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It would be necessary to underscore the church's desire for peace and its neutrality. The idea emerged of inviting to Rome Argentina's two Cardinals, Juan Carlos Aramburu of Buenos Aires and Raul Francisco Primatesta of Cordoba. Thus evolved the remarkable May 22 papal Mass at St. Peter's, with Argentine and British hierarchs exchanging the kiss of peace and jointly pleading for an end to bloodshed even as British troops launched their invasion. Suddenly the basic elements were in place. The Pope and the Britons could have their trip, but to convince Latin Americans that John Paul was not in the slightest siding with Britain, Argentina would get a papal visit this month—a prospect that just days ago had hardly entered anyone's mind. Later the dates were set for June 10-12.
Even though the risk remains of alienating many Roman Catholics in Latin America, where anti-British sentiment is rapidly growing, the Pope seems to recognize Christian ecumenism as a stronger historical force than the temporary disruption of divergent nationalistic frenzies.
Until now, the doctrinally conservative John Paul has not pursued Christian unity with the flair of his predecessors John XXIII and Paul VI. But he is concerned for his British flock, worshiping where Anglicanism is the official state religion, and seems intent on overcoming history's residue of emotional bitterness and theological division, as part of a long-term effort to move toward some kind of Christian unity. He simply would not have made the British trip if such thoughts were only marginal concerns.
The peripatetic John Paul II has so far made twelve trips, and three of them were in fact responsive to three great divisions in world Christianity. First, in 1979, came the memorable papal visit to Istanbul's Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I, spiritual head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which broke with Rome a millennium ago. In 1980 came Germany, heartland of the 1517 Lutheran schism. Now his trip to Britain evokes the 1534 breach with the Church of England, which ultimately produced the British-based Anglican Communion, an international body of 27 self-governing branches, including, in the U.S., the Episcopal Church. All of them are under the leadership of Archbishop of Canterbury Runcie.
Add these three groups—Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican—to the number of Roman Catholics, and the total is more than 1 billion souls, or three-fourths of the world's Christian population. For the past two decades, since the Second Vatican Council, the Holy See has been open to discussion about unity with all who wish to talk. But only these three groups are directly addressing actual reunification. They share with Rome a commitment to liturgical life and to the creeds that were formulated in the church's early centuries; they are the most "Catholic" of the non-Catholics. In fact, many Anglicans insist on the Catholic label for themselves. The three groups have also been talking bilaterally while talking with Rome.