Pope Francis visited with the Lutheran community in Rome November 15 and celebrated vespers and delivered a homily. The pope responded to a question from one of the participants about a marriage between a Catholic and a Lutheran. “It’s true that in a certain sense, to share means there aren’t differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – underscoring that word, a difficult word to understand — but I ask myself: but don’t we have the same Baptism? If we have the same Baptism, shouldn’t we be walking together?” He added that when they pray together, their [one] baptism “grows, becomes stronger.”
“He was urging that, if we share so much, we should be ‘walking together’… and we should be impatient for unity, so that we can share the Eucharist,” said Msgr. Paul McPartlan, a Roman Catholic Theologian at the Catholic University of America “We mustn’t just accept division and separation – it is not right that we should be divided, especially since we share one baptism!”
Much of the pope’s message focused on the points in common between Catholics and Lutherans, and on the aim of Christian unity at the sacrament. “Life is bigger than explanations and interpretations,” Francis said. “Always refer back to your baptism. ‘One faith, one baptism, one Lord.’ This is what Paul tells us, and then take the consequences from there… One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.”
Reflecting on the pope’s response to Anke, Msgr. McPartlan, who is a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster, noted that the Pope highlighted that Catholics and Lutherans “do share one Baptism, and many other common beliefs, so we mustn’t just focus on what divides us,” and he then called us to be ‘impatient for unity’ and not to accept separation…”
The Catholic Church already has a means of allowing non-Catholics in certain circumstances to participate in communion, which is the final and ultimate aim of ecumenism. “The hope of sharing Eucharist once again is precisely what drives ecumenical dialogue,” McPartlan said. “We try to resolve the issues that divide us SO THAT we can share Eucharist once again.”
“We are trying to re-establish ‘full communion’, and the prospect of sharing Eucharist again is a most powerful incentive to us to keep trying to overcome our divisions on serious issues of faith and order in the Church.”
“When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.” The Great Controversy, page 445
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