VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As divided Christians grow closer together and honestly seek to heal the wounds they have inflicted on each other over the course of centuries, they give witness to faith in Christ as the source of peace, Pope Leo XIV said.
"In the context of our war-torn world, our ongoing journey of healing and of deepening fraternity has a vital role to play, for the more united Christians are the more effective will be our witness to Christ the Prince of Peace in building up a civilization of loving encounter," the pope said in a message.
Pope Leo sent the message to the Mennonite World Conference's celebration May 29 of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland.
The movement's beginning in 1525 led to decades of political and religious strife, which turned violent at times.
A report issued in 2003 on the first Mennonite-Roman Catholic theological dialogue said that while there were different Anabaptist movements in Europe in the 1500s, all of them "agreed on the conviction that, since infants are not able to make a conscious commitment to Christ, only adults can be baptized after having repented of their sins and having confessed their faith. Since Anabaptists did not consider infant baptism valid, those Christians who were baptized as infants needed to be baptized again as adults."
Anabaptists also embraced a code of nonviolence, refusing to serve in any nation's army, even if some early Anabaptist leaders tried to build up their communities using violence. Today they are recognized as one of the historic peace churches.
In his message to people gathered for an ecumenical commemoration of the anniversary, Pope Leo praised the Mennonite World Conference for choosing as their theme, "The Courage to Love."
The theme "reminds us, above all, of the need for Catholics and Mennonites to make every effort to live out the commandment of love, the call to Christian unity and the mandate to serve others," Pope Leo wrote.
"It likewise points to the need for honesty and kindness in reflecting on our common history, which includes painful wounds and narratives that affect Catholic-Mennonite relationships and perceptions up to the present day," he said.
The "courage to love," he said, also is needed as Catholics and Mennonites learn to re-read history together "to heal past wounds and build a new future."
"This is certainly no easy task," Pope Leo said, but "it was precisely at particular moments of trial that Christ revealed the Father's will" that his followers love their neighbor and that they be one.
"My wish for each of us, then, is that we can say with St. Augustine: 'My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command, and command what you will,'" the pope wrote, quoting the saint's "Confessions."
