Greeting to the Representatives of Other Christian Confessions (3 May 1980)

On Saturday, 3 May 1980, greeted the Representatives of other Christian Confessions at the Kinshasa Nunciature, to whom he spoke of “the incessant and sometimes painful search for full truth and holiness,” as the foundation of a search for unity.

Dear friends in Christ:

he. I am greatly pleased to be able to meet you this afternoon and greet you all in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks for your presence. We feel the joy of finding ourselves together, gathered by our love for the Lord, who, on the night of Holy Thursday, prayed that all those who believe in Him be one. We, therefore, will ask him to make all those who pride themselves on his name fully faithful to the call of grace and find themselves one day in his only Church.

2. We must give thanks to the Lord because the contrasts of the past have given way to an effort of rapprochement based on mutual esteem, the search for truth and charity. A good sign of this is our meeting this afternoon. We know, however, that the magnificent end that we seek to obey the Lord's command has not yet been achieved. In order to achieve this, it is necessary, with the grace of God, "conversion of heart and holiness of life" which constitute, with the prayer for unity, as the Second Vatican Council underlined. "the soul of the ecumenical Movement" ( Unitatis redintegratio , 3).

Any initiative in order to unite will be in vain if it is deprived of this foundation, if it is not based on the incessant and sometimes painful search for full truth and holiness. This search,
indeed, brings us closer to Christ and, through Him, really brings us closer to one another.

I already know, and I am glad of it, that there are already various forms of collaboration, at the service of the Gospel, between the different Churches and Christian communities of your country; Such commitment is a sign of the testimony that all those who call themselves Christians want to give about God's salvific action, which is carried out in the world; and it is also a true step towards the unity that we ask for in our prayer.

3. Since my election as Bishop of Rome, I have reaffirmed many times. as you know, my ardent desire to see the Catholic Church enter fully into the holy work that has as its objective the restoration of unity. I hope that my presence among you today will be considered as a sign of this commitment. Certainly, different countries and different regions have their own religious history and for this reason the modalities of the ecumenical Movement may be different, but its essential imperative is the same: the search for truth at its very center, in Christ. He is the one we must seek first of all to find true unity in him.

Dear friends in the Lord: I thank you again with all my heart for being here with me today. May this afternoon's meeting be a sign of our desire for the happy day that we ask for in our prayers to arrive: that day when, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are truly one, "so that the world may believe" ( Jn 17. 21).

In praying this afternoon for unity, for the reunification of all those who believe in Christ, within his one Church, we cannot do anything better than to repeat the Lord's own words on the night of Holy Thursday, after having prayed especially for his Apostles. :

"But I do not pray only for these, but for those who believe in Me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in You, so that they too may be in us and the world may believe that You you have sent me" ( Jn 17, 20-21).

All together, let us ask the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us to do his will:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts
just as we forgive
our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

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