The Ecumenical Dialogue on Moral Issues; Potential Sources of Common Witness or of Divisions

The JWG submitted the Sixth Report to the Roman Catholic authorities and to the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches (Canberra, February 1991). Both mandated that the JWG should deepen the study as one of the priorities during its next period. It was not to examine the substance of the potentially or actually divisive issues, but it was to describe them and outline how they may best be approached in dialogue, in the hope that such issues can offer new opportunities for the increase of mutual understanding and respect and for common witness, without compromise of a church’s convictions or of Christian conscience.