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Home  >  Features  >  Moderator's Address to the Pope

The Moderator Meets the Pope

Monday February 16

moderator's address to the pope

 

Picture copyright Servizio Fotografico - L'Osservatore Romano

The full address by the Rt Rev John Chalmers, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, to His Holiness Pope Francis, meeting at the Vatican this morning.

Your Holiness, I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a real joy to have this opportunity to bring to you the greetings and the prayers of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Members of the Church of Scotland rejoice with me that relations between our two Churches in Scotland have never been more cordial and productive.

Our Joint Commission on Doctrine has been meeting since the late 1970’s and it has explored a wide number of doctrinal issues, drawing on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the work of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. In Scotland we jointly marked the 450th anniversary of the Reformation on the theme of the healing of memories. Together, my predecessor as Moderator, the Cardinal and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church led a joint service of Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows. Such an event would have been unthinkable in my youth. We have travelled a long and significant journey.

It is now inconceivable that we in Scotland would commemorate sensitive periods of our history without acknowledging the pain of our separation; we know too that we are living in a time when there is more to be gained from drawing on each other’s understanding of the continual need for the Church to be in a process of reform, than drawing lines on the map of history that we dare not cross.

Such attitudes have blighted our culture in the past, but we are now seeing significant change for the good. Representatives of both our Churches are finalising a joint response to the latest convergence document from the Faith & Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, The Church: Towards a Common Vision[1], but perhaps more importantly at local level ministers and priests have forged new friendships and people’s attitudes have changed as they have come to see in ‘the other’, first a shared humanity and then a shared faith.

Through encounter, community arts and theatre projects, and projects for schools, people have been challenged to examine their own behaviour as they have come to see each other in a new light. Through listening deeply to each other’s stories and engaging in common witness and service people’s lives have been truly transformed. The benefits are not just for the church but for the wider community too and, ultimately, for Scotland as a whole. Our dialogue must deepen and we must find ways of working toward ever deeper fellowship and communion.

Now, however, as well as addressing issues which concern the history of our relationship and which have a direct impact on the life of the Christian people of Scotland, we are facing challenges on the world stage around which all people of goodwill must unite. Our faiths; Catholic and Reformed, can take the lead in teaching tolerance and in promoting non-violent means of dealing with our differences. This includes the need for new levels of inter-faith dialogue, for greater understanding of the principles and processes of peace-making and real investment in the hard talk of peace rather than the hardware of war. This is a matter of urgency across the world, but of particular importance in the land of our Saviour’s birth and we are at one in desiring peace with justice for the people of Israel, Palestine and the Occupied Territories.

Pope Benedict’s day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer in Assisi in April 2011 was a significant continuation of the work begun 10 years earlier by Pope John-Paul II. I was present in Assisi with my predecessor in Office the Very Rev David Arnott. I know how powerful that initiative has been and it is worthy of further follow up. We need to lead more conversations that free people from radicalisation, that open doors of justice for the poor and the powerless and that awaken minds to the gross inequalities that blight the nations. Our Lord, in the Beatitudes[2] has a special place for the poor, for those who crave justice and for the peacemakers.

In a world where so many are suffering for their faith and where belief in God is often scorned we need to become more adept at standing up for our belief. Paul’s advice to Timothy, to study to present himself as one who correctly handles the word of truth,[3] has a new and more poignant meaning in the context of strident modern day scepticism.

Your Holiness, I know that we share a deep concern for the way in which we use and abuse the resources of the good earth. The earth is the Lord’s and everything that is in it[4], and yet we treat it as if it were some disposable asset. Climate Change is perhaps the most pressing issue in human history, its effects are most keenly experienced by the poorest of the world’s poor; so, it is also a matter of social justice and it needs to be tackled with great urgency.

It is my prayer that women and men of the Christian Church across the world will become ever more active in pursuing this agenda; we await with eagerness your own encyclical on Ecology, and ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Paris, I sincerely hope that it may galvanise religious leaders across the world to make this matter one that unites us in common purpose.

My prayer and the prayers of the people of the Church of Scotland are with your people in Scotland; they have travelled a difficult journey in these last few years and we share a pastoral concern for each one of your flock. It would be a wonderful boost to their morale and the morale of all people of faith in Scotland if, soon; you were able to make a pastoral visit to a country that would surely welcome you with open arms.

We continue to pray that God will bless and use you as God is so obviously using you today.

[1] http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/commissions/faith-and-order/i-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/the-church-towards-a-common-vision/@@download/file/The_Church_Towards_a_common_vision.pdf

[2] St Matthew 5: 3ff

[3] 2 Timothy 2: 15

[4] Psalms 24: 1