Commentary: The Way of Authentic Ecumenism

Catholic online ^ | 5/8/08 | Deacon Keith Fournier

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The Prayer of Jesus echoes in the Church at the beginning of this new missionary age. We need to make it our own:

"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."John 17:20-23

... Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Letter "Ut Unum Sint" (On the Commitment to Ecumenism, literally "May They Be One") was a monumental contribution to this "spiritual process" of authentic ecumenism.

Among his many encyclicals, apostolic letters and exhortations, it is one of the least understood. In it he proposed a path toward the full communion of the Church. He affirmed that there is no retreat from the ecumenical task and that the "way of ecumenism is the way of the Church"

His Apostolic Letter, Orientale Lumen (The Light of the East), promulgated on May 2, 1995, the Feast of St. Athanasius, was oriented toward healing the rift between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.His return of the bones of Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom, pre-division archbishops of Constantinople, was one in a series of profound gestures toward the Orthodox and, in particular Patriarch Bartholomew I.

They were also prophetic in nature.

Pope Benedict has not only mentioned these actions regularly, but has continued the work, acting in a prophetic and pastoral manner on this vital front.

John Paul wrote regularly of the "two lungs" of Christianity breathing together once again in the Third Millennium. Benedict the Builder seems ready to help resuscitate the one New Man.

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The Church is ecumenical in her mission. Not simply to be nice to other Christians but to be faithful to her Lord who wills that "all may be one". This commitment to authentic ecumenism was an anchor of the contributions of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II and is at the forefront of the strong and wise leadership of Pope Benedict XVI.