“After overcoming many misunderstandings and gaining essential consensus, we have now arrived at the hard core of our ecclesiological differences”. It was said in Barcelona today by cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Papal Council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians, who took part in the XLII Days of Pastoral Issues, organised by the Priestly Centre Montalegre and the diocesan delegation for ecumenism of the archdiocese of Barcelona. The Days are attended by over 450 people on behalf of different confessions. Cardinal Kasper assured that “ecumenical dialogue has made progress” over the last 40 years. The positive balance includes “Benedict XVI’s recent visit to the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the visit of the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece in Rome”. “Despite such promising progress – said cardinal Kasper -, we cannot deny that somehow dialogue has got stranded even if negotiations and meetings, visits and correspondence have not stopped”. The cardinal urged “cooperation for life, justice, man’s rights and peace”. The archbishop of Barcelona, Lluís Martínez Sistach, recalled that “ecumenical work is a priority” and the “lack of unity among Christians” “is openly contrary to Christ’s will”.
