Pope Francis said ecumenism is an essential attitude in the Church. The Holy Father has received a group of pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Łódź (Poland) at the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican on the occasion of the centenary of the Archdiocese.
During his speech, Pope Francis assured that this pilgrimage is “a beautiful image of the synodal Church, which walks the path of the apostles, which walks together as a family of brothers and sisters.”
Among the participants were various civil authorities and members of other Christian churches, such as the Calvinist Bishop and the Orthodox Bishop, among others, whom he especially thanked for their presence as he recalled that “in other times we reciprocally excommunicated each other. Now we call each other brothers, thank God.”
During the celebration of this jubilee year for the centenary of the creation of this Polish Archdiocese, its first Bishop, Msgr. Wincenty Tymieniecki, was remembered. Pope Francis assured that he was “a man of great mercy and great ecumenical sensitivity.”
“Through his episcopal ministry, the Holy Spirit inscribed these two essential aspects of Christianity, mercy and ecumenism, in the DNA of your church in Lodz, as an inheritance and a duty for future generations”, underlined the Holy Father who insisted that “ today mercy requires a great “fantasy” a great creativity that makes us become apostles of mercy, poets of mercy”.
The Pope also highlighted that Archbishop Tymieniecki knew how to unite “the courage of mercy and ecumenism” and for this reason, he encouraged “to keep alive in you this courage of your first pastor. He guards the ecumenical determination, remembering that ecumenism in the Church is not optional or something decorative, but an essential attitude”.
“I encourage you to walk together in theological reflection and in evangelization, in common prayer and in listening to the word of God, in the witness of fraternity. On this path build your society that you proudly call ‘the community of the four cultures’”, he affirmed.