Evangelicals Hail Pope's Caserta Visit and Apologize to Catholics

Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe

(Vatican Radio) The head of the World Evangelical Alliance has hailed Pope Francis’ meeting with Pentecostals in Caserta and apologised for discrimination of Catholics by Evangelicals in the past. After an encounter with the Catholic community in the southern Italian city on Saturday, the Pope returned to Caserta on Monday where he was welcomed by over 200 members of the Pentecostal Church of Reconciliation.

Commenting on the impact of that historic meeting, the Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance, Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe said while the official conversations between Catholics and Evangelicals are an essential part of the ecumenical journey, the building up of trust and friendship leads to a deepening of those theological dialogues. He also talked about the importance of a meeting that he and other Christian leaders had in June with Pope Francis in the Vatican and about the legacy of Evangelical leader Tony Palmer who died ten days ago…..
 
Rev. Tunnicliffe said he believes the work of building up relationships within the Christian family is extremely important…. “Jesus, in John 17, clearly calls us to be one and I think for those outside the Church, it’s important for them to understand that while there are differences within the Christian denominations, at the core we have so many areas of communality….”

Asked about the impact of Pope Francis’ meeting with Pentecostals in Caserta, Rev. Tunnicliffe noted that over recent years the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents some 650 million Christians around the world, has had growing interaction with the Vatican and the Catholic Church….”We’re just concluding our 2nd official theological dialogue which identifies areas of common concerns and areas where we still differ….but I think Pope Francis reaching out to Evangelicals bodes well for future conversations, because that will allow us to go deeper in our interactions together….

Commenting on Pope Francis’ apology for the persecution of Pentecostals by Catholics in the past, Rev. Tunnicliffe said he wants to commend the Pope for taking such a public step of asking for forgiveness….”It is biblical and it reflects the message of Jesus…..so my hope is that this act of Pope Francis will send a strong message around the world, particularly to those countries where there are significant tensions between Catholics and Evangelicals. But I also need to say this: I recognise that in history there have been situations where Protestants, including Evangelicals, have discriminated against Catholic Christians and I am really sorry for these kinds of actions, because while we can disagree theologically, this should never lead to discrimination or persecution of the other. We all need to acknowledge all our failings and ask each other for forgiveness and I think Pope Francis set a great example”

Pope Francis Sends Video Message to Evangelical Gathering Sponsored by Kenneth Copeland Ministries

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In an unusual video message, recorded on an iPhone by a Pentecostal pastor Pope Francis knew in Argentina, the pope says all Christians share blame for their divisions, speaks of his "longing" for their unity and insists that God will bring the miracle of Christian unity to completion.

"Pray to the Lord that he will unite us all," the pope tells a group of Pentecostals meeting in the United States. "Let's move forward, we are brothers; let us give each other that spiritual embrace and allow the Lord to complete the work he has begun. Because this is a miracle; the miracle of unity has begun."

In the video, posted on YouTube and never released by the Vatican, the pope quotes a character from a novel by Alessandro Manzoni; the character says, "'I have never found that the Lord began a miracle without finishing it well.' He will finish well this miracle of unity," the pope added.

Catholic and Evangelical Law Professors Publish Joint Statement On Theological Foundations of Civil Law

From Religion Clause

A group of 15 Evangelical and 14 Catholic law professors have just published a paper that has been 8 years in the making titled Evangelicals and Catholics Together On the Law: The Lord of Heaven and Earth. (Full text in Summer 2013 Journal of Christian Legal Thought). Heavy on theology, the 9-page joint statement begins with this explanation of purpose:

... we wish to speak from and to our respective communities about law, politics, and government. We speak from the conviction that law's place and role in society are shaped by enduring truths - truths that transcend the differences among cultures and traditions - about God, about the world, about the human person, and about what the entire human family is called by its divine creator and redeemer to be.

‘The Thing That Frightens Our Opponents Most’ is ‘an Evangelical-Catholic Alliance’

From LifeSiteNews
By Ben Johnson

Politicians usually calculate every action to maximize their popularity among future voters, especially during an election year. But a prominent leader of the nation’s second largest denomination says President Barack Obama’s HHS mandate has the potential to unite Catholics and Protestants into a coalition that will turn him out of office in November.

Dr. Richard Land

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “The thing that frightens our opponents the most is the specter of an evangelical-Catholic alliance – because they can count.” He told listeners of his radio program, Richard Land Live, “You take evangelicals, and you take Roman Catholics, and you are over 50 percent of the population of the country.”

Land said, while two-thirds of Baptists voted for “born again” candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976, the vote began to turn against Democrats in the 1980s. 

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that Catholic voters are turning against the president as the election nears.