Church in the World

Cardinal praises Wesley at Methodist church

Rome

The president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, attended a Methodist church in Rome on 22 June, and preached about the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley. The service was part of the Methodists? celebrations for the 300th anniversary of Wesley?s birth.

Cardinal Kasper brought greetings from the Pope to the small church, which serves about 170 English-speaking Methodists in Rome. The cardinal, who had been invited by the congregation, said he considered their invitation a generous and a bold one, given Wesley?s ?complex? relationship with the Catholic Church.

?Wesley?s commentary on the Book of Revelation reflects a rather ungracious view of the papacy, so much so that it is somewhat daring of you to invite me here today, and perhaps equally daring of me to accept?, Cardinal Kasper said. He added that he hoped Wesley would have phrased his comments differently if he were alive today.

The cardinal continued by acknowledging that the Catholic response to Wesley and early Methodists had been ?no better?. But ?happily we have ceased to blame each other?, he said.

Cardinal Kasper focused on Wesley?s more tolerant ?Letter to a Roman Catholic? in his sermon. The letter was a plea for understanding among Christians and it shared similarities with the Catholic-Methodist dialogue of the last 40 years, he said. This dialogue had already borne much fruit, opening the way to a genuine friendship among members of the two Churches. The cardinal also noted that Catholics and Methodists had ?no difficult memories of separating?, as Methodism had grown out of the Anglican tradition.

There was much to praise in Wesley?s missionary spirit and sense of holiness, Cardinal Kasper told the congregation. ?We can look to see and find in him the evangelical zeal, the pursuit of holiness, the concern for the poor, the virtues and goodness which we have come to know and respect in you.?

A staff member of the unity council, Fr Donald Bolen, later said that Cardinal Kasper?s sermon was the first positive assessment by the Vatican of Wesley?s life and work. |snip!|Recalling Europe?s Christian roots. On 29 June, the Solemnity of the Apostles Sts Peter and Paul, the Pope confers the pallium on new metropolitan archbishops and exchanges fraternal greetings with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. This year Pope John Paul II gave the feast an added dimension by issuing a strong new appeal to preserve the continent?s Christian roots.

The appeal was contained in John Paul?s post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Ecclesia in Europa, a 130-page statement responding to concerns that Europe?s bishops expressed at the synod they held in the Vatican from 1 to 23 October 1999. The Pope signed the document during Vespers in St Peter?s Basilica on the eve of the feast, Peggy Polk reports from Rome.

Cardinal Jan Schotte, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, acknowledged at a news conference earlier in the day that the statement was timed in part to coincide with debate over the new European Union constitution.

The Vatican was dismayed that a first draft of the preamble, completed late last month, said that Europe was nourished by ?Hellenic and Roman civilisations? and ?the philosophical currents of the Enlightenment? but not specifically by Christianity. A revised draft issued on 13 June referred only to Europe?s ?cultural, religious and humanist inheritance?. Approval of the final version is scheduled for October.

John Paul II warned that because of a ?loss of Europe?s Christian memory and heritage, accompanied by a kind of practical agnosticism and religious indifference?, many Europeans already seemed to be ?living without spiritual roots and somewhat like heirs who have squandered a patrimony entrusted to them by history?.

?It is no real surprise, then?, the Pope went on, ?that there are efforts to create a vision of Europe which ignores its religious heritage and, in particular, its profound Christian soul, asserting the rights of the peoples who make up Europe without grafting those rights on to the trunk which is enlivened by the sap of Christianity.?

The Pope said Europeans felt a ?loss of meaning in life?, and he cited as ?signs and fruits of this existential anguish? a drop in the birth rate, fewer religious vocations and a rejection of marriage and other lifelong commitments.

But Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham told reporters during the news conference that the Pope?s message was not negative. ?The key to this document is the theme of hope?, he said. Faithful to the bishops? deliberations, he commented, the Pope laid out the Christian role in Europe?s future, issued a call to conversion and renewal in communion with mission and envisioned the Church?s relationship with other faiths and with political powers.

Another positive note was sounded by Patriarch Bartholomew. In his message to the Pope to mark the solemnity, he acknowledged that Catholics and Orthodox had not yet achieved ?unity of faith?. But he called it encouraging ?that we have achieved the bond of peace and love, which is the necessary foundation for the progress of the theological dialogue, which is carried on between our two Churches?. |snip!|Vatican Museums go online. The decision of the Vatican Museums to move on to the internet means that some of the world?s most important works of art have been made available for the first time to internet users.

The new web pages, on the Vatican?s main internet address (www.vatican.va), offer virtual visits to six of the 27 sections of the museums, including the Sistine Chapel, with a choice of commentary in English, Italian, French, Spanish and German.

In addition to viewing the Sistine Chapel, famed for Michelangelo?s painting of the Last Judgement, computer users can call up the Vatican?s Egyptian, Etruscan and Ethnological Missionary museums, Rafael Rooms and Art Gallery, Peggy Polk reports.

Virtual visitors can start with a panoramic, three-dimensional view of a room, then focus on individual artworks and use a zoom option to study details. They can order a reproduction of an artwork from the museums? gift shop and get information about making a real visit.

Archbishop Claudio Celli, secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, told a news conference on 24 June that it took five years and technical support from Hewlett Packard to put the museums online.

The prelate said that since the Vatican first went online at Christmas 1995, with one page of greetings to Pope John Paul II, its internet presence has grown to 200,000 pages, which are accessed 50 million times a month from 150 countries. The only remaining project, he said, was putting the secret Vatican archives online, and that will be completed ?in the near future?.

Archbishop Celli also reported that the site?s defences fend off more than 10,000 viruses and malicious codes each month and some 30 attacks a week by hackers, not all of them ?enemies? of the Vatican. A Franciscan friar ?who apparently couldn?t sleep because of the heat? spent all night recently in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the site, he said.

Vatican administrative offices send more than 20,000 emails and receive some 15,000 messages every day. On 18 May almost 23,000 emails arrived at a special address for Pope John Paul II?s 83rd birthday, which meant a great deal of work for Vatican officials who ?not only print them all out but answer each one?, the prelate said.