Vatican

Vatican City, Nov 4, 2017 / 12:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).-  

Last weekend, Pope Francis delivered a keynote speech to a major conference on the future of the European Union. Although the Pope is often characterized as a staunch progressive, his Oct. 28 speech was a reminder that his views on life, marriage, and sexuality go beyond the stereotypes with which he is often characterized.

During the speech, the Pope spoke out against abortion, and said the Christian understanding of the family can serve as a model on which the European continent can base its identity as it faces a changing and uncertain future.

Speaking to participants in the Oct. 27-29 conference “(Re)Thinking Europe: A Christian Contribution to the Future of the European Project,” Pope Francis stressed that the family, “as the primordial community,” is fundamental to understanding Europe’s increasingly multicultural and multiethnic identity.

In the family, “diversity is valued and at the same time brought into unity,” Francis said, explaining that the family “is the harmonious union of the differences between man and woman, which becomes stronger and more authentic to the extent that it is fruitful, capable of opening itself to life and to others.”

Likewise, he said secular communities are also “alive” when they are capable “of openness, embracing the differences and gifts of each person while at the same time generating new life, development, labor, innovation and culture.”

He also pointed to the low birth rate in Europe, lamenting the fact that there are so few children because “all too many were denied the right to be born.”

These comments, which echo the critiques of European secularism often proffered by Benedict XVI, might surprise those who have, since the beginning of his pontificate, painted Francis as being untethered by Catholic doctrine.

Yet while the Pope has often seemed to take a progressive approach to liturgy and has been outspoken on environmental issues, he has also been equally loud when defending Catholic doctrine on moral issues like abortion and homosexuality in the public square.

Of course, there is still significant internal debate surrounding the interpretation of Chapter 8 of his 2015 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which addresses the Church’s response to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

In fact, this week the debate flared up again when news came out that Father Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap., a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, resigned from his position as a consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine after publishing a 5-page letter he had written to Pope Francis calling for a correction to the “chronic confusion” of his pontificate, which the priest said “fosters within the faithful a growing unease.”

The letter, which charged that Pope Francis has downplayed the importance of doctrine, created confusion, and appointed questionable bishops, made waves throughout the Catholic world, especially given Fr. Weinandy’s prominent role within the USCCB and the Pope’s theological commission.

But while Francis seems to invite debate on this and other points, he demonstrated last Saturday that he does so while calling for respect for the Catholic worldview in secular culture, especially regarding the family.

Who am I to judge?

It was early in his pontificate, on a return flight from World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, that Pope Francis famously responded to a question about homosexuality in the priesthood with “who am I to judge?”  

In some ways, the question became a lens through which his pontificate is often viewed, especially in the media.

Since 2013, the “who-am-I-to-judge Pope” has spoken out frequently on the need to be more welcoming of people with homosexual orientation, and has insisted on the need to use language reflecting welcome, rather than a closed door.

During his September 2015 visit to the United States, images of Pope Francis hugging a gay man circulated on the internet after he met with the man and his partner in Washington D.C. The man was a former student who had written to ask for a meeting, and the Pope accepted.

And while Pope Francis’ approach to homosexuality has been depicted by some as a deviation from the Church’s doctrine, and hailed by others as a step in the right direction, his speech to E.U. leaders is a reminder that he aims to promote a worldview guided by Catholic doctrine, rather than contradicting it.  

A Catholic Worldview

Looking back throughout Francis’ pontificate, his speech on Saturday was the latest among dozens of times he has spoken on behalf of the role of the traditional family, the sacredness of human life, or the Church’s teaching on sexuality in the public square.

Some of these occasions, just to name a few, are as follows:

1. In a 2014 audience with members of the German-born, international Schoenstatt movement marking the 100th anniversary of their founding, Pope Francis said the family, in the Christian understanding, was being attacked.

“The family is being hit, the family is being struck and the family is being bastardized,” he said, noting that in the modern context, “you can call everything family, right?”

He said contemporary society has “devalued” the sacrament of marriage by turning it into a social rite and removing the most essential element, which is union with God. “So many families are divided, so many marriages broken,” he said, adding that frequently, there is “such relativism in the concept of the sacrament of marriage.”

2. On the flight back from his trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan a year ago, in October 2016, the Pope was asked about the possibility of biological roots to homosexuality and transgender identities.  

Pope Francis said that those who struggle with sexuality and gender identity must be “accompanied as Jesus accompanies them,” and Jesus “surely doesn’t tell them ‘go away because you are homosexual,’” he said.

But Francis also pointed to the “wickedness which today is done in the indoctrination of gender theory” that is now frequently being taught in schools, and which he said “is against the (nature of) things.”

Pastoral accompaniment “is what Jesus would do today,” he said, but asked journalists to “please don’t say: ‘the Pope sanctifies transgenders.’…Because I see the covers of the papers.” Gender theory, he said, is “a moral problem. It’s a human problem and it must be resolved…with the mercy of God, with the truth.”

During the same trip, the Pope gave a lengthy, off-the-cuff speech to priests, seminarians and pastoral workers in which he said “the whole world is at war trying to destroy marriage,” not so much with weapons, “but with ideas…(there are) certain ideologies that destroy marriage. So we need to defend ourselves from ideological colonization.”

3. In his environmental encyclical Laudato Si, published in June 2015, Pope Francis condemned abortion, population control and transgenderism.

Regarding gender, the Pope said that, like creation, “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. ”

Further, he said that “valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment.”

He also said that to protect nature is “incompatible with the justification of abortion,” and that it is “clearly inconsistent” to combat human trafficking or protect endangered species while being indifferent to the choice of many people “to destroy another human being deemed unwanted.”

Francis also lamented that “instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate.”

“Demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development,” he said, adding that to blame a growing population for poverty and an unequal distribution of resources rather than the “extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.”

4. In February 2015, the Pope praised Slovakia, which had voted against a referendum to legalize same-sex “marriage,” voicing his appreciation “to the entire Slovak Church, encouraging everyone to continue their efforts in defense of the family, the vital cell of society.”

Defying stereotypes

The Pope has made more statements along the same lines over the past few years in general audiences, as well as in homilies, speeches and letters, advocating for public respect for the Church’s position on life, marriage, and family.

When the Pope spelled out his vision for the Christian contribution to the continent of Europe on Saturday, he made it clear that his moral and political vision is one based on the Church’s longstanding teaching on the family.

Pope Francis can be hard to pin down at times, and the resulting “gray area” often leads to stereotype – which is why he is so frequently the subject of caricature, rather than serious study. But caricatures of Francis inevitably miss the mark.
 
On Saturday, Pope Francis proved this by again reminding Europe of its roots, and of the importance of the family and of Christianity to those roots, showing himself to be a leader who, instead of falling into stereotypes, defies them.

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Vatican City, Nov 3, 2017 / 02:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This week, representatives from Catholic universities around the world are gathered in Rome to study how higher education can better respond to the global migrant and refugee crisis, particularly when it comes to research.

Catholic universities have a lot of potential, and “it was thought that if this potential was put at the service of one of the principal concerns of the Holy Father, migrants and refugees, we can really make a change, make a difference in respect to what was done before,” Fr. Fabio Baggio told CNA.

One of two undersecretaries for the migrants and refugees section of the Vatican dicastery for Integral Human Development, Baggio spoke ahead of a conference organized by Catholic universities around the world, titled “Migrants and Refugees in a Globalized World: the Response of Universities.”

Happening in Rome Nov. 1-4, the conference is organized by the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) in partnership with the Being the Blessing Foundation, the Pontifical Gregorian University, and the Center for Interreligious Understanding.

In his comments to CNA, Baggio said as soon as the dicastery heard about the initiative, they offered their support, and are hopeful that “the good practices that some universities already have can be applied, multiplied and that many others can do it.”

Baggio also voiced his hope that the universities would be able to build a stronger network in order to both share resources among the wealthier universities and those with less funding, and to share best practices.

Key goals for the conference include garnering a better understanding of the reality of the global migrant and refugee crisis, studying the different approaches to teaching university students about the issue, and exploring various ways to respond to the need for higher education of those living in refugee camps.

Various representatives from Catholic universities throughout the world are speaking on the issue from their local perspectives, and exchanging ideas on how to conduct better research in order to come up with concrete action points when responding to the educational needs of migrants.

The topic of migrants and refugees has been among the leading issues of Pope Francis’ pontificate. Not only does he address it in many of his speeches, but he has chosen to directly oversee the migrant and refugee section of the dicastery for Integral Human Development.

Fr. Baggio technically works under dicastery president Cardinal Peter Turkson. However, he reports directly to the Pope on the topic of migrants and refugees. He said Francis has been very clear about the issue from the beginning.

“The Holy Father was very clear the first time he spoke about this in Strasbourg (and) he was very clear when he received the Charlemagne Prize here in Rome, where he said that Europe must rediscover its roots, cultural roots and the roots of civilization,” he said.

“The moment in which we abdicate that which we built as a civilization, is the moment when we completely annul everything, we are resigned,” he said, explaining that in Europe, “we are in the cradle of law and the cradle of human rights and the cradle of dignity.”

“So I say that in this sense it’s a great invitation for Europe to rediscover her own roots, and to go forward with a great project of unity for all peoples, not being afraid of losing one’s own identity, but on the contrary, to be enriched with the wealth that others bring.”

Pope Francis will be meeting with conference participants Saturday, Sept. 4, to close out the event, to discuss what he believes universities can and should be doing when it comes to the migrant and refugee crisis.

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Vatican City, Nov 3, 2017 / 11:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his prayer video for November Pope Francis prays for the Church in Asia, that despite challenges it may continue to be a source of peace and dialogue between religions.

“On this continent, where the Church is a minority, the challenges are intense,” the Pope says in the video.

“Let us pray that Christians in Asia may promote dialogue, peace, and mutual understanding especially with those of other religions.”

Released Nov. 3, the video shows people of different religions and countries from throughout Asia. It also shows scenes of life in Asia, including the celebration of Mass.

“The most striking feature of Asia is the variety of its peoples who are heirs to ancient cultures, religions and traditions,” the Pope says.

Because of this variety, dialogue becomes an “essential part of the mission of the Church” in Asian countries, he pointed out.

The Pope’s prayer for Asia comes just a few weeks ahead of his Nov. 27 – Dec. 2 pastoral visit to Burma and Bangladesh.

The Catholic population in both countries is very small. In Bangladesh less than three percent of the population is Catholic, and in Burma it’s less than one percent.

In addition to being a minority religion in itself, the Church in these countries is also made up of people from a variety of ethnic minority backgrounds as well.

His visit is expected to focus on peace and coexistence, especially amid persecution of minorities.

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the Pope’s prayer videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the Roman Pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces the monthly videos on the Pope’s intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.

Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, universal intention from the Pope. In 1929, an additional missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

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Vatican City, Nov 3, 2017 / 04:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday Pope Francis said that in contemplating death we are reminded of our ultimate purpose – and how the choices we make here on earth will determine whether we eventually spend eternity in heaven.

“A fundamental mark of the Christian is a sense of anxious expectation of our final encounter with God,” the Pope said Nov. 3. “Death makes definitive the ‘crossroads’ which even now, in this world, stands before us: the way of life, with God, or the way of death, far from him.”

The Pope’s reflection on life and death was made in a special Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica for the souls of the cardinals and bishops who have died in the past year.

In his homily Francis reflected on the longing found in the words of the Responsorial Psalm: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

These words, he said, were impressed upon the souls of the cardinals and bishops remembered in today’s Mass. They served the Church and the people entrusted to them while keeping their eyes set on the prospect of eternity.

Today’s celebration of the Mass can help us to do the same, he said. In praying for the dead we are confronted with the reality of our own death, and though it may renew our sorrow for our friends and family members who have died, it also increases our hope.

We especially find hope in the Eucharist, he said. In the Eucharist is the physical expression of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

“These words evoke Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He accepted death in order to save those whom the Father had given him, who were dead in the slavery of sin. By his love, he shattered the yoke of death and opened to us the doors of life.”

When we receive the body and blood of Jesus, he said, we unite ourselves to his faithful love and to his “victory of good over evil, suffering and death.”

In this divine bond with the charity of Christ we can know that communion with those who have died before us is not “merely a desire,” but that it “becomes real,” he said.

Francis closed saying that through his death and resurrection, Jesus has shown us that “death is not the last word.” And faith in this resurrection transforms us into “men and women of hope, not despair, men and women of life, not death.”

“This hope, rekindled in us by the word of God, helps us to be trusting in the face of death.”

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Vatican City, Nov 2, 2017 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A former member of the Pontifical Academy for Life has launched an independent organization he claims will work to “unfold the splendor of truth about life and family.”

Josef Seifert, president of the new lay-run John Paul II Academy for Human Life and Family, announced the academy Oct. 18 in Rome at a conference on the topic of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae.”

“The academy’s aim is to clarify, to teach and to spread that part of the truth about man and about God that serves human life and the natural family, and, through serving these, serves and glorifies God,” said Seifert.

Seifert, a philosophy professor from Austria, has taught at the University of Dallas. He was founding rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein. Until recently, he had served as Dietrich von Hildebrand Chair for Realist Phenomenology at the International Academy of Philosophy-Instituto de Filosofía Edith Stein.

He has said he was forced to retire for asking whether parts of Pope Francis’ 2016 post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” led to the conclusion that there are no intrinsically wrong acts. He had previously been suspended from teaching seminarians, following the publication of a different essay criticizing the exhortation.

According to Seifert, the new organization aims to serve the same goals as the original Pontifical Academy for Life, founded in 1994 by St. John Paul II. This academy will be “a lay non-governmental organization that will remain independent of civil and religious organizations.”

The Pontifical Academy for Life is a team of scientists and ethicists representing different branches of biomedical sciences who are appointed by the Holy Father to work with Vatican dicasteries to discuss issues related to science and the protection of the dignity of human life. Under Pope Francis, its new statutes explicitly advocate care for the human person “at different stages of life” as well as an authentic “human ecology” that aims to restore balance in creation “between the human person and the entire universe.”

The American members of this academy appointed or confirmed by Pope Francis include Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; John M. Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia; and Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., attending neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and professor of neurology, neuroscience, and clinical pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine of Cornell University.

In Nov. 2016, Pope Francis promulgated new statutes for the Pontifical Academy for Life, withdrawing the lifetime appointments of 139 members, including Seifert.  While 28 members were reappointed in June 2017, Seifert was not among them.

The academy’s new statutes explicitly allow non-Catholics to be appointed to the pontifical academy, and establish that new members would no longer be required to sign a statement promising to defend life according to Catholic teaching.

Some new appointees were criticized for apparent disagreement with Catholic teaching on questions like euthanasia.

Seifert said his new lay academy includes several former members of the pontifical academy. Most of these were lifetime members. The members of the new lay academy are “deeply committed” to the original pontifical academy and its goals as envisioned by St. John Paul II, he said. Their Catholic members are, in his words, “fully faithful to the authentic Magisterium and perennial doctrine of the Catholic Church,” while open to the truths of human reason. Membership in this lay academy is also open to non-Catholics.

The independent academy will also consider medical, social and health developments; “anti-life and gender ideology”; topics like “brain death”; and the ethics of death and transplant medicine.

In his remarks introducing the new lay academy, Seifert was critical of a “new emphasis on subjective conscience that would justify committing adultery, homosexual relations or even abortion subjectively.” He opposed the claim that God would want people to commit acts like adultery “because leaving our new partner might lead us to greater sins and cause greater evils.”

He emphasized the importance of John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, encyclical Veritatis Splendor, and Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae to the new academy.

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Vatican City, Nov 2, 2017 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Nestled in Rome just outside the Vatican, a small unassuming museum dedicated to the souls in Purgatory displays simple items such as prayer books and clothing.

Nothing too unusual, until you real… […]

Vatican City, Nov 1, 2017 / 06:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After nearly 40 people were killed in terrorist attacks this week in Somalia, New York and Afghanistan, Pope Francis voiced his sorrow for loss of innocent life, and prayed for an end to the “murderous” hatred that spurs violence.

During his Nov. 1 Angelus address on All Saints Day, Pope Francis voiced his sorrow for the various attacks, saying he is “deeply saddened” by the loss of life.

“In deploring these acts of violence, I pray for the deceased, for the wounded and for their families,” he said, and prayed for the Lord to “convert the hearts of terrorists and free the world from hatred and the murderous folly that abuses the name of God so as to spread death.”

On Oct. 29, five Islamic extremists stormed a hotel after a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle filled with explosives at the entrance gate, killing some 23 people. The attack, which was claimed by Africa’s most deadly Islamic extremist group, Al-Shabab, took place just two weeks after another deadly blast in Somalia killed 350 people, marking the country’s worst-ever terrorist attack.

Three days later, on Oct. 31, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, killing at least 5 and wounding around 20 others. In a video posted to social media, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not specify what its target had been.

Also on Oct. 31, eight people were killed and at least 12 injured in New York City after a man in Home Depot truck plowed through a crowd on a pedestrian and bike path on West Street in lower Manhattan, before striking a school bus.

In a statement after the incident, New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the city and the nation “are stunned and horrified by another act of senseless violence.”

“While details continue to emerge, one thing is clear: once again, no matter our religion, racial or ethnic background, or political beliefs, we must put our differences aside and come together in faith and love,” he said, and encouraged New Yorkers of all faiths “to support those who are injured, pray for those who have died as well as their families and loved ones, and work towards greater respect and understanding among all people so that heinous and evil acts like this become a thing of the past.”

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Vatican City, Nov 1, 2017 / 05:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis marked the feast of All Saints Day saying the saints are honored not because they were perfect or did everything right, but because they allowed God to touch their lives and fought hard against sin.

“The Solemnity of All Saints is ‘our’ feast: not because we are good, but because the holiness of God has touched our lives,” the Pope said Nov. 1.

Saints, he said, “are not perfect models, but are people whose lives God has crossed,” and can be compared with the stained glass windows of a church, “which allow light to enter in different shades of color.”

The Saints above all are our brothers and sisters “who have welcomed the light of God into their hears and have passed it on to the world, each one according to their own ‘tone’,” he said, but stressed that no matter the “color” they give, “all of them are transparent.”

“They have fought to take away the stains and darkness of sin, so as to let the gentle light of God pass through,” he said, adding that “this is the purpose of life, even for us.”

Pope Francis offered his reflection in an Angelus address marking the feast of All Saints Day, which the Church celebrates each year on Nov. 1. Since the solemnity is a national holiday in Italy and the Vatican, the Pope offered the special Angelus address, rather than giving his typical Wednesday general audience.

Pointing to the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew, in which Jesus outlines the Beatitudes, Francis said the world “blessed” with which Jesus begins his preaching is in itself an announcement of the “good news,” because it points to the path of happiness.

“Whoever is with Jesus is blessed, is happy,” he said, explaining that happiness “is not having something or becoming someone,” but rather, “true happiness is being with the Lord and living for love.”

The “ingredients” for a happy life, then, are what Jesus calls the beatitudes, he said, explaining that the blessed ones “are the simple, the humble who make room for God, who know how to weep for others and for their own errors, those who stay meek, who fight for justice, who are merciful toward all, who guard purity of heart, who always work for peace and remain in joy, not in hate, and, even when suffering, respond to evil with good.”

The beatitudes, then, are not “sensational acts” reserved only for “supermen,” but are attitudes for those who live through the trials and fatigues of everyday life.

Even the Saints are like this, he said, explaining that like everyone, “they breath the air polluted by the evil that’s in the world, but along the way they never lose sight of Jesus’ path, the one indicated in the beatitudes, which are like the map of Christian life.”

And the feast of All Saints, then, is not celebrated only in honor of those who have reached the “goal” this map leads to, but it is also for the many “simple and hidden people” who we may know, and who, through everyday holiness, help God to “carry the world forward.”

Francis highlighted the importance of the beatitude “blessed are the poor in spirit,” which he said does not mean living for success, power or money, since “whoever accumulates treasures for themselves is not rich before God.”

Rather, those who are poor in spirit believe that “the Lord is the treasure of life, and that love of neighbor is the only true source of income.”

“At times we are unhappy about something we lack or are worried whether or not we are though of as we would like (to be),” he said, and urged pilgrims to remember that true beatitude is not found in these things, but only “in the Lord and in love.”

Pope Francis closed his address pointing to a final “beatitude” that is not found in the Gospel, but in Chapter 14 of the Book of Revelation, which reads “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.”

Looking toward tomorrow’s celebration of All Souls Day, Francis said Christians pray for their departed loved ones, “so that they enjoy the Lord forever.”

After leading pilgrims in the traditional Angelus prayer, Pope Francis voiced his sorrow for the terrorist attacks that have taken place over the past week in Somalia, Afghanistan and New York, saying he is “deeply saddened” by the attacks.

“In deploring these acts of violence, I pray for the deceased, for the wounded and for their families,” he said, and prayed for the Lord to “convert the hearts of terrorists and free the world from hatred and the murderous folly that abuses the name of God so as to spread death.”

He noted how for tomorrow’s Nov. 2 feast of All Souls Day, he will visit the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial in Nettuno, where he will celebrate Mass to remember the faithfully departed, and how afterward he will stop at the Fosse Ardeantine Museum and memorial commemorating the site of a Nazi massacre during World War II.

Pope Francis asked that pilgrims and faithful accompany him in prayer as he remembers the victims of war and violence honored in the two locations.

“Wars do not produce anything other than cemeteries and death. This is why I wanted to offer this sign at a time when humanity seems to have not learned it’s lesson, or does not want to learn it,” he said, and asked for prayer.

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Vatican City, Oct 31, 2017 / 10:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Reformation anniversary gives us a renewed impetus to work for reconciliation, said a statement released jointly Tuesday by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation.

“We recognize that while the past cannot be changed, its influence upon us today can be transformed to become a stimulus for growing communion, and a sign of hope for the world to overcome division and fragmentation,” it said Oct. 31.

“Again, it has become clear that what we have in common is far more than that which still divides us.”

The statement was released to mark the end of the year of common commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity is the Roman Curia’s office for ecumenism, while the Lutheran World Federation is the largest communion of Lutheran ecclesial communities. In the US, the Lutheran World Federation includes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but neither the Missouri nor Wisconsin Synods.

The common commemoration was opened last year with an ecumenical prayer service between Lutherans and Catholics at the Lutheran cathedral in Lund, Sweden during the Pope’s Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2016 visit.

During the service, Catholics and Lutherans read out five joint ecumenical commitments, including the commitment to always begin from a perspective of unity. Pope Francis and Munib Younan, then-president of the Lutheran World Federation and Lutheran bishop of Jordan and the Holy Land, also signed a joint statement.

Quoting the 2016 declaration between Pope Francis and Younan, this year’s statement acknowledged the pain of disunity, particularly that caused by the inability to share in the Eucharist.

“We acknowledge our joint pastoral responsibility to respond to the spiritual thirst and hunger of our people to be one in Christ. We long for this wound in the Body of Christ to be healed. This is the goal of our ecumenical endeavors, which we wish to advance, also by renewing our commitment to theological dialogue,” the statement declared.

The new statement also emphasized the commitment to continue this journey toward unity “guided by God’s Spirit…according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

With God’s help, we hope to continue to seek “substantial consensus” on issues pertaining to the Church, Eucharist, and ministry, it said. “With deep joy and gratitude we trust ‘that He who has begun a good work in [us] will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ’.”

They gave thanksgiving for the spiritual and theological gifts received through the Reformation, as well as the need to ask forgiveness for failures and the ways in which “Christians have wounded the Body of Christ and offended each other” over the past 500 years.

One positive effect of the past year’s common commemoration has been viewing the Reformation with an ecumenical perspective for the first time, it concluded.

“In the face of so many blessings along the way, we raise our hearts in praise of the Triune God for the mercy we receive.”

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