Vatican City, Oct 28, 2016 / 08:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ahead of his upcoming trip to Sweden for the joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Pope Francis granted a lengthy, wide-ranging interview to a Jesuit magazine in which he talks about his expectations, and Catholic-Lutheran unity. When asked about his hopes for his upcoming trip to Sweden, Pope Francis said “I can think of only one word to say: to come close.” “My hope and expectation is that of coming closer to my brothers and sisters,” he said, explaining that being close “does all of us good. Distance, on the other hand, makes us bitter.” When we are distant from one another, “we close within ourselves and we become individual entities, incapable of encountering each other. We are held back by fears.” He stressed that we need to learn “to transcend ourselves to encounter others,” noting that if this doesn’t happen, even Christians “become sick because of our divisions.” “My expectation is that of being able to take a step of closeness, of being closer to my brothers and sisters in Sweden.” The interview was conducted by Fr. Ulf Jonsson S.J., director of the Swedish Jesuit magazine “Signum,” at the Vatican's Saint Martha Guesthouse Sept. 24, in the late afternoon, and lasted about an hour and a half. Published Oct. 28, it came out just three days before Pope Francis’ Oct. 31-Nov. 1 visit to Sweden. It will be the first time a Pope has traveled to Scandinavia since St. John Paul II’s 1989 visit. Though only two days, the trip will include an ecumenical moment of prayer at Lund’s Lutheran cathedral, which will be followed by the larger, primary ecumenical event at the Malmö Arena in Malmö. The two ecumenical events will be followed by an outdoor papal Mass the next day at the Swedbank Stadium in Malmö marking All Saints Day, which was not originally in the schedule, but was added later upon the request of Sweden’s small Catholic community. Francis, who has faced criticism for his initial decision to not hold Mass, explained in the interview that he originally decided not to because he wanted to promote unity, and avoid sectarian divisions. “You cannot be Catholic and sectarian. We must strive to be together with others,” he said, explaining that “‘Catholic’ and ‘sectarian’ are two words in contradiction,” which is why he wasn’t planning to have Mass during the trip.   “I wanted to insist on an ecumenical witness. Then I reflected well on my role as pastor of a flock of Catholics who will also come from other countries, like Norway and Denmark. So, responding to the fervent request of the Catholic community, I decided to celebrate a Mass, lengthening the trip by a day.” The Pope said he intentionally scheduled the Mass so it didn’t take place on the same day as the ecumenical encounter in order to “avoid confusing plans.” “The ecumenical encounter is preserved in its profound significance according to a spirit of unity, that is my desire.” Pope Francis also spoke at length about his relationship with Lutherans while still in Buenos Aires, which were overwhelmingly positive. When asked what Catholics can learn from Lutherans, he responded with two words: “reform and Scripture.” Referring to the first word, Francis noted how at the beginning of the Reformation Martin Luther’s intention was to reform in a “in a difficult time for the Church.” “Luther wanted to remedy a complex situation,” he said, explaining that the gesture “also because of the political situations... became a ‘state’ of separation, and not a process of reform of the whole Church, which is fundamental, because the Church is semper reformanda (always reforming).” When it comes to Scripture, the Pope said Luther did an important thing by putting the Word of God into peoples’ hands, adding that “reform and Scripture are two things that we can deepen by looking at the Lutheran tradition.” Although the fervor for unity that arose during John Paul II’s visit to Sweden in 1989 has somewhat died down, Pope Francis said that in his opinion, the best way to promote unity now is, in addition to continuing theological discussions, a shared enthusiasm for “common prayer and the works of mercy.” “It is important to work together and not in a sectarian way,” he said, stressing that “to proselytize in the ecclesial field is a sin.” “Proselytism is a sinful attitude,” he continued. “It would be like transforming the Church into an organization. Speaking, praying, working together: this is the path that we must take.” He also spoke of the ecumenism of blood and the recent prayer encounter in Assisi, insisting that you can never use God to justify violence. “You cannot make war in the name of religion, in the name of God. It is blasphemy, it is satanic,” and referring to the truck attack that took place earlier this year in Nice, France, said the “madman” who committed the massacre did so believe he was justified by God. “Poor man, he was deranged,” Francis said, explaining that “charitably we can say that he was a deranged man who sought to use a justification in the name of God.” When asked for a final word on his upcoming trip, Pope Francis said that what came to him spontaneously to say “is simply: go, walk together! Don’t remain closed in rigid perspectives, because in these there is no possibility of reform.” Read more

Vatican City, Oct 27, 2016 / 04:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Doctrine and theological reflection are to be formed by its evangelizing purpose and by pastoral concerns, Pope Francis told the faculty and students of the John Paul II Institute on Thursday. “Theology and pastoral care go hand in hand,” the Pope said Oct. 27 at the Vatican's Clementine Hall. “Theological doctrine that doesn’t let itself be directed and formed by its evangelizing purpose and by the Church’s pastoral concerns is no less unthinkable than pastoral activity that doesn’t know how to use revelation and tradition to better understand the Faith and preach it as Jesus commands.” Francis' address marked the opening of the new academic year for the institute, which will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. The address to open the academic year had been scheduled to be delivered by Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, but he was replaced by the Pope earlier this month. Pope Francis began, saying that the “fruitfulness and value of the far-sighted intuition” of St. John Paul II “can be recognized and appreciated ever more clearly today. His wise discernment of the 'signs of the times' has enabled us to refocus, in the Church, and in society as a whole, our attention on the depth and sensitivity of the relationship that springs from the marriage covenant between a man and a woman.” He lamented the forces that strain the marriage bond and families ties, citing “a culture that glorifies narcissistic individualism, the idea that freedom can be unhinged from our responsibility for one another, growing indifference to the common good, the imposition of ideologies that directly attack the traditional family, together with poverty that threatens the future of so many families.” Mentioning the complexity of “newly developed technologies that make possible courses of action that are in conflict with authentic human dignity,” the Pope advised “a much closer relationship between the Saint John Paul II Institute and the Pontifical Academy for Life.” The proximity of that relationship is facilitated by Pope Francis' recent appointment of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as grand chancellor of the St. John Paul II Institute and as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The institute's previous grand chancellor had been, ex officio, the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome, currently Cardinal Agostino Vallini. The Pope said that culture's individualism, “leading 'me' to prevail over 'us' and the individual over society … goes against God’s plan, the plan that has entrusted the world and history to the covenant between man and woman. By its very nature, this covenant calls for cooperation and respect, generous commitment and shared responsibility, and the ability to recognize difference as being richness and promise, not a justification for subjugation and abuse.” To understand the dignity of both man and woman “requires a proper appreciation of the relationship between the two. How can we know fully our own concrete humanity other than through an appreciation of the complementary difference between ourselves, man or woman, and the other sex?” This knowledge is reached, he said, “as man and woman speak to each other, question each other and act together, with mutual respect and good will. It is impossible to deny the contribution that modern culture has made to the rediscovery of the difference between the sexes.” “For this reason, it is very troubling that this same culture appears unable to get beyond a tendency to eliminate difference rather than addressing the problems that threaten it,” he added. Francis reflected that it is “only in the cradle of the family” that the covenant of marriage between man and woman can first be nourished, and that “when all is well between man and woman, all is also well in the world and in history. If not, the world becomes unwelcoming and history grinds to a halt.” The Pope said that the “witness of the thoroughgoing humanity and pure beauty of the Christian ideal of the family should inspire us to our very core … The love that is in the Church commits itself to the development, in doctrine and in pastoral practice, of its own ability to make understandable, to people of our own time, the truth and beauty of God’s creative plan.” To make this plan effective today “requires a special and loving understanding, as well as a complete commitment to evangelization that is animated by great compassion and mercy toward the vulnerability and weakness of human love.” “The dynamism of the relationship among God, man and woman is a golden key that unlocks the meaning of the world and of history and of all that is in them, as well as, after all, something of the depth of the love that is God Himself. Can we embrace the greatness of such a revelation?” he asked. “Do we know how to keep the new generations from giving up and bring them back to the boldness of this plan?” In the face of this, Pope Francis recalled the reality of sin, saying that “we have to learn not to resign ourselves to human failure but rather to support the fulfillment of God’s plan by every means possible.” He quoted from his apostolic exhortation on love in the family, Amoris laetitia, saying it is right to admit that at times “we have presented a theological ideal of matrimony that is too abstract, almost artificial, far from the concrete situation of families and from what they are capable of in their day-to-day lives. This excessive idealization, particularly when we haven’t reawakened any trust in grace, hasn’t made matrimony more desirable and attractive, it has made it less so.” The justice of God “shines forth in His faithfulness to his promise, and the splendor of that faithfulness …  is the mercy He bestows,” Francis commented. He stated that the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family “were in agreement about the need to broaden the Church’s understanding of and love for the mystery of human love that reveals God’s love for everyone,” and that Amoris laetitia “emphasizes this wider understanding of love and calls on the whole People of God to make the family dimension of the Church more visible and more effective.” Christian families should become proud of putting grace “at the service of all those who, poor and abandoned, despair of ever finding it, or getting it back. Pastoral discourse today isn’t just about how far many Christians are from the ideal and the practice of the Christian truth about matrimony and the family,” he said. “Much more important is the idea of the Church’s 'closeness' – closeness to new generations of married couples in making the Church’s blessing of the matrimonial and family ever more central to their lives, and in helping them confront human weakness so that grace can deliver, give new life and heal.” The Pope called the “unbreakable bond between the Church and its sons and daughters” the “clearest witness we have of God’s faithful and merciful love.” The John Paul II Institute is tasked with supporting “the necessary openness of intelligence formed by faith in the service of the pastoral mission of Peter’s Successor,” he told them, recalling the importance of pastors – and theologians – of “smelling like the sheep”. “Theology and pastoral care go hand in hand,” he said. “Theological doctrine that doesn’t let itself be directed and formed by its evangelizing purpose and by the Church’s pastoral concerns is no less unthinkable than pastoral activity that doesn’t know how to use revelation and tradition to better understand the Faith and preach it as Jesus commands.” Pope Francis concluded his address, saying the Church's mission “must be rooted in the happiness that faith brings and in the humility that marks joyful service to the Church. The Church that is, not imaginary churches that we think should be.” “The living Church in which we live, the beautiful Church to which we belong, the Church of the one Lord and one Spirit to which we commit ourselves as servants who are 'worthless' but who offer their best to the Lord, the Church that we love so that all can love it, the Church in which we feel ourselves loved more than we deserve, and for which we are ready to sacrifice with perfect happiness!” Read more

Vatican City, Oct 27, 2016 / 12:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Ahead of Pope Francis’ coming trip to Sweden to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Catholic and Lutheran leaders have said that while there is still a long way to go toward unity, seemingly impossible steps have already been made. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told journalists Oct. 26 that the coming joint commemoration of the Reformation marks “the first time in the history between Catholic and Lutherans that they do this type of common commemoration.” “In the past we’ve had confessional centenaries with a tone that was a bit triumphalist and polemic on both sides,” he said, explaining that the goal now is to not only to join together for the anniversary, but also to recognize 50 years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue. The dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics “was the first bilateral dialogue that the Catholic Church launched right after the Council in 1967, and this is also a sign of gratitude that we could discover all there is in common between Lutherans and Catholics,” the cardinal said. He said the joint commemoration of the Reformation is “a beautiful sign of this path to unity, from conflict to unity. In the past we had conflicts. We want to arrive at communion, and today we are on the path to unity.” Echoing his sentiments was Martin Junge, Secretary General of the Lutheran World Foundation (LWF), who noted that despite the turbulent past of Lutherans and Catholics, “we have been able to remove some of the obstacles of doctrinal differences among us.” The joint commemoration is a sign of the progress made, he said, adding that “this is for what we will be praying: for God to be with us, this is where we want to encourage our communities to live out that communion.” According to the LWF website, the federation is a worldwide communion of 145 churches from the Lutheran tradition which represents more than 74 million Christians in 98 countries. The largest Lutheran communion, in the United States it does include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but neither the Missouri nor the Wisconsin Synods. Cardinal Koch and Junge spoke to journalists at a news briefing ahead of Pope Francis’ Oct. 31-Nov. 1 visit to Sweden. It will be the first time a Pope has traveled to Scandinavia since St. John Paul II’s 1989 visit. Though only two days, the trip will include an ecumenical moment of prayer at Lund’s Lutheran cathedral, which will be followed by the larger, primary ecumenical event at the Malmö Arena in Malmö. The two ecumenical events will be followed by an outdoor papal Mass the next day at the Swedbank Stadium in Malmö marking All Saints Day. A lengthy document titled “From Conflict to Communion” was drawn up by the Lutheran-Catholic Commission for Unity and was published to coincide with the commemoration, serving as the ecumenical basis for the meeting. The unprecedented event takes place fewer than 20 years after the LWF's and the Catholic Church's 1999 signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which was historically one of the main points of division between Catholics and Lutherans. Justification is God's cleansing human beings of sin and communicating to them his own righteousness through faith in Christ and through baptism. It is also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts by which man becomes just. The understanding of justification – what it is and how it is granted and maintained – was a source of conflict during the Reformation. In their 1999 joint declaration on justification, the Catholic Church and the LWF said that that a more shared understanding of justification signals “a consensus in the basic truths” and that “the differing explications in particular statements are compatible with it.” Point three of the declaration stresses that in “faith we together hold the conviction that justification is the work of the triune God … the foundation and presupposition of justification is the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ.” “Justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father,” they said, confessing together that “by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” The declaration also expressed the shared conviction that “as sinners our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit in any way.” “Therefore the doctrine of justification, which takes up this message and explicates it, is more than just one part of Christian doctrine,” but stands “in an essential relation to all truths of faith. It is an indispensable criterion which constantly serves to orient all the teaching and practice of our churches to Christ.” “When Lutherans emphasize the unique significance of this criterion, they do not deny the interrelation and significance of all truths of faith. When Catholics see themselves as bound by several criteria, they do not deny the special function of the message of justification,” the document continued. Lutherans and Catholics, then, “share the goal of confessing Christ in all things, who alone is to be trusted above all things as the one Mediator through whom God in the Holy Spirit gives himself and pours out his renewing gifts.” Critics of the upcoming joint commemoration have voiced concern that the event will gloss-over significant points of Catholic-Lutheran difference, and that it will be used to as an opportunity to push for intercommunion between the Catholic Church and the ecclesial community. In his comments to journalists, Cardinal Koch, who will be part of Pope Francis’ delegation, recognized that the issue of mixed marriages are a “very big pastoral concern for Catholics and Lutherans” alike, but said we have yet to see what the Pope will say about it. However, when asked about the issue directly, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke referred to Pope Francis’ Nov. 15, 2015, visit to Rome's Lutheran community. During the encounter Francis was asked by Anke de Bernardinis, a Lutheran woman married to a Roman Catholic man, how she and her husband can be united in communion. In his response, the Pope said that the answer is “not easy,” but that that going to each other’s services is a way to participate in the Lord’s Supper together. He said he would “never dare to give permission” on anything regarding Communion because “it's not my competence,” but pointed to the common baptism shared between Catholic and Lutherans, explaining that praying together helps keep this common baptism alive. Burke said that when it comes to Sweden, the Pope likely won’t get much more explicit on the issue than that, but added, “you never know in the moment.” Other concerns about the joint commemoration surround points of division not only between Lutherans and Catholics, but also within the global Lutheran community on various social and ethical issues such as homosexuality and abortion.   However, despite the unresolved issues at stake, Junge stressed that in the history of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue “we have seen many things that we thought would be impossible.” “I believe in the '80s nobody thought we would find agreement on the doctrine of justification and we did,” he said, adding that “only a few years ago if you would have said there would be a joint-commemoration of the Reformation and that would be done together, many would have said 'impossible'.” Junge pointed to the context of the modern world, saying that while he doesn’t mean to sound negative or “apocalyptic,” we live in times “of fragmentation, in times of a world that is wounded by conflict.” “For Catholics and Lutherans to come together around the world … is a powerful witness to faith and to Christ who we see walking among us together,” he said, voicing his belief that the event is “going to become a great contribution, not only to address the sufferings of the world, but also to draw closer together in mutual understanding and trust.” He said the presence of Pope Francis at the commemorative event is significant and brings “high value” to what is taking place. However, he also noted that by attending, Francis “is giving continuity to an ecumenical path of his predecessors.” “In 1999, when we signed the join-declaration on justification, the Pope was John Paul II. In 2003 when we signed the document on the conflict of communion, the Pope was Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis the one who is doing this fruit of this ecumenical path, but undoubtedly giving it a new profile and potential that we hope to work toward in the future.” Despite the significant steps already taken in Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, Cardinal Koch and Junge expressed that there are still many more to go. After finally reaching an agreement on the doctrine of justification, the next issues to tackle are about “ministry, the Church and the Eucharist,” Junge said. Similarly, Cardinal Koch noted how the 1999 common declaration on justification itself said that “the ecclesial consequences of this common declaration are not resolved,” so we have a duty to move forward.  “I agree with Rev. Jungle, there are three items: Church, Eucharist and ministry,” he said, voicing his hope that Catholics and Lutherans can continue paving the way to a new joint declaration on those three issues. “I think we are really on a good path to resolve all these problems,” the cardinal said, explaining that he is “very hopeful, grateful and happy that some original dialogues” are taking place on these points. Speaking of the Pope’s Mass Nov. 1, which was not initially part of the Pope’s itinerary but was added later upon the request of Catholics in Sweden, Junge said the LWF is fully aware of the need for the Pope and the Catholic community to be together. However, “while we have that understanding, of course it is also going to reveal that we are not yet united, it is going to reveal a wound that remains there, and in that way it is going to be a strong encouragement to continue working toward communion,” he said, explaining that a delegation from the LWF will be present at the Mass. Junge voiced his hope that joint commemoration would provide “a strong encouragement to be faster, to be bolder, to be even more creative in order to address these three items and with a very strong focus on where people feel the lack of unity the heaviest, around the table.” Read more