Search for Christian unity is 'moral imperative,' pope
says
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By
Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Giving in to the
temptation of thinking the Christian churches will never be fully united is a
sign of weak faith, Pope Benedict XVI said.
"One must resist the temptation of resignation and pessimism, which is a
lack of trust in the power of the Holy Spirit," the pope said Jan. 25 at
an ecumenical evening prayer service marking the close of the Week of Prayer
for Christian Unity.
The pope presided over the service at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the
Walls with a German Lutheran delegation, an international group of Oriental
Orthodox bishops and theologians and Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant leaders
from Rome.
Special prayers were read by Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios
of Italy and Malta and by the Rev. David Richardson, the Anglican archbishop of
Canterbury's representative to the Vatican and director of the Anglican Center
in Rome.
In his homily, the pope said the search for Christian unity is "a moral
imperative, a response to a precise call of the Lord."
The theme of the 2011 week of prayer, "One in the apostles' teaching, fellowship,
breaking of bread and prayer," described the unity experienced within the
early Christian community, the pope said.
The early Christian community in Jerusalem "was not closed in on itself,
but from its birth it was catholic, universal, capable of embracing people of
different languages and cultures," the pope said.
"It was a community not founded on a pact among its members, or on the
simple sharing of a project or ideal, but on profound communion with God,"
he said.
Pope Benedict repeated what he had said Jan. 19 during his weekly general
audience at the Vatican: The theme's four ingredients are the four pillars of
Christian faith and are "the fundamental dimensions of unity of the
visible body of the church."
To be fully united, he
said, Christians must hold firm to the faith taught by the apostles, they must
gather together, they must share the Eucharist, and they must pray constantly.
Because unity must be based on faith believed and lived in common, he said at
the prayer service, Christian unity cannot be reduced to a
recognition and acceptance of differences and an agreement to coexist
peacefully.
"That for which we yearn is the unity for which Christ himself prayed and
which, by its nature, is manifested in a communion of faith, sacraments and
ministry," Pope Benedict said.
END