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

During his general audience on 16 October, Pope Francis focused on the Nicene Creed, recited by Catholics during Mass. He reflected on the addition of the Latin term "Filioque", meaning "and from the Son".

He noted that this phrase in the creed sparked a major theological disagreement between the Eastern and Western Churches. It is known as the "Filioque controversy".

The dispute eventually culminated in the Great Schism of 1054.

However, the pope suggested "the climate of dialogue between the two Churches has lost the acrimony of the past and today allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance".

Reconciled differences

Francis emphasised the importance of moving beyond past disputes, calling for reconciliation and unity among Christians despite their differences. He added, "I like to say this: 'Reconciled differences'", emphasising the importance of working together despite theological variations.

The pope explained that while different Christian groups have distinct practices, "the important thing is that these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together".

Pope Francis' appeal for unity came as his peace envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, concluded a visit to Moscow. There, Zuppi met with Metropolitan Anthony of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Several Orthodox and Protestant leaders are in Rome this month as "fraternal delegates" in the ongoing Synod on Synodality assembly. Among them are representatives of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All of Africa, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Mennonite Conference.

Ending the audience, Pope Francis called for prayers for peace in conflict zones around the world.

"Let us not forget war-torn Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar" he said. "Brothers and sisters, let us remember that war is always, always, a defeat. Let us not forget this, and let us pray for peace and work for peace."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

It's probably fair to say that as a teenager my actions were sometimes sub-optimal.

One incident in particular came to mind from my college days, when I'd made an inappropriate comment to a fellow student who was Maori.

Before I knew it, our groups of respective mates were in a stand-off.

After a bit of back and forth, things started to get ugly, and I distinctly remember turning around expecting to see my mates in support - only to discover they had legged it.

But the other guy's crew? They were backing him up all the way.

This memory probably cropped up as I had the privilege of hearing speaker after speaker at Turangawaewae delivering the most amazing korero - and unlike my teenage experience, were always backed up by their support crew, who were ready to tautoko with waiata (and sometimes even jump in early when they felt someone had gone on too long).

I felt a strong sense of people moving collectively, and it was such a testament to Kiingi Tuheitia's call this year for kotahitanga.

The Bible uses the metaphor of different parts of the same body to describe individuals in relationship together.

Whether hand, foot or eyeball, each part is valued and important and has a unique role.

There's a sense of kotahitanga and radical equality.

We read of these distinctions broken down in the book called Galatians:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

You'd be forgiven, then, for thinking that an open letter by more than 400 Christian leaders calling on the Government to stop the Treaty Principles Bill progressing to select committee falls short of the Christian message of unity.

Surely Christians would share in ACT and NZ First's declaration that each of us should be treated the same?

In response to the letter, ACT leader David Seymour wrote of his admiration of the "core Christian principle of imago dei" - every human made in the image of God - which, he states, automatically means that everyone has equal dignity.

It's an idea, he says, that is at odds with te Tiriti.

But what does it really mean to be made in the image of God?

Does it really mean, as Seymour says, that "everyone has equal dignity"?

Of course, in one sense the answer is yes; we are all "uniquely and wonderfully made", as it says in Psalm 139.

But as a society I think we've drunk the Kool-Aid of a culture that says if one person receives something different from us, our personal rights have been trampled on.

I would argue that being made in the image of God brings a diversity of culture which needs protecting and nurturing for our collective good.

That's what kotahitanga can look like.

We see this at work in the early church, where different customs threatened to cause a split. Jewish Christians thought their non-Jewish counterparts should be required to be circumcised, as they had; non-Jews disagreed.

In the end, both groups came to realise it was being in relationship that was important.

The importance of relationship

The Christian God is a God of relationship - between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - so it follows that for us to be made in the image of God means we acknowledge our relationship with one another.

It also means we recognise that different people need different things to flourish.

If health for one part of the body looks a certain way - such as the protection of te Tiriti, which aims to support te ao Maori towards self-led outcomes effecting positive change - then together we enable that to happen.

At the tangi for King Tuheitia and the raising up for Kuini Nga Wai hono i te po last Thursday, my colleague Archbishop Don Tamihere gave a powerful sermon which I think is a prophetic call to take us forward as a beautiful and diverse nation.

He said: "If we focus for too long on dismantling and deconstructing, we forget how to repair and how to renew. If we focus for too long on criticising and condemning, we forget how to uphold and how to uplift. If we focus for too long on tearing down, we forget how to build up; we forget how to stand together, we forget how to be united."

In light of what I saw last week, I'm excited about what the future holds for Aotearoa.

We're having to take the next step in growing up as a nation; learning more of what it means to live together as a uniquely and wonderfully made people.

• First published in The Post. Republished with author's permission.
• Justin Duckworth is a New Zealand Anglican bishop. Since 2012, he has been the Anglican Bishop of Wellington, and since 2024 he has been the senior bishop of Tikanga Pakeha in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

According to a statement released May 27, members of the official Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) met May 11-18 in Strasbourg, France, to continue their examination of "how the Church local, regional and universal discerns right ethical teaching."

"For the first time in its work, ARCIC III has chosen to include two case studies as part of its reflection — one where Catholics and Anglicans reached broadly the same teaching, and one where they did not.

Read More

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.

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.

On the 491st anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, the pope held an audience with members of the Lutheran World Federation in the Vatican.

In his address to the representatives, Pope Francis took note of the anniversary and thanked the delegation for coming to Rome "to foster our unity."

"It will be important to examine with spiritual and theological humility the circumstances that led to the divisions. Although it is impossible to undo the sad events of the past, it is possible to reinterpret them as part of a reconciled history," said the pope as he welcomed the LWF delegation to the library of the Apostolic Palace.

Nigerian Archbishop Panti Filibus Musa, president of the LWF, told Pope Francis that 2021 "is marked by one of those difficult memories: the 500 years of the excommunication of Martin Luther."

"We cannot change history, but we can retell it in a way that it carries the promise of a better future. Thus it becomes our story of reconciliation. Sharing the Lord's Supper together is also bearing the burdens of all those who have lost everything," the archbishop told the pope.

The solidarity shared at the altar "shapes who we are and ought to become: a people who, seeing the transfigured face of Christ, walk into the valley to see Christ in the disfigured faces of the exploited, the hungry and the poor. In this journey, we become fully church, together. Let us act together now, deepening into visible solidarity our union in prayer."

Pope Francis described the five centuries of Catholic-Lutheran division as a "journey from conflict to communion."

He encouraged Lutherans and Catholics to persevere in dialogue to achieve greater unity among members of the body of Christ.

The pope continued reflecting on the theme of Christ's "one body", which he said we have wounded with our divisions.

"When we are pained by divisions between Christians," he said, "we draw close to Jesus' own experience of seeing His disciples still disunited, His tunic rent."

Pope Francis added that we experience the Lord's passion by not being able to share the same altar, even though we are filled with enthusiasm in pray for Christian unity.

Sources

Catholic News

Vatican News

It can no longer be seen as "optional" by bishops. They won't be left to work out how on their own though.

The new guidebook, released by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, offers practical ways for bishops to promote unity between Christians.

Bishops must pray "personally and publicly for other Christian leaders," promote ecumenical work online and appoint ecumenical officers and commissions.

At the same time, the guide warns against getting involved in heated arguments or "misrepresenting the positions of other Christians."

Instead Catholics should focus on "weighing truths rather than simply enumerating them," it explains.

The goal of Christian unity may not be straightforward, however, as it raises a number of big questions.

One relates to Catholic-Anglican unity. Unless Pope Leo XIII's decree that Anglican orders are "absolutely null and utterly void".

"I think we must have a better interpretation," Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the pontifical council says.

"I think it's a very important question because the validity of the ordination is the biggest obstacle for sharing the same altar ..."

Another problem concerning Anglican-Catholic unification relates to the ordination of women as priests and bishops - a decision that is unacceptable for the Catholic Church.

The guidelines indicate there is no change in the offing regarding sharing communion with Christians from other denominations. The current rules - that allow this to happen in "certain circumstances" - are restated.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of People, says a "lack of unity among followers of Jesus" undermines evangelisation.

"The non-Christians are scandalised, really scandalised, when we all claim to be followers of Christ, and they see how we are fighting one another," he said. "The lack of unity and even this almost outright anger toward one another - it weakens evangelisation."

The 26-page guidebook has Pope Francis's approval.

Throughout his pontificate has adopted an approach of "walking together, praying together and working together" with other Christians. He has consistently focused on what unites rather than divides denominations.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Wikipedia

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

After the Reformation, deep divisions between Protestants and Catholics contributed to wars, hostility and violence in Europe and America.

For centuries, each side denounced the other and sought to convert its followers.

Then, in the early 1900s, ambitious Protestants in the U.S. attempted the unthinkable.

Building on ideas circulating in Europe, they took charge of an effort to negotiate the reunion of Christianity.

They failed, of course. Strange as it might now seem, their effort is nevertheless informative. Here's why.

How it started
By 1900, atheists and agnostics were becoming more prominent in the U.S. Anxious Protestant religious leaders started to argue in favor of a united Christianity to stop the spread of these ideas.

Noted theologian and fellow at Yale Newman Smyth complained at the time about religion's "lost authority" in family, community and intellectual life.

He declared, "a Christianity divided in its own house against itself" could not survive.

In response, in 1910, a very small but highly influential group comprising theologians including Smyth, as well as ministers of prestigious churches and noted business professionals, committed themselves to "Christian unity."

For this group, unity meant more than cooperation or mutual understanding. It meant the actual reunion of Protestantism and Catholicism.

The influential WWI chaplain

Their most significant member was Charles Brent, an Episcopalian bishop.

In the early 1900s, Brent had been a missionary to the Philippines.

While there, he became friends with John Pershing, the army officer overseeing much of the territory acquired by the U.S. This friendship would propel the bishop to greater prominence.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Pershing took command of U.S. forces in Europe. He persuaded Brent to organize and lead the newly established corps of army chaplains.

As he built up the ranks of chaplains, Brent showed his own commitment to Christian unity. Though a Protestant, he made a Catholic priest his second in command and encouraged recruitment of Catholic chaplains. Continue reading

Sources

• The Conversation, article by David Mislin, Assistant Professor, Intellectual Heritage Program, Temple University, Pennsylvania
• Image: The Catholic Catalogue

The crowd was witnessing New Zealand's formal commitment to healing the divisions of the Reformation: the 500 year-long separation of Lutherans and Catholics.

The atmosphere was joyful, positive and affirming as Lutheran Bishop Mark Whitfield and Cardinal John Dew led the crowd in lifting their "hearts and minds and voices" together, singing and praying shoulder to shoulder.

Priests, pastors, minsters, religious and congregations from many Christian denominations were there, showing their support and praying for Catholic and Lutheran unity.

They included Assyrian Christians from the ancient city of Niniveh, Anglicans, Presbyterians and Elim Pentecostal faithful, along with Wellington's Mayor and representatives from - for example - the German Embassy.

Dew said the ecumenical service was "a significant milestone for New Zealand's Roman Catholic and Lutheran communities," signaling a commitment to ongoing bridge-building between the Churches.

The text of the "common prayer" used in the service was selected by the Liturgical Task Force of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity.

"This liturgical order ... offers an opportunity to look back in thanksgiving and confession and look ahead, committing ourselves to common witness and continuing our journey together," Dew said.

These "characteristics of common prayer mirror the reality of Christian life: shaped by God's Word, the people are sent out in common witness and service."

Whitfield's comments echoed Dew's.

"I am delighted that we have opportunity in this Reformation Commemoration Year [500th anniversary] to celebrate our common baptism into Christ and to worship together.

"I also look forward to Roman Catholics and Lutherans working together to seek avenues of practical pastoral cooperation and support, and to explore joint worship and ecumenical hospitality for the sake of strengthening a joint witness to the Gospel in Aotearoa-New Zealand."

The movement towards Lutheran and Catholic Church unity is part of a wider movement to unite all Christians.

In New Zealand, Dew says "we have had dialogues with the Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists...[and now]... we officially start working, praying and discussing with the Lutherans as we continue to work towards Christian Unity".

Source

• Plain English
• Image: Supplied by Paul Ramsay

On Sunday 4 June Lutheran Bishop Mark Whitfield and Cardinal John Dew will open a formal dialogue for the two Christian denominations with a combined ecumenical service in Sacred Heart Cathedral to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Year of Reformation.

This is a significant milestone for New Zealand Roman Catholic and Lutheran communities, signaling a commitment to ongoing dialogue.

Cardinal John commented "that this year as we mark this anniversary and remember through prayer with our sisters and brothers of the Lutheran Church it is a pleasure to announce on behalf of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference that we have initiated a formal dialogue with the Lutherans.

Over several years we have had dialogues with the Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists, those bi-lateral dialogues are now extended as we officially start working, praying and discussing with the Lutherans as we continue to work towards Christian Unity."

Bishop Mark Whitfield's comments echoed those of the Cardinal.

"I am delighted that we have opportunity in this Reformation Commemoration Year to celebrate our common baptism into Christ and to worship together.

"I also look forward to Roman Catholics and Lutherans working together to seek avenues of practical pastoral cooperation and support, and to explore joint worship and ecumenical hospitality for the sake of strengthening a joint witness to the Gospel in Aotearoa-New Zealand."

The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference has recently appointed Father Tom Rouse of the St Columban Mission Society to join Father James Lyons, parish priest at Sacred Heart Cathedral on the Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue commission.

The Lutheran Church of New Zealand representatives on the Dialogue will be Pastor Jim Pietsch and Dr Petrus Simons.

The service will take place at 3pm on Sunday, 4 June 2017 in the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Source

• Supplied
• Image: lcasynod.au/resources.stuff.co.nz/supplied

Zimmerman is a Sister of the Precious Blood, and a professor of liturgy from Dayton, Ohio.

Although the Catholic Church has been involved in a number of divisions over the millennia - including the Protestant Reformation - it has come a long way to "restoring unity among all Christians" over the past 50 years, Zimmerman says.

Restoring Christian unity was the Second Vatican Council's reason for distributing Unitatis redintegratio, its 1964 Decree on Ecumenism, she says, adding:

"Catholic participation at jubilee events would acknowledge the changes the Church has made since the Second Vatican Council".

Some of the work the church has done to bridge divisions in the past 50 years has resulted in changes to Catholic doctrine and worship, Zimmerman says.

The main aim of these changes was to achieve greater lay participation in the Catholic Church liturgy.

At the same time, long-held divisions were also able to close between Catholics and many Protestant churches as we acknowledge we share similar forms of worship

Zimmerman cites baptism as an example.

Many celebrate baptism with water and "the trinitarian formula, which says:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).

This means if a Protestant wants to become a Catholic (or vice versa) so long as they have been baptised according to this formula they need not be re-baptised.

Zimmerman also points out that some Protestant churches also believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (though they may express this differently from Catholics).

Many have also adopted their Eucharistic prayers from the Catholic liturgy.

Furthermore, changes brought about by Sacrosanctum Concilium (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) mean Catholics and Protestants hear the same readings on Sundays.

Regardless of tenets of faith or doctrine, though, Zimmerman says "the primary purpose of prayer/worship is not to expound tenets of faith/doctrine but to give God glory, praise, and thanks".

Source:

• Crux
• Image: YouTube

The first stop was Auckland with a powhiri at Te Karaiti Te Pou Herenga Waka Maori Anglican church in Mangere.

Tveit will visit the region between 6-17 October. Continue reading

"To overcome conflicts, to fight hatred with goodness, and to make Ukraine a free and European country: these are the tasks of the Catholic Church in Ukraine", according to a priest with knowledge of the situation.

Christians in Ukraine are facing a difficult experience. Despite the near-constant conflict, the humanitarian emergency Ukrainian Christians face has disappeared from the world's sight.

Ukrainian priest Fr. Oleksandr Khalayim spoke about the situation at a meeting in Rimini, Italy, hosted by Aid to the Church in Need, an international Catholic ministry that supports the Church in areas where it is persecuted.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, which rejected the definitions of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.

In his address, Pope Francis told Pope Matthias I "what unites us is greater than what divides us," and added that "shared sufferings have enabled Christians, otherwise divided in so many ways, to grow closer to one another."

"Just as in the early Church the shedding of the blood of martyrs became the seed of new Christians, so today the blood of the many martyrs of all the Churches has become the seed of Christian unity," Pope Francis said. "The ecumenism of the martyrs is a summons to us, here and now, to advance on the path to ever greater unity."

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Canon Brian O'Sullivan of Arundel and Brighton diocese died on August 21.

The Anglican Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, has approved the unusual funeral move in recognition of Canon O'Sullivan's "commitment to life in Christian unity".

A vigil Mass will be celebrated in the Catholic Christ the King Church in Steyning on September 7, with the funeral Mass at the Anglican parish of St Andrew and St Cuthman the next day.

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He told Pentecostal bishops visiting him in Rome that Catholics and Evangelicals should "walk together".

Focussing on differences amounts to "sinning against God's will", the Pope said.

He said Christians should not wait for theologians' documents before forging closer ties.

"We each have in our Churches excellent theologians. That's another way to walk together also. But we shouldn't wait for them to reach agreement! That's what I think."

He went on to say that Christians' shared Baptism was more important than the differences between denominations.

The Pope said Christians should walk together, pray for each other and do works of charity together, while seeking truth.

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Yet despite coming from opposite ends of the earth - both literally and metaphorically - Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury have some uncanny similarities.

The two leaders of Christianity's largest global communions were both considered outsiders when chosen for their roles, both took up their positions within a week of each other and both are renowned for their no-nonsense, down-to-earth style.

If their immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and Lord Williams of Oystermouth, had a love of the early Church Fathers in common, with Lord Williams able to read Benedict's theology in the original German, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby have decided to roll up their sleeves and put the Gospel into action.

During his two-day visit to Rome on Sunday and Monday, the archbishop's jam-packed itinerary certainly chimed with Pope Francis' call for pastors to be familiar with the "smell of the sheep".

This included going to a street shelter project run by the community of Sant'Egidio, meeting a victim of human trafficking and a trip to a refugee project at the Anglican church, St Paul's-Within-the-Walls. Continue reading.

Source: The Tablet

Image: The Times/EPA

In 2025, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians may return to Nicaea, the spot in modern-day Turkey where Christianity was literally defined.

In 325, early followers of Jesus came together to figure out what it means to be a Christian; the goal was to create theological consensus across all of Christendom.

This was way before the faith sub-divided into East vs. West, Catholics vs. Protestants, Southern Baptists vs. Primitive Baptists—these were the early days of the religion, when it still seemed like it could be observed as one, united faith.

The council's effect on Christianity was huge; for one thing, most Bible-school students still learn some version of the Nicene Creed, the profession of Christian faith.

On his way home from a meeting with Pope Francis in the Holy Land, Patriarch Bartholomew I, the primary leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians,gave an interview in which he said that he and Francis are planning a gathering in Nicaea 11 years from now "to celebrate together, after 17 centuries , the first truly ecumenical synod."

That's a pretty big deal; in 1054, theological disagreements led to a schism in Christianity, which is how Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians became separate faith traditions.

This is a call back to a time before the schism, before the fundamental disagreements that kept popes and patriarchs from talking to each other for more than 900 years. Continue reading.

Source: The Atlantic

Image: Icon of the first council of Nicaea, with Emperor Constantine and the first bishops, Royal Doors