with. It can be said that the "ecumenicity" of the Church is another way of expressing her "radical catholicity and/or universality". The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism states that bishops of the Catholic Church, "individually for their own dioceses, and collegially for the whole Church, are, under the authority of the Holy See, responsible for ecumenical policy and practice". Historical perspectives Before the Second Vatican Council The Catholic Church sees itself as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, founded by Christ himself. Its teachings, both before and after the Second Vatican Council, equate the one Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. Ecumenism takes as it starting point that Christ founded just one Church, not many churches; hence the Catholic Church has as its ultimate hope and objective that through prayer, study, and dialogue, the historically separated bodies may come again to be reunited with it. Unity was always a principal aim of the Catholic Church. Before the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church defined ecumenism as dialogue with other Christian groups in order to persuade these to return to a unity that they themselves had broken. At the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1438–42), in which some bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Churches participated, reunion formulas were worked out that failed to win acceptance by the Eastern Churches. The Catholic Church, even before the Second Vatican Council, always considered it a duty of the highest rank to seek full unity with estranged communions of fellow-Christians, and at the same time to reject what it saw as premature and false union that would mean being unfaithful to or glossing over the teaching of Sacred Scripture and Tradition. But the main stress was laid on caution, as exemplified in canon 1258 the 1917 Code of Canon Law: It is illicit for the faithful to assist at or participate in any way in non-Catholic religious functions. For a serious reason requiring, in case of doubt, the Bishop's approval, passive or merely material presence at non-Catholic funerals, weddings and similar occasions because of holding a civil office or as a courtesy can be tolerated, provided there is no danger of perversion or scandal. Since the Second Vatican Council The aim of the Second Vatican Council, as its initiator Pope John XXIII stated, was to seek renewal from within the Church itself, which