Renata Steffens
Catholic Bishop of Ossory Niall Coll and Anglican Bishop of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory Adrian Wilkinson. The 2025 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is taking place from January 18 to 25, with this year’s theme being the question Jesus posed to Martha: ‘Do you believe this?’ (John 11:26).
As part of the week’s celebrations, Bishop of Ossory Niall Coll gave a homily during a service in St Canice’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Kilkenny on Sunday, January 19.
For Bishop Coll, Anglicans and Catholics are not very different. He said, “Anglicans and Catholics, were initiated into this faith through the waters of baptism and are continually nourished for the life of faith…by our sharing in the Eucharist, the messianic bread and wine of the New Covenant.”
Bishop Coll said, “The fact that Anglicans and Catholics are not able to receive the Eucharist together yet is a matter of sadness.”
He also mentioned the IARCCUM, the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, which he attended last year with Anglican Bishop of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory Adrian Wilkinson.
He said the IARCCUM and the weekend’s liturgy “are most moving experiences for me of spiritual communion. May they be a further impetus to continue our ecumenical journey together so that we might one day break bread together around the same altar.”
To mark the Unity week, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin and the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell recorded a video reflecting on this year’s theme and the role faith plays in sustaining hope amidst personal and societal challenges today. The video of this discussion between the Archbishops of Armagh is available on catholicbishops.ie.