Christian unity does not mean Christian conformity, Pope Francis told a gathering of 50,000 Catholic Charismatics last week
Christian unity does not mean Christian conformity, Pope Francis told a gathering of 50,000 Catholic Charismatics held at St Peter’s Square on 3 July 2015. The Pope stated the Anglican Martyrs of Uganda — 23 young Anglicans killed by King Mwanga of Buganda in 1886, along with 22 Roman Catholic young men — should be venerated as Catholic martyrs to the faith too. The pope’s remarks came at the close of the 38th National Convocation of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit Movement held in Rome from 3-4 July 2015. In his impromptu address to the conference, which included “Orthodox and Catholic oriental Patriarchs, Anglican and Lutheran bishops, and Pentecostal pastors,” reported Vatican Radio, Pope Francis said unity does not mean uniformity. It is not a “spherical” unity in which “every point is equidistant from the centre and there is no difference between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the parts that nonetheless maintain their originality, and these are the charisms, in unity but also diversity,” he said. Francis also spoke of the “unity of the blood of martyrs, that makes us one. There is the ecumenism of blood. We know that those who kill Christians in hatred of Jesus Christ, before killing, do not ask: ‘But are you a Lutheran, Orthodox, Evangelical, Baptist, Methodist?’ They say, ‘You are Christian’, and behead them. … Fifty years ago, Blessed Paul VI, during the canonisation of the young martyrs of Uganda, referred to the fact that for the same reason the blood of their Anglican companion catechists had been shed. They were Christians, they were martyrs. Forgive me, and do not be scandalised, but they are our martyrs! Because they gave their lives for Christ, and this is ecumenism of blood. We must pray in memory of our common martyrs.”
