Call Me Jorge...: Matteo Calisi

Showing posts with label Matteo Calisi. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Francis feels like saying something heretical...

...and he does!

Francis is at it again, making another video for his Protestant 'brothers in blood'. This one was for the Celebration of Christian Unity event held by the John 17 Movement in Phoenix, Arizona. Francis' usual Protestant friends were all there. Here's the flyer for the event:

What is interesting is that at 4 minutes 16 seconds in his video message Francis says,

"I feel like saying something that may sound controversial, or even heretical, perhaps."

Apparently Francis has been so poorly catechized he doesn't recognize that his words which follow this statement,

"It is he who is persecuting Christians today, he who is anointing us with (the blood of) martyrdom. He knows that Christians are disciples of Christ: that they are one, that they are brothers! He doesn’t care if they are Evangelicals, or Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics or Apostolic…he doesn’t care! They are Christians. And that blood (of martyrdom) unites. Today, dear brothers and sisters, we are living an “ecumenism of blood”"

...are in fact heresy! What God is Francis praying to which makes him think this way?

The original Spanish is even stronger than the English above.

Y me viene a la mente decir algo que puede ser una insensatez, o quizás una herejía, no sé. Pero hay alguien que ‘sabe’ que, pese a las diferencias, somos uno. Y es el que nos persigue. El que persigue hoy día a los cristianos, el que nos unge con el martirio, sabe que los cristianos son discípulos de Cristo: ¡que son uno, que son hermanos! No le interesa si son evangélicos, ortodoxos, luteranos, católicos, apostólicos…¡no le interesa! Son cristianos. Y esa sangre se junta. Hoy estamos viviendo, queridos hermanos, el “ecumenismo de la sangre”. Esto nos tiene que animar a hacer lo que estamos haciendo hoy: orar, hablar entre nosotros, acortar distancias, hermanarnos cada vez más.

Here's what Francis literally said,

“And it comes to my mind to say something that may be foolish or perhaps a heresy, I don't know.”

Below is the video, a link to the Vatican's transcript of Francis' remarks in Spanish, and another website's English translation (which is poor in areas).

Francis' message to John 17 'All be One'

Spanish from the Vatican's website:

VIDEOMENSAJE DEL SANTO PADRE FRANCISCO

CON OCASIÓN DE LA JORNADA DE UNIDAD CRISTIANA

[PHOENIX, 23 DE MAYO DE 2015]

English from Salt & Light TV:

Pope sends greetings for US Christian Unity

event in Phoenix, Arizona

Pope Francis has sent a videomessage on the occasion of the Day for Christian Unity which took place in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States on May 23rd.

Below is the English translation of the Pope’s video message

Brothers and sisters, may the peace of Christ be with you. Forgive me if I speak in Spanish, but my English isn’t good enough for me to express myself properly. I speak in Spanish but, above all, I speak in the language ofthe heart.

[in Spanish:]

I have the invitation you sent me for this celebration of Christian Unity, this day of reconciliation. And I wish to join you from here. “Father, may we be one so that the world may believe you sent me”. This is the slogan, the theme of the meeting: Christ’s prayer to the Father for the grace of unity.

Today, Saturday May 23rd, from 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, I will be with you spiritually and with all my heart. We will search together, we will pray together, for the grace of unity. The unity that is budding among us is that unity which begins under the seal of the one Baptism we have all received. It is the unity we are seeking along a common path. It is the spiritual unity of prayer for one another. It is the unity of our common labour on behalf of our brothers and sisters, and all those who believe in the sovereignty of Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, division is a wound in the body of the Church of Christ. And we do not want this wound to remain open. Division is the work of the Father of Lies, the Father of Discord, who does everything possible to keep us divided.

Together today, I here in Rome and you over there, we will ask our Father to send the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and to give us the grace to be one, “so that the world may believe.” I feel like saying something that may sound controversial, or even heretical, perhaps. But there is someone who“knows” that, despite our differences, we are one. It is he who is persecuting us. It is he who is persecuting Christians today, he who is anointing us with (the blood of) martyrdom. He knows that Christians are disciples of Christ: that they are one, that they are brothers! He doesn’t care if they are Evangelicals, or Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics or Apostolic…he doesn’t care! They are Christians. And that blood (of martyrdom) unites. Today, dear brothers and sisters, we are living an “ecumenism of blood”. This must encourage us to do what we are doing today: to pray, to dialogue together, to shorten the distance between us, to strengthen our bonds of brotherhood.

I am convinced it won’t be theologians who bring about unity among us. Theologians help us, the science of the theologians will assist us, but if we hope that theologians will agree with one another, we will reach unity the day after Judgement Day. The Holy Spirit brings about unity. Theologians are helpful, but most helpful is the goodwill of us all who are on this journey with our hearts open to the Holy Spirit!

In all humility, I join you as just another participant on this day of prayer, friendship, closeness and reflection. In the certainty that we have one Lord: Jesus is the Lord. In the certainty that this Lord is alive: Jesus is alive, the Lord lives in each one of us. In the certainty that He has sent the Spirit He promised us so that this “harmony” among all His disciples might be realised.

Dear brothers and sisters, I greet you warmly, with an embrace. I pray for you. I pray with You. And I ask you, please, to pray for me. Because I need your prayers in order to be faithful to what the Lord wants from my Ministry.

[Blessing]

God bless you. May God bless us all.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Jorge Mario Bergoglio advised Tony Palmer not to become a Catholic

LONDON – The English surgeons who fought to save the life of a badly mangled motorcyclist on the morning of July 20 might have guessed he was someone unusual, since the hospital was receiving calls from Rome, from the pope himself, asking for updates.

The silver Audi that slammed into a Protestant cleric named Bishop Tony Palmer in a quiet country lane that morning, however, left little chance of his surviving, and he died after a 10-hour emergency surgery. The news stunned not just his grieving wife and young adult children, but many across the Christian world who were aware that, behind the scenes, the unlikely friendship of Palmer and Pope Francis was the catalyst of an extraordinary historic breakthrough in relations between the Catholic Church and the evangelical world.

An articulate, laid-back, jovial South African in his early fifties, with a penchant for quirky clerical clothes, Palmer didn’t look or sound much like a conventional Anglican bishop. When I first met him in May, at a coffee shop in Bath, close to where he lived with his family, he explained that he had been ordained by the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, or CEEC, whose presiding bishop is in Florida.

The CEEC, which was formed in the 1990s, is Anglican. Yet unlike the Episcopal Church in the United States, it’s not part of the Anglican Communion loyal to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Its leaders see themselves as part of a “convergence” movement, seeking to combine evangelical Christianity with the liturgy and sacraments typical of Catholicism.

That convergence, Palmer told me, “is a precursor to full unity between the Protestant and Catholic Churches.”

Born in Britain, Palmer grew up in South Africa where he worked as a medical underwriter and met and married Emiliana, a non-practising Italian Catholic. After a sudden conversion they began worshipping in an evangelical church. Palmer worked for some years in South Africa for Texas-based Kenneth Copeland Ministries, pioneer of the controversial “prosperity Gospel” which claims that God rewards his faithful with material blessings.

On trips back to Italy to visit Emiliana’s family, the Palmers encountered the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a movement within the Catholic Church which has absorbed the Pentecostal evangelical traditions of praise-style worship, healing, and an expectation of spiritual gifts. Through the charismatics, Emiliana returned to the Catholic Church, and the Palmers with their young children began attending Sunday Mass. In the 1990s they began spending long periods in Italy, where they were invited to speak at Catholic churches.

In 2003 they moved to Italy full-time to work with Matteo Calisi, head of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Italy. Palmer increasingly felt at home in the Catholic Church but was unable to affiliate an ecumenical group he founded called the “Ark Community” with Rome because not all his members were Catholics.

Palmer instead found a home in the CEEC, which claims about a million adherents and 6,000 clergy. After further study the CEEC ordained him a priest, giving him a particular mission to Christian unity, and later consecrated him as a bishop. Palmer and Calisi began doing joint missions around the world — which is what took him to Buenos Aires in 2006. Its archbishop, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had overcome his reservations about the charismatic renewal and enthusiastically backed a 6,000-strong joint Catholic-evangelical gathering that year in Buenos Aires’ Luna Park stadium.

Palmer and Calisi and four others went to meet the cardinal prior to beginning their mission in his diocese. When Palmer told Bergoglio that he was an Anglican evangelical with a Catholic wife and children, the cardinal was curious: how did they live that difference? Palmer told him that it worked very well, but that, since he led his family back to the Catholic Church, he was no longer allowed to take Communion with them.

When Palmer told him that his children asked him why he would join a church that separated a family, he said that Bergoglio’s eyes filled with tears.

“His heart broke,” Palmer recalled.

The cardinal asked if they could remain in touch and meet regularly. Over the years, the Buenos Aires cardinal and the evangelical bishop formed a deep bond, staying in touch by telephone and email between face-to-face meetings.

Palmer and Bergoglio had intense discussions about Christian separation, using the analogy of apartheid in South Africa. They found common ground in believing that institutional separation breeds fear and misunderstanding. Bergoglio, whom Palmer called “Father Mario,” acted as a spiritual father to the Protestant cleric, calming him (“he wanted to make me a reformer, not a rebel,” Palmer told me) and encouraging him in his mission to Christian unity.

At one point, when Palmer was tired of living on the frontier and wanted to become Catholic, Bergoglio advised him against conversion for the sake of the mission.

“We need to have bridge-builders”, the cardinal told him.

In 2012 Palmer’s family moved to England, to allow their son to prepare to enter university there. Palmer had little idea of Bergoglio’s rising star, but received an email three days before the conclave of March 2013 asking for his prayers. When he saw Pope Francis emerge on the balcony, Palmer was thrilled but assumed that their friendship would be over.

Shortly after the New Year, however, he received a call. Francis wanted to know when he was next in Rome, could he come by? On January 14, Palmer spent the morning with Francis in the Vatican residence where he now lives, the Domus Santa Marta.

“We didn’t have an agenda,” Palmer recalled. “He told me that we are brothers and nothing will change our friendship.”

Palmer told him that the following week he would be addressing 3,000 evangelicals at Kenneth Copeland’s international leaders’ conference in Fort Worth, Texas, and would he like to send a word of greeting?

“Let’s make a video,” Francis replied.

“You want me to pull out my iPhone and record you?” asked Palmer, astonished.

“Yes, exactly,” the pope answered.

When he presented the recording to the Pentecostals in Texas, Palmer said that few Protestants knew that the Catholic and Lutheran Churches had signed a historic declaration in 1999 settling the doctrinal issue of the Reformation.

“We preach the same Gospel now,” Palmer told them. “The protest is over.”

Then he played the video, in which Francis addressed them as brothers and sisters and said that with just “two rules” — love God above all, and your neighbor as yourself — “we can move ahead.” He spoke of the sin of separation, and his yearning for reconciliation. “Let us allow our yearning to grow, because this will propel us to find each other, to embrace one another, and together to worship Jesus Christ as the only Lord of History,” he told them.

The delegates reacted rapturously. After the video went viral Palmer began to be inundated by requests from evangelical leaders to be part of what was happening. “People said: this is a new day, this is what we have been waiting for.” Palmer had to cancel his teaching commitments and his own studies simply to cope with the correspondence. He reported it all to Pope Francis in a meeting in April, who was amazed.

Cosa facciamo? “What do we do?” he asked Palmer.

On June 24, Palmer took a group of evangelical leaders who jointly reach more than 700 million people to meet and lunch with Francis, which he reported to me a few days later, as he left for two weeks in South Africa. The delegates included Copeland, the televangelist James Robison, as well as Geoff Tunnicliffe, head of the Worldwide Evangelical Alliance. They told Francis they wanted to accept his invitation to seek visible unity with the Bishop of Rome.

Palmer handed the pope a proposed Declaration of Faith in Unity for Mission the evangelicals had drawn up, which they proposed would be signed by both the Vatican and leaders of the major Protestant churches in Rome in 2017, on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Palmer told me the draft Declaration has three elements: the Nicean-Constantinople Creed, which Catholics and evangelicals share; the core of the Catholic-Lutheran declaration of 1999 making clear there is no disagreement over justification by faith; as well as a final section asserting that Catholics and evangelicals are now “united in mission because we are declaring the same Gospel.”

The closing section speaks of the importance of freedom of conscience and the need for Catholics and evangelicals to respect each other’s mission fields and treat the other with respect, not as rivals. Francis had taken the draft and said he would think about it. Palmer and I agreed to speak again when Francis got back to him, but that was not to be.

Last Wednesday, in Bath, Palmer’s funeral was a Catholic Requiem Mass at which most of the congregation were evangelicals. He was buried in a Catholic cemetery, united at last with the Church he felt at home in.

Pope Francis sent a message, which was tearfully read out by Emiliana Palmer. In it he said he and Palmer were close friends, and like father and son, “Many times we prayed in the same Spirit.” He praised Palmer as a brave, passionate and pure-hearted man in love with Jesus, who left a precious legacy in his passion for Christian unity.

Francis created the strong impression that the work he and Palmer had begun would continue.

“We must be encouraged by his zeal,” the pope said.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Matteo Calisi steps out of the shadows

The revolution of Vatican II has taken place out in the open since the Council ended. One of the biggest problems combating this revolution is knowing who is playing the important roles of setting the agenda for the Vatican. The article, On Ecumenical Dialogue With Pentecostals, lays out who the movers and shakers are in the Chrismatic/Pentecostal/Evangelical movement in the Novus Ordo church. It also confirms what readers of Call Me Jorge... have suspected concerning the origin of the heretical idea that all sects are one church to God.

Thanks to Michael for sending us this article. He has also informed us he is going to fire his blog, Public Vigil, back up. Check it out!

On Ecumenical Dialogue With Pentecostals

Friend of Pastor Traettino, Matteo Calisi Speaks to ZENIT on Wider Significance of Pope's Caserta Visit

Vatican City, August 07, 2014 (Zenit.org) Deborah Castellano Lubov

A promoter of Catholic-Pentecostal relations believes Pope Francis is opening up dialogue between Catholics and Pentecostals.

Matteo Calisi is the founder and president of the Comunità di Gesù (Community of Jesus), located in Bari, Italy. Together with Pentecostal Pastor Dr. Giovanni Traettino, Bishop of the Evangelical Church of the Reconciliation, Matteo founded in 1992 Consultazione Carismatica Italiana (Italian Charismatic Consultation – CCI), a joint committee of Catholic Charismatics and Pentecostal Evangelicals.

This committee began a dialogue between Catholics and Pentecostals in Italy. Presently, Calisi still serves as co-president with Pastor Traettino. Among those with whom they have collaborated is Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Papal Household.

Calisi has collaborated with the Pontifical Council for the Laity and in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as a Member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which he served on until the end of 2013. He has personally met Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI on various occasions.

Calisi spoke with ZENIT on his friendship with Pastor Giovanni Traettino, his views on the significance of the Pope’s meeting with Pentecostals in Caserta, as well as what this means for ecumenical dialogue.

***

ZENIT: Could you speak about the Pope’s visit to the Evangelical Church in Caserta?

Calisi: The visit of Pope Francis to the Evangelical Church in Caserta on July 28, 2014, as it is well known, had a private character even though the event had a historic significance. It is the first time that a Pontiff has visited an Evangelical Pentecostal Church, and even though it may sound unusual to many of us, we must remember that Pope Francis, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, had stable relationships with the Pentecostal Churches of his town and used to attend several private and public meetings with representatives of these Evangelical communities.

ZENIT: Have you personally had the opportunity to observe this yourself?

Calisi: I have had the privilege to witness this process, which started in 2003 in Buenos Aires and continues still today, that has led to the birth of the ecumenical initiative called "Renewed communion between Catholics and Evangelicals in the Holy Spirit" (CRECES). Therefore, the visit to Caserta is part of this Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue that Pope Francis knows very well. Moreover, during the worship session in the Pentecostal Church of Caserta, the Holy Father asked for forgiveness on behalf of those baptized Catholics who were accomplices in the persecutions of the Pentecostal churches from the fascist regime, an act of justice which follows the example of the actions of [asking] forgiveness made by the previous Pontiffs. Another significant fact is that, according to the Holy Father, the word "sect" is not to be used to name a group of Christians. We must be able to discern what the sectarian attitudes are, which can be found in any religious group - Catholic, Evangelical or Orthodox one - and from which we must mend our ways, but it is extremely offensive and unfair to name a Christian church as a whole with the word "sect". Therefore the request for forgiveness has been accompanied by the request to purify the language: an important factor to heal the memories of the past.

ZENIT: According to you, does the Pope’s visit to Caserta have a wider significance?

Calisi: The meeting in Caserta precedes and has a wider significance than the visit made by the Pope. The Bishop of Rome is perfectly aware of the urgency to search for unity between the Catholic Church and the Pentecostal Evangelical Churches. More than half a billion Christians adhere to the Pentecostal Movement, which is the second Christian confession soon after the Catholic Church for its large numbers. The Pentecostal Movement is the fastest growing movement in the whole history of the Christian Church, there is no other precedent. A movement born from the Holy Spirit without human founders, so little known by specialists and ecumenists especially here in Italy, which had an astonishing growth in the past century from 0 to 600 million participants.

In Italy, the Pentecostal movement represents nearly 70% of the Italian Protestantism with which the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) hasn't established a relationship yet. Compared to the copious Anglo-Saxon literature, suffice it to think of the academic institution Society for Pentecostal Studies with the publication of the magazine of theology "Pneumatic", in Italy we can only report the valuable book by Professor Massimo Introvigne "The Pentecostal challenge" (LDC Turin) and the research made by the Center for Studies on new religions "Cesnur", Turin. We are grateful to the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome for having established training courses on "Pentecostalism" held by Professor Teresa Francesca Rossi. But "Pentecostalism" is nearly totally absent in the study plans of the Pontifical Universities, as well as in the seminaries for the training of future Catholic priests. The Pro Unione Centre of the Friars of the Atonement, Rome (Director Father James Puglisi S.A.), which sponsors initiatives and meetings with scholars and Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical theologians, gives another contribution to the knowledge of Pentecostalism.

ZENIT: How is dialogue developing between the Holy See and Pentecostals?

Calisi: Even though there was an official consolidated dialogue between some Pentecostal representatives (only on a personal level) and the Holy See, which started after the Second Vatican Council and has published important documents with undeniable pastoral-theological importance (cfr Enchiridion Oecumenicum, EDB Bologna), very little is known about the ecumenical activities carried out among the Catholic and Pentecostal faithful, the so-called "spiritual ecumenism".

ZENIT: Can you tell us about your friendship and collaboration with Pastor Giovanni Traettino?

Calisi: Pastor Giovanni Traettino and I have been friends and have been collaborating in the ministry of reconciliation for more than 30 years. In the early '80s a dialogue started to take place between the Community of Jesus, Bari, and his Movement of Communion and Restauration, Caserta (then renamed Evangelical Church of Reconciliation). In 1992 I invited Pastor Traettino to talk at a Catholic Charismatic Conference which took place at Saint Nicholas Football Stadium in Bari. On that occasion Pastor Traettino made a prophetic gesture, he washed the feet of a representative of the Catholic Church. This gesture of humility marked the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration between me and Pastor Giovanni Traettino. In the same year we founded an organism of dialogue between Catholics and Charismatic Evangelicals and Pentecostals in Italy, called "Italian Charismatic Consultation". Historians have considered this work as a pioneering event at the ecumenical level (see the vast literature of Professor Vinson Synan, Divinity Faculty, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, USA). Professor Massimo Introvigne has written an interview book to Pastor Traettino and the undersigned, entitled "Aspettando la Pentecoste" (Waiting for the Pentecost - il Messaggero Publisher, Padova 1996) which is intended to witness the path of reconciliation between Catholics and Evangelicals, a movement born in Italy that has spread to many countries all over the world. It was during our visit to Buenos Aires in 2006 that Pastor Giovanni Traettino got in touch with Cardinal Bergoglio. I still work with Pastor Giovanni Traettino preaching this “Gospel of Reconciliation". In the past months we held some meetings of reconciliation in Phoenix, Arizona, with the support of Pope Francis and the local Catholic Bishops, and attended a meeting of important European Evangelical Leaders in Palma de Mallorca (Spain). We do hope we will be able to carry out some future projects for Italy with the help of God.

ZENIT: In Caserta, Pope Francis mentioned “reconciled diversity.” Could you elaborate on what this is?

Calisi: Pope Francis, speaking at the meeting in Caserta, has mentioned a theory by the reformed theologian Oscar Cullmann, who sustained that the unity of the Church would be possible by mutually accepting a "reconciled diversity". To this end, it is worth mentioning the ecumenical experience matured within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a "current of grace" which is present crosswise in most Christian churches. This ecumenical and charismatic grace has been widely illustrated by one of the protagonists of the council renewal, Cardinal Léon Joseph Suenens, archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles. With the publication of the second Document of Malines entitled "Ecumenism and Charismatic Renewal", the Belgian Cardinal writes that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, or otherwise called "Catholic Pentecostal Renewal", conveys unity by its nature, because it shares the same graces as the spiritual experience of the Evangelical Pentecostal movement. And even though the Catholics may prefer doctrinal and ecclesiological justifications different from the Evangelical Pentecostal movement, however it is undeniable that they share with the Pentecostal movement the same experience that is characterizing the contemporary Christianity in a decisive way. This ecumenical grace is commonly described as a new "Baptism in the Holy Spirit", a biblical expression that has been recently recommended also by the Holy Father, who has asked its spread in the Church. On the same occasion Pope Francis has publicly encouraged the Charismatics to continue the ecumenical reflection on the nature of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and to commit themselves to the "spiritual ecumenism with all those brothers and sisters of other Christian churches and communities that believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior" (Cfr Pope Francis, Olympic Stadium, Rome 1st June 2014). This is the direction to interpret the public speeches of Pope Francis of last January referring to the Chirograph addressed to Pastor Giovanni Traettino for supporting the meetings of reconciliation held in Phoenix, Arizona (USA) and to the well-known message on the Smartphone recorded by the late lamented Bishop Tony Palmer (Communion of the Episcopal Evangelical Churches), for the Evangelical Pentecostal-Charismatic Conference of Kenneth Copeland's ministry, in Texas (USA).

ZENIT: Have you followed the movement in English-speaking nations as well?

Calisi: From 2002 to 2013, as President of the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, an organism recognized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity with head office in Vatican City, I followed closely the apostolate of Charismatic covenant Communities with ecumenical vocation that are present in Europe, United States and Australia. In particular, the Community of Jesus, Bari, of which I am a moderator, has been inspiring in several countries since 1983 various initiatives of dialogue with Pentecostal churches and other ecclesial traditions reached by the Charismatic Renewal, among them there's also the Messianic Jews tradition.

ZENIT: Could you highlight some of the initiatives?

Calisi: Here are some initiatives: CCI "Italian Charismatic Consultation" (Italy since 1992), UIC "United in Christ" (United States of America since 1993 – Canada since 2010 – United Kingdom since 2011), CRECES "Renewed Communion between Catholics and Evangelicals in the Holy Spirit" (Argentina since 2004); ENCRISTUS "Meeting among Christians who look for unity and holiness" (Brazil since 2008); International meetings between Catholics and Messianic-Hebrews (Bari, Italy since 2002). Moreover, I mention the International Meetings for Peace among Nations called "Kairòs", which have been taking place since 2000 in Bari, ecumenical town par excellence, with the participation of international representatives of Churches and denominations reached by the Pentecostal-Charismatic experience. This activity has been described in the Magazine "Tempi di Unità (Times of unity)", a periodical published by the Community of Jesus, in the interview book to Matteo Calisi and Giovanni Traettino "Aspettando la Pentecoste (Waiting for the Pentecost)" by Professor Massimo Introvigne (EMP Padova 1996); in the recent book by Msgr. Peter Hoken entitled "Pentecost and Parusia, Charismatic Renewal, Christian Unity, and the Coming Glory" and in the prestigious "The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements" (Stanley M. Burgess, Eduard M. Van Der Maas).

ZENIT: Do you believe the initiatives you just explained contribute to ecumenical dialogue? And how so?

Calisi: From these testimonies, we understand that the Holy Spirit is giving a boost to the ecumenical process among the churches, not only the Pentecostal ones. At the same time we can see, through the Petrine ministry, a growing incisiveness and decision to continue a friendship with the Evangelical Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, even though there is still resistance and closure in some of these denominations, which can be found also in some Catholic milieus. Despite this, the visit of Pope Francis to Caserta has written a new page in the history of Christians' unity, which is unlikely to be forgotten. The Holy Spirit is greatly working in His Church.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Unity through Diversity in the Novus Ordo church

Instead of writing a long commentary on the interfaith relationships of Francis we thought we would post a bunch photos and a few videos. Peruse through them and draw your own conclusions. Remember on Monday Francis is to visit his fallen away catholic friend who is now a Baptist minister, Giovanni Traettino. He is reportedly going there to apologize to Evangelicals for the mistreatment they have received from the Church. This idea originated at the recent lunch Francis had with evangelicals. As the pictures show this 'friendship' started a long time ago. An important name to remember is Matteo Calisi.