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Pope
Benedict XVI - Addresses |
"Culture Is Growing Ever More Distant
From Its Christian Roots"
Lambeth Palace
H.H. Benedict XVI
September 17, 2010
www.zenit.org
Your Grace,
It is a pleasure for me to be able to return
the courtesy of the visits you have made to
me in Rome by a fraternal visit to you here
in your official residence. I thank you for
your invitation and for the hospitality that
you have so generously provided. I greet too
the Anglican Bishops gathered here from
different parts of the United Kingdom, my
brother Bishops from the Catholic Dioceses
of England, Wales and Scotland, and the
ecumenical advisers who are present.
You have spoken, Your Grace, of the historic
meeting that took place, almost thirty years
ago, between two of our predecessors – Pope
John Paul the Second and Archbishop Robert
Runcie – in Canterbury Cathedral. There, in
the very place where Saint Thomas of
Canterbury bore witness to Christ by the
shedding of his blood, they prayed together
for the gift of unity among the followers of
Christ. We continue today to pray for that
gift, knowing that the unity Christ willed
for his disciples will only come about in
answer to prayer, through the action of the
Holy Spirit, who ceaselessly renews the
Church and guides her into the fullness of
truth.
It is not my intention today to speak of the
difficulties that the ecumenical path has
encountered and continues to encounter.
Those difficulties are well known to
everyone here. Rather, I wish to join you in
giving thanks for the deep friendship that
has grown between us and for the remarkable
progress that has been made in so many areas
of dialogue during the forty years that have
elapsed since the Anglican-Roman Catholic
International Commission began its work. Let
us entrust the fruits of that work to the
Lord of the harvest, confident that he will
bless our friendship with further
significant growth.
The context in which dialogue takes place
between the Anglican Communion and the
Catholic Church has evolved in dramatic ways
since the private meeting between Pope John
XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher in
1960. On the one hand, the surrounding
culture is growing ever more distant from
its Christian roots, despite a deep and
widespread hunger for spiritual nourishment.
On the other hand, the increasingly
multicultural dimension of society,
particularly marked in this country, brings
with it the opportunity to encounter other
religions. For us Christians this opens up
the possibility of exploring, together with
members of other religious traditions, ways
of bearing witness to the transcendent
dimension of the human person and the
universal call to holiness, leading to the
practice of virtue in our personal and
social lives. Ecumenical cooperation in this
task remains essential, and will surely bear
fruit in promoting peace and harmony in a
world that so often seems at risk of
fragmentation.
At the same time, we Christians must never
hesitate to proclaim our faith in the
uniqueness of the salvation won for us by
Christ, and to explore together a deeper
understanding of the means he has placed at
our disposal for attaining that salvation.
God "wants all to be saved, and to come to
the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4),
and that truth is nothing other than Jesus
Christ, eternal Son of the Father, who has
reconciled all things in himself by the
power of his Cross. In fidelity to the
Lord’s will, as expressed in that passage
from Saint Paul’s First Letter to Timothy,
we recognize that the Church is called to be
inclusive, yet never at the expense of
Christian truth. Herein lies the dilemma
facing all who are genuinely committed to
the ecumenical journey.
In the figure of John Henry Newman, who is
to be beatified on Sunday, we celebrate a
churchman whose ecclesial vision was
nurtured by his Anglican background and
matured during his many years of ordained
ministry in the Church of England. He can
teach us the virtues that ecumenism demands:
on the one hand, he was moved to follow his
conscience, even at great personal cost; and
on the other hand, the warmth of his
continued friendship with his former
colleagues, led him to explore with them, in
a truly eirenical spirit, the questions on
which they differed, driven by a deep
longing for unity in faith. Your Grace, in
that same spirit of friendship, let us renew
our determination to pursue the goal of
unity in faith, hope, and love, in
accordance with the will of our one Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.
With these sentiments, I take my leave of
you. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit be with you all (2
Corinthians 13:13).
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