Vatican City, Jun 21, 2018 / 03:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis landed in Geneva Thursday for a day-trip aimed at bolstering ecumenical relations, saying off the bat that division among Christians is borne from worldliness, and Christ must be prioritized over any differences that might get in the way of unity.
In his first official speech after touching down, the pope said Christians are called to walk together along the path of the Spirit, which means “rejecting worldliness” and “opting for a mindset of service and growing in forgiveness.”
“It means playing our part in history but in God’s good time, not letting ourselves be caught up in the whirlwind of corruption but advancing calmly on the way whose signpost is the one commandment: ‘ou shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“We are called, together, to walk along this path,” he said, noting that walking together requires perpetual conversion and “the renewal of our way of thinking, so that it can conform to that of the Holy Spirit.”
It could be said that to walk in this way is to “operate at a loss,” he said, “since it does not adequately protect the interests of individual communities, often closely linked to ethnic identity or split along party lines, whether ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive.’”
The pope then pointed to St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which the apostle told the community that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
He also referred to the passage in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, in which the apostle pointed to divisions in the Christian community of Corinth, saying “each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
What modern Christians are asked do, Francis said, is “to belong to Jesus before belonging to Apollos or Cephas; to belong to Christ before being ‘Jew or Greek’; to belong to the Lord before identifying with right or left; to choose, in the name of the Gospel, our brother or our sister over ourselves.”
“In the eyes of the world, this often means operating at a loss,” he said, calling the ecumenical movement “a great enterprise operating at a loss.”
However, this loss “is evangelical,” he said, and quoted Jesus’ words from the Gospel when he told his disciples that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
“To save only what is ours is to walk according to the flesh; to lose everything in the footsteps of Jesus is to walk in the Spirit,” he said. “Only in this way does the Lord’s vineyard bear fruit.”
Pope Francis spoke to participants in an ecumenical prayer gathering during his June 21 visit to Geneva for the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches. Founded in 1948, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is a global fellowship of churches seeking to foster unity among different Christian confessions and has some 348 members worldwide.
Members are present in 110 countries and represent over 500 million Christians, including Orthodox, Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist churches, as well as many Reformed, United and Independent churches.
While the majority of the founding members came from Europe and North America, currently the bulk of the WCC membership is in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific. The Holy See is not a member of the WCC, but it is an observer, and routinely sends representatives to the organization’s meetings.
Francis’ homily during the prayer gathering was the first official speech of his daytrip to Geneva. He spoke at the WCC headquarters after holding a private meeting with President of the Swiss Confederation, Alain Berset.
In his address, the pope said Christian divisions have historically arisen because “ a worldly mindset has seeped in” at their root.
What happened, he said, is that “self-concern took priority over concern for Christ,” and once this took place, devil “had no difficulty in separating us, because the direction we were taking was that of the flesh, not of the Spirit.”
Even certain attempts to end these divisions in the past have “failed miserably because they were chiefly inspired by a worldly way of thinking,” he said, noting that the ecumenical movement “came about as a grace of the Holy Spirit.”
“Ecumenism made us set out in accordance with Christ’s will, and it will be able to progress if, following the lead of the Spirit, it constantly refuses to withdraw into itself.”
Looking at relations between modern Christian churches and the slew of issues which often stand in the way of full unity, Francis said the current experience is akin to that of the early Christian communities in Galatia.
“How difficult it is to overcome hard feelings and to foster communion! How hard it is to leave behind centuries-old disagreements and mutual recriminations!” he said.
At times, it is “more formidable to withstand the subtle temptation to join others, to walk together, but for the sake of satisfying some partisan interest.” However, this is not the mindset of an apostle, but is the attitude of Judas, who walked alongside Jesus, “but for his own purposes.”
The 70th anniversary of the WCC, Pope Francis said, is a call to strengthen the steps toward ecumenism that have already been taken.
He said Christians should not cease their quest for unity when faced with continual differences, and nor should they be overcome by weariness or a “lack of enthusiasm.”
“Our differences must not be excuses. Even now we can walk in the Spirit: we can pray, evangelize and serve together,” he said. “This is possible and it is pleasing to God! Walking, praying and working together: this is the great path that we are called to follow.”
The aim of this path is unity, and the opposite is a path to division which leads to “conflict and breakup,” he said, stressing that the lack of unity among Christians is not only “openly contrary to the will of Christ,” but is also “a scandal to the world and harms the most holy of causes: the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.”
The Lord, he said, “asks us for unity; our world, torn by all too many divisions that affect the most vulnerable, begs for unity.”
And for Christians, to walk together is not merely a “ ploy to strengthen our own positions,” but is rather an act of obedience to Jesus and his love for the world, Francis said, and closed by praying that God would help Christians to “walk together all the more resolutely in the ways of the Spirit.”
“May the Cross guide our steps, because there, in Jesus, the walls of separation have already been torn down and all enmity overcome.”
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Surely China, Russia and Saudi Arabia will eventually embrace fraternity and sign the new climate accord.
So, the remaining question is how to deal with such as these bad actors once the invitation to dialogue falls short. The hope is that a new grassroots and trans-boundary consciousness might emerge, perhaps even under a Synod on Synodality which reaches beyond the Church and into a world of fallen-aways and atheists and such.
But then, on the other hand, this is a big wager with multiple abysses of all types now on the poker table…In addition to the named ecological crisis, the social crisis, and the health crisis, the underlying, enabling and post-Christian “culture of death” also comes to mind. As does the duty and “window of opportunity” for laymen in the secular world to at least not aggressively make the disinterred culture of Baal even worse. Biden, of course, reports that he’s a good boy and that government funding of Aztec-like fetal dismemberment is a non-issue, and no one says otherwise. Thus, it cometh to pass that the “window of opportunity” to deal with Cupich’s “rabbit hole” catastrophe yet again passes us by.
Best not to shine a light on the Church’s spiritual crisis of Eucharist incoherence. All crises are equal, but some crises are more equal than others.
Never let a good crisis go to waste is a principle for antithetical action found in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals [also Never waste a crisis adopted by ex Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel]. Is it unusual that Pope Francis perceives the Covid crisis as an opportunity to advance an agenda? “Thus, an ecological crisis, represented by the cry of the earth, and a social crisis, represented by the cry of the poor, have been made deadly by a healthcare crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic” (Francis). Ecology and poverty are made deadly, the antithesis to their neutral character, which is the thesis. Although it seems difficult to make that dual inference, the pontiff explains that the disease amplifies the disturbance of our global ecology presumably by industry and the high morbidity among the poor as compared to the affluent. While there is statistical indication that holds for the poor Francis somehow finds correspondence of disease with ecology. “Making peace with nature must be a priority for the 21st century” is the clue. “Heedless dominion over the Earth”, Mother Earth is the realization of his thought, a warfare with nature as if Earth mother were retaliating. His Holiness makes the added inference that Covid is that retaliative punishment on Mankind. True to Alinskyan subversion rules, the antithesis advances his agenda. His supporting premise is that the Covid virus is a product of nature rather than a biological weapon engineered by the CCP at China’s Hunan lab. Despite that all the evidence points to the lab. The resolution is found in economic equanimity and ecology, rather than correcting China’s inhumanity to Man. And of course the abeyance from the current issue of globalized abortion.
An addendum. Hunan is famous for its cuisine, Hunan chicken a specialty. Whereas Wuhan is notorious for its virus research.
I still believe that this Wuhan Epidemic is Divine Punishment in part to Pope Francis allowing, and participating in, the worship of the disgusting Pachamama Demon Idol in the Vatican Gardens in 2019. Is it coincidence that the Virus appeared to have originated in Wuhan at almost the exact same time? I think not.
Yes, and consider modern man’s moral degradation. The number of persons participating in contraception, abortion, gender-mutilation and other unnatural acts continues to grow. Younger and progressively younger members are recruited to such practices. The appalling horror should be clear and our lenses should magnify. We witnessed (in Loudoun County, Va.) the father of a daughter ARRESTED for his ANGER because NO ONE IN AUTHORITY NOTIFIED HIM THAT HIS DAUGHTER had been RAPED in her public school bathroom.
Scripture has it: God chastises those He loves. If man continues to act against God’s glory, against the goodness and purpose of our and His nature, man shall continue to witness greater crises of nature where God appears not to dwell. Scripture and God’s prophets have said so.
As Fr. Peter says, to claim that poverty and industrialization are to blame is an inference (Meiron adds: suggestive of egregious logical error). I reassert: Francis needs a bedside Bible, a good spiritual director (He is always available to those who knock), and a course in Thomistic metaphysics. For a start, a pure, humble, chastened heart will work wonders.
Addendum: That one is far from a pure, humble, chastened heart does not bode well for a peaceful future. We are in the thick of it with more clouds and crises forecast.
With just one exception, I agree with our Pope regarding his concerns.
Right from the beginning, man had a simple religion. It was a God-inspired one. The tenets were simple. Revere God and be good stewards of creation. And this is how they did live. This God-based humanism ensured that they lived in a paradise. But then their relationship with God was completely ruined when, under Satan’s influence, selflessness gave way to self-centeredness. All disobedient actions have consequences and, in this case, the Garden became a wasteland. It was then that death, confusion, disorder and other damaging consequences set in. Paradise was lost. Adam’s sinful action badly affected nature.
It happened also in Noah’s time. The affect of sinful ways was enacted through nature. And nature again played a devastating role in Sodom. We do not really know what the full extent of the consequences of our wrongdoings. Only God knows.
The problem I do have is the connection that is being made between our CO2 and climate. I do not believe that CO2 has heat-generating capacity. I am worried because CO2 is vital for plant survival, and plants do make food for all living things. Satan, who out of hatred of God, has attacked our marriage and family, and also our nature by playing with our two genders. Now, by attacking CO2, is he trying to deprive us of food? If anyone can prove that CO2 does generate heat, that it causes global warming and consequently climate change, I will rethink my views.
es of our disobedient actions are. Only God knows his laws. When Jesus walked the earth, he emphasized the same
Loving neighbor obviously includes his living conditions.
Besides these examples,
it is so easy for us to see how polluted waters and air can cause us, the flora and fauna problems. We know that people living in slums and unhygienic conditions ca
The problem I have is the connection that they are making between our CO2 and climate. Carbon, which is so important for our ecosystem is being made into a villain. I just wonder if this is part of Satan’s strategy to “hurt” God by attacking CO2. Satan has got us to harm family (abortion), marriage (divorce and SSM), our nature (the two genders that are vital for our survival) and now CO2 (vital for plants and the food they make for all living things). If anyone can prove that CO2 causes global warming and subsequently climate change, then I will rethink this issue.