On Sunday the Vatican published a personal letter Pope Francis wrote to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople suggesting the leaders' gathering.

That same day Cardinal Kurt Koch — who heads the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity — hand-delivered the letter to Patriarch Bartholomew during his visit to Istanbul for the Orthodox Church's patronal feast of St Andrew.

"The now imminent 1,700th anniversary ... will be another opportunity to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Francis wrote to Bartholomew.

Reflecting on six decades of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue while looking ahead to future possibilities for unity, Francis was positive.

He acknowledged the progress made since Vatican II's Unitatis Redintegratio decree marked the Catholic Church's official entry into the ecumenical movement 60 years ago.

Koch is firm that efforts toward unity must focus on "the innermost centre of self-revelation in Jesus Christ".

There must be an "ecumenism of blood" he says.

"Christians are not persecuted because they are Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican but because they are Christian."

Building peace in a time of war

While celebrating the "renewed fraternity" which Catholic-Orthodox communities had achieved since Vatican II, Francis also wrote in his letter to Bartholomew that full communion, particularly sharing "the one Eucharistic chalice", remains an unfulfilled goal.

Speaking of contemporary global tensions, Francis pointedly connected ecumenical efforts to peace-building.

"The fraternity lived and the witness given by Christians will also be a message for our world plagued by war and violence" his letter says. He specifically mentioned several war-torn countries by name, including Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.

He also highlighted Orthodox representatives' recent participation in October's Synod on Synodality.

The traditional Catholic-Orthodox exchange of delegations occurs twice a year. Catholic representatives travel to Istanbul for St Andrew's feast on November 30 and Orthodox delegates visit Rome for the feast of Sts Peter and Paul on June 29.

The delegation participated in the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St George, Phanar. It also held discussions with the synodal commission charged with relations with the Catholic Church.

Source

• CNA

Greater attention needs to be paid to the wider context of the synodal renewal, to the preconditions and consequences of this process.

It concerns a much larger and more demanding task than simply transforming a rigid clerical system within the Catholic Church into a net of flexible communication.

Synodality, the common way (syn hodos), is designed to renew, revive and deepen not only not only communication within the Church, but the Church's ability to communicate with other systems in society, with other cultures and religions, with the whole human family.

The synodality is to be an inspiring response to the question of how to overcome the crisis of globalization, how to transform a civilization of technological, informational and economic interconnection and, at the same time, dangerous divisions and tensions into a culture of coexistence in peace and justice.

Synodality is a way of developing the catholicity (universality) of Christianity.

Catholicity, as well as unity, holiness and apostolic character, was given to the Church as a gift and at the same time as a task for the journey through history to its eschatological goal.

The Second Vatican Council emphasized that the mission of catholicity includes ecumenical and interreligious cooperation.

Pope Francis enriches the understanding of catholicity and ecumenicity with an emphasis on ecological responsibility: care must be taken to ensure that the whole planet returns to being an "oikumene", a habitable space, a home for the whole human family and all life on earth.

Ecumenicity includes openness, welcoming, hospitality and inclusiveness - not a naive and uncritical conformity to the external world, but an openness and receptivity to the dynamics of the Holy Spirit.

The God we confess speaks in the polyphony of Scripture and tradition, through the teaching authority of pastors and theologians and through the non-conforming and often unwelcome voices of prophets and the mystics.

He speaks through the daily practice of the people of God ("consensus fidelium") and through the "signs of the times" - through events in history, society and culture.

The seeds of his Word are richly scattered in the fields of different cultures, and are found in philosophies, religions and artistic creations all over the planet.

To embark on the path of synodal renewal requires the courage to be led across many boundaries by the dynamics of the Spirit, of whom Jesus says that "we do not know where he comes from or where he goes."

At the same time, the synodal journey must be a journey of spiritual discernment.

Jesuit spirituality in particular offers methods of spiritual discernment, for example in the form of "examen", a regular reflection on the contents of our minds, thoughts and emotions with which we respond to inner and outer stimuli.

One must carefully discern the Zeitgeist, which is the superficial "language of the world" (public opinion, advertisements, ideologies and the entertainment industry) from the signs of the times, which are the language of God through events in the world, through profound changes in society and culture.

The art of spiritual discernment is the fruit of a contemplative approach to reality, of contemplative prayer.

In the epoch of modernity, Christianity has lost its cultural-political role as a religion (religio) in the sense of integrating the whole of society (religio in the sense of religare - to bind together).

Synodal reform can prepare the Church for the role of religion in another sense, in the sense of the verb re-legere (to re-read or read anew).

The Church can be a school of "new reading", of a new hermeneutic, of a new, deeper interpretation of God's speech, of God's self-sharing.

This is one of the indispensable tasks of the Church of our time, and therefore of the synodal renewal: to be a school of a contemplative approach to reality.

The Church as the ongoing event of the resurrection

A contemplative approach to reality allows us to perceive the constant presence of God: to perceive our relationship with the natural environment as our relationship of cooperation and responsibility for the "creatio continua" (ongoing process of creation).

To understand the missionary task of the Church as a participation in the "incarnatio continua", in the inculturation of the Gospel into the ways of thinking and living of people (or as a responsibility for the "ex-culturation" of Christianity).

To consider the pains of the Church, of individuals and nations, as a "passio contitua", as participation in the cry of the Crucified and in the difficult silence of the Holy Saturday.

The Church participates in the drama of Easter not only through the liturgical celebration but also through the events of its history.

The Church also participates in Christ's cross, suffering and death through the death and extinction of its many forms - institutionally, doctrinally and spiritually, and through the individual and collective "dark nights of faith."

The mystery of the cross cannot be cheaply emptied; without death there is no resurrection.

Just as Christ's resurrection was not a mere resuscitation, a return to a past form, but a startling transformation, so it is with every awakening of the Church to new life. The Church is "ever renewing" (semper reformanda), but this "semper" (continually) has its own dynamics.

The history of the Church is not a one-way "progress" but an open drama.

The ongoing event of the Resurrection (ressurectio continua) happens in the stories of conversion, and not only in the lives of individuals. The present synodal renewal called for by Pope Francis is also a kairos, a time of opportunity - an opportunity for transformation, for renewal, for another of the many great conversions of the Church.

Synodal renewal and its obstacles

Synodal reform must be more than a mere continuation of the line of the Second Vatican Council. It is to open up space for the mission of the Church in a postmodern age of radical plurality.

Pope Francis identifies synodal reform as a program for the entire third millennium. Synodality is to be the permanent form of the Church throughout its future history - to its final eschatological consummation. It is a journey through history into the arms of God.

To regard any particular state of society and of the Church, of theological or scientific knowledge, as final, perfect and unchangeable is to succumb to the temptation of triumphalism.

Triumphalism consists in mistaking the present imperfect state of the Church in history (ecclesia militans) for its eschatological form, the perfect Church of the saints in heaven (ecclesia triumphans).

The heresy of triumphalism is often accompanied by paternalism, clericalism, fundamentalism and traditionalism.

Paternalism forgets that the teaching Church must always also be a learning Church; that in the Church there is one Father and one Teacher, Christ - and we are all brothers and disciples.

Clericalism is a manifestation of "worldliness" - it understands authority in the church as worldly power, not ministry.

The bearers of this ministry then behave like a "ruling class" or upper caste, separated in many of their actions and lifestyles from the whole of God's people.

Fundamentalism forgets that here we see and understand "only in part, as in a mirror and in riddles" (1 Cor 13:12).

The fundamentalist does not understand the images presented to us by Scripture and Tradition as icons for meditation, as means of adoration of the Mystery, but takes them as idols, idols that need no further interpretation.

Fundamentalism is guilty of idolatry, of objectifying and flattening the mystery of faith, of binding it into the shape of a closed ideological system.

Traditionalism is a denial of the meaning of tradition as a living, creative transmission of faith.

It is a heresy in the original sense of the word, an arbitrary selection - it takes a certain historically conditioned form of the Church or its doctrine out of context and absolutizes it.

Faithfulness to the content of the faith is a commitment to courageously, creatively, and responsibly revive and transform the forms of its expression so as to enable the content to be communicated in an intelligible and credible way.

Both the abundance of responsible theological reflection and the variety of practical examples of living the faith reveals the inexhaustible richness of the "treasure of faith" and the inexhaustible variety of its authentic interpretations.

The synodal development of the Church will show, in the words of Pope Francis, many new ways of being Christian, new - now unexpected - ways of being the Church in the world.

All attempts to shackle the freedom of the Spirit of God, to reduce the richness of his self-expression and to enclose it in a rigid, closed ideological system run the risk of the gravest sin: the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual accompaniment

The synodal reform of the Church is a long run; unrealistic expectations of major institutional changes immediately after the two synodal sessions in Rome must be tempered.

Nevertheless, the Instrumentum Laboris provides important suggestions that are already ripe for implementation.

In addition to the already established ministry of acolytes and catechists, the establishment of other ministries that do not require ordination is proposed.

One of these is certainly the ministry of spiritual accompaniment, which includes all the main elements of synodality - listening, openness to the action of the Holy Spirit, spiritual discernment and a common search for the right choice.

This ministry cannot be substituted by the sacrament of penance or by psychotherapy (although we may find some similarities or even partial overlaps).

It is a way of discovering God's presence in people's lives, even in the lives of "non-religious people" - to whom this ministry can also be offered.

It presupposes both the personal charisma, experience and appropriate personal qualities of the accompanying persons, as well as their competence in several theological disciplines and in the social sciences.

In addition to parishes, it will be necessary to establish centres of spirituality, spiritual exercises, spiritual accompaniment and pastoral counselling.

It is also in these centres that synodal groups should continue to meet on a permanent basis, sharing their experiences in an atmosphere of prayer and contemplation and seeking solutions to problems in their personal lives and in the Church.

Accompaniment as a political task of the Church

However, the ministry of spiritual accompaniment is not only about accompanying individuals.

The Church also has a "political", therapeutic and prophetic mission in the world.

The relationship between the Church and the world has been changing throughout history, and theology must constantly reflect this.

The synodal reform of the Church presupposes a reform of theological thinking: a shift from static thinking in terms of unchanging natures to an emphasis on the dynamics of relationships, on the need for their constant renewal and deepening.

At the centre of the Christian understanding of God is the Trinity - God as relationship, God's being as life in a relationship.

God created human beings in his image: the "human nature" is therefore a life in relationships, being with and for others, sharing in a common way (syn hodos).

The shift from thinking in terms of static, unchanging natures to an emphasis on the quality of relationships involves a renewal of both the understanding of the Church (ecclesiology) and of Christian ethics, including sexual and political ethics. In doing so, the findings of the natural and social sciences cannot be ignored.

The Church is to be a community of pilgrims (communio viatorum) in order to contribute to the transformation of the world, of the whole human family, into a community of journey, to help deepen the dynamics of sharing.

The Church is a sacrament, a symbol and an instrument of the unity of all humanity.

This unity is also to be synodal, not totalitarian.

This unity is also an eschatological goal - it cannot be fully realized during history, but it is necessary to work for its realization, to remove boundaries.

The process of globalization is necessarily incomplete.

It is in crisis mainly because technological, economic and informational interconnection has not been able to (and could not itself) create a consciousness of belonging and co-responsibility on a global scale.

No political regime, no ideology, no religion or theocratic state can offer an external framework for the co-existence of a multitude of such different cultures and civilisations, all clamouring for their own free development.

The political role of Christianity is not to offer or even impose Christianity in the form of an ideology or a theocratic state (the Russian Orthodox Church is a warning example), but through its synodal reform to inspire the quest for a new quality of relationship between people, cultures, religions and states.

The vision of the Second Vatican Council was dialogue - dialogue between the Church and the world, between churches, religions, cultures, peoples and civilizations.

But today, dialogue as a relationship between separate entities is no longer enough.

The Church and the world can no longer be seen as separate entities; the world is the internal structure of human existence, and the Church is always already thrown into the world before it is able to reflect on its relationship to the world. Civilizations and religions, states and nations can no longer be seen as separate entities.

We are interconnected - and we need to understand, develop and cultivate the way of this interconnection.

It is a challenge to and for all (per tutti) and all must be invited.

The synodal renewal of the Church is not meant to be a replication of the democratic system in the sense of majority rule, nor a replication of the type and state of democracy as we see it in today's political arena.

Rather, the principle of synodality could inspire a renewal of political democracy, a nurturing of what today's democracy lacks and why it is so vulnerable to populism and the attraction of authoritarian systems.

The Church must bring more than dialogue into the world today - namely, inspiration by the life of the Trinity.

Synodality, as a common journey, moves towards a deeper mutuality - that which the theology of the Trinity calls perichoresis, a mutual interpenetration that does not mean the destruction but the fulfillment of the identity of each of the participants in the process. By cultivating relationships with one another, by overcoming mental boundaries, we contribute - whether we are aware of it or not - to deepening our relationship to a common ground: to God, who is all in all.

• Mons. Tomáš Halík presented this text as a theological and spiritual introduction to the working meeting of the European delegates of the second session of the World Synod on Synodality in Rome. The working meeting took place in August 2024 at the Catholic University of Linz, Austria, with the participation of representatives of the General Secretariat of the Synod, CCEE (Council of European Bishops' Conferences) and COMECE (Council of Bishops' Conferences of the EU countries), bishops, theologians, representatives of religious orders and lay initiatives and movements.
• Mons. Tomáš Halík was entrusted (similarly to the European Continental Synod in Prague and the World Synod of Pastors in Rome) with the introduction and spiritual accompaniment of these synodal meetings.
• First published online in Catholic Outlook. Republished with permission.

The Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is of the same view.

Faith in God comes with two "inseparable" elements, Bartholomew said on Sunday which was the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

He said these two elements are the God-given dignity of the human person and the integrity of God's creation.

Religious groups must help

Francis says religious groups must help fight climate change because true progress will require conversion.

Bartholomew agrees.

"Genuine religious faith dissolves the arrogance and titanism of humankind" by helping people realise they are not God.

A person has no right to abolish "all standards, boundaries and values, while declaring himself ‘the measure of all things' and instrumentalising his fellow human beings and nature for the satisfaction of his unquenchable needs and arbitrary pursuits.

"Respect for the sacredness of the human person and the protection of the integrity of the ‘very good' creation are inseparable."

World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

Bartholomew's predecessor, Patriarch Demetrios, instituted the annual day of prayer for creation in 1989.

In 2015, Francis added the day to the Catholic Church's annual observances.

His message for the 2024 day of prayer also speaks of the conversion necessary to leave behind "the arrogance of those who want to exercise dominion over others and nature itself, reducing the latter to an object to be manipulated".

Instead, it asks for people to embrace "the humility of those who care for others and for all of creation".

He said that "With God as the loving Father, his Son as the friend and redeemer of every person, and the Holy Spirit who guides our steps on the path of charity and obedience to the Spirit of love - this radically changes the way we think: from ‘predators' we become 'tillers' of the garden".

A shared message

Like Francis, Bartholomew's statement emphasised the connection between care for creation and love for one another, especially the poor.

"There is a close and indissoluble bond between our care of creation and our service to the body of Christ, just as there is between the economic conditions of the poor and the ecological conditions of the planet" he said.

"Scientists tell us that those most egregiously harmed by the current ecological crisis will continue to be those who have the least."

Source

• Our Sunday Visitor

It encourages the healing of divisions between churches.

Divisions rule

In culture, politics and religion, however, division provides most of the news of the day.

The religious headlines emphasise fractures within churches.

They tell of discrepancy between the professed values of churches and the bad behaviour of their representatives.

They headline division between church leaders and people in the congregation.

It is understandable that church leaders focus on holding their own churches together than on their relationship to other churches.

Christian Unity movement

The history of the movement for Christian Unity, and particularly of Catholic attitude to it, however, suggests deeper things at stake.

It may also illuminate the broader tension between unity and division in Western societies.

Catholics came relatively slowly to the ecumenical table.

The roots of the movement for unity lay in the late nineteenth century at a time of vigorous missionary activity by European and American churches in the colonies.

Those involved recognised how far their rivalry and exclusive claims for their own churches had weakened efforts of each to win converts.

Non-Christians among whom they worked were also deterred by the contradiction observed in people who fought with one another while they preached a Gospel of peace and unity.

The Week for Christian Unity was one of many initiatives aimed at healing the divisions of the past, at restoring unity among Christians, and at encouraging shared prayer and action.

It was part of what became known as the ecumenical movement.

Attitudes towards the movement among church leaders and members were ambivalent: in favour in theory but cautious in practice.

The Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church the initial attitude to the ecumenical movement was generally suspicious.

It was seen to downplay the vital importance of unity of belief.

It risked giving the impression that all churches were equally valid, so failing to recognise that the true Church already existed in the Catholic Church.

For it, unity meant abandoning error and returning to the Catholic Church.

Differences vs similarities

In the Second Vatican Council, however, disunity among Christians was seen as a scandal.

The many elements shared with other churches were recognised, and the urgency of church unity was stressed.

Catholic leaders and theologians joined their fellows in other churches in seeking common ground on disputed points of doctrine and practice.

Local congregations of different churches prayed together and sought to cooperate on common projects.

For many of us Catholics this was an exhilarating journey of discovery.

It involved moving beyond the emphasis in Catholic identity of being different and superior to other so-called Churches to find unsuspected similarities, and ideas and practices and expressions of the Gospel commendable in their difference.

We began to centre our identity in the faith that we shared with others, and not in the ways in which we differed from them.

Unity, identity, culture

More recently, however, the passion for Christian unity has waned as church congregations have declined.

The place of Churches in society has diminished, and Churches have become more preoccupied with their own identity and questions of governance, including the scandal of sexual abuse of children.

As all churches cope with more limited resources there is less energy or enthusiasm for deepening relationships with other churches.

Among the few young Catholics for whom faith and Church are central to their lives, too, many emphasise its separateness from the secular world and from other Churches.

These changes have affected all churches in the West.

In the Catholic Church, Vatican II was not their cause. It formed part of a distinctive cultural change that affected all Churches.

The identity of the Catholic Church had been defined by its superiority to other Churches and to the secular world in general.

This distinctive identity was expressed in a strong community cohesive in its understanding of faith and its ritual practice.

The changes of Vatican II were designed to foster an identity defined by openness to the world and other religious bodies, expressed in a strong and cohesive community renewed in its faith and its reformed ritual practice.

In practice, however, the move from superiority and difference to hospitality was accompanied by a widespread loss of cohesion and of commitment to a defined faith and ritual.

For an increasing number of Christians church allegiance and belief were seen in terms of personal history and individual choice, not as a commitment to an authoritative tradition.

The movement for Church union then seemed quixotic to people who felt free to move between churches and to make what they wanted of Christian doctrine. The unity of the Church was seen in spiritual and not in institutional terms.

Wider social change

This change is echoed in the political culture.

Once large political parties with a distinctive, shared and often polemical vision of society and a strong allegiance to it, have been replaced by small parties, united by interests more than by convictions.

These in any case are subordinated to the winning of elections.

Candidates for Parliament are drawn from those for whom politics is a career not a calling.

The current hatred that marks politics seems to flow as much from ambition and entitlement as from policy.

In response, voters are correspondingly more detached from political parties.

They favour individuals who appear to be authentic in their principles or who share their interests.

Pope's challenge

In this situation, Pope Francis' approach to Christian unity may be of wider interest.

He has challenged an inwards-turned vision of Church that identifies itself either by what it is not or as a collection of loosely bound individuals.

He has encouraged Catholics to go out to the edges of the Catholic Church to engage with disengaged members of the Church.

He's also encouraged Catholics to go out to Christians in other Churches, people of all Churches and none who suffer from poverty and discrimination, and to all to whom Christ came.

Ecumenical mission

This broad sense of mission draws its energy from and encourages a deep faith in Christ who embodied God's love in suffering rejection and rising from death.

It invites an ecumenism in which the faith of members and congregations of different Churches leads them to reach out beyond their doors into the world around them and its needs.

Today our public culture appears largely to have given up hoping for a unity of vision that transcends division.

Perhaps the call to go beyond the comfort of like-minded people to those on the margins of our society and to attend to them and their needs might reinvigorate commitment to the common good and to the democratic habits that sustain it.

• First published in Eureka Street
• Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.

Basically, it means you risk losing your faith when you go to the Eternal City.

It's certainly a phrase that was bantered about during the 16th century when Martin Luther (an Augustinian friar from Germany), John Calvin (a theologian from France), and John Knox (a priest from Scotland) - Roman Catholics one and all - became leaders of various movements to reform a Church they saw as corrupt and worldly, one that had drifted far away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Of course, the senior hierarchs in the papal court at that time saw things somewhat differently and these "Catholic reformers" ended up breaking with Rome (actually the pope excommunicated them), cementing what has since been known as the Reformation - the Protestant Reformation.

The deep divisions - and religious wars - that followed, fractured Western Christianity to the point that Roman Catholicism and the new Reform Church communities became entrenched in a sectarian mentality over time.

Rome and the "restoration" of Church unity

The pontificate of John XXIII (1959-63), and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) that he convoked, brought to fruition the efforts that some Church leaders and theologians, both from Catholicism and the Reform tradition, had been working on during the previous decades to promote unity in the one Church of Jesus Christ.

The Vatican, and the rest of Roman Catholicism, suddenly became committed to the ecumenical movement in a way that the Bishop of Rome and those in communion with him had never been before.

Despite Vatican II, which is considered the most monumental event in the Christian Church since the 16th century Reformation, the ecclesial community in Rome has been cautious in how it promotes the "restoration" of the Church's unity, as the Vatican II decree on ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, called it.

The unfunny joke often repeated during the pontificate of John Paul II was that the Vatican's form of ecumenism was "you-come-in-ism".

In other words, the other Christian denominations should just "return" to Rome and submit to the leadership of the Roman Pontiff.

Pope Francis has changed that, but - ironically - without undertaking any major ecumenical initiatives, at least at the institutional level.

It is difficult to call to mind any groundbreaking events or projects the Dicastery (formerly Pontifical Council) for Promoting Christian Unity has sponsored to help hasten the "restoration" of Church unity.

Its officials continue to participate in the dialogues with other parts of the fractured Church that were established decades ago, but their Vatican office has not done much else.

A focus on the "peripheries"

Francis, on the other hand, has often met individually with leaders of other parts of the Church not in communion with Rome.

He even went to Sweden in 2016 to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in a gesture of friendship and show of at least partial Church unity with Christians of what can now rightly be called the Reform tradition.

And the Jesuit pope's concerted effort to focus on the Church in the "peripheries" has played a role in helping Catholics (and others) to begin taking a healthy distance from Rome and the unhealthy obsession with all things Vatican.

Another irony, however, is that this has somewhat increased the (also) unhealthy idolisation (or at least idealisation) of the Roman pope!

The Synod

Hopefully, the upcoming two-pronged assembly of the Synod of Bishops will, despite its being held at the Vatican, further help Catholics and Christians of other denominations see that a balance can be struck vis-à-vis the role that Rome and its bishop play within the one, though still divided Church.

The first of the assembly's two sessions (the second is twelve or so months from now) gets underway on October 4th.

It will be prefaced a few days earlier with a large ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square, followed by a three-day retreat for the 400-some participants of the month-long Synod gathering.

The aim of this assembly, which was carefully prepared over the past two years through consultations with Catholics all over the world in all walks of life, is to prayerfully discern where the Holy Spirit is calling the Church today.

It is crucial that those who will be at the assembly are aware that there is no future for a divided Christianity.

If the focus is only on the Roman Church (and just those Christian communities in communion with it), this will be another waste of time, because Rome and the Vatican are no longer the center of the Christian or even more narrowly defined "Catholic Church" universe.

It should be clear by now that this is one of the major things that has shifted in the Church during the ten-year pontificate of Pope Francis.

• Robert Mickens is La Croix International's Editor in Chief. He had lived ed, studied and worked in Rome for 30 years.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

The scandal to the world is the disunification of the Christian churches. Ironically, in disunity, many find strength because they are "not like the others".

They enjoy the separation because it gives their "brand" of "christianity" relevance. The brand difference is lauded as "evangelical", "conservative" "progressive" "youth church", "school-based", "parish-centric", and "social justice" within Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Orthodox and more churches.

Many people confess the name Christian as a brand.

They are "brand Christian" but in their hearts, they desire individualism, not unity.

The "brand Christian" has all the language of Christ but cannot apply this language to anyone outside their construct of the Christian life.

The brand brings comfort and exclusion because each brand works to ensure its own brand culture, brand message and brand or target audience, demographic and consumer.

The brand forms a denomination in the widest sense and "christianity" becomes associated with the brand.

Rather than the brand being challenged or associated with Christ, it is the defended, often at the cost of lives.

Calling brand identification into question is dangerous because it challenges established, well defined and strongly defended boundaries and vested interests.

Brand "christianity" is called into question through the genuine search for Christian Unity.

Authentic Christianity lives in the search for unity.

It responds to Christ's call to us to be of one mind, heart and faith.

Unity is framed by oneness and not by competition.

Unity and the hope of unity should be leading us all back to the common table of the Lord, Christ (mensa Christi Domini).

There are significant theological boundaries that have produced social, political, and cultural boundaries between Christians and their denominations.

These have to be acknowledged.

The significant theological boundaries are often so wrapped up in social and political histories that it is easier to deal with the theological than with the social and political.

Theological discourse is still the first discourse because Christian unity, and its disunity, is a theological problem.

Where significant theological boundaries exist we have to come back to basics and these basics are expressed in the theology and practice of baptism.

Baptism is the work of the Church-catholic or universal, not the work of individuals.

Where baptism is the source of shared theological discourse and the source of the desire for unity among Christians change can happen, but only if the baptised actually do something together.

Ecumenism requires action as much as it requires conversation.

Baptism is the source of a common vision and a common hope that gives us an authentic theological language and a creative theological imagination.

An authentic theological language gives voice to a powerful theological imagination that enables us to become more receptive and desirous of eucharistic communion.

Where an authentic baptismal theology leads the way an authentic eucharistic theology will follow.

Once these two are in place questions of theological authority, ecclesial authority, and political and social authority can begin to be resolved.

Keeping a comfortable religion is easier than reaching out beyond the boundaries of personal piety, parish life, school classrooms and such. Reaching beyond these nineteenth-century structures and personal worlds to engage in conversations with people who believe in Christ, but don't use the words or frames of reference you might, is a challenge.

Pope Francis has asked us to reach beyond the parish, catholic school and diocesan boundaries in the Synodal Process and engage with people who no longer worship with us and live out our pastoral calling to ministry and service.

Many of these people have not lost their Christianity, but choose not to live it in communion with us.

The week of Christian Unity is an opportunity to open the door in the fence and step into the world of other Christian traditions or denominations and discover there, brothers and sisters who share the baptismal call to Christianity and the willingness to give themselves in service for the good of other.

Go say hello!

• First published in Kotahi Ano.

The vigil of the First Sunday of Lent was the day chosen to celebrate the historic Mass.

The last Mass celebrated at St Pierre Cathedral took place in 1535.

After the Reformation, the building was taken over by John Calvin's Reformed Protestant Church.

All the cathedral's statues, paintings and stained-glass windows were destroyed and Catholic worship was banned.

Around 1,500 people attended the Mass, led by the episcopal vicar of Geneva Father Pascal Desthieux.

Among those present was a representative of the Protestant community, who faced the congregation and formally asked pardon for historic actions against Christian unity.

Desthieux said Geneva's Catholics were touched by the Protestant community's invitation to celebrate Mass at St Pierre Cathedral.

He also asked for forgiveness for "faults against unity": acts of mockery, caricature, or challenge to the Reformed community.

He underlined the desire to "enrich each other with our differences."

Couples from religiously mixed marriages "live ecumenism in the most intimate way," he said.

He urged everyone to "resist the forces of division in our lives between us and among us Christians."

Once a stained-glass window, it was replaced after the Reformation.

The Mass has been planned for two years but delayed because of COVID quarantine restrictions.

In a letter published on the vicariate's website in 2020, Desthieux described the cathedral as the "central and symbolic location of Geneva's Christian history."

It has its Catholic history and following the Reformation, it became a location "emblematic of the Calvinist reform," he said.

While acknowledging that the return of the Catholic Mass to the cathedral was a cause for rejoicing, Desthieux cautioned against "triumphalism," as well as any language suggesting that Catholics were looking to "take over" the building.

"With our Protestant brothers and sisters, who welcome us in their cathedral, we want simply to make a strong ecumenical gesture, a sign that we all live together in Geneva," he said, adding that the Mass was a "gesture of hospitality" within the city's Christian community.

Source

• CNA

"The pope is unacceptable in Greece! He should repent!" the priest told reporters after being removed from the scene.

According to The Associated Press, Francis "appeared not to notice" the interruption and continued on his way to his meeting with the leader of Greece's Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos.

Francis's visit to Greece and Cyprus last week aimed to further accelerate Catholic-Orthodox ties and collaboration.

The pontiff began his mission in Cyprus on Thursday after meeting with state officials that afternoon and evening.

He spent Friday strengthening the church's already good relations with the island's majority Orthodox Christians and encouraging its small Catholic community, which includes thousands of mostly Filipino migrant workers.

He also spent time meeting with Archbishop Chrysostomos and the Holy Synod in Nicosia.

The agenda focused on reconciliation between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church, after centuries of divisive competition and mistrust.

His aim wasn't to discuss each faith's means of encountering the Lord, Francis explained, "but of the risk of absolutizing certain customs and habits that do not require uniformity and assent on the part of all".

He urged both Churches to avoid becoming paralysed by fear of openness or bold gestures and to steer away from speaking of "irreconcilable difference" that has nothing to do with the Gospel.

"Let us not permit the ‘traditions,' in the plural and with a small ‘t', to prevail over ‘Tradition,' in the singular and with a capital ‘T,'" he added.

If the Churches set aside abstract concepts and were to collaborate, for example in works of charity, education and the promotion of human dignity, they would rediscover their fraternity, Francis said.

"Centuries of division and separation have made us assimilate, even involuntarily, hostility and prejudice with regard to one another, preconceptions often based on scarce and distorted information and spread by aggressive and polemical literature. This too makes crooked the path of God, which is straight and directed to concord and unity," Pope Francis declared.

"It is my heartfelt hope that there will be increased opportunities for encounter, for coming to know one another better, for eliminating preconceptions, and for listening with docility to our respective experiences of faith.

"This will prove for each of us an exhortation and incentive to do better, and bring a spiritual fruit of consolation."

Sources

• America magazine
• Greek Reporter
• The Week

The bishop told KNA, Germany's Catholic news agency, May 11 that the services planned May 15 were not about "cross-denominational Communion in the sense of a general mutual invitation to participate in the Eucharist and the Lord's Supper" and were not about shared Communion services by clerics of various denominations.

Rather, they were about how to deal with the personal decision of conscience of individual Catholic or Protestant Christians, the bishop said.

"I respect such a decision and administer Communion if someone joins who believes what we Catholics believe and wants to receive the body of the Lord in faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ," he told KNA. Continue reading

In a message to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I on Monday, Francis praised Bartholomew's efforts to promote Christian unity.

"We can thank God that relations between the Catholic Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate have grown much over the past century, even as we continue to yearn for the goal of the restoration of full communion expressed through participation at the same Eucharistic altar," he wrote.

"Although obstacles remain, I am confident that by walking together in mutual love and pursuing theological dialogue, we will reach that goal."

Francis also expressed his hope for full communion "based on our common faith in Jesus Christ, sent by God the Father to gather all people into one body, and the cornerstone of the one and holy Church, God's holy temple, in which all of us are living stones, each according to our own particular charism or ministry bestowed by the Holy Spirit."

The pope sends a message to the Patriarch each year on 30 November, which is the Orthodox feast day of St Andrew. The Patriarch is regarded as the successor of St. Andrew the Apostle and is "first among equals" in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In this week's message, Francis recalls his most recent meeting with Bartholomew at an international meeting for peace in Rome in October.

"Together with the challenges posed by the current pandemic, war continues to afflict many parts of the world, while new armed conflicts emerge to steal the lives of countless men and women," he says.

"Undoubtedly all initiatives taken by national and international entities aimed at promoting peace are useful and necessary, yet conflict and violence will never cease until all people reach a deeper awareness that they have a mutual responsibility as brothers and sisters."

"In light of this, the Christian Churches, together with other religious traditions, have a primary duty to offer an example of dialogue, mutual respect and practical cooperation."

Bartholomew sought Christian unity "before the Catholic Church and other Churches engaged themselves in dialogue," Francis's message continues.

He cites an encyclical letter issued by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1920, which says Churches could heal divisions if they placed love "before everything else in their judgment of the others and in relation towards each other."

A delegation from the Vatican also made its way to Istanbul for its customary visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the Feast of St. Andrew.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, led the delegation.

The delegates attended a Divine Liturgy presided over by the Bartholomew at St. George's Cathedral, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Afterwards, Koch read Francis's message and presented the Ecumenical Patriarch with a signed copy, which Francis concludes saying:

"With these sentiments, I renew my warmest best wishes for the Feast of St. Andrew, and exchange with Your All Holiness an embrace of peace in the Lord."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Vatican News

The issue of Catholics and Protestants being able to receive communion in each other's churches has long been an issue in Germany and is particularly important for the many German couples who have a partner belonging to either church.

The Bishop of Augsburg, Bertram Meier has long wished that Catholics and Protestants come closer in their understandings of ordained ministry and Eucharistic communion.

Meier explained that he "dream[s]" of a shared Catholic-Protestant document "in which we emphasise our common confession and only secondarily name our differences so that we come closer to the common reception of Communion."

The issue of shared communion was addressed in an appraisal titled "Together around the Lord's Table."

Published in September 2019 by German Catholic and Protestant theologians and bishops the text of the paper explicitly argued that Catholics and Protestants should be able to receive the Eucharist at celebrations of the other denomination.

The topic was due for discussion at the German bishops' plenary assembly in Fulda at the end of September but was taken off the agenda following feedback from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Earlier in the year, the German Bishops earlier presented "Together around the Lord's Table" to the CDF but following their review, in September, the CDF voiced strong objections.

The CDF stated that differences between Catholics and Protestants in the understanding of the Eucharist and the ministry were too significant to allow "reciprocal Eucharistic hospitality."

As reported in October 2020 by the German Catholic news agency, KNA, leaders of both churches identified questions that "still need to be clarified."

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Novena News
• CathNews Australia

1. We believe that Baptism in the Protestant Churches gives exactly the same thing Baptism in the Catholic Church gives — the "state of grace": divine life and the divine gifts of faith, hope, and love. We do not re-baptize Protestants who become Catholics.

2. Pope St. Pius X wrote in his Eucharistic decree, December 20, 1905, "No one who is in the state of grace and comes to the table of the Lord with a good attitude and devotion can be prohibited from receiving Communion."

3. Therefore, any baptized Christian who has not rejected the grace of Baptism by doing something so evil it is called "deadly" or "mortal sin" (1John 5:16-17) is permitted by Catholic doctrine to receive Communion.

Pope John XXIII added: "We address, then, as brothers and sisters all who are separated from us, using the words of Saint Augustine: "Whether they wish it or not, they are our brothers and sisters. They cease to be our brothers and sisters only when they stop saying 'Our Father'" (Ad Petri Cathedram, 86).

If Protestants are our brothers and sisters in Christ, then we are being inconsistent with our faith when we deny them a place together with us at our Father's table.

It is true that Catholic policies—administrative rules that change according to time and place—sometimes add restrictions.

For example, in the Latin or Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, children are required to receive doctrinal instruction before their First Communion. In the Eastern Rites of the equally Catholic Church, babies are given Communion as soon as they are baptized.

These policies are based on practical considerations, and are not absolute. For example, no Roman Rite priest in his right mind would deny Communion to a baptized child in the hospital just for lack of the scheduled doctrinal instruction.

There are official policies that seem to deny Communion to non-Catholics. But Father Bernard Häring (1912-1998), whom some consider the greatest moral theologian of modern times, wrote about a Mass at which he presided while serving in the German army during World War II:

On the eve of the outset of the Russian war, I took it upon myself to celebrate the Eucharist and grant general absolution to soldiers of all faiths, most of whom participated.

Given the seriousness of the situation, and because all of us where one in Christ Jesus, I found it unthinkable, in fact, totally abhorrent,to uphold and maintain any distinctions between Catholics and Protestants.

Consequently, all the men, regardless of their faith persuasions, felt called to share in Communion" (Priesthood Imperiled, Triumph Books, p. 9).

Can you imagine anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with Jesus Christ refusing Communion to a young soldier about to face death, just because he wasn't a formal member of the Catholic Church?

Many official policies—policies made in offices—appear acceptable within the isolated capsules of bureaucratic management. But they lose all connection with religion and rationality when brought down to earth in the mud and blood of the battlefield.

John Paul II gave communion in the Vatican to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England, while he was still an Anglican. At John Paul's funeral, Pope Benedict XVI gave Communion to Brother Roger, a Presbyterian founder of the ecumenical monastery of Taizè.

That should be enough to settle the question. But let's develop it a little further.

Are we one in faith?
It is Catholic teaching that all who are baptized with water "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" receive exactly the same gift—the "grace" of sharing in the divine life of God—without any difference. All are equally Christians. All receive the same gifts of divine faith, hope, and love.

But after the Protestant Reformation, we began to speak and act as if there were a difference between being baptized into the "Catholic Church" or into a "Protestant" Church.

There is a difference, but it is not in Baptism itself. Nor is there any difference in the gift of faith that we receive.

By the divine gift of faith we know what only God knows, in a way no creature can possibly know it. For that we have to share in God's own act of knowing. Jesus made that clear: "No one knows the Father except the Son" (Matthew 11:27).

To know God as he is, you have to be God. To know God as Father you have to be God the Son. So when Jesus adds, "and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," he is saying the Son lets us know the Father as he himself does in the only way possible; that is, by letting us share in his own divine act of knowing. That gift is the "mystery of faith."

When Protestants and Catholics receive the gift of divine life and divine faith through Baptism, there is no difference between us.

But when the wordless light of faith given in Baptism is translated into human thoughts and words, there can be differences in the human expression of the same truth that is in the hearts of all, and in the way people will be taught to live out the gift of divine life each receives at Baptism.

This makes a real and practical difference on the level of "religion" (doctrines, rules and practices). But on the level of the deep mystery of the gift of faith given at, all Christians are the same.

While these differences are important — because we need to be both human and divine in the way we understand and live our religion — they should not make us forget that, down deep, consciously or not, on the level of the divine life of grace that we share, we are all the same.

Whenever and wherever we find evidence of God's light shining in others, whether they are consciously Christians or not, we experience "communion in the Holy Spirit."

All the Catholic bishops in the world affirmed this during the Second Vatican Council, which met in Vatican City from 1962 to 1965:

People who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.

The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church - whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church - do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion.

The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers and sisters by the children of the Catholic Church (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3).

We could stop right here and ask if it is consistent with our belief to ban from the Father's table those who are "accepted as brothers and sisters by the children of the Catholic Church" because they are children of the same Father.

The foundation of our essential unity is the Truth all Christians believe and mystically know by what Saint John of the Cross calls "the dark light" of faith. What we understand humanly by translating our faith into human words can be misleading.

Recognizing this, the bishops urged theologians "to seek continually for more suitable ways of communicating doctrine to the people of their times. For the 'deposit of faith,' or revealed truths, are one thing; the manner in which they are formulated… is another" (Gaudium et spes, 62).

A special problem

People often make this objection: "But many Protestants don't believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist."

As Catholics, however, conscious of the mystery of faith and grace in them, we would say, without arrogance, that they really do believe in the real presence. They just don't know they do.

The Eastern Rites of the united Catholic Church give Communion to babies as soon as they are baptized. Do these babies have an explicit and conscious faith in the doctrine of transubstantiation?

Could they say, even if old enough to speak, "This is the real Body of Jesus"? No, but they do have faith, because it was given to them as a gift at Baptism.

That gift is the light of God in their hearts empowering them to believe everything God has revealed.

By that gift we must say the babies already believe truths they have not yet learned and are not mature enough either to understand or express. One of them is the real presence of Jesus in Eucharist.

Protestant babies, who receive the same gifts of divine faith, hope and love at Baptism that Catholic babies do, already, in a way deeper than human consciousness, share in Christ's own act of knowing.

Like all whom grace has made "children of God," they know the Father as their Father, as only God the Son can know him (see Matthew 11: 27). And in the same preconscious way, they share in Christ's knowledge that the Eucharist is his real Body and Blood.

But for this knowledge to translate itself into explicit human thoughts and words, further maturity and education are necessary. Continue reading

• The analysis or comments in this article do not necessarily reflect the view of CathNews.

For though he is one of Islam's greatest prophets, referenced throughout the Quran and praised with lofty virtues, to pray in his name would be a violation to my faith's tenets.

In a recent conversation with two friends, a rabbi and a Baptist minister, the rabbi jokingly asked me, "Do you also hold your breath at times while a Christian minister prays, wondering if you're going to be able to say ‘Amen' at the end?"

Considerations such as this come with the territory when you do interfaith work.

The occasional interfaith vigil after a national tragedy doesn't normally warrant concern, though there are examples of conservative ministers facing discipline for praying with other clergy, and some traditional faith leaders prefer to abstain from such events.

But when interfaith understanding is not only necessary to connect with your wider community but part of the dissolving of differences you believe faith can achieve, the question becomes, at what point is making adjustments to accommodate the other still fruitful?

As an orthodox Sunni imam from Louisiana who now lives in Texas, I too have struggled with these questions.

There are two basic ways to encounter a person of another faith seriously.

One, which is engaging with another's Scripture, will inevitably reveal expected differences, as well as some surprising similarities. In an effort to harmonize, it can be tempting to depart from one's own understanding of Scripture to demonstrate an added layer of sameness that just isn't there. But that would remove the richness of the study, and potentially compromise the authenticity of it as well.

There is also multifaith community work — when we form coalitions with other faiths to make a meaningful difference in society.

This shouldn't be a problem: You don't have to shred your faith identity or Scripture; just champion its elements of service. Come to the table in the fullness of yourself, and demonstrate how you're going to enrich that table with your faith-inspired work. Easy, right?

Not always.

For instance, inevitably there are common prayers said over our common efforts, or introductory remarks that suddenly turn into prayer.

Some faith traditions see the divine as more abstract, and an invocation — a prayer that calls upon God for relief or change — can be grasped by members of those faiths even if the prayer is calling upon different deities.

To others, the divine is personal and fixed and can only be invoked in specific ways. It should never be an expectation that a faith leader pray or say amen to anything that would violate that leader's creed or traditions, but the onus should probably be on those who can adjust without violating to accommodate everyone in the room.

Perhaps, for example, if a Christian minister feels uncomfortable omitting "in Jesus' name" when among colleagues of different faiths, the minister can offer a reflection instead or give a courteous disclaimer that "I will be offering this prayer as such" that at least gives the others a chance to respectfully abstain. To make fellow faith leaders uncomfortable with your invocation could compromise the very unifying spirit that calls us all together in the first place.

In the same way, we should be careful not to assert that those who believe in an exclusive route to salvation are necessarily unable to work with a diverse group of people.

One of the most fruitful dialogues I've had in years came in March at North Carolina State University with the Rev. J.D. Greear, who serves as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. At an event convened by Neighborly Faith, Greear and I founded a friendship on our ability to speak faithfully and honestly about our differences, even with a crowd of more than 1,000 looking on.

Five years earlier, three young Muslims had been murdered in nearby Chapel Hill. Some of the family members of those victims were present.

Our topic was hope and uncertainty, and we expressed hope that we could work together against hatred and polarization.

As a start, Greear, one of the most prominent evangelicals in America, openly condemned anti-Muslim bigotry.

Pastor Greear and I also spoke about religious freedom not being restricted to one religious group, without either my or his concept of salvation being compromised or made ambiguous.

I was and am fine with his vision of the hereafter not having space for me, so long as it doesn't become an obstacle to me having space in the here and now.

Often the obstacle to interfaith communication is not between faiths but within them.

I often joke about my relationship in New Orleans with a Reform rabbi and Orthodox rabbi who seemed to view me as a safe mediator regarding some of their core disagreements.

While their disagreements were friendly, sometimes our internal disagreements as faith communities are more intense than our larger disagreements with different faith communities altogether.

It can be so much easier to unite with an outsider than an insider who you feel threatens the foundations or trajectory of your shared faith.

Indeed, a theological progressive may have a harder time with a traditionalist of the same faith than a traditionalist of another faith.

But it's a mistake to think that the divisions in our faith give us implicit insights into those of other faiths.

Each faith's factions have their own unique political and scriptural considerations in their internal debates. The basis of our broader cooperation is not what we share as believers, but instead shared community goals.

As our country becomes further polarized into a secularized left and right (white nationalism is no less secularizing than any "ism" on the left), it is imperative that as religious people we don't merely dress political slogans with religious scripture.

We must instead model for the broader society what it looks like to work on shared goals despite our different beliefs.

We can talk openly and honestly with one another without shying away from our disagreements. And we can work, proudly anchored in our different faith traditions, with similar goals through recognition of our full shared humanity.

• Imam Omar Suleiman is the founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and an adjunct professor of Islamic studies in the graduate liberal studies program at Southern Methodist University. He is also co-chair emeritus of Faith Forward Dallas and a special adviser to Faith Commons. First published by RNS. Republished with permission.

For the 30 years from the Second Vatican Council to the publication of St. John Paul's encyclical May 25, 1995, official ecumenical dialogues tended to focus on comparing and contrasting Catholic teachings or practices with the teachings or practices of its dialogue partners.

The search for what Christians held in common was a necessary first step in recognizing each other as Christians, called by Jesus to be one.

But in "Ut Unum Sint" (Latin for "that they may be one"), St. John Paul said that dialogue is more than "comparing things," said Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Dialogue, St. John Paul said, is "an exchange of gifts."

In the new approach, which has become known as "receptive ecumenism," Christians say to each other, "What I have is a gift to you and what you have is a gift to me," Farrell said.

Recognizing that other Christians have gifts and being willing to accept them as something that could help one's own community grow in faith takes both individual and collective conversion, the bishop said.

For Catholics, one of the gifts it wants to offer is the ministry of the bishop of Rome — the papacy.

St. John Paul made headlines around the world when, in "Ut Unum Sint," he invited "church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue" on how the bishop of Rome could exercise his ministry of unity among all Christians.

The papacy and the power involved in exercising papal ministry have been at the centre of division and debate for millennia. It was the key issue in many of the fractures within the Christian community and is still debated within the Catholic Church itself.

While Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and other Protestant churches published responses to St. John Paul's invitation, the most sustained focus on the papacy has come in the official Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue.

Since 2006, the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church has been focusing on the history and exercise of the papacy. And the dialogue is ongoing.

But one point St. John Paul made in "Ut Unum Sint" is that the search for Christian unity, which needs theological reflection, cannot stop there. It is not simply an intellectual exercise.

"The theoretical discussions have to solve the question of the balance between jurisdiction and communion," Farrell said. "But at the practical level, we are living a communion that is normal and positive and visible" every time the pope and other Christian leaders come together to pray, to call for prayers and to advocate for action to benefit the common good, the end of violence and the care of creation.

The pope always has been the pope because he is the bishop of Rome, not vice versa.

But Pope Francis' constant referrals to himself as the bishop of Rome also have had a positive ecumenical impact.

"I'm sorry that some Catholics think that this is some sort of diminution, some lessening of the dignity or the power of the papacy or something," Farrell said. "It really is not."

Francis is "theologically correct" to refer to himself that way, the bishop said, "and from the ecumenical point of view, it helps to put the papacy in its proper perspective."

"I would dare to say some Catholics have this idea that the pope is somehow outside the church, above it, separate, isolated, whereas Pope Francis keeps reminding us that the pope is a bishop within the church but with particular responsibilities," Farrell said. Continue reading

The mass will be celebrated at Saint-Pierre de Genève Cathedral on 29 February.

The last Mass celebrated at the cathedral took place in 1535. After the Reformation, it was taken over by John Calvin's Reformed Protestant Church.

The cathedral's statues and paintings were destroyed and Catholic worship was banned.

The Catholic episcopal vicar for Geneva, Fr. Pascal Desthieux, says the cathedral is the "central and symbolic location of Geneva's Christian history".

Following the reformation, the cathedral became a location "emblematic of the Calvinist reform," he said.

John Calvin, who founded Calvinism, lived in Geneva.

The city was a destination for French Protestant refugees, who were fleeing persecution in France.

The cathedral became Calvin's home church and his chair is displayed next to the pulpit.

While acknowledging that the return of Catholic Mass to the cathedral is a cause for rejoicing, Desthieux - who will celebrate the mass - warned against any "triumphalism," as well as any language suggesting the Catholics are looking to "take over" the building.

"With our Protestant brothers and sisters, who welcome us in their cathedral, we want simply to make a strong ecumenical gesture, a sign that we all live together in Geneva," he said.

He underlined that making the cathedral available for the Mass is a "gesture of hospitality" within the Christian community of the city.

"Our Protestant brothers will welcome us, and we will let ourselves be welcomed," he said.

The date and timing of the Mass was chosen to coincide with the beginning of Lent.

It will be celebrated at 6:30 p.m., making it the vigil Mass of the first Sunday of Lent.

"We have chosen to have this historic Mass at the beginning of Lent, to include a penitential process where we ask forgiveness for our sins against unity," he said.

All other Saturday vigil Masses in Geneva will be cancelled on 29 February to encourage all Geneva's Catholics to attend the Mass at the cathedral.

Various media reports have suggested Protestant attendees at the Mass will be invited to receive Communion, though this is prohibited by canon law.

Others have contradicted the possibility.

Saying everyone is welcome at the mass and quoting Redemptionis Sacramentum, Desthieux explained that Protestants who attend Mass are not generally permitted to receive Communion.

"However, in such special circumstances, we practice what we call eucharistic hospitality by welcoming all people who come forward to receive the Body of Christ," he said.

He did not explain what "eucharistic hospitality" means or if and on what basis Communion would be knowingly distributed to Protestants.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image:Admin Ch
  

He then went further, expressing his desire for full communion between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Following a long-standing custom, the Holy See sent a delegation to Istanbul to celebrate the feast of Saint Andrew, the patron saint of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, on November 30th.

The delegation was led by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

"It is with great spiritual joy and in profound communion of faith and charity that I join the prayer of the Church of Constantinople in celebrating the feast of its holy patron, the Apostle Andrew, the first-called and brother of the Apostle Peter," the pope said in his letter.

"I convey the assurance of the unwavering intention of the Catholic Church, as well as my own, to continue in our commitment to working towards the re-establishment of full communion among the Christians of the East and the West," Pope Francis said.

Francis noted it has been 40 years since the establishment of a Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

"The search for the re-establishment of full communion among Catholics and Orthodox is certainly not confined to theological dialogue, but is also accomplished through other channels of ecclesial life," the pope continued.

"Our relations are nourished above all through authentic gestures of mutual respect and esteem," he said. "Such actions show a shared fidelity to the word of our one Lord Jesus Christ, and the will to remain together in his love."

The pope pointed out that Catholics and Orthodox share a common Baptism, but that joint initiatives take it further.

"The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church," he said, "have already embarked upon this promising journey, as testified by our joint initiatives."

And he urged Catholics and Orthodox faithful to strengthen "the daily dialogue of love and life" by praying and working together in harmony.

Source

• CNA

During the cordial talks, the Holy Father and the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed that, if the political situation in the country should allow the establishment of a transitional government of national unity in the next 100 days, at the expiry of the agreement signed in recent days in Entebbe, in Uganda, they intend to visit South Sudan together.

The decision follows Pope Francis earlier, in a meeting with the Ecumenical Council of Churches of South Sudan, expressing his desire to visit South Sudan.

The Council is an expression of the Ecumenical Council of Churches that was founded in 1965 as the "Council of Churches of Sudan" as a means to help the marginalized areas of Sudan.

Source

• ACI Stampa

Job was representing Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople at the pope's celebration of the feast of Sts Peter and Paul.

Greeting the archbishop in his homily last Saturday, Francis said:

"Your presence reminds us that we can spare no effort in the journey toward full unity among believers, in communion at every level.

"For together, reconciled to God and having forgiven one another, we are called to bear witness to Jesus by our lives."

The day before, Francis had told members of the Orthodox delegation that Sts Peter and Paul are exemplars of "the apostolic courage of proclamation, which also entails a commitment to respond to the new challenges of the present time."

Francis said Patriarch Bartholomew has been a source of inspiration to him, citing in particular the Patriarch's long-standing theological and pastoral concern about climate change.

Another sign of Gospel courage, he said, is seen in Catholic-Orthodox cooperation in combating human trafficking, assisting migrants and refugees and working for peace.

In his recent meetings with Orthodox leaders in Romania and in Bulgaria, Francis told the Orthodox delegation that he was "increasingly convinced that the restoration of full unity between Catholics and Orthodox will come about through respect for specific identities and a harmonious coexistence in legitimate forms of diversity.

"As bishop of Rome," he said, "I wish to reaffirm that, for us Catholics, the purpose of dialogue is full communion in legitimate forms of diversity, not a monotonous leveling, much less absorption."

Source

• The Catholic Register
• Image: America Magazine

That may have changed during an in-flight press conference on Sunday as Pope Francis returned to Rome after visiting Romania.

Asked what advice he could offer Romanians about the relationship between the Catholic Church and Orthodox, Francis began by saying the first thing was to develop "relationship in general ... the relationship of the outstretched hand when there are conflicts."

Then, after noting his sense of brotherhood with the Orthodox Patriarch Daniel, he continued:

"I always have this idea: Ecumenism is not reaching the end of the game, of the discussion.

"Ecumenism is walking together, walking together, praying together... The ecumenism of prayer.

"In history, we have the ecumenism of blood. When they killed Christians they did not ask: Are you Catholic? Are you Orthodox? Are you Lutheran? No, [they asked] are you Christian! And the blood mixed together. It is the ecumensim of witness. Another ecumenism, of prayer, of blood.

"... and then the ecumenism of the poor, those that work together. That we must work to help the sick, the infirm, for example, the people that are a little at the margin, below the poverty line, to help," Francis said.

He then went on to say "Matthew: 25 is a beautiful ecumenical programme, it comes from Jesus.

"To walk together: this is already Christian unity, but do not wait for theologians to agree to arrive at communion.

"Communion happens every day with prayer, with the memory of our martyrs, with works of charity and even of loving one another.

"Ecumenism is not getting to the end of discussions, it's done walking together," Francis said.

In his view, the journey is more important than the destination.

"There is already Christian unity" he pointed out.

"Let's not wait for the theologians to come to agreement on the Eucharist."

Source

• Religion News Service
• Catholic News Agency
• Image:Catholic News Agency
  

How times have changed!

This year, Catholics, led by Pope Francis, are celebrating the Reformation with their fellow Christians.

However, it is important that we not simply look at it through rosy glasses.

The division of Christianity led to warfare and bloodshed on a par with the conflicts between the Sunnis and Shiites in the Muslim community.

It was not pretty.

We Christians cannot look down our noses at Muslims as if we have not also killed our brothers and sisters.

Although the fighting and bloodshed eventually tapered off, antagonism and prejudice between Catholics and Protestants (and among Protestants) lasted well into the 20th century.

It was not until the 20th century that progressive Protestant churches initiated the ecumenical movement. Conservative Protestants and Catholics held back, seeing ecumenism as giving in to relativism.

Two world wars fostered ecumenism in foxholes where soldiers of different faiths got to know and respect each other. The wars also made the churches realize they needed to put aside their squabbles to work for peace.

To Catholics growing up in the 1950s, Protestants were heretics outside the true church, although Protestants might be forgiven for their "ignorance." In school and at home, Catholics heard stories of prejudice and discrimination from the WASP establishment.

We were reminded that the three groups most hated by the KKK were blacks, Jews and Catholics. Our American history books had photos of signs saying "Irish need not apply."

The 1960 election proved that anti-Catholicism was still alive and flourishing. In polling, John Kennedy's religion was singled out as an extremely important variable in the election.

Ecumenism was still a dirty word until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), whose document on ecumenism allowed Catholics to jump in with both feet. And jump we did. Catholics are now dialoguing with everybody. Continue reading

• Fr Thomas Reese SJ is Senior Analyst @RNS. Previously with @NCRonline & @Americamag, author of Inside the Vatican, and a member of @USCIRF.

Image: PBS