Advertise in this spot on CatholicCulture.org. View all ads.

Catholic World News News Feature

Ecumenism is "irrevocable," Pope says June 29, 2004

The Catholic Church has made an "irrevocable" commitment to ecumenism, Pope John Paul II said today, as he presided alongside the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I in a Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter's Square.

The Holy Father joined with the Patriarch of Constantinople in an ecumenical service that began with the procession of 44 new archbishops who would receive the pallium in the course of the ceremony. Behind them, the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch proceeded to the altar, as an Orthodox choir chanted the doxology.

After the Gospel-- which was read first in Latin and then in Greek-- the Pope asked Patriarch Bartholomew to preach first. The Orthodox prelate expressed his own desire for Christian unity, while conceding that this would come only in the future, and "that future may be remote."

"Only the Holy Spirit can allow unity," the Patriarch continued, adding that a main obstacle to Christian unity today comes from "those people who give their opinions as if they were expressions of the Holy Spirit."

Unity among Christians, the Orthodox Patriarch said, is very different from the union of secular states, and more difficult to achieve. "The unity that we seek," he explained, "will come we have the humility of Christ, his love, his sense of sacrifice."

Pope John Paul then delivered his own homily to the congregation of 15,000 people in St. Peter's Square. He said that "the commitment made by the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council" to the cause of ecumenical unity is "irrevocable." No Catholic can renounce that effort, he insisted. Rather, he urged that all Catholics, and all Christians, pray earnestly "that the day when we fully realize Christ's desire, that all may be one, may come more quickly."

After the homilies, the Patriarch recited the Creed in Greek. Then the Pope introduced the prayers of the faithful, which included a petition that Christians might live in mutual charity with their Jewish and Muslim neighbors in the Holy Land.

After the Liturgy of the Word, Patriarch Bartholomew moved away from the altar. The ceremony proceeded as the Pope gave each of 44 new archbishops the pallium: the white woolen vestment symbolic of union with the Holy See. In his homily, Pope John Paul had observed that the pallium, worn by metropolitan archbishops throughout the world, shows "in a special way the apostolic witness of Peter and Paul."