However, "we still have a long way to go", continued the Pope. As to the Eastern Churches, since the Eastern and the Western parts of Europe are getting close to each other again, "this drives the Churches to coordinate their efforts for protecting the Christian tradition and announcing the Gospel to the new generations. Such cooperation is made all the more urgent by the state of advanced secularisation, especially of the Western world". Then if there are "several bilateral talks" with the Church communities of the West that "find progress has been made in mutual knowledge, in the overcoming of prejudices, in the confirmation of some concurrences of interest and in the more accurate identification of real differences", on the other hand, several "important problems" have emerged: "difficulty in finding a shared concept of the relation between the Gospel and the Church and, in this connection, on the mystery of the Church and its unity and on the issue of the ministry in the Church", and different positions "in the ethical field" on the current problems that "have reduced its impact as guidance for the public opinion". That’s why "just from this perspective, in-depth talks on Christian anthropology" are needed. (to be continued)
