Collegiality was not understood simply in terms of an ultimately non-binding collegial frame of mind; collegiality is rather a reality ontologically grounded in the sacrament of episcopal consecration, the shared participation in the one episcopal office… This collegiality is of course not limited to the horizontal and synchronic relationship with contemporary episcopal colleagues; since the Church is one and the same in all centuries, the present-day church must also maintain diachronic consensus with the episcopate of the centuries before us, and above all with the testimony of the apostles. This is the more profound significance of the apostolic succession in episcopal office.
The episcopal office is thus an office of unity in a two-fold sense. Bishops are the sign and the instrument of unity within the individual local church, just as they are between both the contemporary local churches and those of all times within the universal Church.
Should we not therefore also be in a position to say together: the decision for the ordination of women to the episcopal office can only be made with an overwhelming consensus, and must not in any way involve a conflict between the majority and the minority. It would be desirable that this decision would be made with the consensus of the ancient churches of the East and West. If on the contrary the consecration of a bishop becomes the cause of a schism or blocks the way to full unity, then what occurs is something intrinsically contradictory. It should then not take place, or should be postponed until a broader consensus can be reached.
‘ Grex unus, qui unianima consensione pascitur’, that is the aim of ecumenical dialogue; it can only succeed if the unianima consensio of every single one of the separated churches is preserved and is then constituted step by step between those separated ecclesial bodies. May this, in spite of all the difficulties and resistance, be granted to us one day by the grace of God.
Cardinal Walter Kasper An address given to the Church of England Bishops’ Meeting (5 June 2006)
