Louvain Studies 33 (2008) 6-29 doi: 10.2143/LS.33.1.2034333 © 2008 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved Vatican II and the World Council of Churches: A Vision for Receptive Ecumenism or a Clash of Paradigms? Gabriel Flynn Abstract. — The aim of this article is to examine the vision for unity proposed by the Second Vatican Council and the World Council of Churches respectively, in order to contribute to a renewal of ecumenism. It begins by briefly outlining the contri- bution of Vatican II and of the World Council of Churches to the coveted goal of unity, with particular reference to their respective elaborations of the psychology of ecumenism, at that movement’s inception. The article considers how Yves Congar (1904-95) and Willem A. Visser ’t Hooft (1900-85), two of the great pioneers of ecumenism in the twentieth century, contributed jointly to its advancement. The penultimate part of the article considers the indispensable role of dialogue in the methodologies of ecumenism proposed by the principal protagonists both within their particular ecclesial milieux and beyond. An important objective is to assess whether the specific models for ecumenicity at the heart of the World Council of Churches and of the Second Vatican Council contribute to a symbiotic receptivity or to an inevitable clash of ever divergent paradigms, or both. 1. Ecumenism Eclipsed? 1 The history of the modern ecumenical movement, already documented by scholars, 2 predates the Second Vatican Council. As the Council marked a profound engagement by the Roman Catholic Church with the modern world, so also its Decree on Ecumenism, 1. I thank A. N. Williams, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and Hans Boersma, Regent College, Vancouver, for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. 2. See Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948, vol. I (London: SPCK, 1954); Harold E. Fey (ed.), The Ecumenical Advance: A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1948-1968, vol. II (London: SPCK, 1970); John Briggs, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Georges Tsetsis (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1968-2000, vol. III (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2004); Gustave Thils, Histoire doctrinale du mouvement œcuménique, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 8 (Louvain/Paris: Warny/Desclée de Brouwer, 1955) and new ed. 1963.