Episcopal Press and News
At ecumenical service, Pope Benedict XVI calls for oneness of hope, faith and love among Christians
Episcopal News Service. April 19, 2008 [041908-01]
Jan Nunley
National and local leaders of the Episcopal Church were among the invited guests at an ecumenical prayer service on April 18 with Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Church on New York's Upper East Side. The parish, founded in 1873, grew out of the German-speaking community of Yorkville.
After greetings by Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York and Monsignor John Sullivan, administrator of Saint Joseph Parish, the audience of some 250 Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox and 50 Roman Catholic leaders in ecumenism then heard Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan, vicar general for the archdiocese, welcome the Pope with a summary of recent ecumenical relations between the branches of Christianity.
Speaking in soft, Bavarian-accented English, Benedict took Ephesians 4:1-6, St. Paul's plea for Christian unity, as his text for the evening. He expressed appreciation for the ecumenical work of the National Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT/USA), and the Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and lauded the contribution of American Christians to the ecumenical movement.
But then Benedict sounded the theme that has threaded throughout his first U.S. visit as Pope: the dangers of secularism, unbridled individualism, and relativism.
"Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind," Benedict stated. "This does not mean, however, that the 'knowable' is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of 'personal experience.'"
Benedict returned to the topic of ecumenism, several times referring to the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio ("Restoration of Unity"), promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Citing Father Paul Wattson, a former Anglo-Catholic turned Roman Catholic priest who co-founded the Society of the Atonement in Garrison, New York, he expressed confidence that ecumenical efforts would result in the "oneness of hope, oneness of faith, and oneness of love" for which Christians seek.
Benedict decried the "splintering" of Christian churches over "so-called 'prophetic actions' that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition." Such actions, he said, cause Christian communities to "give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of 'local options,'" thus losing their connections to Christians in other times and places. Some, but not all, interpreted that as a veiled reference to controversy in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
I think he did us the honor of giving us a serious address that I think needs to be read and reflected upon," said New York's Bishop Mark Sisk. Asked whether he thought Benedict had singled out the Episcopal Church in his remarks, Sisk responded, "It's possible -- but I would be rather surprised. I don't think he was trying to send shots across the bow at particular churches. I think he spoke in a respectful way and I didn't see that as a shot at the Episcopal Church."
(In 2003, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a telegram on behalf of Pope John Paul II to the American Anglican Council's "A Place to Stand" protest meeting in Texas following that year's General Convention. The message spoke of the Pope's "heartfelt prayers" and said that "the significance of your meeting is sensed far beyond Plano... in the Church of Christ there is a unity in truth and a communion of grace which transcend the borders of any nation. With this in mind, I pray in particular that God’s will may be done by all those who seek that unity in the truth, the gift of Christ himself.")
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was invited to the service, but was unable to attend due to a previous commitment to bless a new diocesan center in Utah. Bishop Christopher Epting, the Episcopal Church's ecumenical officer, represented her.
At the end of the ceremony,Benedict greeted national and local ecumenical leaders, including Archbishop Demetrios of America, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America and Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America; Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, legate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) in Washington and president of the National Council of Churches USA; the Rev. Dr. Donald McCoid, Director of the Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations Office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, representing ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson; Bishop Jeremiah J. Park of the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church; the Rev. Dr. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America and one of five Presidents of Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT/USA); the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA); the Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, and one of the five CCT/USA Presidents; Bishop James Leggett, General Superintendent of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and a CCT/USA President; and Dr. Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
In addition to Bishop Sisk, invited leaders from the New York area included Bishop David H. Benke, president of the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod); the Rev. Dr. A. R. Bernard Sr., president of the Council of Churches of the City of New York; Elder Bernice A. King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King; and the Rev. Jimmy Seong G. Lim, executive director of the Council of Churches of the City of New York.
The full text of the papal address is here.