Greeting to the Mennonite Delegation
November 26, 2001
Walter Cardinal Kasper
Dear Friends,
I am delighted to welcome you to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
We are very happy that a dialogue between the Mennonite World Conference and the Catholic Church has been underway since 1998. Be assured of my best wishes and prayers for a fruitful meeting in Assisi in the days ahead, and in due time, for a report of the round of dialogues that will be useful for both of our communities.
I know that from the start this dialogue has had as one of its aims the hope of contributing to a healing of memories between our two communions. We all know despite the significant ecumenical progress that has been made in recent decades, many issues which were at stake in the tragic divisions of the sixteenth century have not yet been resolved, and reconciliation between separated Christian families has not yet been achieved. Indeed there still remain in consciousness today, the bitter memories associated with those events of the sixteenth century. This is true in the relations between many Christian families today. This is true in Mennonite-Catholic relations. Surely the dialogue which we have undertaken together, and other contacts such as your visit to Rome these days, are important occasions for contributing to the resolution of these problems.
I think one can say now that some questions which were once matters of conflict between Christians have been virtually resolved today. The question of religious liberty, for example, which once stood as a symbol of struggles between divided Christians, is today something that we can more and more celebrate together, and give witness to together. On this issue Catholics today are guided by the clear teaching of the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II which states that all human beings “are to be immune from coercion…in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs. Nor…to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.” (#2)
One of the significant events during the Jubilee year 2000 has particular meaning for ecumenical endeavors in general, and also for Mennonite-Catholic relations. On March 12, 2000, the liturgy of the first Sunday of Lent, at St. Peter’s Basilica, over which Pope John Paul II presided, included a “Universal Prayer of Forgiveness” led by the Pope in the name of our Church. It was a prayer asking God’s forgiveness for sins committed by Catholics during the second millennium which was now coming to a close. An examination of conscience and a purification of mind and heart would be one aspect of a pastoral preparation helping Catholics to enter the third millennium spiritually renewed and more able to give evangelical testimony to Christ. One of the seven categories of sins for which God’s forgiveness is needed is that of sins against the unity of Christians. Indeed, should not all Christians search their consciences, asking whether they need God’s forgiveness for sins against unity? The prayer made by the Pope at that ceremony is worth recalling:
Merciful Father, on the night before his Passion
Your Son prayed for the unity of those who believe in him;
in disobedience to his will, however,
believers have opposed one another, becoming divided,
and have mutually condemned one another,
and fought against one another.
We urgently implore your forgiveness
and we beseech the gift of a repentant heart.
In his homily in that liturgy the Holy Father called upon us “to forgive and ask forgiveness”.
In the west, in the wake of the sixteenth century Reformation, there is probably no Christian world communion which has been spared persecution, even of a violent kind, at the hand of other Christians, either during that century, or in centuries that followed, even in some cases, up to our own day. Mennonites have suffered greatly. They have suffered persecution and martyrdom, at the hands of both Protestants and Catholics, and have a keen sense of their martyrology. But even the Catholic Church, as large as it is, found itself in some European countries where Reformation churches were dominant, under the threat of the death penalty in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or, afterwards, in some places, not free, or not completely free to carry on its mission, even centuries after the Reformation. In some western European countries, the Catholic Church was given permission to re-establish itself only in the nineteenth century. We too have our experience of persecution, and our martyrs from the religious wars in Europe.
Is it not the case that we, Catholic and Mennonites, “have mutually condemned one another”? Each saw the other as deviating from the apostolic faith. “Let us forgive and ask forgiveness”. The authorities in centuries past often resolved problems in society by severe means, punishing with imprisonment or death those who were seen as undermining society. Especially in the sixteenth century the Anabaptists were among those who suffered greatly in this regard. I surely regret those instances then this took place in Catholic societies.
It is my conviction that Mennonites and Catholics today can offer together a strong witness to peace and reconciliation in our troubled world. It is my hope that our dialogue will assist us in giving this witness.
Source: The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity Information Service, No. 108 (2001/IV), 157-58.