Rome and Canterbury

Yesterday, June 14, Pope Francis and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, met for the first time since they both took over leadership positions in their respective Churches in mid-March. They talked in private for over thirty minutes in the Pope’s library. Afterwards they prayed together and then had lunch together with their respective delegations, in the Vatican guesthouse where Pope Francis lives.

Archbishop Welby described the visit as a personal, rather than official, visit, “a very private discussion about the nature of our faith and of our spirituality of prayer, of the experience of the grace and mercy and love of God.” He said, “We also touched on other subjects to do with international issues where we looked for ways in which the Churches can develop cooperation and demonstrate our affection for each other, which is a real affection at a very deep level.”

One participant revealed that over lunch the Pope suggested that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury issue a joint statement on human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children and the Archbishop agreed. 

When asked what personal impression he had of Pope Francis, the Archbishop reflected for a moment and then said: “an extraordinary humanity, on fire with the Spirit of Christ.” 

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales accompanied Archbishop Welby. He said they started their visit by praying at the tomb of St Peter and afterwards at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

This encounter can seem ever so normal. Yet fifty years ago, when the Second Vatican Council opened, such a meeting was unthinkable. Pope John XXIII (Blessed John XXIII) invited delegates from other Christian communities to attend the Council as observers. Yet during the third session of the Council, the question was raised: Was it permissible for the Council Fathers (the bishops) to join the non-Catholic observers in praying together the Lord’s Prayer! Such was the state of affairs at that time.

In the course of the Council several historic events took place. One of the most dramatic was the meeting of Pope Paul VI with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, on January 5, 1964 in Jerusalem. The two churches had not only been separated since 1054, there had been no formal contact in over 400 years. In 1963, Pope Paul wrote a handwritten letter to Patriarch Athenagoras. The last time this had been done was in 1584 when Pope Gregory XIII informed Patriarch Jeremiah II about reform of the calendar.

These exchanges led to the formal lifting of the mutual excommunications pronounced by the two churches in 1054. Toward the end of the Council, a joint declaration by the Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, was read out in St. Peter’s. In it the Roman and the Orthodox Churches “consigned to oblivion” the centuries-old excommunications that had poisoned relations between them. That same day in Istanbul, at the patriarchal cathedral, Athenagoras I presented the papal delegation, headed by Cardinal Shehan, of Baltimore, with an annulment of the excommunication of Cardinal Humbert, the legate of Leo IX, in 1054. In Rome, when Metropolitan Meliton of Heliopolis, the representative of Patriarch Athenagoras, received the brief that formally annulled the excommunication of the eleventh-century Patriarch Michael Caerularius, he was embraced by Pope Paul in the kiss of peace with the words “Pax tecum” (“Peace be with you”). Turning to go back to his place, the Metropolitan was greeted by a storm of applause from the Council.

Another major event occurred on the eve of the conclusion of the Council in December of 1965 when Pope Paul VI gathered with the non-Catholic observers at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls for an ecumenical prayer service. It was the first time that any Pope had ever participated in an interdenominational religious service. The lesson in English was read by Dr. Albert C. Outler, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas; the lesson in French was read by Father Pierre Michalon, a Catholic priest and a Council theologian; the lesson in Greek was read by the Archimandrite Maximos Aghiorgoussis, rector of the Greek Orthodox parish church in Rome. The hymn “Now Thank We All Our God,” in which all joined in English, was written by the seventeenth-century German Lutheran composer Johann Cruger.

Today the various Christian communities continue to have many points of division. However, the Second Vatican Council irrevocably changed the relationships between Catholics and Orthodox as well as between Catholics and other western Christians.