By Robert Rhodes
Mennonite Weekly Review

	A painting of Christ fills a half-dome in the Great Hall at St. John’s Abbey at Collegeville, Minn., scene of a conference on Anabaptist martyrdom. — Photo by Robert Rhodes / MWR

A group of about 25 Mennonites and Roman Catholics examined the legacy of Anabaptist martyrdom during a gathering July 26-28 at St. John’s Abbey.

At the heart of the conference, and of the ongoing dialogue, was the mutual desire for reconciliation and forgiveness of past wrongs.

»» NEXT WEEK: The Bridgefolk ecumenical group meets at St. John’s; Mennonites who have become Benedictine oblates share in the trend toward more liturgy in Mennonite churches. — Photo by Robert Rhodes/MWR EDITORIAL » Mennonite-Catholic dialogue can help both parties aspire to the true faith of peace and reconciliation that Christ embodied. »» READ

Margaret O’Gara of the University of Toronto, a leading Catholic ecumenist and author on interfaith dialogue, said the example of Pope John Paul II has been vital to the Catholic Church seeking reconciliation with movements it once considered dissident.

“Roman Catholic theology in the 20th century was characterized by a shift to historic-mindedness,” O’Gara said. The pope has led efforts to admit wrongs committed by the church.

“These acts of the past must be truthfully acknowledged,” O’Gara said.

St. John’s abbot John Klassen, who recently discovered he had Mennonite forebears in the Netherlands, compared admitting the wrongs of the Reformation to the recent Catholic struggle with sexual abuse by clergy.

In recent years, Klassen’s leadership has been lauded for its openness in addressing abuse committed by a few of the abbey’s 165 members.

“As a monastery, we are learning about forgiveness as if for the first time,” he said.

Klassen also credited the pope with driving the reconciliation effort with Mennonites and other groups.

“By speaking directly about these issues, I think he empowered others to do so as well,” Klassen said. “But words are not enough. Restitution and conversion are required.”

During the conference, Anabaptist and Catholic scholars presented papers on topics related to martyr history.

Arnold Snyder of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., spoke on 16th-century martyr Hans Schlaffer. Peter Erb of Wilfrid Laurier University, also in Waterloo, outlined Jesuit interaction with the 16th-century Schwenkfelder movement, now confined to six diverse congregations in southeastern Pennsylvania.

John D. Roth, chair of the Goshen (Ind.) College history department and editor of Mennonite Quarterly Review, spoke about a recent Mennonite dialogue with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. He also outlined a June 26 gathering in Zurich where Swiss Reformed Church authorities apologized for persecuting early Anabaptists.

Helmut Harder, professor emeritus at Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg, Man., reported on an ecumenical congress held earlier this year at Bose, Italy.

Concerning future gatherings, Kauffman reflected on the need for an ecumenical institute for martyr studies, which conference participants supported.

“Historical research [on the Reformation] is proceeding very rapidly,” Kauffman said. “It’s bringing into the public view information that hasn’t been there before.”

Kauffman noted that the recent resurgence of Islamic suicide bombing, regarded by some as a species of martyrdom, also has “brought [the issue of dying for one’s spiritual values] out of the realm of history and onto the front pages of newspapers.”

Kauffman — a former Mennonite Central Committee peace activist who converted to Catholicism in 1968 — believes a martyr studies institute could help facilitate greater understanding between Anabaptists and Catholics.

“This effort has been ecumenical from the beginning,” Kauffman said. “There has been a widespread shared sense that it’s only going to work if it’s done by partners who have equal ownership of the issue.”

An institute, Kauffman said, also would promote accurate accounting of the history Anabaptists and Catholics share. Establishing a database with information about all Christian martyrs would be a possible objective, he said.

“There is an absolutely desperate need for a single narrative about what happened in the 16th century” that would be accessible to all Christians, Kauffman said. “It’s not only the best way but the only way of taking this skeleton out of the [Catholic] church’s closet . . . and giving it a decent burial.”