Jesuitical

“Walk together, work together, love each other.” That is how Pope Francis described the journey of building Christian unity in the 21st century. Michael Rudzena is walking that path as part of the John 17 Movement, an ecumenical group dedicated to responding to the prayer of Jesus that “all who believe in me be one.” Michael was born into a Catholic family that eventually found a new spiritual home in the Baptist church. Today, he is the founding pastor of Trinity Grace Church, a non-denominational church in New York City, and is part of a group of evangelical and Pentecostal faith leaders that has met with Pope Francis to advance “a communion of friendship and love.” We asked Michael about his encounter with the pope, the internal diversity of the evangelical Christian community and the misconceptions Catholics have about evangelicals (and vice versa). In Signs of the Times, we say a prayer for Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who recently suffered a stroke