WCC hosts historic ecumenical meeting on 'greater oneness in Christ'

(Vatican Radio) Where are we on the journey of Christian unity today? What are the next steps on the road to reconciliation and “oneness in Christ”? Those were the urgent questions on the table at a historic meeting in Geneva this month of representatives of the Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches, the World Pentecostal Federation and the World Evangelical Alliance.

It’s the first time that Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic leaders have come together at the highest level to talk with all the other mainline Churches. The encounter at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute on May 22nd and 23rd, is a result of the work of the Global Christian Forum, set up by the WCC two decades ago. The hope is that it’ll lead to vital improvements in relations between older and newer Christian communities in different parts of the world today.

Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, represented the Catholic Church at the Bossey encounter. He told Philippa Hitchen why the meeting marks such a significant ecumenical event….

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Bishop Farrell explains that 20 years ago, ecumenical experts, led by the WCC, asked “how we could involve a huge part of Christianity” which didn’t have a tradition of dialogue, principally the Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic Churches with some 600 million members worldwide.

Global Christian Forum

That led to the setting up of the Global Christian Forum, he says, which the Catholic Church has supported from the beginning. At the Bossey meeting, participants were exploring “what is the specific role of the GCF, especially in relation to the WCC which gathers all the mainline Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical and some Pentecostal Churches. The Catholic Church, he notes, is not a member, for many reasons, but “is in a real continuing partnership” with the WCC . The meeting marked the first time that the leadership of World Pentecostal Federation and the World Evangelical Alliance sat at table with the WCC and “the ecumenical office of Catholic Church”.

Pope Francis effect

Asked about changing attitudes among Pentecostals and Evangelicals, Bishop Farrell says there are “a number of reasons, including the huge attractive nature of Pope Francis’ approach to them”. They relate to him, he continues, as someone “who understands the specific spirituality and missionary outreach of their Churches,” someone who “prays in a vivid, lively way,” who asks them to pray for him, and even asks for their blessing.

Common baptism

In the meantime, Bishop Farrell says, “we have realized that we cannot have an approach which excludes them” because our common baptism means “we have a responsibility ecumenically”.

Improving local and international relations

While talks had taken place in the past with “interested individuals or groups”, he says “now we have a platform on which we hope to build relationships at international level, to be “in contact and not in rivalry and contrast.”

He says he hopes that a result of this meeting will be to encourage better relations between Catholics and Charismatics, Pentecostals and Evangelicals in many parts of the world where there has been conflict in the past.