Ratzinger’s ecumenism

From Joseph Ratzinger in Communio: Vol. 1, The Unity of the Church (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought) :

“The true chance for ecumenism does not lie in revolt against the Church as it is, in a Christianity as free of the Church as possible, but in a deepening of the reality which is the Church . . . . In practice, this means that one cannot live ecumenism against one’s own Church, but only by trying to deepen it in relation to what is essential and central. This means that one must seek the center in one’s own Church, and this, after all, for all Christian and Churches is truly only one. Conversely it means . . . that at any event one may not seek the center in traditions that are purely one’s own, which are not found in the whole of the rest of the oecumene. All this, however, can never be done by merely rational calculation. It presupposes spiritual experience, penance, and conversion. And again, it begins quite concretely by overcoming mutual mistrust, the sociologically rooted defensive attitude against what is strange, belonging to another, and that we constantly take the Lord, whom after all we are seeking, more seriously than we take ourselves. He is our unity, what we have in common—no, who is the one who is common to and in all denominations.”