ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND YORK EXPRESS REMORSE FOR PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS DURING REFORMATION

[Colin]

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have issued an historic statement expressing remorse for the violence and persecution of the Reformation.

In a message released ahead of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation Archbishops Justin Welby and Dr John Sentamu reflected on the Reformation’s “legacy of mistrust and competition” and called on Christians to repent for those things that had divided the faithful.

The Tablet

 

[Shiloh Raven]

Personally speaking, I think seeking reconciliation and healing through forgiveness is honorable and humble.

I think the following is a good excerpt from the article.

In the statement released on Tuesday they said that the Reformation was a process of both renewal and division amongst Christians in Europe. But they also acknowledged the “lasting damage” done five centuries ago to the unity of the Church, “in defiance of the clear command of Jesus Christ to unity in love”.

The archbishops continued: “Those turbulent years saw Christian people pitted against each other, such that many suffered persecution and even death at the hands of others claiming to know the same Lord. A legacy of mistrust and competition would then accompany the astonishing global spread of Christianity in the centuries that followed. All this leaves us much to ponder.”

Among its many great blessings, they said, were a proclamation of the gospel of grace, the availability of the Bible in the vernacular, and recognition of the calling of lay people to serve God.

The Reformers had intended to refocus people on Christ, they wrote; and it was with that focus that Christians today should ask “hard questions” about those things in their own lives, and in the lives of their churches, that blocked their sharing of him.

“Remembering the Reformation should also lead us to repent of our part in perpetuating divisions. Such repentance needs to be linked to action aimed at reaching out to other churches and strengthening relationships with them,” they concluded.