Pope shares concern for Christian unity with Ecumenical Patriarch

(June 29, 2008) Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday welcomed in the Vatican Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and hoped that the celebration of the 2000th birth anniversary of St. Paul the Apostle will help all Christians to renew their ecumenical duty and intensify common initiatives in the path to full communion. Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of the world's some 250 million Orthodox Christians, arrived in Rome on Friday to join Pope Benedict at a Saturday evening Vespers service in Rome’s St. Paul’s Basilica Outside the Walls for the inauguration of the Pauline Jubilee Year. Noting that Patriarch Bartholomew has also planned a similar Pauline Year, Pope Benedict said that the happy coincidence highlights the common roots of their common Christian vocation and the meaningful harmony of sentiments and pastoral commitments. As a way of maintaining or regaining unity, Pope Benedict said that St. Paul urges Christians to live a life worthy of their vocation, in complete humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another in love. In our globalized world, amidst persisting divisions and conflicts, Pope Benedict said, man is in greater need of certainty and peace. Besides, man is lost and almost entangled in a certain hedonistic and relativistic culture that puts to doubt the very existence of truth. In this situation, the Holy Father said, St. Paul’s exhortation becomes relevant when he encourages every effort towards the search for full unity among Christians, which, the Pope said, is needed to offer the people of the third millennium a more luminous witness to Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life. Pope Benedict XVI announced the Pauline year in June 2007, saying the church needs modern Christians who will imitate the apostle's missionary energy and spirit of sacrifice. The remains of St. Paul, who was beheaded in Rome, are believed to be buried in Rome’s St. Paul’s Basilica Outside the Walls.