Rome and Christian Unity

Archive Report

New climate Among Christian Churches

Vatican Council and Far Goal of Christian Unity

Announcement by Pope John XXIII on Christmas morning of the convocation in 1962 of the first Roman Catholic ecumenical council in nearly a century stirred hopes of Protestant as well as Catholic leaders that a way eventually may be found to unite all Christians in a single church.1 The coming council will not effect a reunion of Protestants and Orthodox Catholics with Rome. In fact, it will concern itself solely with internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church, But the papal bull proclaiming the convocation repeated a hope frequently voiced by Pope John that an ecumenical council “would make more vivid in the separated brothers the desire for the hoped-for return to unity ...

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