Bolen appointed to Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

By Kiply Lukan Yaworski

SASKATOON — Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Bishop Donald Bolen of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon as a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome.

Serving on the council will mean a weeklong meeting at the Vatican every two years, beginning this November, when it happens to precede another meeting in Rome that Saskatoon’s bishop was already scheduled to attend.

Before he was ordained bishop of Saskatoon in March 2010, Bolen served as a staff member of the Pontifical Council in Rome from 2001 to 2008, with a particular focus on theological dialogue with the Anglican Communion and the World Methodist Council.

News of Bolen’s appointment as one of the bishops who will serve on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity came June 12, while he was attending the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

Bolen noted that “it was a great privilege to work for many years at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and I am delighted by the invitation to continue to play a role in the church’s dialogue with other Christian communities, and to give direction to its overall ecumenical engagement.”

One area that the Pontifical Council gave special attention to near the end of Bolen’s tenure on staff was a harvesting of the results of the many dialogues with which the Catholic Church has been engaged since the Second Vatican Council.

“Soon we’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism. That will be a time to celebrate what has been achieved in terms of doctrinal agreement and convergence, and in terms of growing together in areas of common witness and mission, and joint prayer. It will also be a time to chart where we go from here.”

Other bishops appointed to the Pontifical Council at this time include Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halyc, Ukraine; Archbishop Zbignev Stankevics of Riga, Latvia; Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, S.D.B., of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; and Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, Germany.

They will join approximately 25 other church leaders and consultors of the Pontifical Council. Bolen is the only Canadian currently named to the council.

This is the second international ecumenical appointment for Bolen this year, as he was also recently named the Catholic co-chair of the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM).

IARCCUM was established in 2001 as a commission of bishops focusing on how Anglicans and Roman Catholics can translate their “manifest agreement in faith” into joint witness and mission in the world.

“The challenge of IARCCUM is to allow our current degree of agreement in faith to transform our churches,” said Bolen “Cardinal Kasper used to tell us on a regular basis that ecumenical agreements were not meant to collect dust in our libraries, but to give rise to an ecumenism of life which strengthens our bonds and our Christian witness.”

Bolen is also a member of the international conversation between Catholics and Evangelicals, which meets annually; and was recently named co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic theological dialogue in Canada.

“My hope is that serving on international and national dialogue commissions also provides resources and experience which will help strengthen local ecumenical relations.”

Saskatoon will be hosting the Canadian Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue this coming November, which will provide the community with an experience of a national dialogue first-hand.