On this page are Bishop Crispian's Pastoral letters from 2005. Earlier letters can be accessed at the Portsmouth Diocese website by clicking here. To return to this page close the browser window.
ECUMENISM 2005
To be read or made available at all Masses in the diocese
on the weekend of January 15th and 16th 2005.
Dear Sisters and Brothers
"May they all be one"
November 21st 1964 was the day on which the Second Vatican Council promulgated its Decree on Ecumenism. I was a student in Rome at that time and I can remember how excited we all were as the Catholic Church stepped into what one Protestant commentator described as " a new era in the relation of the Churches to one another - an era which can be truly called ecumenical."
This was absolutely new ground for the vast majority of Catholics at that time as we began to emerge, albeit a little tentatively, from behind those " barricades" which had given scant approval to any real contact with Christians of other churches, let alone sharing worship and dialogue with them.
40 years on , and ecumenism and ecumenical relationships have become the norm for the Church at many levels. There have been explicit and extensive dialogues between almost all the Christian traditions, together with high-level meetings of church leaders, none more so than those undertaken by Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul VI.
Again and again , Pope John Paul urges us to make ecumenism and ecumenical life part of the mainstream of Catholic life. He teaches insistently that ecumenism is not an option for the enthusiasts but a fundamental attitude and activity for all Catholics at every level of Catholic life.
Churches Together groups , partnerships and covenants are commonplace in the towns and villages of the diocese and there is a level of ecumenical involvement, now taken for granted, which would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.
This week once again sees the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I want to encourage as many of you as possible to take part in the prayer and activities that mark this time. To participate means that increasingly we are learning to trust and love our fellow Christians as well as discovering the riches that belong to their traditions, at the same time as sharing our own.
We live today in a country becoming increasingly de-Christianised. Organised religion no longer has a privileged place in society. We are becoming faith minorities in the country as a whole, and yet we know that we live in a world in which Christian teaching and values are more than ever needed and are, indeed, actively sought. Above all, our society needs witnesses to Christian faith. For us to be credible witnesses, we need the support and solidarity that comes from the Churches sharing common prayer and activity.
World events , and the tensions that exist in our own communities, point to an increasing need for us to focus on our relationships with the other great faiths, especially with Islam and Judaism. In fact, there are those who say that inter-religious dialogue is more urgent and more pressing than any dialogue that exists between the Christian churches. Failure to engage with Islam and Judaism over shared values and visions, often much more extensive than we realise, threatens to bring our world to the brink of catastrophe.
This doesn't mean abandoning ecumenism to concentrate on talking and sharing with other faiths. On the contrary, it impresses on us even more urgently the need for the Christian community to work for and discover that unity which is so much at the heart of Christ's prayer for his disciples "that they may be one." We need to speak with one voice.
We need to place the ecumenical imperative , which flows from the teaching of Christ, at the heart of everything we do. There can be no real and serious talk about " Growing Together in Christ", something that has importantly occupied so much of our energy and time in recent months, if we are not, at the same time, doing all we can to foster and develop an increasing commitment to the uniting of the Christian family.
In many ways, today's world is a broken world . There's an urgent need for the strong voice of the gospel of peace to be heard. Every disciple of Christ - and we are all disciples - is not to be just a teacher of the values of forgiveness and reconciliation and of justice and peace. We have to be living witnesses to the Gospel that makes those values real and brings life and hope. Christians who refuse to recognise the urgency and the demand for unity and reconciliation can never be the witnesses for whom Christ longs.
The Council's Decree on Ecumenism opened new and exciting possibilities for the Church. We have already travelled a long way on the ecumenical road but the journey has still to continue if the prayer of Christ to His Father for us is to be fulfilled.
" I pray not only for these (you have given me), but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me." (John 17:20ff)
There can be no clearer command than that. In the "Our Father" we pray the words "thy will be done". The unity of God's people is God's will and, in obedience to His will, we have to work and pray for that unity.
May God bless you all,
Bishop Crispian
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