View from Rome

On Monday the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starts in a year that anticipates the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, which will be marked by a series of events throughout 2017. On that note, it is understood that Pope Francis will travel in October to Lund in Sweden where there is to be a gathering of Catholic and Lutheran leaders. The trip should be one to watch given that the Pope raised the hackles of conservatives when during a visit to a Lutheran church in Rome he suggested that there might be occasions when a Lutheran could receive Communion in the Catholic Church. A trip to Sweden by a Pope is not unprecedented: in 1989 Pope John Paul II visited the country as part of a tour that included Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark. The Vatican is keen to mark th