Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
August 9, 2000
Pope calls on Cursillo movement to promote unity
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II called on members of the Cursillo movement to keep church unity at the forefront of their efforts to make Christ known to the men and women of the 21st century.
"Encountering Christ, you have learned to look with new eyes at persons, nature, daily events and life as a whole," the Pope said. "Many men and women of our time, who unfortunately distance themselves from God, await from you the light of faith which would also make them rediscover the colors of existence and the joy of feeling loved by God.
"In front of forms of individualism, which shatter and disperse the resources of humanity, join your missionary forces" to those of other church movements active today, the Pope said.
Pope John Paul asked them to faithfully support their bishops, "whose discernment is guarantee of faithfulness to (their) charism," he said.
Arriving by helicopter from his summer residence outside Rome, the Pope met July 29 with 20,000 members of the Cursillo movement in St. Peter's Square. The audience followed a Mass in the square celebrated by U.S. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
The group, founded in Spain in the 1940s, has some 7 million participants in 57 countries, including the United States and Canada. At the movement's heart are "little courses" ("cursillos"), or three-day weekend retreats, in which members seek to deepen their awareness of their baptismal vows and the joy of knowing Christ.
Addressing a group of mostly Cursillista pilgrims the following day during the Angelus prayer, the Pope said the Second Vatican Council deepened the church's awareness of its mission to real people and not just abstractions.
"Christianity cannot be reduced to doctrine, nor to simple principles, because Christ, the center of Christianity, is alive and his presence is the event which constantly renews human creatures and the cosmos," he said.
The council and the events of the past century point to "the need for an integral Christianity, which does not compromise on the truth but at the same time knows how to measure itself with history and modernity," the Pope said.
