The Local Church and the Universal Church: Zizioulas and the Ratzinger—Kasper Debate

Abstract

The recent vigorous debate between two distinguished Catholic theologians and churchmen, Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper, both cardinals, regarding the relationship between the universal church and the local church, is analysed. Though to some extent resolved, the debate has also proved rather intractable, because of unacknowledged ambiguities, for example regarding the meaning of the term, ‘universal Church’, and assumptions, particularly regarding eschatology. Through an examination of key texts in the debate, beginning with the 1992 Vatican letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Church as communion, which stated that the universal church is ‘a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual church’, both Ratzinger and Kasper are seen as exponents of a western view of ‘eschatology as orientation’, which John Zizioulas has contrasted with a stronger eastern view of ‘eschatology as presence’. It is proposed that this stronger eschatology can help to clarify and resolve underlying issues in the debate.