Christian unity: Let us work and pray ‘That all may be one’

Jan. 25, 2012 - One of the great privileges of my life was to be present in Birmingham, England, when Pope Benedict XVI beatified Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, the great 19th-century Anglican convert and leader of the Oxford Movement.

Newman has been an influential figure in my life since my days in college at the University of Kansas.  It was Newman, writing beautifully, clearly and convincingly on Jesus Christ and his Church, who led me to become a Catholic.  I have prayed for his intercession ever since.

At the time of Newman’s beatification, Pope Benedict offered an ecumenical perspective on the life of this famous convert.

“Newman,” he said, “can teach us the virtues that ecumenism demands—on the one hand, he was moved to follow his conscience (in converting to Catholicism), on the other hand, the warmth of his continued friendship with his former colleagues led him to explore with them, in a truly ecumenical spirit, the questions on which they differed, driven by a deep longing for unity in faith.”

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman can serve as a model of ecumenism for each of us.

Today, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, marks the conclusion of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity—a week in which the Church calls us to pray with non-Catholic Christians that our Church may be one; an octave of prayer to invoke the extraordinary gift for which Jesus himself prayed at the Last Supper: “That they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21). 

Unity is rooted in our baptism—and should be the source of our apostolic work.  Last week at his Wednesday general audience, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on Christian unity, saying that “the ‘new evangelization’ will be more fruitful when all Christians proclaim together the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and give a common response to the spiritual thirst of our times.” He continued by saying that “a lack of unity among Christians prevents a more efficient announcement of the Gospel, because it jeopardizes our credibility.”

Indeed, Christians should be unified in responding to the challenges of our secular culture.  We who live in Jesus Christ should proclaim together his salvation.

But Christian unity is strongest when Christians are united in fellowship working together to know Jesus Christ more deeply.  This is the model of Newman’s ecumenism: he called his friends, his fellow Christians, to more deeply pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ—and with his Church. 

We should do the same.  First, we should be conscientious about developing relationships with other Christians.  Our parishes should join with other Christian churches to serve the poor, to defend the rights of the oppressed and the voiceless, particularly the unborn; in essence, to proclaim the Gospel.  We should be united in friendship, in prayer and in solidarity with other Christians.

Common apostolic work should be the starting point of Christian unity.  In the United States, the Catholic Church has succeeded in working with other Christians to truthfully proclaim the good news.  The Manhattan Declaration, an ecumenical testament to “the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty,” and more recently an open letter to Americans signed by 40 top religious leaders, including four Roman Catholic bishops, titled, “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods that Stand or Fall Together,” are prime examples of ecumenical cooperation.  To protect and promote Gospel truths and to preserve religious liberty, we need to work with our fellow Christians. Building a Christian culture is the first fruit of Christian unity. 

But if we want to follow Newman’s model for Christian unity we should go beyond Christian cooperation. We should also know our own Catholic faith and be able to articulate it and defend it well; and we should not be afraid to share the gift of our Catholic faith with other Christians.

We should witness not only to Jesus Christ, but also to his Church.  Not only to faith, but to the truth, beauty and goodness of the sacraments.  We should be eager to invite other Christians to join us in the Church of Jesus Christ.  On this point, Pope Benedict remarked: “The unity for which we pray requires inner conversion, both shared and individual. But this must not be limited to cordiality and cooperation; we must reinforce our faith in God ... we must enter into the new life in Christ ... in expectation of that glorious day when together we will all be able to celebrate the sacraments and profess the faith transmitted by the Apostles.”

In friendship, in the common knowledge of Jesus Christ and in prayer together, Christians can be united as one.  We should pray for this.  We should work for it, too, by coming to know our fellow Christians and by challenging them to know the Church of Jesus Christ.  In Christian unity we will more effectively transform the world and “we will all by changed by the victory of Christ, our Lord.”

May each of you be blessed through the intercession of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, and may each of us pray for the day when all Christians may be one.

Bishop James D. Conley is apostolic administrator of the Denver Archdiocese.