VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2004 (VIS) - This afternoon in the Vatican Basilica, the Pope presided at a celebration of Vespers on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Vatican Council II decree "Unitatis redintegratio." Among those who participated were cardinals, bishops, and delegates from other Churches and ecclesial communities, as well as faithful from the diocese of Rome.
After emphasizing that putting the decree into practice "has been, from the beginning, one of the priorities" of his pontificate, and that ecumenical unity "corresponds to the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who wanted one Church," John Paul II underscored that "all are called to pray and work for the unity of the disciples of Christ."
"In our day," he said, "we are witnesses to a growth in an erroneous humanism devoid of God and we see with great sorrow the many conflicts that afflict the world. In this situation, the Church is called even more to be a sign and an instrument of unity and reconciliation with God and among men."
The Holy Father stated that "our age longs for peace. The Church, a credible sign and instrument of Christ's peace, must be committed to overcome the divisions among Christians and must be ever-more a witness of the peace that Christ offers the world."
After highlighting the steps that have been made toward Christian unity in the past 40 years, the Pope affirmed that "with God's help, many differences and misunderstandings have been overcome, but there are still many obstacles along the path. Sometimes prejudices and misunderstandings continue to exist, as well as deplorable slowness and closed-heartedness, and above all, differences in faith which mostly have to do with the Church, its nature and its ministers." In addition, he continued, "there are new divisions forming in the field of ethics."
The Pope said that despite the fact that the path "is still long and tedious," we must not lose hope. "Doing what is possible starting right now makes us grow in unity and gives us the enthusiasm to overcome difficulties. … The unity of one Church, which already exists in the Catholic Church and which can never be lost, guarantees us that one day the unity of all Christians will become a reality."
"There is no true ecumenism," he concluded, "without interior conversion and purification of memory, without holiness of life in accordance with the Gospel, and especially without intense and assiduous prayer that echoes Jesus' prayer that all may be one."
HML/VESPERS:UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO/… VIS 20041115 (420)
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