Preface
The ministry entrusted to the bishop is a service of unity both within his diocese and of unity between the local church and the universal church. That ministry therefore has special significance in the search for the unity of all Christ’s followers. The bishop’s responsibility for promoting Christian unity is clearly affirmed in the Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church among the tasks of his pastoral office: “He is to act with humanity and charity toward the brothers and sisters who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church and is to foster ecumenism as it is understood by the Church” (Can 383 §3 CIC 1983). In this respect, the bishop cannot consider the promotion of the ecumenical cause as one more task in his varied ministry, one that could and should be deferred in view of other, apparently more important, priorities. The bishop’s ecumenical engagement is not an optional dimension of his ministry but a duty and obligation. This appears even more clea
Francis alerts: “Violence will never cease until all people reach a deeper awareness that they are brothers and sisters”
“Conflict and violence will never cease until all people reach a deeper awareness that they have a mutual responsibility as brothers and sisters”, Pope Francis has alerted.
The pontiff sounded the alarm in a message this November 30 to the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew, the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
As a show of his esteem for Bartholomew and the Orthodox Church, the Pope dispatched a delegation including Cardinal Kurt Koch, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, to the seat of the Patriarchate in Istanbul for a divine liturgy on the saint’s feast day.