On the last day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Mgr Ian Ernest, Anglican representative to the Holy See, speaks of the fraternal bond of friendship shared between Catholics and Anglicans.
By Delphine Allaire and Déborah Castellano Lubov
On Thursday evening, in their final moment of prayer and friendship, Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, prayed together at the tomb of Saint Paul.
In an interview with Delphine Allaire of Vatican News, Anglican Archbishop Ian Ernest, personal representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Holy See and director of the Anglican Center in Rome, discussed its importance.
“Today is a moment of communion between two distinguished leaders of the Church, in communion with each other and in communion with God,” he said.
Furthermore, he insists, “it is a testimony to the world that beyond the divisions present for centuries, we can today find ourselves together at the tomb of Saint Paul, who was the missionary of the nations, who brought the Church as a living institution capable of announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ, so that the world is transformed and is, is and lives under the Kingdom of God. »
Catholic, Anglican bishops hold ecumenical summit
Catholic and Anglican bishops are undertaking a week of dialogue, prayer and pilgrimages, involving 50 bishops from 27 countries, to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Christian bishops are gathering for the Growing Together events, a week-long summit of ecumenical discussion and pilgrimage being held in Rome and Canterbury from January 22-29, 2024.
The International Anglican-Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) organized the event and says it will mark an important and symbolic occasion for Anglican-Catholic ties and for the advancement of ecumenical dialogue.
The event, underlined Mgr Ernest, is significant because “here are two Church leaders who allow themselves to be imbued with the spirit of Paul so that the mission of the Church can continue”.
“It is a mission,” he said, “that needs unity. It is a mission that needs integrity. And both leaders of the Church are men of integrity and men with a heart for the mission.”
Friendship, mutual respect
He was then asked how he would describe the relationship between Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby, and more generally between Rome and Canterbury.
“I have witnessed the growth of the friendship between Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as I have been here in Rome for almost five years now and they have grown together,” he said, recognizing that both men were elected in the same year and faced the different challenges of their positions.
Through this, he observed, they have “established strong bonds of friendship, strong bonds of mutual trust and mutual recognition.”
Citing the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech at the opening of an exhibition at the Anglican Centre, the Archbishop said: “We are experiencing… a season of spring in the ecumenical relationship and between Canterbury and Rome.”
The presence of Anglican and Catholic bishops together in Rome during this week of prayer and for Christian unity, he continued, is very significant.
“It shows how much has been done in the last 65 years after the Second Vatican Council, where we were separated for centuries.”
He noted that today “we can be together in discussion together. And even though we know the differences that remain, we can be together in the establishment of the kingdom of God in our broken world.”
Christian martyrdom
Earlier on Thursday, the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated a Eucharistic liturgy at San Bartolomeo, the shrine of the new martyrs of the 20th and 21st centuries, and questioned the ecumenical value of martyrdom.
“I think it is a Christian value. It is part of our history. Martyrdom is an integral part of the life of the Church,” declared Mgr Ernest, while deploring: “today, it is still thus, in the 21st century.
“We are people martyred for the cause of the Gospel or for the cause of the presence of God in the world,” he concluded.
