COMMITMENT TO ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE IS IRREVOCABLE

VATICAN CITY, SEP 18, 2000 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received in audience members of the Mixed Commission for Dialogue between Catholics and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

The Pope recalled that they were now in the third phase of the international dialogue between the World Alliance and the Catholic Church, a phase dedicated to the theme: "The Church and the Kingdom of God."

Referring to the importance of theological dialogue in the ecumenical movement, John Paul II indicated that "in this dialogue we clarify our respective positions and explore the reasons for our differences. Our dialogue then becomes an examination of conscience, a call to conversion, in which both sides examine before God their responsibility to do all that they can to put behind them the conflicts of the past. At that point, the Spirit fills us with a yearning to confess together that 'there is one body and one Spirit, ... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.' And we feel this as a duty, as something that must be done so that 'the world may believe.' For this reason the commitment of the Catholic Church to ecumenical dialogue is irrevocable."

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