VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org): After more than 10 years as the point man for the Church’s efforts to promote Christian unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper on June 25 announced his resignation as president of the pontifical council dedicated to that cause.
The 77-year-old German cardinal acknowledged mixed feelings about leaving the post.
“On one hand, at 77 to be retired is something altogether normal, in fact a liberation,” he said. “On the other hand, however, I leave a work that I have done with enthusiasm.”
He told journalists that ecumenism cannot be considered a “luxury” for the Church, but that it was fundamental, “one of her main objectives, and the same is true for religious relations with Judaism”.
“For 11 years this has been my task – not only demanding but fascinating,” he said. “An experience that absolutely marks a person.”
In 1999, he was made secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and in 2001, the same year he was made a cardinal, he became its president.
Cardinal Kasper described ecumenism as work that is “not done at the desk”.
“Dialogue is life,” he said. “Dialogue is an integral part of the life of the Church.”
And the prelate was positive about the future of efforts to build Christian unity.
There was, he said, “a solid network of human relationships among Christians that, I am sure, will also be able to resist less favourable events” and represents “a secure basis for further steps forward”.
“The fulcrum and soul of such a vital ecumenism is spiritual ecumenism,” the cardinal said. “The unity of the Church cannot be planned or fabricated.”
“I leave the office with hope, which is not human optimism, but Christian hope,” he said. The torch now passes to a new generation that “will surely look at the dialogues undertaken with new eyes”.
Swiss Bishop Kurt Koch will be the new president of the council.
