(July 7, 2008) The Pauline Jubilee Year is an opportunity to make progress toward
full Christian unity, says a Vatican spokesman. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi,
director of the Vatican press office, and Director of Vatican Radio and Television
affirmed this in the most recent edition of Vatican Television's "Octava Dies." "The
solemn opening of the Pauline year at the Basilica of St. Paul and the celebration
of the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter's Basilica, with the participation
of several representatives of Christian Churches and communities and, in particular,
of Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople of the Orthodox Church, were new intense
moments of ecumenical encounter," he said. "And it is, in fact, in the proclamation
of the Gospel and the liturgical celebration that the degree of ecumenism among Christians
can be measured, because therein is the contact with the original community and only
from there can the path toward unity begin," the spokesman added. Noting that Bartholomew
I also proclaimed this a year of St. Paul, Fr Lombardi affirmed: "St. Paul, author
of the most ancient and ample writings of the New Testament, impassioned and conquered
by Christ, missionary of universal horizons, has shown us how to see the Church concretely
as the Body of Christ." "In the great Eucharistic celebration, the Pope and the patriarch
were together near the altar for the liturgy of the word, for the homily and for the
profession of faith, as well as for the kiss of peace and the final blessing," the
spokesman said.