Pat Shaver: A Short History and Comparison of Laurelville and Collegeville

A History of the Bridgefolk Movement

By Pat Shaver

On the surface, the Mennonite and Catholic churches appear to be almost as far apart from each other as it is possible to get in western Christianity. Yet members of each tradition are finding aspects of the other life-giving and have come together on two occasions to explore areas of common interest and learn from each other. The group has named itself “Bridgefolk” in recognition of the bridges of shared information and perspectives they are building as they cross back and forth between the two traditions.

Bridgefolk is a semi-formal movement of Mennonites and Roman Catholics who are indebted to, interested in, or exploring one another's traditions. Some of us search for better ways to embody a commitment to both traditions. All share a vision for making Anabaptist-Mennonite practices of discipleship, peaceableness, and lay participation more accessible to Roman Catholics, while sustaining those practices by reconnecting them to their spiritual, liturgical and sacramental roots in the Catholic tradition.[i]

Thus begins Gerald Schlabach’s newest article on the Bridgefolk Website-as good a summary of Bridgefolk as we have yet had.

Beginnings

The “movement” began as conversations between Ivan Kauffman, Gerald Schlabach, Marlene Kropf and Weldon Nisly, all of whom were raised Mennonite, but found themselves drawn to and nurtured by Catholic spirituality and liturgy. Ivan’s journey had led him to convert to Catholicism and he found that his Mennonite roots gave him a somewhat distinctive perspective. The others found that drinking from the “stream” of the Catholic tradition shaped their understanding of themselves as Mennonites.

All found that their participation in the two traditions shaped their senses of calling and life work. In particular, they appreciated the complementary aspects of the two faiths, especially the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition of discipleship, peaceableness and lay intentionality, and the Roman Catholic spiritual, liturgical and sacramental roots. Anabaptist-Mennonites, who feel called by Christ to active discipleship, discovered in Catholic spiritual and liturgical traditions the spiritual nourishment to sustain action. Catholics perceived that the fruit of spirituality, spending time in God’s presence and seeking God’s leading, is living responsibly and intentionally with God and in the world.

As they felt increasingly at home in both traditions, these first participants in the Bridgefolk movement also discovered that they didn’t feel entirely at home in either. They began using the term “bridging” to describe their participation in, and crossing between, the Mennonite and Catholic faiths. Their conversations branched out to include others and further connections were made. Out of those explorations and dreams, came the first gathering of Catholics and Mennonites at Laurelville, PA in August 1999. One of the purposes of the gathering was “simply to find out whether such meetings have value.”

Laurelville: 1999

The Laurelville gathering was principally exploratory; its primary focus was to share individual stories to see what, if any, common threads might emerge. Each of the 25 participants was asked to write a one-page spiritual biography. These were collected and sent out to everyone prior to the weekend so that people could begin to get a sense of who would be there, and be more quickly able to put names to faces.

The weekend was composed of story telling framed by morning and evening worship. Each person had about 10 minutes to tell part of their story followed by a few minutes for reflection and questions or comments. The gathering tended to have a Mennonite feel to it, as there were more Mennonites present than Catholics (5 to 1 ratio). But as both Catholics and Mennonites spoke of their struggles, joy, tears, confusion, pain, questions, awe, dreams, fears, understanding and affirmation, common threads began to be visible. In the camaraderie of shared understandings and experiences something new began to be sensed.

The clearest and strongest thread to emerge was that the Holy Spirit was working. It was spiritual hunger, and the Spirit’s leading, which had drawn each to the other tradition, a place they had never expected to find themselves. Heads nodded in agreement as one woman observed, “none of us planned to be here.”

Common Threads

The common thread among Mennonites tended to be a search for a deeper spiritual life. Some needed something to sustain them in the work they were doing in international, urban or intercultural settings. Others desired to deepen their spiritual life but had not been able to find what they needed in the Mennonite Church. The call to study and/or practice spiritual direction, which is still not familiar to most Mennonites, drew some. They were not originally drawn to Catholicism per se, but to the practices the Roman Catholic Church has kept alive over centuries.

Their search for a deeper experience of God brought them to Catholic spiritual directors, retreat centers, guesthouses, abbeys and classes. In these places they were introduced to silence, mystery, forms of prayer, spiritual nurture and direction, ritual, liturgy, artistic holy space, the Eucharist and mystics. A place that provided full permission and structural support to enter into silence and contemplation was a new experience for Mennonites, who tend to be doers.

The shared thread among Catholics at Laurelville seemed to be finding their spiritual hunger fed by Mennonite discipleship. They found simplicity, community, nonviolence, church support for peace activities, solid Scriptural foundation, and the concept of the priesthood of all believers a welcome contrast to their experiences with ritualism, deadly bureaucracy, and lack of recognition and validation for lay ministers. They spoke of being empowered as baptized Christians both through understanding the Anabaptist concept of the priesthood of all believers, as well as by being asked to share their teaching, preaching and worship-leading gifts in Mennonite settings.

Both groups said that sojourns with the other helped them to understand their own heritage more deeply, at the same time that their appreciation expanded for aspects of the other church.

The weekend in Laurelville had a very personal focus, as each was touched by hearing their own struggles spoken aloud by others in a place of safety. As the stories unwound, in their power and sincerity, it became clear that such meetings did, indeed, have value. The Holy Spirit’s presence and hand in what was happening wove through the weekend. At the end, hope was strong that a way could be found for the dialogue to continue and to include more Catholic participation. The damper, however, was that although the Holy Spirit’s guidance in preparing the way for the gathering was clear, the next step was still a mystery; no one had any idea how that hope for continued dialogue might be realized. The group left grateful for the time together, but without any certainty that there would be another such opportunity.

After the Laurelville gathering, the organizers stayed in touch, but there was still no clear leading about what to do next. Since the group was not officially affiliated with any institution, the logistics of holding another gathering were daunting. Additionally, planners hoped for participation by a broader group of Catholics, but lacked connections to be able to find those who might be interested.

Then in the spring of 2001, Weldon Nisly fulfilled a long held dream of spending a sabbatical at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota. A conversation with Abbot John Klassen, in which he mentioned the Bridging group, ultimately led the Abbot not only to offer to “let us be a home for the Catholic Mennonite Bridging movement for a time” but also to commit to participating in the leadership of the group. Abbot John, Fr. William Skudlarek and Fr. Rene McGraw then met with the original planning group to plan the first conference.

Creating Peacemaking Communities: 2002

Creating Peacemaking Communities for the New Millennium: Catholics and Mennonites Bridging the Divide” was held at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN, in July of 2002. The purpose of the weekend was to explore helpful ground between Catholics and Mennonites in the areas of spirituality and social action, rather than to resolve differences between the churches. This conference had a scholarly orientation, which was a contrast to the tone of the first. Presentations were made about a particular issue (generally by a Mennonite and a Catholic), with small- and then large- group discussions following. The personal side was not ignored, as participation with the monks in the liturgy of the hours, a hymn-sing and time of Lectio Divina helped to nurture the soul.

The numbers of Catholics and Mennonites attending the conference (about 60 in all) were very close to equal but were, perhaps, a bit atypical, as most were quite familiar with crossing church lines. They included, among others: Mennonites who work for Catholic organizations, Catholics who teach at Mennonite schools, Mennonites who teach at Catholic schools, Catholics who studied under Mennonites (often John Howard Yoder), Mennonites who studied under Catholics, Mennonites who were raised Catholic, Catholics who grew up Mennonite, Mennonite Benedictine Oblates and others who have quenched their thirst for spirituality at Catholic wells and Catholics and Mennonites who have been involved in higher level Vatican-Mennonite World Conference dialogues.

Areas of Discussion

The interesting mix of a larger number of Catholics, scholars, pastors, church workers, activists, and lay people interested in spirituality, gave the second conference a more varied texture than the first, and sometimes resulted in varied expectations. Many of the Mennonites present were seeking a deeper spirituality to sustain their peace witness and personal journeys with God. The Catholics attending tended to be interested in the peacemaking and discipleship traditions of Anabaptist-Mennonites. This prompted two primary areas of discussion, which the listening committee report describes as “Spiritual Journey, Dialogue and Ecclesiology” and “Confessional Claims and Ethics.”[ii] Although not everyone was equally well prepared, or inclined, to discuss both topics in small group sessions, generally the format seemed to work well.

Under the Spiritual Journey, Dialogue and Ecclesiology heading came concepts such as:

· the conviction that Jesus called out disciples who would follow him, not just believe in him, is at the heart of both monasticism and Anabaptism;

· Pope John Paul II is committed to Mennonite Catholic dialogue because it places the issue of peace on the Catholic agenda;

· structures can be useful, rigid, the right or wrong type or lacking altogether-the Catholic church actually needs more structures of accountability;

· paternal churches who tend to operate from the top down, and those who operate from the bottom up (more lay participation, fewer structures) have gifts to offer the other and the world;

· liturgy based in sacramental life changes hearts and souls, who then desire to change society.

Assertions in the Confessional Claims and Ethics category included:

· for Anabaptists, peace is central (confessional) to the Christian message, not just an ethic;

· nonviolence and just war are part of a continuum; Catholic teaching on conflict has evolved to combine nonviolence with just-war elements;

· coming from a majority position, the Roman Catholic Church has felt a responsibility for those in need, thus its theology of peace incorporates justice and human rights and has asked, “How do we make peace or help bring about justice?”

· being a minority church-small, marginalized and persecuted-has prompted the Mennonite Church’s approach to peace to be “How do I/we love enemies and live at peace?”

There was a joyful spirit of interest in discovering shared points of view and understanding and discussing differences. And together the group prayed, “to be a bridge to that future of unity and peace which you ever yearn to give to your Church.”[iii] And yet amidst the energy and excitement came the shadow of the reality that the body of Christ is broken - and it is painful. In this instance the reminding issue was Eucharist. Perhaps the shared sense of discovery, vibrancy and expectation contrasted so sharply with the brokenness of the body, that the encounter with disunity felt more raw than usual. It didn’t overwhelm or neutralize the joy in connecting that took place throughout the weekend, but perhaps made people long even more deeply “to be a bridge to that future of unity and peace which you ever yearn to give to your Church.”[iv]

Although much of the focus of the weekend was theological, the conference did not have a solely academic feel. Framing the meetings in prayer and the mix of scholars and others seeking God’s direction contributed to a tone of conversation quite different from most conferences. People’s deep faith and desire to share understandings of God intertwined through the presentations and discussions.

The underlying theme of both the Laurelville gathering and the “Creating Peacemaking Communities” conference was how to live out a more intentional relationship with God, and what that relationship calls us onward to do. Both gatherings provided an opportunity to examine, share and question Catholic and Mennonite traditions and patterns in these areas. Certainly institutional dialogue is vital, but God also seems to like working in “messier, overflowing, unexpected ways.”[v] The goal is not to unite the two churches, but perhaps the dialogue and understanding that took place can result in an unusual combining of threads and patterns that haven’t been mixed in a long time. I admit that, for now, I am enjoying the new colors, shapes and textures, and I wait with anticipation to see what the weaver will choose to do next.