HOUSTON — The Catholic Church might soon have a new platform for ecumenical dialogue in the United States.

Fifty U.S. religious leaders, including several from the Catholic Church, met in Houston Jan. 7-9 as part of efforts to form a new ecumenical group called Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A., said Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, chairman of the interim steering committee of Christian Churches Together.

Catholics attending the Houston meeting included Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and Father Ronald Roberson, associate director of the bishops' confer-ence's Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Participants were mainly “fine-tuning the arrangements that were put forth a year ago in Pasadena, [Calif.],” when religious leaders interested in Christian Churches Together developed an organizational plan for the group, Father Roberson said.

Bishop Blaire, who is on the interim steering committee of Christian Churches Together, presented the group's organizational plan to the plenary meeting of the bishops' conference in November. He expects the committee to present a formal proposal to the conference this year or next.

Whether the proposal will recommend that the Catholic Church join Christian Churches Together is “up to our committee,” Bishop Blaire said. “But it is certainly the mind of the Holy Father that we participate in these types of organizations.”

Five Families

Christian Churches Together is intended to consist of five “families” — Roman Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical/Pentecostal, historic Protestant and historic racial/ethnic, according to Granberg-Michaelson, who is also general secretary of the Reformed Church in America.

Asking churches to become formal participants in Christian Churches Together began after the meeting last year in Pasadena, he said. This is when Phase I of Christian Churches Together started.

So far, the Greek Orthodox Church, four historic Protestant denominations and the American Baptist Church, which considers itself both evangelical and historic Protestant, have joined formally, Granberg-Michaelson said.

More than 30 denominations are in the process of considering whether to join as formal participants, he added.

Phase II of the group's existence will begin “when at least 25 denominations from an adequately representative group of the five families … have formally decided” to join Christian Churches Together, the organizational plan states.

In Phase II, the group expects to develop a modest infrastructure of one professional and one support staff member.

“We want this to be what the churches do together rather than … them deciding to form a separate organization,” Granberg-Michael-son explained.

Father Roberson said there has been “a long-standing feeling among Christians in the United States that we needed a broader organization” than the National Council of Churches.

“The Roman Catholic Church and evangelical/Pentecostal churches don't belong to the National Council of Churches,” Granberg-Michaelson said, and there was “never any indication that they would be willing to join.”

Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the journal First Things and an observer of the ecumenical scene, characterized the National Council of Churches as primarily an organization of “mainline or old-line liberal Protestant churches.”

Bishop Blaire said there was a “long history” of why the Catholic Church never joined the National Council of Churches.

Father Roberson said the National Council of Churches “has often been taking positions not to the liking of Catholics and evangelicals.”

The current president of the National Council of Churches, Bishop Thomas Hoyt Jr. of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, stated more bluntly that “the National Council is anathema” to some religious groups because of certain positions it has taken in the past.

Not a Good Mix

For example, the council supported the preparation of gender-inclusive lectionaries with Bible readings to be used in church worship, Bishop Hoyt said. The lectionaries use the words “human beings” instead of “men” and “realm of God” instead of “kingdom,” he said. They also allow optional use of the word “mother” in the version of the Lord's Prayer from the Gospel of St. Luke.

And although the council originally joined Catholics and evangelicals in signing “A Christian Declaration on Marriage,” which declared marriage to be between one man and one woman, the council's general secretary later withdrew his signature, according to the National Council of Churches news service.

The general secretary said he withdrew his name out of concern that the declaration “may be used by some as a pretext for attacks on gay and lesbian persons,” the service reported.

Granberg-Michaelson agreed it “wouldn't be feasible for the evangelical/Pentecostal churches and the Catholic Church simply to say they want to join the National Council of Churches — there is too much history, too many divisions, too many stereotypes.”

“It had to be a fresh start,” he said.

Father Roberson said the creation of Christian Churches Together “would allow us to be a forum for contacts with churches we don't have right now,” such as the evangelical/Pentecostal churches.

The new group could serve as a “facilitator … for coalitions to be built around particular issues, such as pro-life issues,” by bringing the Catholic Church together with the evangelical/Pentecostal denominations and the various Orthodox communions, he said.

The group's organizational plan anticipates such coalitions will develop out of discussion forums sponsored by Christian Churches Together, but these coalitions will act in their own names, not in the name of Christian Churches Together.

It is still an open question, however, whether evangelical/Pentecostal denominations will join Christian Churches Together, Father Roberson said.

At least four evangelical/Pentecostal churches — the Evangelical Covenant Church, the Christian Reform Church, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the International Pentecostal Holiness Church — are in the process of considering whether to join as formal participants, according to GranbergMichaelson.

But Father Neuhaus wrote in the August/September 2002 issue of First Things that he would not consider evangelical participation to be significant unless it included such major communions as the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God.

Granberg-Michaelson acknowledged that although the Southern Baptist Convention sent an observer to the Pasadena meeting, “They're probably going to be on the sideline.”

Bishop Blaire nevertheless expressed hopes for “wider participation” in Christian Churches Together, including participation by evangelical denominations.

“We hope,” Bishop Blaire said, “that this will be a structured forum … [in which] every church that believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and believes in the Trinity will find a home.”

Katherine Santos writes from Garden City, N.Y.