Citing a February study from the
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Father Massa noted that the Holy Father will face next month a nation being reshaped in the realm of religion.
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Only among a few Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. is the Pope viewed any longer as the 'anti-Christ.' Many see him as a defender of conscience, as well as a guardian of historic Christianity, in a morally relativistic age. |
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He noted that "the configuration of American Christianity has been changing quite dramatically over the past four decades. The so-called mainline Protestant churches have been shrinking while the Evangelical and Pentecostal communities have seen remarkable growth. […] Catholics cannot but wonder, and admire, all that explains the vitality of the 'new churches.' That must certainly be on the mind of the Holy Father and other Catholic leaders both in this country and around the world."
Father Massa contended that the concept of the papacy has changed as well: "Only among a few Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. is the Pope viewed any longer as the 'anti-Christ.' Many see him as a defender of conscience, as well as a guardian of historic Christianity, in a morally relativistic age."
The U.S. bishops' aide has high hopes for what Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, and the priority he's giving to ecumenism and interreligious relations, may bring about.
"I am hoping that the Holy Father will re-energize ecumenical commitments at a time when so many churches seem to be experiencing new fractures in membership and deepening polarization over moral issues," he said. "It would be a great grace for him to reiterate a point made so poignantly by his predecessor, namely, that ecumenism is not an appendage to the Church's mission but an essential aspect of that mission.
"I think we might also hear from him some encouragement to pursue a 'spiritual ecumenism' that involves shared prayer and works of charity and justice in common. Theological ecumenism will most certainly continue, and it has lately made some remarkable progress in the Catholic-Orthodox relationship, as shown in the Ravenna document on the universal Church.
"The Holy Father might tell us that, with all of these relationships, which have as their goal the unity for which Christ prayed on the night before he died -- 'Father, may they be one' -- we are only at 'the beginning of the beginning' of the ecumenical task."
CD
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