After a day of touting ways in which Christians might share in greater unity, that commitment to coming together didn’t prevent Pope Francis from backing the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog in its decision to insist on caution regarding proposals for intercommunion with Protestants.
While the purpose of Pope Francis’s trip to Geneva on Thursday was spiritual diplomacy, he also engaged in a bit of global peacemaking when he greeted a delegation of North and South Koreans earlier today.
In an address to nearly 150 Christian leaders from around the world on Thursday, Pope Francis called for a “new ecumenical spring” to redefine efforts towards unity – one marked not by tailoring the faith to “worldly ways of thinking,” but rather, one made possible by an attractive witness to the joy of the Gospel.
Speaking to a crowd of an estimated 40,000 Swiss Catholics on Thursday, Pope Francis used the “Our Father” as a tool for reclaiming Christian roots and values.
In a video message two years ago marking the 35th anniversary of the Jesuit Refugee Service welcome center in Rome, Pope Francis spoke directly to refugees and said “Each one of you refugees who knock on our doors has the face of God and is the body of Christ.”
Five years into his papacy, Pope Francis continues to enjoy enviously high polling numbers of public support, with new survey results showing that over 84 percent of American Catholics approve of him.
After an in-depth Vatican-led investigation into clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of 61-year-old Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Chile, and two other Chilean bishops June 11.
More than 80 prominent and emerging Catholic leaders gathered this week in an effort to see how a unified American Catholic Church might offer a better way forward.“Though Many One: Overcoming Polarization through Catholic Social Thought,” hosted by the Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, served as an attempt to break across current divides within the Church and to take advantage of the momentum of the Pope Francis papacy to positively influence public life.
Pope Francis has asked the Catholic bishops’ conference of Germany not to publish nationwide guidelines for allowing Protestants married to Catholics to receive Communion at Mass, but to continue having diocesan bishops judge specific situations.
When Archbishop Michael Aupetit was announced as the new Archbishop of Paris last December, the widespread reaction among many Catholic commentators was, “Who?”
