Friday, 20 January 2012

The lack of unity among Christians is a great challenge to the New Evangelisation, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

Speaking at the Vatican on the opening day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the Pope said  that “the lack of unity among Christians prevents the Gospel from being proclaimed more effectively, because it jeopardizes our credibility”.

“How can we give a convincing witness if we are divided?” the Holy Father asked in his speech.

“Certainly, as regards the fundamental truths of the faith, much more unites us than divides us,” he said.

“But divisions remain, and they concern even various practical and ethical questions – causing confusion and distrust, and weakening our ability to hand on Christ’s saving Word.”

The Pope said: “This is a great challenge for the new evangelisation, which can be more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and give a common response to the spiritual thirst of our times.”

The Pontiff explained that the full and visible unity of Christians required more than simply good relations, kindness and cooperation.

All of the faithful, he said, need to allow themselves “to be ever more perfectly transformed and conformed to the image of Christ”.

The Pope said: “The unity for which we pray requires interior conversion, both communal and personal … above all, we must strengthen our faith in God, in the God of Jesus Christ, who has spoken to us and who made Himself one of us.

“We must enter into new life in Christ, which is our true and definitive victory; we must open ourselves to one another, cultivating all the elements of that unity that God has preserved for us and gives to us ever anew; we must feel the urgency of bearing witness before the men of our times to the living God, who made Himself known in Christ.”

Prayer for unity is not limited to this Week of Prayer, he added, but rather must become “an integral part of our prayer, of the life of prayer of all Christians, in every place and in every time, especially when people of different traditions meet and work together for the victory, in Christ, over all that is sin, evil, injustice, and that violates human dignity”.