Week for praying for the Unity of Christians 2025.

With the help of the Augustinian Recollect José Manuel Romero (Madrid, Spain, 1972), parish priest in a predominantly Anglican town in the south of England, we open this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2025.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated from January 18 to 25, is an opportunity to reflect on the ecumenical journey between Catholics and Christians of different denominations in England.

The unity of Christians is the great desire of Christ, who in his prayer to the Father at the Last Supper asked: “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you” (John 17:21). This path of unity is an expression of the Communion of Saints, desired by Jesus as an image of the Trinity.

In England, the relationship between Catholics and other denominations has evolved significantly. After the Anglican Reformation initiated by Henry VIII in 1534, the Catholic Church was persecuted. The Toleration Act of 1689 allowed some religious freedom for Catholics, although with restrictions. The 19th century saw a resurgence of Catholicism, made possible by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850.

The Oxford Movement in the 1830s sought to revitalize Anglican faith and foster greater respect between Anglicans and Catholics. However, Pope Leo XIII’s Bull reaffirmed the invalidity of Anglican orders, complicating reunification efforts. Recent changes in the Anglican Communion, such as the ordination of women and homosexual clergy, have also complicated the ecumenical path.

In 1982, Pope John Paul II approved a pastoral provision allowing groups of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church while retaining elements of their Anglican identity. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI established a procedure for the creation of personal ordinariates.

Thanks to these and other pastoral provisions, we have in England a good number of married Roman Rite Catholic priests with children: those who, being married Anglican vicars with families, were received into full communion with the Catholic Church and, after a period of formation, were ordained priests with a dispensation from celibacy.

During his coronation, King Charles III committed to being the guarantor of religious freedom, emphasizing the importance of religious diversity and his role in protecting the freedom of all faiths. Under the leadership of Pope Francis, significant steps have been taken towards reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

Pope Francis has emphasized the importance of walking and praying together, overcoming differences to work together on global challenges. In a colloquium with Anglican faithful, responding to their questions, Pope Francis expressed his conviction that: “Ecumenical dialogue cannot be carried out while standing still… Ecumenical dialogue is done on the way, because ecumenical dialogue is a path and theological matters are discussed on the way.”

The path of life together is a path of dialogue and unity. Here in Honiton, a town of about 14,000 inhabitants, there are six main churches: Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, and two Evangelical congregations.

Here, the ecumenical path is lived day by day. Mixed-faith families, with members from different churches, are not uncommon, and many spouses accompany each other to their respective church services. We have several Anglican husbands who regularly attend Mass with their wives. There is even a retired Anglican vicar who accompanies his wife to Mass and participates enthusiastically in the celebration. Sometimes, it is the wife who accompanies her husband to Anglican services.

Before the pandemic, we had an ecumenical magazine where all Christian communities in Honiton shared news and reflections. All the churches collaborate on a food bank to help families in need. When a new vicar or pastor arrives in Honiton, they invite leaders from other churches to their induction. When Queen Elizabeth II passed away, we joined in certain liturgical acts celebrated by the Anglican Church.

At funerals, Christians unite to celebrate the liturgical rites of the deceased’s denomination. I have celebrated a Catholic funeral in an Anglican church with a predominantly Anglican community, and I have accompanied an Anglican vicar in a marriage ceremony between a Catholic and an Anglican.

Here, in our Catholic Retreat Centre, Saint Rita’s Centre, we welcome Christian groups of various denominations, fostering relationships with their vicars and pastors. The Anglican vicar of Honiton has been participating here and learning the spirituality of the Ignatian spiritual exercises with the group of leaders from our diocese, and has helped in some guided Ignatian spiritual retreats for individuals.

A Baptist seminarian working in hospital chaplaincy, in her final year of training to be ordained a minister, wanted to study the Catholic Church to better understand and comprehend Catholic patients she encountered in her ministry.

She was interested in what we, as Catholics, do at St. Rita’s Centre and asked if she could accompany me and have certain conversations where she would ask questions about Catholic faith and life, as well as participate in certain Catholic ceremonies and activities such as Advent retreats, certain Holy Week functions, the feast of St. Rita… A good relationship was formed, and I was able to attend her ordination ceremony as a Baptist minister.

An Anglican vicar came to me asking for help to find an Italian family. An elderly parishioner of his, of advanced age, wanted to thank the children and grandchildren of the man who, during World War II, rescued him from the sea when his plane was shot down near the coast of Sicily.

It was exciting to visit the elderly man with the vicar and record a video of thanks for the family. Thanks to my investigations, asking parish priests in the area of Sicily where the rescue occurred, we managed to locate the family. For years, they had tried unsuccessfully to find them, but with the help of a Catholic priest, the elderly man was able to fulfil his dream of thanking the man who saved his life before he died.

One day, I received an email from a Christian who had participated in various churches throughout his life of conversion to the Lord. Upon moving to Honiton during the Covid pandemic, he attended several services and, participating in one of our Masses, was moved by the sermon on the common priesthood of all believers.

It explained that every Christian should be a priest to their neighbours, representing them before God in prayer and representing God to them with their testimony. This sermon encouraged him to more fervently bring God’s love and the gospel to the local community, which he had been doing ever since.

In his evangelistic work, he was aware of the long and rich spiritual history of other congregations and churches, including the 150 years of the Catholic Church in Honiton. With his missionary activity, he wanted to join this legacy and help share the love and gospel of Jesus. In this context, he wanted to meet with me, as someone who has been ministering in this community of Honiton, to hear my advice and opinion.

I received him gladly, seeing in him a sincere and humble person who had been touched by God. Despite his uncertainties about the various churches and denominations, he wanted to focus on the essentials and dedicate his remaining years of life to bringing the gospel to those who do not believe or do not live the faith.

He had been treated for pancreatic cancer and did not know how much time he had left, but he was still alive thanks to Jesus and felt called to this mission by the Lord. The pastors of the community he congregated with in Exeter had entrusted him with preaching in Honiton and seeing if a community could be formed here.

I encouraged him to continue his search for the Church as founded by Christ, and how it subsisted in the Catholic Church, of which I was the representative in Honiton. I explained that the pastors who sent him had no authority given by the Lord to do so.

He was confused and a bit disconcerted by my position and said that he, like Paul, had met Christ during his illness and felt sure that he should share the Good News of the gospel and help people believe in Jesus. He added that St. Paul went directly to preach without more.

I replied that I did not deny that he had been called to serve the Lord in that way, but that those pastors had no authority given by Christ to send him in his name. I reminded him that after his conversion, Paul had hands laid on him and was sent by the Church on his mission, and that he went up to Jerusalem to meet Peter, moved by the Holy Spirit, and it was Peter who recognized and confirmed his divine mission.

I told him that the Spirit had also moved him to share his vocation with the Catholic priest, to invite him to know the fullness of the Church that Christ had founded and to be blessed and confirmed in his mission, which, although still imperfect, was undoubtedly good.

Suddenly, this good man bowed his body and head, asking me to pray for him and bless him, which I did with great emotion. After that, we gave each other a strong hug full of emotion and love.

With these examples from our daily lives, we can see the importance of life, time, and processes on the path to unity, and the initial strength of this path, which is, in my opinion, to lovingly recognize in our brothers and sisters, even in the objective imperfection of their denominations, what God’s grace works in those who follow him in good faith and with good will, even on imperfect paths, and to be challenged by the good fruits they produce, and always propose with humility, respect, and love the objective richness of the fullness of faith and life of the Church.

Pope Francis always emphasizes the importance of time and processes over space and structures. The vision of a synodal Church, walking united in Christ to recover the wounded unity, is enriched in this holy year with the idea of a multitude of Christians, moved by the Holy Spirit, pilgrimaging with hope to enter through the Holy Door, which is Christ, and to make visible the reality of one flock and one Shepherd, desired by the Lord for his disciples.