VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has concluded an annual weeklong prayer for Christian unity by making a sweeping apology for Catholic wrongs committed against other Christians and by announcing he will visit Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. The one-day trip Oct. 31 to the southern city of Lund, where the Lutheran World Federation was founded in 1947, will be the first papal visit to Sweden since Pope John Paul II toured five Scandinavian nations in 1989.
Use personal friendhip
Francis has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by encouraging efforts to heal the rifts with Anglicans, Lutherans, Orthodox, evangelicals and other Christian denominations. But Francis has also used personal friendships to forge ahead where official dialogue has stalled.
On Monday, Francis celebrated an annual vespers service to mark the end of a weeklong prayer for Christian unity which this year also falls during Francis’ Holy Year of Mercy. In his homily, Francis asked forgiveness for the «sin of our divisions» — an appeal he made in June last year during a visit to a small evangelical house of worship in northern Italy.
«As the bishop of Rome and pastor of the Catholic Church, I would like to invoke mercy and forgiveness for the non-evangelical behavior of Catholics toward Christians of other churches,» he said Monday. «At the same time, I invite all Catholic brothers and sisters to forgive if today, or in the past, they have suffered offense by other Christians.
«We cannot cancel what has happened, but we don’t want to let the weight of past harm continue to pollute our relations.» Earlier Monday, the Vatican said Francis’ visit to Sweden will «highlight the important ecumenical developments that have taken place during the past 50 years of dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans.» It will include a common worship service based on a recently published Catholic Lutheran liturgical guide to help churches commemorate the Reformation anniversary together.
150.000 Catholics
The Catholic Church estimates there are about 150,000 Catholics in Sweden, including 113,000 registered members, according to Kristina Hellner of the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm. Martin Luther’s challenge to the Catholic doctrine of indulgences in 1517 is remembered as the start of the Reformation, from which the Protestant churches originated out of criticism of the Church of Rome led by the pope. Significantly, when Francis issued his apology Monday, he said he was doing so as bishop of Rome — a title he often emphasizes in ecumenical settings where the primacy of the pope is still a cause for tension.
Swedish Critics
Karl Gustav Hammar Hilding, known as K. G. Hammer, born 18 February 1943 in Hässleholm is a Swedish theologian and church Oman, who was archbishop of the Swedish Church 1997-2006. Hammer representing a liberal theological line in the Swedish church and his time as archbishop was marked by both this and his community involvement. He fought including amnesty for asylum seekers, the depreciation of the poorest countries’ debts, humane prisons, tolerance towards people of other religious beliefs and gay rights. Both his liberal theological line and his positions on some issues led to his archbishop deed was debated and criticized, but also that he is by many seen as a popular church leaders.
New Consensus
After that supported the exhibition Ecce Homo in Uppsala Cathedral in autumn 1998, Hammar receive criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church in Sweden. Hammar’s defense of display led the Roman Catholic Church to set Hammar official meeting with Pope John Paul II. The visit took place in the following year, when the Swedish archbishop was needed, among other things, to confirm that Catholics and Lutherans reached consensus on man’s way of salvation. From the Swedish church got KG Hammar both criticism and support for its support to the Ecce Homo Exhibition. Bishop Jonas Jonson expressed concern about the ecumenical implications of Hamari way to «push their personal opinions in public.» [29] At the same time Hammar support from Caroline Krook, Bishop of Stockholm, who said that the Roman Catholic Church’s response «displays on the sensitive issue of homosexuality in the Catholic Church «and not interpreted the exhibition as if Jesus was depicted as a homosexual. KG Hammar is still living in Lund, teaching at the Teological Faculty at the University of Lund. Now the New Pope Francis is visiting Lund after all thesse years , writes Nordic News.
