Benedict XVI to Christian Unity Council:
'Both ecumenism and eangelization
demand the dynamism of conversion'
November 15, 2012
The 'scandal' of divided Christian witness and the importance of working for the full, visible unity of the Church was at the heart of Pope Benedict’s words on Thursday to members of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity which is holding is annual plenary assembly here in Rome this week.
The theme of the five day Council meeting is ‘The significance of ecumenism for the New Evangelisation’.
In his address to the participants, Pope Benedict stressed the importance of all Christians 'bearing witness together' to the living God, despite continuing divisions and difficulties…
The spiritual poverty of many people today, the Pope noted, is a challenge for all Christians and he said the commitment of other Churches for renewed evangelization is also a sign of hope. Echoing the words of the Second Vatican Council decree on ecumenism Unitatis
redintegratio, the Pope said "our continuing division openly contradicts the will of Christ and (is) a source of scandal which damage our credibility and our ability to preach the Gospel to all people.
Here is a full translation of the Pope's address:
Your Eminences,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
I am happy to meet you all today, members and consultants of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on the occasion of your plenary meetings. I address a heartfelt greeting to each and everyone, especially to your President, Cardinal Kurt Koch, whom I thank for the kind words he expressed in your behalf, to the Secretary and all those who work in the dicastery, with my appreciation and gratitude for their work in the service of a cause that is so decisive for the life of the Church.
This year, your Plenary is focused on the theme of "The importance of ecumenism for the new evangelization'. This choice places you in continuity with the work carried out by the recent Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod, and in a way, you help give concrete form, according to your dicastery's specific perspective, to the propositions that emerged from that assembly.
Moreover, your current discussions fit into the context of the Year of Faith which I intended to be a right time to repropose to everyone the gift of faith in the Risen Christ, in the year that we mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
As you know, the Council Fathers underscored the very close link that exists between the task of evangelization and overcoming the divisions that exist among Christians.
"Such a division," says the decree, "openly contradicts the will of Christ,and is a scandal to the world which damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature" (No. 1).
The statement echoes the 'priestly prayer' of Jesus when, addressing his Father, he asks that his disciples "may all be one... that the world may believe that you sent me" (Jn 17,1).
In this great prayer, four times he invokes unity for his disciples at the time and for those in the future, and twice he says that the reason for such unity is so that the world may 'recognize' them as messengers of the Father. Thus there is a close link between the fate of evangelization and the testimony of unity among Christians.
An authentic ecumenical journey cannot be carried out ignoring the crisis of faith in vast regions of the planet, among them those that had been the first to welcome the announcement of the Gospel and where Christian life had flourished for centuries. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the numerous signs that attest to a persistent need for spirituality which is manifested in various ways.
The spiritual poverty among many of our contemporaries, who no longer perceive the absence of God in their life as a privation, represents a challenge to all Christians. In this sense, we who believe in Christ are called upon to return to the essence, the heart of our faith, in order that we may all bear witness together to the world about the living God, a God who knows and loves each of us, in whose gaze we live, a God who awaits the response of our love in our everyday life.
Therefore the commitment of Christian churches and other Christian ecclesial communities for a renewed announcement of the Gospel to contemporary man is a reason for hope. Indeed, to bear witness to the living God, who made himself close to us in Christ, is the most urgent imperative for all Christians, which is also an imperative that unites us despite the incomplete ecclesial communion that we continue to experience.
We must not forget that what unites us - namely, our faith in God, Father and Creator who revealed himself in his Son Jesus Christ, pouring forth the Spirit who vivifies and sanctifies. This is the faith that we received in Baptism and the faith that together we can all profess, in hope and in love,
In the light of the priority of faith, one can understand the importance of the theological dialogs and conversations with other Christian churches and ecclesial communities in which the Catholic Church is engaged.
Even if we cannot foresee for the immediate future the possibility of re-=establishing full communion among Christians, they allow us to obtain - along with resistances and obstacles - a wealth of experiences, of spiritual life and theological reflections which become stimuli for an even more profound witnessing to our faith.
But ewe must not forget that the goal of ecumenism is the visible unity among divided Christians. This unity is not a work that we can achieve by ourselves as humans. We must commit ourselves to it with all our strength, but we must also acknowledge, that in the last analysis, this unity is a gift of God - ti can only come from the Father through the Son, because the Church is his Church.
In this perspective, we can see the importance of invoking this visible unity from the Lord, but it also emerges that the quest for this goal is relevant for the new evangelization. The fact of walking together towards that goal is a positive reality, provided that the various Christian Churches and ecclesial communities do not get held up along the way, by accepting the contradictory differences as something normal or the best that can be achieved.
Instead, it is in full communion in the faith, in the sacraments and in the ministry, that the present and working power of God in the world is made concretely evident. Through the visible unity of the disciples of Christ, a unity that is humanly inexplicable, the action of God that surpasses the worldly tendency to disgregation can be made recognizable.
Dear friends, I hope that the Year of Faith may contribute to the progress of the ecumenical journey. Unity is, on the one hand, the fruit of faith, and on the other, a means and almost a prerequisite for announcing the faith in an increasingly credible way to those who still do not know the Savior or who, having previously received the Gospel, have almost forgotten this precious gift.
True ecumenism, recognizing the primacy of divine action, demands above all patience, humility, and abandoning ourselves to the will of God. Ultimately, both ecumenism and the new evangelization require the dynamism of conversion, understood as a sincere will to follow Christ and to fully adhere to the will of the Father.
Thanking you once more, I gladly invoke the Apostolic Blessing on everyone.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/11/2012 03:26]