The Anglican Church

In 1966, Archbishop Dr. Michael Ramsay predicted the reunification of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. His successor, Dr. Donald Coggan, declared that, in such a union, the Pope would be Primate. In 1969, the joint Anglican/Roman Catholic Commission (ARCIC) investigated doctrinal differences, and in 1977 issued the following statement.

"It seems appropriate that in any future union, a universal primacy, such as has been described, should be held by [the Roman] See."  (London Church Times,  21 January 1977)

In 1989, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Robert Runcie, went to Rome and urged Christians to reconsider the Pope’s primacy as spiritual leader. He wore a ring given to one of his predecessors by Pope Paul VI, and told John Paul II that,

"It was a sign not unlike an engagement ring."  (Time,  16 October, 1989)

The successor of Robert Runcie is Michael Carey. Carey is a committed ecumenist, and chairman of the important Faith and Order Advisory Group which deals with church doctrinal issues. According to Time, he has been closely associated with the charismatic movement which practices speaking in tongues. He has encouraged parishioners to visit shrines of Mary and has rejected literal interpretations of Biblical events such as the creation and the flood. He has publicly gone on record as a supporter of reunification of Rome.

The Lutheran Church

The Rev. Dr. Carl E. Braaten said,

"If Luther were here today he would sound a different call, especially if he knew that his reformation would, in the long run, turn out so many illegitimate offspring."

The noted Dr. Alexander Campbell said,

"The worshipping establishments now in operation throughout Christendom, encased and cemented by their respective voluminous confessions of faith, and their ecclesiastical constitutions, are not churches of Jesus Christ but the illegitimate daughters of that mother of harlots - the Church of Rome."

The Roman Catholics and the Lutherans have held communal masses, and in 1974 the US Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue in the United States published the Papal Primacy and the Universal Church: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, 1974, Vol. V. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press)

In 1995, the Lutherans sent a delegation to Rome and newspaper articles appeared in Germany and England stating that the Protestant churches were seeking forgiveness from Rome for the Reformation.

At the main Lutheran cathedral 'Der Dom' in Berlin, Catholics and Lutherans hold communal mass. Services are alternated between Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians. Pictures of Mary have been reintroduced, and the ritual of candle lighting for favours from the virgin is once again common practice.

The Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists

In South Africa, these churches are negotiating reunification with the Anglican Church, whilst the latter is grabbing the hand of Rome.   (Protestant Reveille,  1st Quarter, 1977)   In 1969, during Pope Paul's visit to the headquarters of the World Council of Churches, the Presbyterian, Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the World Council, acknowledged the historic import of the meeting in his welcome, telling the Pope that his visit "proclaims to the whole world that the ecumenical movement flows on ever wider, even deeper toward the unity and renewal of Christ's church".

Bishop Stanley Mogoba, chairman of the Methodist Church in South Africa, said that the great challenge of the different churches is to speak with one prophetic voice to the State. He said that a strong, common base still existed between the churches.  (Die Bürger,  27 January 1990)

The Dutch Reformed Church

Dr. Bam of the Dutch Reformed Church made the following statement:

"The time is more than ripe to look at what we have in common, and not only at what separates us."

Professors Heyns, head of the Synod, supported him in this. Pastor Justice du Plessis, known as Mr. Pentecost, and one-time leader the World Council for Charismatic Churches also urged the churches to join forces with the Roman Catholic Church.

In South Africa, the ecumenical movement has since progressed, and besides the South African Council of Churches, the Church Alliance of South Africa (CASA) was formed in June 1988 with the expressed aim of encouraging Church unity and acting as the conscience to the Government. In their newsletter of 1st January 1990 they write:

"The time has come for the children of God in South Africa to realize that they are all - in spite of differences in denomination, language and culture - part of the body of Christ in this beautiful country."

Just what is causing this wave of reunification? The Argus, 12 August 1972 under the banner heading "Charismatic wave of unity among South African churches", writes:

"An unprecedented spirit of unity between Roman Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal churches in South Africa was said this week by churchmen to be spreading. On our own doorstep there has been a tremendous response from Roman Catholics and Anglicans far beyond our thinking and asking. Suddenly there has appeared an open door at which members from two different poles- the Pentecostals and Orthodox churches are finding a point of meeting."

The Orthodox Church

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist regime in Moscow attempted to transfer the primacy of the Orthodox Church from the prelate in Istanbul to Moscow. Pope John Paul II visited Turkey in support of the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. In exchange for the support, the pope was permitted to make a speech in the Orthodox Cathedral wherein he alluded to the primacy of the papacy, without a word of remonstrance from the patriarch. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new patriarch was chosen as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church - a longtime enemy of Roman Catholicism. The new patriarch was, to the surprise of the world, not a Russian, and also had strong associations with the ecumenical movement. Time reported:

"The pope may no longer be an Italian, but it goes without saying, that the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia must be a Russian. Until last week that is, when yet another unbreakable rule was broken in the Soviet Union. At the resplendently gilded Trinity - St. Sergius Monastery in Zagorsk, the election of an Estonian of German stock, Metropolitan Aleksy of Leningrad, was elected as the patriarch of Moscow."

The article continues to say, that the choice of an anti-Catholic prelate would have sent anti-Catholic signals to the Vatican.

"The widely traveled Aleksy, in contrast, is a committed ecumenist who for 22 years served as president of the Conference of European Churches, a continent-wide Orthodox and Protestant body."

Subsequent to these thunderous events, Pope John Paul II called upon the Jesuit Order to oversee events in Russia, and take personal care of the retraining of priests for this assignment. This was recorded in an article titled "Making up with the Jesuits" in Time, Dec. 10, 1990.

American Evangelicals

Billy Graham is probably the greatest protestant evangelist of our time. Yet even he has become a supporter of the ecumenical movement seeking reunification with Rome. The Religious News Service, January 13, 1981 reported:

"Pope John Paul II was closeted for almost 2 hours with the Reverend Billy Graham, the world's best known Protestant evangelist."

The Star, June 26, 1979 quotes Billy Graham as saying that the pope is almost an evangelist. He praised the pope for pushing forward the religious revival worldwide. On receiving an honorary degree from the Roman Catholic Belmont College, Billy Graham told his audience, "The gospel that founded this college is the same gospel which I preach today."

Evangelicals in the United States have subsequently accepted reunification with Rome. Thirty-nine leading evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics affirmed each other as Christians, and vowed to reduce conflict between the groups. A twenty-five page document was signed by such prestigious leaders as Charles Colson, Pat Robertson, John Cardinal O’Connor of the Southern Baptist's Home Mission Board, as well as other distinguished archbishops, bishops, and scholars. The drafters of the document included Catholic Richard John Neuhaus, head of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, Catholic George Weigel, director of the Ethics and Policy Centre, and Kent Hill, president of Eastern Nazarene College. The document accepts that Protestants and Catholics alike who accept Christ as Lord and Saviour are fellow Christians and members of the one church of Christ. It also recognizes that:

"Our communal and ecclesial separations are deep and longstanding, and that they may never be resolved short of the Kingdom come."

Nevertheless they promise to work together for Christ. It also calls for a strengthening of the relationship of trust.

The Jewish Faith

After the events pertaining to the Gulf Crisis, Israel has come to establish diplomatic relations with the Roman See. The longtime animosities between Rome and the Jewish religion are matters of the past. In his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II states that it had ever been his intention to establish links with Israel. He also states that in one of their discussions, a Jewish leader thanked the church of Rome for all it had done for God over the past 2000 years.