Pilgrim's progress: Papal trip to Geneva marks 'new spring' in ecumenism

IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy World Council of Churches

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis’
one-day pilgrimage to Geneva will mark another major ecumenical moment in his
papacy.

While he will celebrate Mass for the
nation’s Catholics and meet with Vatican diplomatic staff working at U.N.
agencies there, the trip’s major focus is highlighting the Catholic Church’s
commitment to seeking Christian unity and recognizing the unique contribution
of the World Council of Churches.

Of his 22 apostolic trips abroad,
the upcoming June 21 pilgrimage will be his second that’s so intently focused
on ecumenism.

In 2016, he traveled to Lund, Sweden,
for a joint commemoration with the Lutheran World Federation marking the 500th
anniversary of the Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther.

This time, Pope Francis heads to
Geneva — where John Calvin led the reformation in the 16th-century — to
celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the World Council of
Churches.

The WCC is a fellowship of 350
member-churches, representing Protestant communities and most of the Orthodox
churches in the world. In total, these member churches represent 500 million
Christians worldwide, making it the broadest coalition in the ecumenical
movement.

Much like the United Nations grew
from the desire to avoid war and divisions through the creation of a united
body that could work together for peace, the WCC also grew from a similar
desire — not of nation states, but of Christians and church communities — to
join together for the good of the world in Christ’s name.

The Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general
secretary of the Geneva-based council and a Lutheran pastor from Norway, said
he sees Pope Francis as “an impassioned colleague in proclaiming the
Gospel.”

The pope shows all Christians, with
his words and gestures, how “they should live God’s word by putting
themselves at the service of the least in the world,” he told the Vatican
newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, June 11.

The Rev. Martin Robra, who works
with the WCC on relations with the Catholic Church, which is not a full member
of the council, said he hoped Pope Francis’ visit would foster more cooperation
among Christians in helping further Christian unity, bring justice and peace to
the world and aiding those in need.

“It looks like a new spring has
been reached with Pope Francis and his initiatives,” the theologian and
evangelical pastor told the Jesuit journal, La Civilta Cattolica, early this
year.

The Lund visit was a major milestone
on this journey, Rev. Robra said, and Geneva represents another bright ray of
hope chasing away that “ecumenical winter” of the past.

Although there are still
“tensions” and “difficulties” ahead when it comes to
dialogue, Rev. Robra said, “there is so much more that unites us than what
separates us.”

The biggest achievement to come out
of the decades the Catholic Church and Christian communities have been working
together may not be the different documents and agreements, Father Andrzej
Choromanski, an official at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity, told reporters June 12.

The real concrete sign of success,
he said, is how the two sides see each other and treat each other — no longer
as enemies, but as friends.

“This, for me, is the most
important,” he said.

This will be the third time a pope
has visited the World Council of Churches.

The first visit by Blessed Pope Paul
VI in 1969 was a landmark revolution. With the Second Vatican Council, the
Catholic Church had gone from rejecting to endorsing an active role in the ecumenical
movement. The Vatican had seen the WCC as valuable partners in this new
journey, first by inviting them to take part in Vatican II as observers, then
establishing a joint working group between the church and the WCC in 1965.

While there were — and still are —
serious difficulties and obstacles preventing full unity, Blessed Paul showed,
as the leader of the universal church, what this ecumenical partnership could
look like on the world stage.

“Geneva is one of the cities in
the world where most painfully one becomes aware of the division among
Christians,” he said in his address June 10, 1969.

“But the atmosphere of peace
and reciprocal esteem, so joyfully established in our day,” allows them to
see so many opportunities where they can work together, such as with helping
the least and building world peace, he said.

Blessed Paul said it was “with
this spirit I come to you,” filled with seeking God’s glory and fulfilling
his will, making the pope become, in a way, a pilgrim of reconciliation.

After that gesture of cooperation,
St. John Paul II visited the WCC in 1984 as a confirmation of that quest for
unity, as he did throughout his pontificate.

Pope Francis’ trip is another major
step in this pilgrim’s progress, and it will be the first papal visit to
Switzerland since 1984.

Switzerland has seen an increasing
trend in people professing to not be religious. A nation that was more or less
half-Protestant, half-Catholic shows the same downward curve in both religious
affiliations the past 40 years.

But the pope has a particularly
unique way of knowing the concerns of today’s young Swiss Catholics: the
on-site presence of 110 Swiss guards.

With Pope Francis’ special emphasis
on “reality” or action being “more important than ideas,”
the Geneva trip reflects what he told the WCC in a 2015 message marking the
50th anniversary of the joint working group. He said they must continue with
dialogue, but they must go further in promoting new ways Christians can
“testify together to the real, though imperfect, communion shared by all
the baptized.”

“May we always trust that the
Holy Spirit will continue to assist and guide our journey, often in new and
sometimes unexpected ways,” he said.

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Follow Glatz on Twitter: @CarolGlatz

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