“So that they may be one” – theme of Pope’s Holy Land visit
March 14, 2014 - “Ut Unum Sint”, the Latin for “So that they may be one,” is the
theme that Pope Francis has chosen for his 3-day pastoral visit to the Holy Land this
May. The Vatican on Friday released the theme along with the logo depicting Christ
and a disciple in a boat.
On first announcing the Holy Land trip on Jan 5th,
Pope Francis had explained that the May 24-26 visit to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem
will be to commemorate 50 years of the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and the
spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras
of Constantinople, which took place on Jan. 5, 1964, in Jerusalem. Pope Francis
said that his visit would include an Ecumenical Meeting at the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher with the representatives of the Christian Churches of Jerusalem, along with
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the spiritual head of Orthodozx
Christians worldwide. After over 9 centuries of mutual hostility, excommunication
and isolation between Catholics and Orthodox, relations began to warm up after the
1964 meeting.