Photo: Bishop Dennis Sullivan poses for a photo with representatives of the Camden Diocese and local non-Catholic clergy.
Amid a rather historic chapter of ecumenical and interreligious gatherings initiated by Pope Francis this past month, Bishop Sullivan gathered with local Protestant and Anglican clergy to pray for unity on the feast of the birth of the Church, Pentecost. The gathering was filled with prayer and song and was followed by a dinner that afforded fellowship and an opportunity for these leaders to get to know one another more personally. Sounds like the style of leadership and Christian accountability that Pope Francis is calling for and exampling in his own ministry as Bishop of Rome.
Pope Francis recently returned from an exhausting pilgrimage to the Holy Land to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting of his predecessor, Pope Paul IV, and Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoris I to lift the regrettable excommunications of 1054 AD. This was the first step in the long process of restoring Holy Communion between Rome and Constantinople and the other patriarchates of Orthodoxy. The meeting took place on the Mount of Olives in 1964 and produced the Catholic-Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965, which was read out loud on Dec. 7, 1965, simultaneously at a public meeting of the Second Vatican Council in Rome and at a special ceremony in Constantinople.
At the very site of the Resurrection of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew, the present spiritual leader of over 300 million Orthodox Christians, embraced, prayed and pledged to continue the work of reconciliation and reunification of Christ’s Church. They also agreed to expand relations to include non-Christian faith communities and actively engage in the peacemaking process, particularly in the Middle East. To this end Pope Francis invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to come to the Vatican and participate in an interfaith summit of Jews, Christians and Muslims. This Invocation for Peace took place on the evening of June 8 with both the pope and patriarch co-presiding. Pope Francis expressed his thanks to Patriarch Bartholomew for participating, saying, “I thank Your Holiness, my venerable Brother Bartholomew, for joining me in welcoming these illustrious guests. Your presence here is a great gift, a much-appreciated sign of support and a testimony to the pilgrimage which we Christians are making towards unity.”
The pope’s message to the two presidents was “Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict.” At the conclusion of the ceremony, Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew, President Peres and President Abbas embraced and planted an olive tree together in a sign of peace.
Just over a week later Pope Francis met with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Pope Francis spoke of the centuries-old divide between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church as a “scandal.” Pope Francis said the goal of full unity between the churches “may seem distant but it remained an aim that should direct their every step.” He added, “Beneath his merciful gaze, we cannot claim that our division is anything less than a scandal and an obstacle to our proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the world. Our vision is often blurred by the cumulative burden of our divisions and our will is not always free of that human ambition which can accompany even our desire to preach the Gospel as the Lord commanded!”
Archbishop Welby praised Pope Francis for his “remarkable care for the poor and suffering in the world and for his passion for reconciliation, witnessed recently in his visit to the Middle East.” He added that, “I realize that there are matters of deep significance that separate us,” but said that he hoped that collaboration with Pope Francis would lead to an “effective challenge to the unspeakable disasters of war and conflict throughout the world.” The Archbishop gave the pope a cutting from a fig tree in Lambeth Palace and said, “The Church of England remains deeply committed to ecumenical talks.”
Both locally and worldwide may we all seek the unity that Christ desires so that all may come to believe.
Father Joseph D. Wallace is director, Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, Diocese of Camden.
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