PROGRESS IN CHRISTIAN UNITY DIALOGUE IS A GIFT FROM GOD

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2001 (VIS) - Made public today was the Holy Father's Message to Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on the occasion of the council's plenary session. The meeting began yesterday in the Vatican and concludes November 17.

The Pope opened with a reference to the plenary's theme "Communion: Gift and Commitment - An Analysis of the Results of Dialogue and the Future of Ecumenical Research." And he recalled that "full unity among Christians has been my pastoral priority right from the start of my pontificate."

The Holy Father noted the "many encouraging signs (of) the theological search led at the level of the major Churches and ecclesial communities." He remarked that "action in favor of Christian unity has taken on such vast proportions. ... This is an immense gift that God has given us. ... I have personally experienced this gift on my apostolic pilgrimages when often I was the object of many signs of genuine and fraternal charity on the part of members of other Churches and ecclesial communities."

"Two orientations must always guide this effort, dialogue in truth and encounters in fraternity," he underscored. Thanks to these, "we have seen more clearly the scope, we have sought the means to pursue it efficaciously, we have established norms and principles capable of sustaining the ecumenical commitment of the Catholic Church."

John Paul II said that the assembly's theme "underlines how theological dialogues now underway are converging ... around the key concept of 'communion'. ... To study more deeply the theological and sacramental sense of the notion of 'communion' is equivalent to ... a reconfirmation of the conciliar teachings as a compass for the ecumenical commitment in the new millennium. ... The focus of a true ecclesial notion of 'communion', gradually purified of anthropological, sociological or simply horizontal accents, will make possible an ever greater reciprocal enrichment."

"I am certain," he affirmed, "that in the exchange of gifts to which we have become accustomed by the ecumenical movement, in a rigorous and serene theological research, and in constantly imploring the light of the Spirit, we can face even the most difficult and apparently insurmountable questions of our many ecumenical dialogues such as, for example, that of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, about which I have already spoken in my Encyclical Letter 'Ut Unum Sint'."

In closing, the Holy Father asked that "the new perspective" in dialogue ... fill us with courage and induce everyone to banish from their ecumenical vocabulary words such as crisis, delays, slowness, immobility and compromises." May our "key words," he said, "be trust, patience, constancy, dialogue, hope ... and an impulse to act."

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