Posted on 01/18/2012 3:19:15 PM PST by NYer
.- Pope Benedict XVI said today that achieving Christian unity requires more than “cordiality and cooperation” and that it must be accompanied by interior conversion.
“Faith in Christ and interior conversion, both individual and communal, must constantly accompany our prayer for Christian unity,” said the Pope to over 8,000 pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall on Jan. 18.
The Pope’s comments mark the start of the 2012 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that runs until Jan. 25. It will be observed by over 300 Christian churches and ecclesial communities around the globe.
The Pope asked for “the Lord in a particular way to strengthen the faith of all Christians, to change our hearts and to enable us to bear united witness to the Gospel.”
In this way, he said, they “will contribute to the new evangelization and respond ever more fully to the spiritual hunger of the men and women of our time.”
The Pope explained that the concept of a week of prayer for Christian unity was initiated in 1908 by Paul Wattson, an Episcopalian minister from Maryland. One year later, he became a Catholic and was subsequently ordained to the priesthood.
Pope Benedict recalled how the initiative was supported by his predecessors Pope St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XV. It was then “developed and perfected” in the 1930s by the Frenchman Abbé Paul Couturier, who promoted prayer “for the unity of the Church as Christ wishes and according to the means he wills.”
The mandate for the week of prayer, the Pope underscored, comes from the wish of Christ himself at the Last Supper “that they may all be one.” He observed that this mission was given a particular impetus by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) but added that “the unity we strive for cannot result merely from our own efforts.” Rather, “it is a gift we receive and must constantly invoke from on high.”
The theme for 2012 Week of Prayer – “All shall be changed by the victory of Jesus Christ our Lord” – was crafted by the Polish Ecumenical Council. Pope Benedict said it reflects “their own experience as a nation,” which stayed faithful to Christ “in the midst of trials and upheavals,” including years of occupation by the Nazis and later the Communists.
The Pope tied the victory the Polish people experienced over their oppressors to overcoming the disunity that marks Christians.
He said that the “unity for which we pray requires inner conversion, both shared and individual,” and it cannot be “limited to cordiality and cooperation.” Instead, Christians must accept “all the elements of unity which God has conserved for us.”
Ecumenism, the Pope stated, is not an optional extra for Catholics but is “the responsibility of the entire Church and of all the baptized.” Christians, he said, must make praying for unity an “integral part” of their prayer life, “especially when people from different traditions come together to work for victory in Christ over sin, evil, injustice and the violation of human dignity.”
Pope Benedict then touched on the lack of unity in the Christian community, which he said “hinders the effective announcement of the Gospel and endangers our credibility.” Evangelizing formerly Christian countries and spreading the Gospel to new places will be “more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, and give a joint response to the spiritual thirst of our times,” he explained.
The Pope concluded his comments with the hope that this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will lead to “increased shared witness, solidarity and collaboration among Christians, in expectation of that glorious day when together we will all be able to celebrate the Sacraments and profess the faith transmitted by the Apostles.”
The general audience finished with Pope Benedict addressing pilgrims in various languages, including greeting a group of men and women from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, before leading the crowd in the Our Father and imparting his apostolic blessing.
Thanks very much, I appreciate it.
Have a safe trip...
Many pawns corrupt the word of God, seeking to defend the indefensible. Many pawns have no idea what their true history is, just that large numbers of pawns cannot possibly be wrong. Pawns, puppets, parrots. The Pride of the Papacy. MANY corrupt the word of God. And compare themselves with themselves for solace. THinking they are wise and puffed up in their vanities.
In the end, they stumble at the stumblingstone. I think it's because their noses are held so high in false pride and that they cannot see what is about to trip them up.
I’m defending against slander with facts, not that you would notice. Certainly not every Catholic, layman or cleric, is without grave sin and error. No one is positing this.
Speaking of noses held up, your post is a study in pride. You reject Christ’s Church and think yourself a member of the The Church of Those Who Never Did Anything Wrong.
You take credit for tests you never had to take. Your criticisms are flailing at air filled with ignorance and pride. Christ promised the Church would prevail against all Her enemies, you included.
It's any Catholic's opinion that the Roman church is THE church Christ established. It's each one's own personal interpretation of Scripture that Jesus instituted Peter as the first pope and established the church as the RCC.
So those who think that way, join the church that also teaches it and now you have a whole bunch of people with the same personal interpretation of Scripture together under one authority.
That doesn't make it fact simply because a lot of people agree. Consensus doesn't determine truth.
No. I don't believe she does that.
What we reject is any one denomination CLAIMING to be Christ's only one true church.
Nor do I see anyone on this forum claiming they never did anything wrong, unless you can find a post and point us to it.
Apparently what you fail to realize is that being forgiven is not the same as being sinless, nor is it a claim of sinlessness on anyone's part past, present, or future.
It’s not an opinion or a vote about Christ’s Church. It’s in Holy Scripture and down through history.
Methodist or Non-Denom or the Church of the Holy Individual are not credible options.
“To be versed in history is to cease to be Protestant.” applies in my case; but it takes very little history.
No it’s the cute trick of avoiding any bad history by having no history at all.
Your “churches” begin and end with you.
Here, I’ll illustrate the point with your answers to:
Where was your church at the fall of the Roman Empire?
Where was your church in the early middle ages?
Where was your church during the holocaust?
It is not one particular location, or organization.
It is a body, comprised of many members, believers in Jesus throughout all of church history, from the time Jesus died until He the time comes again to take His bride home.
It doesn't matter when or where they live, when or where they meet together for worship, Bible study, prayer, ministry, whatever. Where ever true believers are, Jesus is in the midst as He promised, and there is the church, the living body of the Lord Jesus.
There is no written record of the Catholic church before Constantine. It's only claimed by default, THEIR OPINION and THEIR *records*, that everything before their official inception that history affords, is actually CATHOLIC history and their claim to own it doesn't make it so.
Sources outside the Catholic church do not support that. For that matter the claimed succession of popes by the church isn't even that well established.
And church or organization that makes claims retroactively has ZERO credibility, because all it smacks of is a blatant power grab with the attempt to put any claims beyond dispute.
And fortunately, there are enough written records, plus Scripture itself, to dispute that claim.
petra ≠ petros and NOBODY has yet provided any evidence to refute that.
Horsefeathers. "Catholic" is a term applied to the Christian Church, the same Church in the NT. What do think they were before 300, Methodist?
Good grief, your argument can't be taken seriously, it's beyond ignorant.
Not the Church of +Paul. He didn't write to The Church at No Particular Location.
Absurd.
He wrote to believers in cities.
NOT denominations.
Maybe *catholic* with a small *c* but nowhere in Scripture is THE *Catholic* church referenced.
Unless you can provide a Scripture reference. (which I doubt)
Can you unwrap your mind from around the concept that a *church* is an organization or denomination?
The church is the body of all believers throughout church history, irrespective of denomination. The CHURCH, the body of Christ, is made up of PEOPLE. It's not something to join, it's something to become.
What part of:
“Catholic” is a term applied to the Christian Church, the same Church in the NT.
did you not comprehend?
There is an invisible Church and a visible one. It’s the later you’ve thrown down the memory hole. You can have your own theology if you wish, but not your own Church in Holy Scripture and history.
The apostles established real churches in real places with real people. We have Paul’s letters to many of them, addressed to them, delivered to them, real people with names in real locations.
These churches in real locations with real people with real names have a real history. You can read it. Their history is contiguous until this day. It is the same churches comprising the Church that Christ established through his Apostles, giving them authority which they passed on to others as Christ instructed.
Pick a church an Apostle established, follow it’s history from its establishment until today. Christ>Apostles>Apostolic Church. Today we know them as “Catholic” to differentiate them from not Catholic.
Christ’s visible Church, the one Paul writes to in Holy Scripture, is real, it exists, it has a history, no matter what you think or say.
I said this would illustrate my point: Your answer to my questions of “Where was your church...?” is, basically, “no particular place.”
No particular place, no particular people, no history.
Illustrating my point previous:
“It’s the cute trick of avoiding any bad history by having no history at all. You reject Christ’s Church and think yourself a member of the “The Church of Those Who Never Did Anything Wrong.”
You attack the Church, and often *any* church, from the false safety of No particular place, no particular people, no history. I.e., no church.
How facile - if only others would let you get away with it.
I think that the Catholic Church usurping the authority of Christ on earth is going to have dire consequences for that organization.
That’s exactly the party line point I was trying to make without actually outright saying it.
BTW did you see the funeral that Ted Kennedy got ?
The man was responsible for the drowning death of a young woman . He is responsible for the death of countless Americans that never were by his outspoken support of abortion . In his name they passed that horrendous bill they have the audacity to call health care when it outright sanctions death via abortion and with holding treatment via death panels . None of this could not have been unknown by their church as Nancy Pelosi traveled to the Vatican to get the Popes blessing on getting it passed (the Vatican has been outspoken that everyone should have the right to free healthcare) Hey he got his Catholic funeral and he was not excommunicated and neither will Nancy .
Now they are crying that they won’t get a special exemption for what they have pushed on the rest of us.
It is coming back on their heads .
This is nothing new , they have done the same thing in every country in Europe and lots of other places around the world and then they cry that they are the victims.
Repent ? Admit being wrong ? No of course not , they are infallible .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.