Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has encouraged the Christians of Cheshire to strive for closer unity through prayer and grass roots initiatives.
Speaking during a service of unity at Chester Cathedral on Sunday January 22 the Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster said the ecumenical project was essentially a spiritual venture that required the efforts of all the baptised.
“To mend the ruptures of the past is a task that devolves on each one of us here this evening,” said the Cardinal.
“There are three enemies of ecumenism and they are suspicion, inertia and impatience,” he said.
“For too long we have lived, as it were, apart and one of the joys of my years as a priest and bishop has been the growing friendship that has come amongst us.
“For when we meet together and pray together the suspicions of the past dissolve and we reach the heart of the ecumenical movement which is a spiritual movement focused on Jesus Christ the Son of God to whom we pray and in whom we reach the Father. And, of course, we overcome inertia by what we do together.
“We can have many notional ideas of what we want to do but do we actually do them? In every village and every town, everywhere, there ought to be some things which Christians are doing together.
“It may be a prayer group; it may be an expression of social concern for the poor and needy; it may be joint services, especially at key times such as today.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, who served as Archbishop of Westminster from 2000 to 2009, also spoke of the urgent need for Christians of all denominations to offer joint witness to the Gospel in an increasingly secular society.
“Time and time again, together, we must proclaim, in season and out of season, the dignity of the human person made in the image of God from conception to the end of life,” the Cardinal said.
“It means that, together, we reach out to the marginalised and to the poor. It means to be focused too on the centrality of the family,” he added.
“Our society is built up on the family and the communities that support the family. And, above all, together we assert that our Christian faith and all that is implied in our belief in God is alive, active and relevant in today’s secular society.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor dedicated much of his ministry to the promotion of Christian Unity, serving as a co-chairman of ARCIC – the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission – for nearly 20 years.
He was preaching in Chester during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity following an invitation from Churches Together in Cheshire.
The event was attended by Dr Peter Forster, the Anglican Bishop of Chester, and by Robert Atwell, the Anglican Bishop of Stockport.
Also in attendance were Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury and the Emeritus Bishop of Shrewsbury, Brian Noble.
Barbara Davies, the coordinator of the Department for New Evangelisation of the Diocese of Shrewsbury (pictured), delivered the first reading.
Hymns were led by the Chester Cathedral Choir and the choir of St Nicholas Catholic High School (pictured), Hartford, Cheshire, while the Warrington Salvation Army Band provided music.
Afterwards, Dr Forster (left) described the event as “splendid” and said it was a “great privilege for the Christians of Cheshire” to have Cardinal Murphy O’Connor as the guest preacher.
He also said the “average Christian” under-estimated just how harmful disunity was to the mission of the Church to spread the Gospel.
He said: “Think of a political party. If we know that the Labour Party or the Conservative Party is riven with disputes and disagreements then people do not feel confident voting for that party.
“That is a well-known political reality – that disunity in a party is a real turn-off at the ballot box.
“It doesn’t quite carry over in the same terms in Christian terms but there is a much greater negative effect on Christian witness of Christian disunity than we often realise.”
“I think we must do what we can,” Dr Forster said. “It is what you do together that matters and it’s what you do together that really makes a difference.”
He added: “There is a lot of practical unity between Christians at a local level. There is a hold up at the institutional level for a variety of reasons.
“But I think that the advances in the last 50 years are real advances. They are in the bank, in a sense. Cardinal Cormac contributed very much to that in practical terms.”
(Photos: St Gabriel News and Media)