/ Vatican Media)By George WeigelAmong the many urgent questions raised by the Synods on the Family in 2014 and 2015 and the current Synod on Synodality — questions that will inevitably bear on the next papal conclave — is that of unity: in what, precisely, does the unity of the Church consist? What is the content of the “one” in the Creed’s affirmation of “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church?”The Synods on the Family grappled with this in their debates on worthiness to receive Holy Communion: Could those in canonically irregular marriages, who were not living in unity with the settled teaching and pastoral practice of the Church, participate fully in the sacrament of unity, the Eucharist? The question of the content of the Church’s unity was clarified by Pope John Paul II during his first pastoral pilgrimage to the United States in October 1979. If that is true for ecumenism, it is certainly true for the unity of the Catholic Church. The content of the “one” in the Nicene affirmation of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” is a unity in faith: a unity in the truths we know from revelation and reason.

Source: The Herald May 24, 2024 08:51 UTC