Ut Unum Sint
In the past month, Pope Benedict has met with
- The Archbishop of Canterbury
- The Œcumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
- The Orthodox Archbishop of Athens
Add to this his Holiness’ apparently imminent release of a Motu Proprio liberalizing the Tridentine Use of the Roman Rite (or whatever we’re going to call it), which will go a long way towards healing the rift between the Church and the quasi-schismatic SSPX.
Perhaps now we can see the plan of his Pontificate more clearly.
Many were taken aback by the Holy Father’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). Normally a Pope’s first encyclical is said to lay out the programme of his Pontificate. This encyclical, however, was a bit of a puzzler.
As a teaching on the Christian faith it was exemplary; as a “state of the union speech”, it was a poser.
I recently reread it, however, and in light of recent days, I was particularly struck by this section of ¶14:
As Saint Paul says, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become “one body”, completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbour are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself.
Is this possibly the central theme of Benedict’s papacy? That all may be one?