The Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church is so called because the successor of St. Peter, who is the ultimate guarantor of unity, is based in Rome. Maintaining the link of unity with the Bishop of Rome, each bishop has authority, received from the Apostles, for those of God's people committed to his care within his Diocese.
The Roman Catholic Church stresses the real and spiritual continuity which unites the church with the Apostles in such a way that the universal nature of the Good News must override all divisions: national, racial, cultural and even historic.
"This universal Church is in practice incarnate in the individual Churches made up of such or such an actual part of mankind, speaking such and such a language, heirs of a cultural patrimony, of a vision of the world, of an historical past, of a particular human substratum. ... The Church is universal by vocation and mission, but... she takes on different external expressions and appearances in each part of the world."
(Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, § 62)
The Catholic Church in Lyon
The Catholic Church in the Diocese of Lyon represents almost 1.2 million baptised people out of a population of 1.7 million. To help them to discover God, to give thanks to him and to witness in the world, there are:
- 536 priests,
- 40 permenant deacons,
- 288 lay pastoral assistants,
- 3100 catechism teachers, working in 514 parishes
- 110 groups and services,
with, as their leader, the Archbishop of Lyon, Mgr Louis-Marie Billé.
Catholic Ecumenism
"It is absolutely clear that ecumenism, the movement promoting Christian unity, is not just some sort of "appendix" which is added to the Church's traditional activity. Rather, ecumenism is an organic part of her life and work, and consequently must pervade all that she is and does; it must be like the fruit borne by a healthy and flourishing tree which grows to its full stature."
(Jean-Paul II, "Ut Unum Sint" § 20)