The Archives

The Search for Unity

We desire one thing: that the Holy Church, now trampled upon and in confusion and divided into parties, may return to its former unity and splendor.

- St. Gregory VII, Letter to All the Faithful, 1082

How indeed, is the Greek Church to be brought back into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See when she has been beset with so many afflictions and persecutions that she sees in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs?

- Innocent III, Letter to Cardinal Peter, Papal Legate, July 12, 1204

The true union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists a unity of faith and a unity of government.

- Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894

Full communion of course will have to come about through the acceptance of the whole truth into which the Holy Spirit guides Christ's disciples. Hence all forms of reductionism or facile "agreement" must be absolutely avoided. Serious questions must be resolved, for if not, they will reappear at another time, either in the same terms or in a different guise.

- John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995

Imitate the Good Shepard, Who seeks for the lost sheep and brings it back on His shoulder.

- St. Leo I the Great, Letter 171, August 18, 460

Let it never happen that the children of the Catholic Church be in any way at enmity with those who are not joined to them by the bonds of the same faith and love.

- Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894

The Catholic Church is a stranger to no people on earth, much less hostile to any.

- Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958