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Born in 1924, the Australian was a Vatican diplomat and a high-ranking employee in the Vatican State Secretariat. In 1989 Pope John Paul II made him his “Minister of Ecumenism”. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it fell to Cassidy to revive relations with the Orthodox churches that had previously lived behind the “Iron Curtain”.
John Paul Minister of Ecumenism
One of his greatest successes was the creation of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” by Catholics and Lutherans in 1999. Cassidy also played a role in the churches reaching this consensus on a central question of the Reformation.
In 2001, Cassidy resigned from his Vatican office for reasons of age and returned to his homeland in Australia. His successor at the head of the Unity Council was the German bishop and current Cardinal Walter Kasper.
(vatican news – sk)
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