Sep 24, 2011 / 14:46 pm
Pope Benedict XVI has urged Catholic and Orthodox Christians to work together to defend human life and promote the traditional family.
“The common engagement of Christians, including many Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians, makes a valuable contribution to building up a society equipped for the future, in which the human person is given the respect which is his due,” said the Pope at a meeting with Orthodox leaders in the German city of Freiburg Sept. 24.
At the Archdiocese of Freiburg’s seminary, the Pope highlighted areas where co-operation is particularly needed in order to reverse “the present climate, in which many would like, as it were, to ‘liberate’ public life from God.”
In the pro-life struggle both Catholic and Orthodox can “speak up jointly for the protection of human life from conception to natural death.” They can also work together to promote “the value of marriage and the family,” particularly when defending “the integrity and the uniqueness of marriage between one man and one woman.”
There are an estimated 1.6 million Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians in Germany today.
Among Christian Churches and communities, the Orthodox are “theologically closest” to the Catholic Church because they both have the same basic structure “inherited from the ancient Church,” the Pope said. He hoped “that the day is not too far away when we may once again celebrate the Eucharist together.”