Unitatis redintegratio (Restoration of unity) is theSecond Vatican Council's decree onecumenism. It was passed by a vote of 2,137 to 11 of thebishops assembled at the Council, and was promulgated byPope Paul VI on 21 November 1964.
The title of the document is taken from the opening words of the Latin text. The opening words of the official English translation are: "The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council."
Unitatis Redintegratio calls for the reunion of Christendom and is similar to a previous call for unity byPope Leo XIII in his 1894encyclical letterPraeclara gratulationis publicae and by Pope Pius IX in his encyclicalIn Suprema Petri Apostoli Sede. However,Unitatis articulates a different kind ofecclesiology fromPraeclara. It focuses on the unity of thepeople of God and on separated Christian brethren rather than insisting according to the classical formulation that schismatics must return to the fold under the unity of theVicar of Christ.
Unitatis acknowledges that there are serious problems facing prospects of reunion with Reformation communities that make no attempt to claimapostolic succession as the Anglican communion does. Ecclesial communities which adhere toCalvinism are a particularly challenging case because they and Catholicism have important doctrinal differences on key issues such asecclesiology,liturgy andmariology. Other communities have insoluble doctrinal differences with Catholic Christianity because their theology of theHoly Trinity is manifestly incompatible with the doctrine as articulated by thecouncil of Nicaea in the early Church.
PopeJohn Paul II refers to and builds on the teaching ofUnitatis Redintegratio in his encyclical letter of 25 May 1995,Ut unum sint.
CardinalWalter Kasper discussed the status of the problems by the document on the 40th anniversary of the promulgation ofUnitatis in remarks entitled "The Decree on Ecumenism – Read Anew After Forty Years".[1]
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