Francis will be 'boon' to ecumenism, expert predicts

by John L. Allen Jr. | Apr. 22, 2013

Rome – For years, experts on ecumenism have said that the main stumbling block to putting the divided Christian family back together again isn’t so much the papacy, but a certain overly monarchical model of it. If we could find new ways of exercising primacy, they prophesied, unity might move a massive step closer to reality.

One veteran expert believes those “new ways” may have arrived with Pope Francis, predicting that this pontiff will prove a “boon” to ecumenism.

“He’s bringing to life what Vatican II added about the role of the papacy being understood from within the college of bishops and the communion of churches,” said Capuchin Fr. William Henn of Rome’s Gregorian University.

If anyone has his finger on the pulse of the ecumenical world, it’s arguably Henn, who originally hails from New Brighton, Pennsylvania. He currently holds the “Robert Bellarmine Chair of Ecclesiology and Ecumenism” at the Gregorian, and serves as a consulter to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. (He was first tapped to the role in 2002, and re-upped in 2008.)

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-will-be-boon-ecumenism-expert-predicts