"Baptist Watcher"
by Father Joseph O'Donnell

The "Catholic Watcher," C. Brownlow Hastings scratches his head as Father O'Donnell makes a point before the Baptist-Catholic weekend dialogue in Knoxville, Tenn. The participants were from Central Baptist Church and Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

One can hardly be a Glenmary Home Missioner and not rub shoulders with Baptists. In almost every county in which Glenmary organizes mission churches, Baptists are overwhelmingly Number One. Long before Catholics arrived on the scene, Baptists moved in to evangelize the rural South. For two centuries, when the Gospel was read and then explained from a southern small town pulpit, the chances were mighty good that a Baptist was doing the preaching. Methodists and Presbyterians were there to some extent. But Baptists set the tone, and for all practical purposes saved the South for Christianity.

Then as Johnnies and Janies come-lately, the Catholics started migrating with industry to the rural South after World War II. This time the Church came with them. Yankee lay folks and missionary priests began for the first time to meet Southern Baptists.

The Baptist majority and the Catholic minority in those Southern rural counties began voting in the same elections, eating in the same restaurants and working with some harmony in the same textile factories. They sent their children to the same schools; they swatted doubles and made errors on the same ball fields and jumped the same ropes.

Even Baptist and Catholic pastors got to know one another somewhat. As ministers, they sometimes joined in worthwhile Christian projects such as helping the migrant poor, or counseling alcoholics or mutually invoking the Lord's blessing on a county fair, a high school basketball game or a Fourth-of-July parade.

Even so, Baptists and Catholics still knew so little about one another. They harbored fears about each other, and both continued to pass to the next generation negative ideas—sometimes true, but most often false. They smugly ignored one another's teachings. It was a safe and practical approach for avoiding realities.

With Vatican II, Catholics began to realize they could not be genuine Christians if they failed to show some concern for those other Christian churches as churches—and not just as isolated individuals. In the rural South, and often in Appalachia, that surely meant that Catholics needed to show concern for local Baptist churches.

As I look back now on the eleven delightful years of the late 60's and early 70's during which I pastored a mission parish in western Kentucky, I feel good about my warm friendship with some Baptist pastors. I ate with them and laughed with them; I worked with them and prayed with them. There can be no doubt I was enriched by that experience, and I feel they were, too.

But what we never captured from the experience of those years was an understanding of each other's teaching. We never realized that we should learn about the inner workings of one another's local congregations. We never spent the time to learn about our theological differences and similarities. As I see it now, we were mistaken in not delving into our mutual beliefs and practices. We would have been enriched indeed!

All that is changing speedily today. So fast has been the ecumenical pace between Baptists and Catholics that I can hardly keep abreast. Today we are trying hard to understand each other. We know that ignorance breeds many an ill feeling—and we are rapidly discovering how ignorant we have been.

Now the tables are turned—the Baptists at the 1981 Southern Baptist Convention in Los Angeles have Father Joe pondering.

What is happening to open channels for this flow of knowledge? First of all, an official dialogue, now moving into its fourth year, has been established. Bishop James Niedergeses, bishop of the Nashville diocese, and eight Catholic theologians and Doctor Glenn Igleheart, Director of the Baptist Interfaith Witness Department, and eight Baptist theologians have committed themselves to the struggle of learning about each other's teaching.

The group convenes semi-annually at a retreat center. Papers are read; discussion abounds; understanding deepens. None of us views the dialogues as attempts to water down beliefs. We have found areas of agreement we didn't know existed, and we are pinpointing more sharply the disagreements for still deeper study. Next year the up-to-date proceedings will be published - and that is a milestone!

Secondly, every June for the last six years I have accepted the invitation of Southern Baptists to attend their annual convention. With clerical blacks and a press badge amid those sharply dressed male and female messengers (Baptist Convention delegates), I stand out well! Many come up to offer me the hand of friendship and make me feel quite welcome. In turn, I answer questions about Baptist-Catholic relations; I listen to their best preachers and hear rousing hymn-singing. The invitations to meals flow so freely during the convention that I end up rejecting some.

The Southern Baptist Convention is a learning session for me as I behold Baptists at the height of their activity. It's open; it's free-wheeling; it's totally democratic - and an extravaganza as well.

The Baptist and Catholic scholars ponder togehter at one of their semi-annual meetings. This one took place at Holy Spirit Trappist Monastery in Conyers, Ga.

Picture a third event: sixty religious leaders from any southern state assemble for a weekend dialogue. A Catholic bishop and a Baptist executive secretary lecture about the thrusts and struggles of their congregations. Editors and religious education directors find out what makes the other tick and come to realize that they face many of the same problems. Presidents of men's and women's lay Baptist organizations and state office personnel swap tales with their Catholic counterparts. Key pastors and youth directors watch with amazement as Baptist and Catholic stereotypes, often so wrong and so inbred, fall one after the other.

On the first evening a recreation period breaks down many barriers when all gather to tell jokes, sing songs, and relate human interest stories. The pinnacle of the whole gathering is a prayer service in which all sing "Amazing Grace" and "Faith of Our Fathers," hear God's Word from the same Bible, and listen to a Catholic priest and a Baptist minister tell what it means to love Jesus personally and serve Him faithfully. No one leaves that twenty-eight hour experience without being deeply impressed.

The handshake and the smile followed upon the weekend dialogue in Knoxville, Tenn., as a Baptist senior citizen and a Catholic friend meet in the hall.

In nine Southern states such "happenings" have been repeated. To be able to watch the Holy Spirit at work at these state leaders' dialogues charges me up enough for many trips down the road.

Finally, Catholics and Baptists are also getting acquainted at the local church level. And that's where "the water hits the wheel!" In small towns like Glenmary's Dahlonega, Georgia, and in metropolitan areas such as Birmingham, Alabama, both groups are getting to know each other better—not just as people but as believers in the risen Lord.

A typical local church dialogue between Baptists and Catholics turns out to be a simple but genuine exchange about what the other church believes. On Saturday night the Baptist congregation and its pastor come to the Catholic Mass, then go to the Church hall for a friendly cup of coffee. This is followed by a lecture on Baptist beliefs. Usually a lively question period follows. On Sunday night the order is reversed with the Catholic congregation coming with its pastor to the Baptist worship service. Then they again head to the fellowship hall for refreshments and friendly personal exchange. A lecture follows on what Catholics profess.

It works! The people gladly tell us that it does.

I could go on and on: about the pastors' meetings I have organized to help local Baptist and Catholic churches discover possible avenues of cooperation - or about the living-room dialogues - or the numerous and enjoyable opportunities that have come my way to lecture in Baptist colleges and seminaries about Catholicism - or to preach on Sunday morning at all the Masses explaining to Catholics in minority situations what Baptists are like.

Some of the best questions come after the session is over., This could be a scene after any living-room, local church, or state leaders' dialogue.

I must mention that the Southern Baptists have Doctor C. Brownlow Hastings working full time to deepen Baptist-Catholic relations. We work together on many different projects. His Christian spirit shines out at every meeting. I am thankful for his friendship. He calls himself the "Catholic-watcher." So, that surely makes me the "Baptistwatcher."

Pope John Paul II recently stated that evangelization will not succeed with unbelievers while Christians remain so divided. That's why he has put ecumenism high on his priority list. Ecumenism must start with friendship. Catholics in the South and Southern Baptists are rapidly closing the gap of aloofness. Secondly, we must seek to understand each other. In this we are "off and running." Then comes genuine cooperation - here we at least have started up the hill.

Where will the Holy Spirit lead us? What paths must we follow? How long will the journey be? What will the end of the road look like? No one can answer these questions. But we must pray, and we must work. The Holy Spirit will do His thing—in His own good time!