Mortalium animos
Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on religious unity, written in the year after the first World Conference on Faith and Order. It forbids Catholics to take part in the assemblies of other Christians that seek union.
The encyclical is the Catholic Church’s formal answer, in 1928, to the movement for Christian unity that was taking shape among Protestants, Anglicans and Orthodox. It holds that the unity of Christians can be furthered only by the return of the separated to the one Church of Christ, and that the Apostolic See therefore cannot take part in such assemblies or allow Catholics to do so.
It is cited in this wiki as the position Rome held when the World Council of Churches was founded. The council’s own report records that in June 1948 the Holy Office refused permission for any Catholic to attend the Amsterdam assembly. See the World Council of Churches Is Founded.
Cited in
- 23 August 1948, firm date