SOURCE: “The Pope and Christian Unity,” in Contemporary Review, Vol. 269, No. 1568, September, 1996, pp. 135-8

In the following essay, Sullivan examines John Paul's advocacy for reconciliation within the Christian Church. “While proclaiming, fearlessly, his office as successor of Peter,” writes Sullivan, “John Paul II has personally … shattered most of the post-Reformation arguments and obstacles to Christian unity.”

There was considerable disappointment among many ecumenical Christians that the Pope did not use the occasion of his visit to Germany—where the Reformation began—to make any memorable pronouncement on Christian unity. Yet three letters did come out of Rome last year from, I think, the personal pen of John Paul II, which have astonishingly contradicted our media-controlled view of the triumphalism and superstar quality of the present Pope. Such is the potential impact of these documents that it seems that the present Pope has used his unique position to release...