Catholic and Lutheran leaders have issued a joint prayer thanking God for the “insights” received through the Reformation.
The prayer is part of a service devised by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation in advance of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next year.
The first jointly developed liturgical order is based on the report From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017.
The Common Prayer, as it is called, is led by two presiders, one Catholic and one Lutheran.
One prayer reads: “Thanks be to you, O God, for the many guiding theological and spiritual insights that we have all received through the Reformation. Thanks be to you for the good transformations and reforms that were set in motion by the Reformation or by struggling with its challenges. Thanks be to you for the proclamation of the Gospel that occurred during the Reformation and that since then has strengthened countless people to live lives of faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.”
The commemoration must “also allow room for both Lutherans and Catholics to experience the pain over failures and trespasses, guilt and sin in the persons and events that are being remembered”, the Common Prayer says.
Another reading says: “Lutherans and Catholics often focused on what separated them from each other rather than looking for what united them … Their failures resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people … We deeply regret the evil things that Catholics and Lutherans have mutually done to each other.”
Guantanamo prisoners are a threat to Ghana, say bishops
Ghana’s bishops have criticised their government for accepting two former prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.
The Ghanaian bishops’ conference urged the government to “act in the best interest of the nation by sending these men back to wherever they came from”.
The statement said that since one of the two men fought for Osama bin Laden and another trained with al-Qaeda, “we wish to pose these questions, among others, for our government’s response: what is their mission here in Ghana? Does their presence not constitute or pose a clear danger to us? If these two persons are harmless and if they have been ‘cleared’ of any terrorist act by the US government … why were they not sent back to Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan where they come from or taken to the US, which found them harmless?”
The bishops said answers were needed to these questions, adding: “We have reports of the movement of Boko Haram fighters across parts of West Africa, looking for places to pitch camp. This and other reports should make Ghana reflect soberly on how to tighten our nation’s borders.”
Pope meets princess in white
The Prince and Princess of Monaco met Pope Francis on Monday in a formal state visit between two of the world’s smallest sovereign states.
Princess Charlene, 37, a Catholic convert, is one of only seven women in the world expected to wear white when meeting the Pope, a tradition reserved only for certain Catholic queens and princesses.
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