A John Allen report on the community:
Talking to pilgrims here, and to ecumenical observers in other places, three aspects of Taizé seem to be the most impressive.
First is the utter selflessness of the community. The brothers don’t charge fees, don’t ask for contributions, don’t ask people to join anything nor to leave anything behind. There are no high-pressure “altar calls,” no invasive questions about one’s spiritual life or personal morality. Meals are simple, using nothing more than a bowl and wooden spoon, but always plentiful. While a handful of young men stay behind for life as monks, most pilgrims just come and go, each making of the experience what he or she chooses.
Moreover, Taizé has no program for ecumenism, no particular spiritual path it proposes. It does not host theological dialogues nor organize international conferences, so it’s no one’s rival. It has no “agenda” beyond living its own life.
Second is the aesthetic sense of Taizé, the capacity to make beauty out of simple materials. The Church of Reconciliation, with its small icon of the Madonna and tabernacle, its modest Orthodox iconostasis, and stark Protestant sanctuary, somehow manages to be stunning and yet unassuming. Liturgies are reverent without being overly pious or stuffy, with a striking use of light and darkness, and the music runs through one’s mind long after formal worship is concluded.
Third, and perhaps most basic, is the spirit of Taizé. Many groups talk about reconciliation and unity, but here those ideals are lived as facts of life. Taizé doesn’t “work for” Christian unity, it assumes it, thereby giving visitors a tangible experience of how full, visible unity among Christians looks and feels.
"But if you look on ecumenism as an end in itself" Alois warns. ‘then you lose sight of the true goal which is the common meeting with Christ. It is to this meeting that we come three times a day here in our community prayer."
A recent George Weigel column on the controversy that erupted after Brother Roger’s funeral thanks to a NYtimes story:
Since the 1970s, all Eucharistic celebrations at the Church of the Reconciliation at Taize are Catholic liturgies, presided over by priests or bishops. "For those who…cannot or do not wish to receive communion in the Catholic Church, a special arrangement enables them to receive the ‘blessed bread.’ After the Gospel reading…a basket of small pieces of bread is blessed by the celebrant and set on a table next to the altar. At the moment of communion, the distribution of the Eucharist and the distribution of the blessed bread are done in a way that clearly indicates the difference. In this the Orthodox and Easter-rite Catholics recognize their traditional practice of distributing the ‘antirodon,’ namely parts of the altar bread that have not been consecrated. At Brother Roger’s funeral, in accordance with the usual practice at Taize, those present could receive either the consecrated Eucharistic species or the blessed bread."
The Times’ story suggests that a policy decision was made to give holy communion to non-Catholics at Brother Roger’s funeral. That is simply not true
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