For most people, the word “ecumenism” will bring to mind images of people of different denominations sitting down with cups of tea and saying how wonderful everyone is.
Certainly, inter-Christian dialogue in recent years has tended to emphasise what everyone has in common as if the great theological differences that created the division in the first place have vanished, hushed up like an embarrassing secret.
..[earlier this week] in London, however, a very different type of ecumenical meeting took place. Frank, uncompromising and at times brutally honest – yet always in the spirit of charity and respect – two very different Christians sparred on one of the central tenets of Catholicism.