Friday News Notes, December 29, 2000: Adrianus Simonis, Catholic archbishop of Utrecht, spoke to the Amsterdam 2000 itinerant evangelist conference in July. The conference was sponsored and funded by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Though Billy Graham was not able to attend in person, his son, Franklin, was in charge.
When asked by the press about ecumenical relations with the Catholic church, Franklin Graham replied that his father "had always reached out to all churches and we continue to look to those things with which we agree rather than those things with which we disagree."
Archbishop Simonis told the crowd of evangelists, "The Roman Catholic community welcomes you to Amsterdam. There has been an exchange of letters between Billy Graham and Pope Paul dated June 16, 2000."
The Roman Catholic archbishop was followed by the president of the modernistic Council of Churches in the Netherlands, Dr. A.H.C. van Eijk, who declared, "We are the same, for personal faith and social action go together. Evangelicals and ecumenicals are one in Christ."