Ecumenical progress with Protestants and Pentecostals
To mark the week of prayer for Christian unity, the secretary of the Pontifical council
for Christian unity, Bishop Brian Farrell continues his conversation with Philippa
Hitchen about the current state of ecumenical relations with the different Christian
Churches and eccelsial communities. In this interview, he shares his thoughts on the
dialouges with Protestants and Pentecostals, especially in light of the forthcoming
Synod of Bishops on new methods of evangelisation....
Listen:
"I think that
while there are many difficulties coming up, at the same time, my experience of dialogue
with the Protestant communities is that in the face of the huge secularisation that
is taking place, we realise more and more that we have to give common witness and
stand together on the basic issues of our faith in God and his Providence over life….the
forces that push us together are very strong and I think that in this sense we have
an opportunity…
We have already begun work to bring representatives of the
various Churches to the Synod ….naturally new evangelisation cannot be done by the
Catholic church alone, we are all part of this reality and we all have a gift to offer,
so I think there’s a great interest on the part of our ecumenical partners to be involved
in this new evangelisation…
Dialogue has been going with certain parts of the
Pentecostal world for quite a number of years, but I would say that in the last 5
to 8 years there has been a new quickening of interest and a new presence of many
Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders in the ecumenical movement so we have developed
a number of different conversations…
I think that we also in the Catholic Church
have recognised that the Charismatic movement has a message that can be of great importance
for the new evangelisation. There’s an energy, a strength, a vision that that we need
to promote and bring to all of our communities. We have to overcome the routine of
just being Catholics because we were born that way – we have to have a new vitality
and it’s not that we’re inventing some new message, but it’s the new energy, the new
mode, the new vision and courage to go out there and spread the message……"