anglican bishops.

The conference resulted in statements that later figured prominently in a controversy that challenged the very basis for continued dialogue between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.  Archbishop Brunett co-chaired ARCIC with Chicago Bishop Frank T. Griswold, the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, USA .

As presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America, Bishop Griswold ordained in 2003 the first openly gay Episcopalian bishop, V. Eugene Robinson.  His participation in the ordination set off a divisive controversy that challenged the unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion and threatened relations with the Roman Catholic Church. 

After five years of dialogue on a first-ever joint “statement of understanding” regarding Mary, the controversy threatened the document’s publication.  For Archbishop Brunett, preserving the statement of understanding was a top priority, but there was more at stake than the document. 

“We spent a lot of time on that document and everybody knew it was a good document that needed to be published,” he said, “but the question was how to do that.”

A meeting was convened in the Vatican to determine the future of the dialogues in light of the growing controversy within Anglicanism.  In that meeting, with Archbishop Brunett participating in his role as ARCIC co-chair, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, made it clear that the controversy, which called into question the ability of Anglican representatives to speak authoritatively on behalf of the worldwide communion, could not be ignored if the dialogue and the statement of understanding were to move forward.

“He was saying that we deeply care about the fact that there is a split,” Archbishop Brunett recalled, “and that people in the Anglican Communion were saying things contrary to documents that ARCIC had already written.”  Those documents related to an understanding about authority in the two communions as well as principles guiding the ordination of bishops.

It was decided that the statement could be published, but also that Archbishop Brunett’s co-chair, Bishop Griswold, should step back from the dialogue only a few months prior to completion of the historic statement of understanding on Mary.  He was replaced by Archbishop Peter Carnley, Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, and the document was formally announced in Seattle in May 2005. 

The document titled Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ was the first major agreement between two Christian denominations on the subject of Mary.

The release of the document, which became known as The Seattle Statement, drew representatives from Rome and London representing the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion as well as international commission members and ecumenical leaders from both communions.

Archbishop Brunett decided that he also would invite his friend and former co-chair, Bishop Griswold.  It was a gesture that underscored the meaning of more than 30 years of effort to bring greater unity to the people of God.

“To have successful dialogue you don’t need the smartest people in the world,” he said.  “You need to establish community.  When we met to work on this document, we lived together in the same house, the same community house.  We prayed together every day.

“We were not there talking as people who were negotiating.  Dialogue is not negotiating.  You do not negotiate about truth.  We were in dialogue, finding ways in which we can express what we believe together.”